Under a Broken Sun

by Kevin P Sheridan

  Ashley hugged herself. “Bunch of crazed freaks armed with guns. Nice. Let’s get out of here. The sooner we get to Chicago the better.”

  A loud crash thundered from the electronics department. Tommy cocked his dad's rifle. Ashley and I ducked down.

  Another crash. Followed by a manic scream – frustration? Hatred? I couldn’t tell.

  Tommy led the way with the gun and his testosterone-based bravado, Ashley clinging to him in a way that I'm sure made Tommy very happy. I walked behind them, letting him have his little fantasy. Tommy’s movements were crisp - clearly he’d either done some hunting with his dad or had designs of being in the military. Or seen too many movies.

  Several more crashes – like glass collapsing on glass. Then a shout of rage, with a bit of a crack in the voice.

  Tommy came to the end of the cosmetics aisle, and peeked around the corner. He lowered his rifle and walked on.

  When I turned the corner, I saw a young kid smashing a big screen TV with a baseball bat. “You son-of-a-bitch,” he shouted.

  Tommy held the rifle at hip level, still pointed at the kid. I made him lower it. “Hey,” I shouted to the kid. “Hey!”

  The kid stopped, looked at us, our faces lit only by the light of our torches. He freaked.

  “I’m sorry!” He shouted as he dropped the bat and ran. Within a second he was out of sight.

  “Hey! It’s ok! We’re not gonna hurt you.” I called after him. Silence. Then his face peered from around the wall of iPods and cell phones. Set decoration now, for all the good they are.

  “You’re not?” he said.

  “No. I’m Adam. This is Ashley, and this is Tommy.”

  He slowly came out towards us. “I’m Louie. You sure you’re ok? I mean, I’m sorry about the TV’s.”

  “Dude, we don’t really care about the TV’s, ok? They’re not much use anymore.”

  He smiled, looked at the forty-two inch plasma TV on the floor, its face grinning from an end-to-end crack. He raised the bat and brought it down on the TV again.

  “Hey!” I grabbed the bat. “I didn’t mean light it up again. Ease up, ok?”

  Louie let me take the bat from him. He stood as tall as Ashley, but shifted himself around like any thirteen, fourteen year old. His short black curly hair released beads of sweat as he stuck his hands in the front pockets of his cargo shorts that drooped down to his shins. I could barely make out a video game character on the dark blue t-shirt covering his little round gut.

  “C’mon, Adam,” Ashley said. “Let’s go.”

  “Hang on,” I told her. I looked at Louie. “Where you from?” I asked.

  “Around here. My parents are dead. My older brother...people are losing their minds. I’m afraid I might be losing it too.”

  “You’re not.” I said. “We’re going to Chicago.”

  His eyes lit up. “Really? Can I come too? Holy cow, this is awesome. Let me grab some stuff.”

  I thought he’d be heading for the pharmacy aisle, or maybe clothes, but he stayed right in the electronics. He grabbed an armful of video games.

  “Dude,” I held his arms. “Quit clowning around. You wanna go with us? You take only what you need.”

  He looked at the video games, weeded through them, and pulled out three.

  “Ok. These three then.” He stuffed them into a backpack that was lying on the ground. We just looked at him.

  "What?" he asked.

  We walked our horses through the forest, in the dark. Our torches threw shadows in the forest like some lame medieval movie. Louie never shut up.

  “So then, you know Ciaoba? The dragon dude on Dragon Master Quest three? So anyway, I was gonna kill him right there, right? But then my brother, he pulls the plug on the machine! Totally wipes out the game! I jumped him. That was my first fight. I lost.”

  “Kid,” I turned to him. “Shut up. We don’t wanna attract attention to ourselves.”

  “Ok, ok.” He looked really hurt.

  I sighed. “Just keep your voice down.”

  We were going downhill, leading our horses by their reins, making slow time because of the lack of visibility. “You guys got last names?” Tommy asked, trying to make conversation.

  “Dawson,” I said.

  Ashley looked away. “No.”

  Tommy chuckled. “Ok. Mine’s Baumgartner. German. Both my parents were German. My grandfather fought in WWII. For the Americans. Had to kill some of his own people. That’s ballsy.”

