by Doug Burbey
"Ma'am, the effects of repeated magical attacks and saturation exposure of multi-species blood on the battlefield has caused well-documented effects in most of us. I think I have a paper in my file from a doctor, or something, stating that."
"I don't think anybody buys that excuse. It's been…"
Junior Senator William 'Will' Cheney, interrupted her interrogation, his voice soothing. "Janet, you know this is documented as both magical and scientific fact. These guys took so many rounds to their head between spells, chemical exposure, radiation and demon blood their brains are fried. It's a known fact. What the hell is your point? Are we just here to beat up on the Colonel?"
"I'm here to get to the truth. These guys are lying. Every single one of them needs to be held accountable for what happened." She demanded, her pudgy hand pointing at Declan, and trembling as she held it there.
"Unfortunately, the only people still left alive that know what happened are men and women like the one sitting in front of you, Janet. No matter how much you scream at him, he's not going to be able to tell you. I say we just close this case out and move on. It's taking the country long enough to come to grips with what happened, the discovery of real magic, and another species that is clearly hostile. We have more important tasks at hand, like starting to rebuild. We won this war, let's not start another." Cheney leaned back, looking at her.
Senator Mulkiski reddened. Declan figured it was more of a reaction to how this would play to the C-SPAN cameras if she pushed this too much further than any other reason. Prosecuting the survivors of Ypsilanti, the last Demon War battle, didn't go over well with the public. Either way she relented. "You're dismissed, Colonel. But I want you to know that, pardon or no pardon, or whatever the hell the President claims to have given you, we'll be watching every single one of you."
"I hope you find that very, very boring, Senator" Declan responded as he rose from his seat. With military precision he turned his back on the committee and walked out of the hearing room.
As Declan proceeded down the steps outside the building he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw Senator Cheney moving at a quick pace to catch up to him. "Sir, could I have a quick word with you for just a second?"
"I guess I'm officially a civilian right now, you can say whatever you want to me. No need to call me Sir either."
"Well, Colonel, just wanted to say that my wife and family were sheltering in Toledo, Ohio. I can't say that I understand the decision you had to make or what it that meant. I know it must be hard. But I have to admit every night my family says a very guilty prayer for what happened in Bowling Green. Saving their lives and all. It may not be right, to be thankful so many died, but we are all here today because of it. I feel guilty sometimes that we are. But we pray for you every night, sir, all of you. Thank you. Thank you for fighting these terrors and for everybody else who died so I can see my children and wife every day."
The Senator reached out to shake Declan's hand. He accepted it, giving the man a courteous but quick handshake without saying a word. Releasing the Senator's grip, Declan turned and walked away, headed towards the Capital Hill metro station.
Chapter 2 - Hanging it Up
After the war was over, during the swell of national gratitude, the surviving combatants in the US military received a special one-time cash stipend, given in memory and thanks for their unparalleled bravery and heroism in the face of certain death. Since only about a thousand active duty military personnel survived the US battles, the gesture was more symbolic than anything. For the dependents of those who did not survive, their military family members received a double death benefit. Sadly, there were very few of those as many of the families lived near the serving members duty stations and were harvested by the hordes as well.
Declan didn't think twice about translating that monetary symbolism into tangible property. In his case, it translated to nearly three hundred acres of woodland nestled between two state parks in western Maryland and outside the small nondescript town of Jennings. This is where he decided to custom build his retirement home. It would be fully equipped and fortified for him ride out whatever insane apocalypse the universe might happen to have in store for humanity next.
He pulled his F-150 pickup truck off of Jennings Road and turned onto the rugged dirt road leading into the woods. He slowed to negotiate the small bridge that let him go through the open rolled steel swing gate. As he drove up the dirt road he glanced occasionally through the woods at the trees noting where he had placed the cameras. The newly installed security cameras appeared to be a randomly placed but their positioning ensured coverage of each turn and bend of the road.
His truck occasionally crossed over metal gratings laid across the road’s drainage ditches and covering irrigation pipes. Nominally these were meant to prevent cattle from crossing them but here they also allowed for remote activation of anti-vehicle tire spikes. Declan smiled as he crossed over the concealed spikes, as they were his idea.
Dammit, those are rather clever, if I say so myself.
Approximately a quarter mile up the road the dirt turned into an asphalt driveway, allowing him to proceed the last half mile further into the woods with ease. He pulled into a spacious blacktopped parking area that looked like it could hold a small fleet of military vehicles if needed. Currently, there were only three construction contractor pickup trucks occupying the large lot. All three trucks had the same markings, Calken's Construction. The subcontractors had been on his property for the last 3 weeks finishing the installation of his full security system for his new house.
Looking up at his house, only about 6 months old now, it would appear to a standard passerby to be some strange Norwegian monstrosity of block construction. Dark concrete block walls, roofs at sharp angles, and deep-set utilitarian windows. It would never win any awards for aesthetic value unless you were in the fjords of Norway. He'd had this particularly ugly house built for other than aesthetic value.
If he'd built this before the Demon War, Declan would have been accused of creating a paranoid prepper's homestead. Within those foot-thick reinforced walls he had a self-contained well drilled directly into an aquifer, solar shingles feeding into the latest and most efficient battery wall and Faraday shielding for electronic interference with meshing for magical intrusion deflection. Now people would regard it as smart. Home protection was a booming business in the US these days.
Declan grabbed both of his bags out of the back of his truck, slinging one over his shoulder and carrying the other one. He waved at the two sons of the construction foreman who had just begun walking out of the woods towards their own truck carrying what appeared to be empty fiber optics cable spools.
Good. Looks like they finished the run to the communications exit point already. I guess they're about done then.
Proceeding up the stairs, to the front of his house, the door was open and held in that position by a large cinder block. Declan remembered that the counterweights on the door kept the heavy steel core primed to swing close automatically when engaged.
