The convoy was close.
Almost time. Almost…
“Engage!”
Tony flinched. His hand was still in the air, signalling for everyone to remain holding, but the men leapt out of cover and raced up the hill.
Ellis had his rifle pointed and was bellowing at his men like a lion. “Engage, engage, engage.”
“You fool,” cursed Tony, as he shouldered his rifle and ran up the hill. None of them could be sure what they would find there until they reached the top.
When Tony got there, he saw it was bad.
The convoy was still fifty metres away. The flat, hard ground of the desert had carried the engine noise and made the vehicles sound closer. If the men had waited just another five-seconds, the enemy would have been close enough to engage, but now, Tony realised in horror, they were screwed.
A volley of British Army grenades took flight, arced through the sky, plummeted back towards the ground.
Multiple explosions shook the air and kicked a cloud of dirt up off the desert floor. Nobody could see or hear anything. Confusion reigned.
Then the enemy convoy screeched to a halt just outside the border fence. Their vehicles were unharmed—the British grenades had missed them—and armed ISN soldiers spilled out into the desert, surprised, but in no way deterred. They used their car doors as cover and opened fire upon the hill. Private Green went down in a red mist as a bullet took off the top of his head. Two more privates and a corporal went down right next to him. Four men dead in a single second.
Tony zeroed in on the nearest car in the convoy—a banged up Toyota Corolla—and pulled his trigger. The first burst ricocheted and sent sparks off the bonnet, but the next round hit an ISN soldier in the throat and sent him cartwheeling to the ground.
The dirt kicked up two feet in front of Tony, making him turn and leap for cover, ducking down behind the hill. By that time, Lieutenant Ellis had already fallen back, and so had all the other men with half a brain.
“Our grenades fell short.” Ellis stated.
“No shit!” Tony growled. “Why did you give the order?”
“Because I felt it right.”
“Well, it was sodding wrong.”
Ellis cleared his throat. “We need to focus on our next move now, Staff Sergeant, not the past.”
“I agree. We need to flank ‘em. They have too much cover to keep trading shots back and forth like this. It’ll degenerate into a case of who has the most ammunition, and we don’t know what they’ve in the back of that van.”
Ellis flinched as a bullet whizzed past his head, but he stayed calm and kept talking. “Okay, I concur. I’ll split the men into two-”
“No, we don’t split up. Our only cover is here and that’s where the unit needs to stay. I just need two men.”
“You’re going yourself?”
“Damn right I am. The men acted on a bad order and that’s our fault.”
The corners of the Lieutenant’s mouth crinkled, and he looked offended at the implication, but he settled on a guilty look and nodded. “Take any two men you want, Anthony.”
Tony chose the two men nearest, for it didn’t matter whom. There were no heroes in the unit yet, just a dozen well-drilled kids. The two men he chose were Corporal Blake and Private 2nd Class Harris.
“We break south along the fence,” Tony explained, “and try to get an angle on ‘em. The fence will stop us from getting behind their cover, but if we can get at their flank, we can take ‘em out while the rest of the unit suppresses ‘em from the front. You be careful, Harris, you’re a big bloody target.”
Both men nodded, a mixture of excitement and knicker-wetting fear on their faces.
“On my command. Ready…
“… Go!”
The three British soldiers raced down the hill, heads down and zigzagging. Tony was a decade older than Corporal Blake and Private Harris, which led to him falling back a pace, but he could still move at a decent clip—even at thirty-four. Gunfire bit the dirt around his feet, but he kept on going, outrunning his death by a factor of centimetres.
The border fence was just ahead. Corporal Blake was almost there, Harris right behind him.
Something caught Tony’s attention, making him stop. The strange black stone came up on his left and had begun glowing brightly. His focus and urgency dripped away. He strolled towards it even as gunfire cracked from every direction. He was uninterested in anything other than the curious black stone. It seemed to call to him. The light coming out of it spread and started to form a border around a translucent layer that reminded Tony of the suds in the centre of a child’s bubble blower. Something inside that translucent layer moved—something that seemed to stare right back at Tony as he approached it.