  “Congratulations,” I muttered. I wasn’t in the mood. Holding the torch, I led the way down the side of the mountain, which at times got very steep, with only a few feet in front of us lit up. One wrong slip and we could drop twenty feet to our deaths. Not that anyone else cared.

  “Mine’s Giacammo. Louie Giacammo. Or as my friends call me, Louie G. Get it? Luigi?” He chuckled at his own joke, but no one else got it. “It’s a video game character.” He pointed to his shirt. “This guy. Luigi. Ok. Never mind.”

  Something up ahead moved. A small ball of orange light bobbed downhill from us. “Shit. Freeze!” Everyone stopped walking. “Get down, huddle up around me.” I drove the torch into the ground to snuff it out. Soon I felt the other three down on the ground with me, someone, I think Louie, shaking like a leaf.

  “Who is it?” Ashley asked.

  “Dunno. But they’re headin’ right for us.”

  “Do we attack?” Tommy asked.

  “No. Chill out. Let ‘em pass. The less fighting the better.”

  The footsteps grew closer. Two men. Two torches. They talked back and forth to each other. As they got closer I could tell they were wearing helmets. Camouflage. They were army, or National Guard. Or worse, Reverend Hill’s followers.

  “This is bullshit, man. C’mon, let’s turn around,” one guy said.

  The other had a deeper, darker voice. Like he was six foot ten or something. “No. Captain says we get to the top, look around, and try to spot movement. That’s what I’m doing. If we see those kids, we bring ‘em in. And watch your language.”

  “Well, let’s say we went to the top, didn’t see anything, and came back.”

  “That’s lying. Bearing false witness.”

  “Yeah. Right. Ok.”

  They passed us. I motioned for Tommy to stay down. He looked like he was enjoying this too much.

  They had no idea where we were. They walked a few more paces up the mountainside, completely oblivious to our presence...

  ...Until Tommy bounced out of the forest with a scream that scared even me.

  I had no idea how to react. I tackled their legs from behind. The bigger guy fell like a statue being pulled down backwards, his gun fired off a round. The horses didn’t need an invitation at that point – they bolted.

  The smaller soldier stumbled backwards onto me. I threw him to the ground, and Tommy raised his rifle and pointed it at the big dude’s face.

  I sat my knees on the little guy’s shoulders.

  Tommy kicked the soldier. “Looking for us?” Tommy asked. Why the fuck did he have to play soldier now?

  The big guy tried to play cool but it wasn’t working. “Yes.” He reached for his gun. Tommy raised the rifle higher. “Uh-uh.”

  Louie saw the gun and went wide eyed. “Holy crap!” He bent down to pick it up. “This is an M-17 with ACOG site! Just like Call to Duty Special Edition!” He started making gun noises, pointing it all over the place.

  “Louie!” I shouted. “Put it down!” Too late. His finger was on the trigger, and before he knew it bullets flew everywhere, ripping into the ground, straight up to the guy beneath me. I rolled out of the way, by the little soldier didn’t. He caught three or four bullets in the chest. I could hear the sickening thud into his clothing and chest as they struck. Ashley screamed from somewhere in the distance. Head down, I slowly peeked over to the body, watching him breathe with a few final gasps. Then the rifle shot from behind me.

  I flipped around, and saw Tommy holding the rifl
e, the big black dude dead at my feet with a massive knife still clutched in his hand, a neat bullet hole in the base of the neck. “Thanks,” I whispered. Tommy offered me a hand up.

  “No probs.”

  “We gotta get out of here. Ashley?” She peered from around a tree, her face barely visible in the light of the torches on the ground. But the light on her face grew, and her face become more visible as the fire from the torches spread.

  “Oh shit,” Louie said. We turned. The torches had flown out of the soldier’s hands, and onto the parched pine needles and underbrush. Fire flew up like the forest floor was covered in gasoline.

  “Fuck,” I stood up and grabbed Ashley, who stood staring at the blaze. “C’mon!” I yelled at her.

  We ran down the side of the mountain, away from the fire. It might as well have been a ‘here we are’ signal to the army. Their shouts followed us as they ran towards the flames.

  It didn't take long for them to spot us hauling ass down the mountain. Bullets started flying around us, ripping into tree trunks, splitting the air above our heads. We couldn’t see two feet in front of our face, but we kept a strong pace. Fortunately they couldn’t see us either, but I knew they could get lucky. A piece of bark zinged me in the face as it exploded away from its tree. They sprayed bullets in the dark, hoping they hit something.

