After the End
September 16, 20-. Midnight. Somewhere near Monument, CO.
Sharid's legs burned as he sprinted across the blacktop and up the hill towards the strip mall. Muzzle flashes ahead and above him. Shouts and cries behind him. Over all, the harsh angry concussion of gunfire. He hit the bank running, stumbled, caught himself, topped it. A bullet impacted the cinder barrier as he struggled over it, spattering his face with harsh fragments of stone. Gunfire came from inside the stripmall. He dully wondered how they had light enough to shoot. He kept running, arriving at safety breathless and staggering as one drunk. Bronwen came around the corner.
"What the..." she gasped, taking in the struggling bundle that writhed in Sharid's arms. Sharid dumped the child unceremoniously on the floor. A boy. Seven or eight. Blue eyes, long greasy hair. Clad only in a long T-shirt filthy from wear. Slightly stunned by the fall and his new surroundings, the child sat still and quiet.
Dominick came running from the storefront, a smoking rifle held at the ready. "We've got to move. Now!" Sharid scooped the child up again, swinging him across his back in a fireman's carry. They ran, five figures desperate and stumbling on the field of the night. After them came rivers of fire.
Three Hours Later
Ken sagged to the ground. His breath came in ragged gasps and his ravaged legs continued to drum the ground. They had made nearly twenty miles in a stumbling, loping stride. Dominick cast one look at the older man lying sprawled in the dirt and ashes and called a halt. As far as they could tell, they had outdistanced any pursuit. The night behind them was serene in its absolute obscurity, undisturbed by the torches that their hunters carried.
Sharid fell to his knees. His back ached. So did all of his joints. In fact, everything hurt. The child was shivering. Bronwen comforted him with soothing words of nonsense and a blanket. Sharid risked a glance at the kid. Thin to the point of emaciation, pale and knobby limbs quivering with cold and fear. There would be a time for questions. Now was not it.
Dominick beckoned for Josiah and Sharid. Covering their heads with a poncho to conceal the light, they looked at a map through a red-filtered Maglite.
"By dead reckoning, I think we're well south of Monument. We should take a three hour rest and start trekking before dawn. Should hit the ruins of the old Air Force Academy by daybreak. We'll get out of this all right. That's not what I'm worried about." In the semidarkness, Sharid saw the lines of anxiety draw tighter across the older man's face, "The problem is longterm. That army back there will be at the compound within three weeks. We only have thirty fighters. There is no way we'd be able to stop them once they got that close. We need to stop or at least slow them down here. Sharid, I need you and Josiah to stay behind and rally the Springs tribes and compounds together. Most of them are already preparing for war, but they're divided. They don't necessarily trust each other farther than they can shoot, but they do trust us. Use that trust. Get them to send their women and children up the road to the compound. Organize a defense. Josiah", Dominick grasped the younger man's shoulder, "I know the Manitou tribe already trusts you after you delivered the gasifier to them last year. Their leader is well respected here. Get him to listen to you. Sharid, you're the Boss's son. If you let them know that, they'll at least listen. Benaiah has something of a name down here. Boys, we need this to work."
There was a pause beneath the crinkling poncho. Sharid spoke up, "Would Dad approve of this? Shouldn't we run this by him?"
Dominick thought for a moment. "Your father entrusted me with this mission. If he were in my boots, I don't see what else he could do."
Someone shook the outside of the poncho. "Hey!" Ken wheezed, still short of breath, "Don't I get to be part of your little poncho pow-wow?"
They grinned.
Journal Entry. September 19, 20-
I have never been so utterly played out. I have had more impassioned arguments, threatening exchanges, weapons pointed at me, in these few days than in my entire life. But the sundry chiefs, bosses, and hatchet men have seen reason. Ninety-five men and sixty able bodied women, all told, now stand ready to fight. We are grossly outnumbered. According to the tally that Dominick gave us before we left, there are nearly four hundred armed men in the enemy force. They stopped in Monument for a day and a half for reasons unknown. Now they come. I doubt I will get any sleep tonight. The others have left for Upcountry. I must pray for peace, and for God's sheltering hand. My soul is only safe when it is in His care.
End Journal Entry.