It’s beautiful.
Before Tony could figure out what was happening, a bullet hit him in the back and dropped him to the ground.
Suddenly the bright light above the stone was replaced by darkness.
~Samantha Smart~
Central Park, New York City
Samantha loved Central Park in the summer. It was so alive. When people thought of New York City, they pictured skyscrapers, banks, and museums, but to Sam, Central Park was the real soul of the city. In the seventies, the park had been a dangerous place, like the city itself, but gradually, and in tandem, both the park and city had evolved. Now the Big Apple was one of the most welcoming places on Earth. A place where kosher delis sat alongside Italian pizzerias, Ethiopian restaurants, and LGBT bars. No racial underclasses here like there were in LA or San Antonio; New York was a place of acceptance. Gay or straight, black or white, it didn’t matter in the Big Apple, which was why Samantha, a Lesbian from Utah, felt so at home. Sure, the hustle and bustle could give you a headache, and the traffic was pure torture, but that was why the park was so wonderful. Even in Manhattan, you could find tranquillity.
Today was different though. The park buzzed with excitement. Manhattan had gotten a new tourist attraction this morning.
The strange black stone had materialised outside the Central Park Carousel and killed three homeless people during the night. Now it was cordoned off, and mounted police officers trotted between the crowds, sharing what they knew and chatting with curious tourists. The stone was deadly, and no one could move it. A few hours ago, the City Council had attached a harness from a truck-mounted crane to the stone. The truck had tipped over before the stone had even shown the slightest hint of shifting. Three people had been crushed. In the last hour, the stone had started to glow.
The crowd grew anxious, but they would not disperse. In fact, the crowd only continued to grow. Thousands of people were now gathered in the park and business had ground to a halt as employees failed to return from their lunch breaks. Even Wall Street was deserted—and it usually took a bomb threat to drag those wolves from their dens. Everybody wanted to be in the park.
New York was a city of togetherness, and people were gathering in mutual support of one another. This strange black stone had inserted itself into their city, and they would stand together until they understood exactly what it was. The citizens of New York were afraid, but they were consolidated.
An old man stood nearby. He smiled at Samantha as she slid from one gap in the crowd to another. “They’re saying it came from space,” he said.
“What, like a meteor or something?”
“Yeah, I don’t buy it either. You looked tired, miss. Here, finish the rest of my coffee.”
“No, that’s…” She smiled, embarrassed, but took the cup anyway. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I could actually kill for coffee right now.”
“Sure, enjoy it. They give you such big cups nowadays that I can never finish.”
Samantha sipped the hot beverage and sighed at the spreading warmth in her tummy. “Makes you wonder when they’ll stop, doesn’t it? One day we’ll all be drinking from buckets.”
The old man put his hands on his rotund belly and chuckled. With his white hair and wiz
ened, grey eyes, he resembled Santa Claus.
“So, why are you so tired, miss?”
“I didn’t realise I looked so bad. You can tell just by looking at me?”
“The bags under your eyes give you away. I used to work night shifts at a grain mill in Buffalo as a young man. I know tiredness when I see it.”
“Wish I could say it was because I was hard at work all night, but it was irresponsible fun, I’m afraid.”
“Partying with your boyfriend?”
“Girlfriend.”
The old man recoiled. “Oh, excuse me, I never…”
“No, it’s okay. Sorry, I don’t know why I felt the need to correct you.”
The old man recovered and shrugged his shoulders. “Because I needed correcting, miss. Why should I assume that you have a boyfriend and not a girlfriend? I should have said partner. I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive an old man for being old-fashioned.”
Samantha grinned, again reminding herself how much she loved this city. If she’d told an old white guy in Utah she was gay, she might have been heckled in the street, but not by this old New Yorker. “You’re forgiven.” She smiled. “My name is Sam.”
“Ha! Mine too. What a coincidence.”