  I never let go of Ashley. I could hear Tommy's heavy footsteps a close by, and Louie's whiny refrain, “wait up”. That really wasn’t an option.

  A flare went up behind us, and a light as bright as a spotlight covered the forest around us. We were out in the open. I grabbed the rifle from Tommy, turned and saw a soldier running at us. "Go!" I shouted to them.

  I ducked behind a tree while the others raced on. When the soldier ran past me, I stepped out from behind the tree and fired. His machine gun flew out of his hand in front of him. I ran to it, another stream of bullets meeting me from behind, forcing me down. I bent low to get his gun, then stood up and tore out of the light. I kept going downhill. No idea where I was, where the others were, where the horses were, but they had to be downhill.

  The flare went out, and a black shroud dropped on the forest. In the blink of an eye I was blind. I tripped over a log or a root something, went tumbling on my ass and slammed into a tree with my back, muffling a scream as a bolt of pain shot through me like lightning. I waited to see if another flare went up; waiting for some sort of light. I could barely breathe knowing a knife might come to my throat at any minute. Voices rose in the distance; first to my right uphill, then moving downhill. Hundreds of them. Dots of flames from carried torches approached, then slowly melted away as they continued on. No one saw me.

  Explosions further downhill – must’ve been the base of the mountain. I closed my eyes, hoping like hell that the others hadn’t walked right into a trap.

  14.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I screamed as I whirled around, knocking the hand free. I heard a girl's voice say, “Jesus, Adam. Ease up.”

  The troops had moved past us. They expected us to keep running downhill. “Where’s Tommy and Louie?”

  “I dunno, I turned after you disappeared behind the tree and shot that guy. I’ve been following you as best I can. It’s not easy.”

  “You lost the other two?”

  “Yeah, they kept running.”

  “Shit, that’s must’ve been who they fired at the bottom of the hill.”

  Ashley sat down beside me. “Now what?”

  “We wait it out. In another hour or so we head out downhill, see if we can spot them. Do you know where the horses are from here?”

  She shook her head. I think. “Is that a no?”

  “Yeah I shook my head.”

  “Kinda hard to see you at all.” I could, however, see her staring at me. I've seen that look once or twice before - a look of someone desperately wanting to be kissed, held, made love to. Christ, this girl was only sixteen.

  I turned away, rebuffing her without saying a word. "Get some sleep; I’ll stay watch,” I said. She knew it too. She didn’t argue, just immediately folded into my lap. I thought about moving her, but maybe the big brother thing was ok. As long as she didn't reach into my pants.

  I rested the machine gun on the ground and leaned Tommy's rifle against the tree behind us. There were no sounds anywhere. Through the trees I could see the stars, and the green-blue lights of the aurora-borealis. I knew that that shouldn’t be visible from where we were, in the mountains of Pennsylvania – my dad had always talked of taking my mom to see them someday. Never mentioned taking me. But he said it was amazing – a ‘breathtaking display of coronal activity’. He couldn’t just say it was pretty.

  Did he see them now? Did he know why we could see it so clearly now?

  Was he even alive?

  Ashley soon started snoozing in my lap, even letting out the occasional snort or snore. Very cute. I listened for rustling of leaves, something, but heard nothing. That was the most disturbing thing: usually in the middle of the forest you can count on something moving: a raccoon, a deer, a bird, something. But nothing moved. Nothing growled, nothing flew. Could everything really be dead? Or did they just run away somewhere? Or had the explosions and gunfire done some serious damage?

  Who knew? I didn’t much care, as long as the gunfire stopped. I leaned my head against the tree. Every movie I’ve ever seen where the moron of the story stands watch and falls asleep, I’ve told myself “I’d never do that”. Well, I did. And I didn’t much give a shit.

  I woke up with a start, Ashley still on my lap, the gun next to my side, the smell of burning wood heavy in the air. The sky had turned back to a dark red, like it seemed to do every morning now. This was the best time of day, along with dusk. At dawn, the temperature started to rise from its thirty-something degrees and felt milder. Comfortable. Normal.