Unhallowed feet in the profane ashes of the dead. The consumed essence of the dead world, borne upon the wind and deposited here to be threshed by the bringers of death. They marched on, an army of the dying, pulsing up the road like some infernal disease clawing its way up the veins of a corpse long deceased. The day was brighter than normal, as if the forces that were slowly choking life and color from the earth had condescended in their murder to pause and observe this puny struggle.
The army wound its way up the highway, pushing towards the downtown area. The buildings here were taller and closer together, though it was a far cry from any Eastern city. The lines too sweeping. The spaces too generous. Here the wrecked and abandoned cars were thick, and the column had to separate to weave through. Here and there were stragglers, men breaking off in groups of two or three. Entropy. The horn blatted repeatedly, and leaders shouted. The column shivered, trying to resolve itself into a formation.
It was then that the attack came. Men collapsed suddenly or slumped slowly against their comrades. The distant crack of rifles fired. Shouts, screams. Riflemen rushing to positions, desperately searching the gray facades of the dead city with their scopes. Spearmen cowering behind the rusted hulks.
Then a shout. A line of archers appeared on the overpass, popping over the concrete barricades to unleash a deadly hail of arrows. They fell among the scattered warriors with a sibilant hiss. Here and there, men fell, clutching the killing darts and choking up their lifeblood. Deaths more terrible for their primitivity. Rifles bellowed, and an archer's head jerked back unnaturally, spraying blood. The rest quickly disappeared, just as bullets from the city around came hissing in again, seeking those who had exposed themselves to face the new threat. Shouts. Screams. The horn blatted. Slowly, the orange mass spread from a narrow column to a line of battle. Men divided into squads. The hidden rifles spoke again and again. Still the army spread inexorably, eager to find its tormentors. A keen eyed rifleman perched on the hood of a rusted hulk tensed suddenly, peering through his scope. His finger coaxed the trigger back. The rifle surged into his embrace. Far away, a body fell limp seven stories to the pavement below. The orange tide was fighting back.
War cries. From concealment, a tide of filthy, gray clad men came shrieking to assault the center of the line. Makeshift spears. Swords hammered out of leaf springs and sharpened on the abrasive curbs. Axes. Armor pieced together from rusted signs and car hoods. A whirling melee erupted. The archers stood to fire from the overpass down into the combatants, like warriors in some Homeric conflict, heedless of returning fire. Leaders at the heads of their bands like . Whirling crosscurrents of combat. Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the assailants disappeared, melting into the ruin as if it were their native element. Bodies, some clad in variegated shades of gray, others in orange. A few twitched or lay mewling at their horrid wounds. More lay still. The archers vanished from the overpass after a final, vicious exchange with the enemy.
Sharid wrapped the bandage over the burn on his hand. Josiah sat across from him in the dingy gray room, loading the last of their ammunition into freshly cleaned and oiled magazines. Down the hall, folding clots. Bloody bandages, fresh from the gaping injuries of the wounded and dying. Cries of pain. Men and women going grimly about the business of medicine with trembling, uncertain hands and fading knowledge. Here and there a shrouded body, still and cooling. The vanity of the dying warring for a few minutes more of life in a dead world.
The all familiar blatting of a hostile horn sounded in the distance, muted and distorted by the obfuscating concrete walls. Sharid swore aloud, and Josiah snapped the magazine into the well, drew back the bolt and let it snap home. The enemy had found them again. The men of the orange were battle hardened murderers, and the army they composed was now a deadly hunter with myriad eyes and ears and legs, rather than the bewildered behemoth of their fond hopes. The defenders were now on the run, ambushing when they had the luxury, standing and dying more often than not to allow others to live. Sharid picked up the rifle, clicking off the safety. His legs felt leaden and his ears still buzzed from too many rounds fired in cramped, ringing rooms. Nonetheless, he forced himself into a lumbering trot, his tack jangling around the numbed flesh of his exhausted body. Shouts and the sound of running feet through the gray corridors of the warehouse. They came out the massive, rusting doors, a ragged rearguard of thirty odd men with assorted rifles. Spearman, swordsmen, and archers, if they and their improvised arms deserved such hallowed terms, streaming away from the advancing danger. Positions found hurriedly behind planters, rusted cars, prone. The rifles spoke, hammering their hatred into the dying light, flinging dirty brass from smoking actions. They would not speak for long.