“No way! Your name is Samantha? How weird.” She chuckled.
“You silly thing. No, my name is Samuel, but my friends call me Sam.”
“This might become confusing.”
“It just might be. Maybe we should go our separate ways, miss.”
Samantha giggled. “Maybe. You staying to watch the glowing black stone from outer space?”
“It would feel wrong not to stay. It has a momentous feeling about it, don’t you think? Like something is going to happen worth staying for. You heard identical stones are all over the country?”
Samantha nodded. “Yeah, but this one is ours. This is the New York black stone. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be anything bad.”
Samuel patted her on the arm. “I have faith it won’t be. All these people gathered… It must be for something good. I think we can all feel it. We’re meant to be here. Something will happen soon, and things will make perfect sense. It’ll be good, I know it. A gift from God.”
A lifelong atheist, Samantha would usually object to such a claim, but the old man had accepted her for who she was, so she was certainly willing to accept him. “You might be right,” she said. “Come on, Sam, let’s go find somewhere to get a better look.”
“Okay dokey, Sam. You lead the way.”
“Sure thing, Sam.”
“Thank you, Sam.”
“You’re very welcome, Sam.”
The old man chuckled. “You sure we shouldn’t have gone our separate ways?”
“Too late now. Come on, Sam.”
“Okay, Sam.”
They managed to find a spot next to an overcrowded hot dog vendor where Samantha bought them both a foot long. Samuel took his with onions and mustard, her without.
“Taste buds need a kick at my age,” he explained. “Among other things.”
Samantha rose on her tiptoes and tried to see over a large woman’s shoulder. She couldn’t see the black stone, but could see the light coming off of it, and that was what finally made her nervous. At the beginning, the stone had merely been peculiar, but now that it glowed, it seemed alive. Was it really from outer space?
“What can you see?” Samuel asked her.
“Not much. It’s still glowing. I think…” She hopped up and down to get a better look. “I think the light is spreading out.”
Samuel grinned. “It’s happening. It’s going to reveal its secrets.”
The crowd hushed. Several thousand people stood in complete silence. The strange light was definitely spreading, the glowing loop becoming a frame within which a translucent layer shimmered. Sam could see right through it, but her view was distorted, like trying to read a letter underwater. Images flickered and danced inside the transparent layer, but she could make out nothing in detail.
“There’s something inside,” somebody in the crowd cried out.
“It’s like looking through a lens,” someone else added.
The bright archway continued to grow, rising twenty feet above the crowd. The translucent centre shimmered like the surface of a pond.
Samantha couldn’t take her eyes away. “So beautiful.”
“I see it!” Samuel shouted beside her. “Everything is about to change.”
By now, the entire crowd was entranced: a thousand mouths hanging wide open, and twice as many eyes staring in amazement. The glowing archway continued to grow, towering over the nearby carousel. The translucent centre began to thicken and take form.
Samantha reached out for Samuel’s hand and squeezed it. The miracle in front of her was starting to make sense. “I think… I think it’s a gate.”
A blinding explosion of light.
The crowd cried out in shock.
All hell broke loose.
The screaming started at the front of the crowd, nearest the cordoned off area with the stone. It was cries of fear at first, but evolved into cries of agony. Samantha stood too far back to see what was happening, but the crowd turned in on itself, people elbowing to get away.
“We need to get out of here.” Samuel grabbed her arm.
Samantha shook her head in a daze. “What’s happening? I can’t see what’s happening.”
“Something came through,” Samuel told her. “I was wrong. Whatever this is, it isn’t good. It’s not God.”
The screaming continued; it never stopped for a single second.
Samantha glanced back. People flew into the air and crashed against the ground, arms breaking and mangled legs snapping. Something steamrolled the crowd—a charging rhino? Surely something explainable. Then a horrendous thing showed itself and put all hopeful notions of an escaped rhino aside.