  In about an hour, though, the temperature will skyrocket. During the day it felt nearer to a hundred and ten degrees, more like the desert in California that my dad used to take me to. He was a fanatic about teaching me stuff. “Can’t always look to the heavens” he used to say. “Gotta study the earth too.” And we would, much to my pain.

  I looked down at Ashley, sleeping soundly, her mouth open just slightly, a little drool dropping down onto my leg. It was cute – not gross. Besides, a little sleep drool would be the least of my worries right now. I bent over and smelled her hair. It had a faint scent of shampoo, but she hadn’t washed it in close to a week. If she did at all. How did she shower if she was a runaway? Maybe I just recalled a memory of the smell. Didn’t matter to me, I just appreciated the scent – it reminded me of the normal life, when I wasn’t worried about where I dug up my next meal or whether or not we’d even make it to the end of the day. When I didn’t have an entire army after my ass.

  I shook Ashley a bit to wake her up. I thought for sure the army would come back for us. I listened for any sign of movement, but didn’t hear any. No gunfire, no tank rumbling, nothing.

  Ashley slowly came around and looked up at me. She smiled, sat up, and wrapped her arms around me like she never wanted to let go. “I don’t wanna go to Chicago,” she whispered. “I wanna stay here. Please? Can we just stay here?”

  I pulled her away. “We’ll die if we do.”

  “Well, can’t we just live in a cave or something? Dig a big hole and hide from the world?

  “No. I gotta find my dad.”

  She looked down – she understood. “And we gotta find Tommy and Louie.” She looked up at me as I didn’t immediately respond. “Right, Adam? We gotta find them.”

  I really was torn. First Marilyn, then Ashley, now these two. How the hell would I ever make it to Chicago if I had to keep babysitting everyone?

  “Ok. Let’s head down. But keep quiet, and follow me.”

  She smiled. “Yes sir, mister tough-guy bullshitter." I hoped like hell that smile didn't mean what I thought it did.

  We wound our way down the side of the mountain, thr
ough trees taller than any I’ve ever seen outside of the redwoods. After about twenty minutes of winding through boulders and tree trunks, the world flattened out towards an open field. A farm.

  “Where are we?” Ashley asked.

  “I thought we’d be near the same place we went in.”

  “Any sign of the horses?”

  I looked around. Nothing. The grass was trampled but it wasn’t by horses. It was the troops. I knelt to the ground. “No. The army was here, though. This must’ve been their base camp. But they’re gone. They’re not coming after us.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  I stood back up. “Yeah, except that it means they’re on their way to Chicago. They’ve got a half day head start.”

  I heard my name shouted in the distance. I turned, and saw Tommy running towards us, Louie trying to keep up behind him. “Yo!” Tommy shouted again. I smiled. I was glad to see them. I guess I really was.

  I grabbed Tommy’s hand and did the cool-guy hug; one arm around the back while still gripping the hand. Ashley wrapped her arms around him.

  Louie was still a kid, so I just ruffled his hair. Ashley grabbed him too, and I thought his eyes were gonna bug out.

  “Glad to see you two made it,” I said to Tommy. We turned and walked back towards the highway.

  “Barely. We ran downhill full speed. I looked for you when we got to the bottom but you were gone. The troops were still after us so we ditched and hid for the night. When we got up, we heard them at their base camp here packing up and leaving.”

  “How many?”

  “Probably close to a hundred. Heading to Chicago. They knew they would never find us in the woods and didn't want to lose time looking. They know a lot."

  "Yeah, I bet. We better get moving. Did you find the horses?”

  “No. They did. They took them.”

  I stopped. Not good. “Fuck. And our supplies?”

  Tommy nodded.

  “Goddammit.” I felt my knees get weak. I sat down on a fallen tree nearby. I wanted to cut. Anger brewed in me like lava. I let out a scream: “GODDAMMIT”. It echoed across the valley floor, startling a few birds. I had no one to blame; it wasn’t Tommy or Louie’s fault. It was mine. I thought I could lead them? I thought I had a plan? I wasn’t anything but a demented, spoiled cutter who didn’t have the sense to stay the fuck home with his family, which was broken up anyway because my mom didn’t have the strength to go through the radiation treatment and face death herself. I guess I got my backbone from her, because all I wanted to do now was cut. My wrists.