A man, twenty feet tall and rippling with taut muscles, swiped at the fleeing crowd, breaking backs and caving in skulls with giant fists. He was naked save for a loose robe falling from his shoulder and around his waist. His bare back was pierced by spines of charred bones, and his face was a dark shadow of rage—yet flawlessly beautiful even in its ferocity.
Samantha watched in terror as the monstrous giant snatched up a police officer from his horse and tore him in two, like a Christmas cracker, his wet innards showering the crowd.
“We need to leave,” repeated Samuel, grabbing her so hard on the bicep that she cried out in pain. She understood though. They needed to get away.
They took off towards the playing fields where the park opened up and bordered Central Park West. Maybe there they could get free of the mad panic and bloodshed. People were lying on the ground everywhere, trampled half to death by the fleeing crowd that was no longer united, but selfish and afraid. A young woman with two broken arms lay on her back sobbing, but no one stopped to help her. The crowd moved too fast for anybody to risk being a Good Samaritan.
As the two Sams entered the emerald grass of the playing fields, Samuel slipped and almost pulled Samantha down with him. He fell in a mess, but made it up again quickly. He tried to continue, but gritted his teeth and hissed.
“Samuel, are you okay?”
“My ankle’s gone. I’m too old to be dashing around in blind panic.”
Samantha reached out to help him, but it was just as a squad of teenage boys in football jerseys came ploughing along and barged right into them. Samantha hit the ground hard, cursing at the boys from on her back. “You fucking bastards!”
They’d ploughed into Samuel too. He lay on his back, moaning. Samantha dragged herself across the grass to him to check he was okay. The crowd continued its stampede, clattering feet dodging Samantha and Samuel only at the very last second. Soon somebody would not be paying attention and would crash right into them.
There was also the giant to worry about—currently stomping its way towards the playing fields.
“Samuel, get up. That thing i
s coming.”
“I can’t,” he whined. “My leg.”
Samantha looked down at Samuel’s leg and saw that his sprained ankle had developed into a broken shinbone. The glistening white shard poked out of his trousers and glistened with globs of blood.
“Those goddamn jocks.”
Samuel sighed. “Don’t blame them. They’re just frightened. You go on, miss. Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you, Samuel.”
“You just met me. I’ll forgive you.”
“I wouldn’t forgive myself.”
“Better living with guilt than dying with honour, if you ask me.”
Samantha glanced towards the edge of the playing fields. A group of police had assembled there and were discharging their weapons at the towering monster. The giant bent and swung a long arm, scooping them up as if they were matchsticks. The screaming police officers tumbled twenty feet in the air before gravity reclaimed them and smashed them against the ground. A dozen bullets had hit the giant, but it carried on without the slightest concern.
“Get out of here,” Samuel grunted through his pain.
“I can’t leave you.”
“I can’t let you die for me.”
Samantha wished she’d met Samuel years ago. The instant connection they’d made was rare, but it was destined to go to waste. She shook her head, and fought back tears. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, miss, but it’s been lovely meeting you. Now get gone.”
Samantha nodded, leapt up, and ran. She wanted to glance back at Samuel, but refused to allow herself. Nothing to be gained by a final look.
Police cars skidded in the grass up ahead, leaving long brown furrows in their wake. Officers leapt out either side in pairs, armed with shotguns and rifles. They wasted no time in heading straight towards the Beast of Manhattan.
The furthest reaches of the crowd had crossed the edge of the playing fields and were spilling into the busy thoroughfare of Central Park West. Traffic screeched to a halt as yellow taxis shunted into the backs of city buses, and unlucky pedestrians got caught in the middle, bleeding out as twisted metal pierced their vital organs. Horns honked so persistently that the individual sounds merged into one long, continuous blare. That seemed far away to Samantha, though, who was running across the playing fields. Her legs started to tire, and young men and thinner women overtook her on both sides. A helicopter zipped overhead, low enough to make the grass shimmer. The sound of machine gunfire arrived like something out of a Vietnam War movie. Samantha was still running as fast as she could when the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 4