"Hey, Charles!" Declan yelled into the house. "You scratch up my fucking door you better repaint it."
"I got it, don't worry about it - not going to fuck up your door, Declan," Charles answered from inside of the house.
"Hey, Mr. Kenner?" Matt Calkens, the foreman, called from the inside control room.
"Yeah, I'm here, Matt. Looks like you guys are making good progress. What's up?
"I just wanted to double-check with you before we do all this old-school bullshit to be sure if it's what you really want?"
"What do you mean old-school, Matt? I'm not having you install a damn moat filled with piranha."
"Not yet, at least. It's all this analog crap. Are you really sure you want us to set the system controls commands using all these multi-digit key sequences to control everything from the panels? You know I can put in a hybrid crossover interface system box inside of here that will directly respond with your voca
l and gestured commands. You don't even really have to do much of anything. You just have to wave your hand around and minimally vocalize about what you want turned on and off and the system will do it for you."
"Nope, I like it old school." Particularly because I don't want anyone hacking my shit. That's why I built a million-dollar house. No way I'm deliberately installing vulnerabilities into it.
"Alright, Mr. Kenner, figured that was going to be your answer so we're about ready to start programming in your codes. It's going to take you about 2 hours if you want to differentiate between each sensor and switch point of presence within your grid. You've got a hell of a lot of sensors and cameras surrounding the perimeter as well. We need you to decide which groupings to tie together for zone monitoring. All of those are going to need an individual code as you insist on doing it old school but you're the one who's paying us here."
"That's right, Mike, I'm paying to build it, then forget about it with a very nice bonus."
"Yes, yes you are. We are just about ready for you to start punching in command codes soon. Ken and Cory just finished hooking up the lines down on the back end of the property for the fiber ex-filtration run to the antenna array in the woods. It's a pretty nice setup. You should get zero interference, no matter what's going on around your house. Not quite sure who you think is going to be trying to electro-magic jam your communications but this is what I get paid to do and my wallet is highly appreciative of your excessive paranoia, sir."
"I'm glad you appreciate my attention to home security, Matt." Declan snorted a bit as Matt grinned back at him. "Alright, I gotta go drop these bags and put some shit away. Then I'll come back up and start the key punching in for the sequences."
"Got it, we'll clean up the last of the prep now and as soon as you punch in then I'll verify the operations will be ready to go. They we will just need about another few hours."
Declan headed towards the downstairs entryway. A cipher lock barred his way until he put in the access code. It had been part of the original construction and the heavy steel door leading down into the basement opened as soon as he pushed enter. Flicking on the light, he proceeded down the concrete stairs to a wide undecorated cinder block hallway. It led to a series of doors on his left and right. Declan headed down the hallway to the middle door where another cipher lock sat on the wall. He entered that code and then provided his handprint on the control panel’s scanner pad. A series of heavy bolt clicks, one after the other, until all four chambered rod braces disengaged, freeing the door. He pulled open the door and proceeded into his armory.
Declan set up his armory a little different than you'd see in most spy movies, where a man walked into a room and the fluorescents overhead would expose row after row and rack after rack of neatly wall mounted assault weapons and workbenches. That seemed rather impractical. Declan preferred a more standard system of safeguarding his kit for long periods of time, or at least what he hoped would be a long period of time.
Along each wall, a series of humidity-controlled steel lockers with individual locks stood waiting for attention. Across from them, on the other side of the large bare room, a stack of green and black cases containing larger pieces of equipment and supplies sat. The end of the hall-like room contained a series of shelves and pallets with various crates of ammunition and sub-munitions that were required for the armaments concealed in the steel lockers.
Declan ignored all those as he walked slowly to a locker set in the corner of the room next to the ammunition crates. This particular locker didn't have an individual lock. With a sigh, he dropped both bags at the base of the locker, then unceremoniously dumped the contents of the bags onto the floor. Stepping over the mess, he opened the locker. Inside, on the left, it held the standard narrow clothes hanging compartment and on the right a bunch of smaller shelves. Declan began to untangle the mess that he dumped on the floor from his bags, extracting things one at a time. He pulled out the dress uniform he been wearing at the Congressional hearing and put it on a hanger. He felt a little off-guard as he hung it up. A sense of uncertainty, sadness even, crept into his mind.
He had no reason to put this uniform on again.
He had retired.
He had nowhere to be tomorrow.
He had no obligation to defend his Nation or humanity anymore.
He was now one of “those guys”.
I'm officially an old soldier. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Nobody counted on him anymore. He had no obligations or responsibilities anymore. Without the Army, his team, or any immediate family, he was alone for the first time since he could remember. For over twenty years he had looked forward to the day he could retire, sleep in and not do shit.
Now, I'm not sure I want to sleep in. I really need to find a hobby or something. Drinking beer is a hobby, right?
Declan pulled his large black leather trench coat from the pile. Scarred, pitted, singed, and gouged it looked out of place next to his uniform. In the strange ways of social trends, this coat has culturally become significant as that of a Demon Hunter - the "Demon Slaying Warrior" that is now nearly a legendary figure. This coat has now spawned fashion trends and copycats. They even made them in funny colors now.
But this one, this one here, is mine. We have taken souls and been soaked in death and the magic fires together. You were my skin. You were my armor. You served me well.
The leather had been soaked hundreds of times in the horizontal blood rains, both human and demon. It's underlying silver mesh magical conductor disbursement system absorbed countless number of physical attacks and magical enchantments to save his life. But now it's just a coat to be hung in a basement locker.
Declan, for a moment, considered burning it not even quite sure why he would want to keep it. He didn’t have a single good memory attached to this article of clothing. All this thing should represent is a layer of personal protection that kept him alive. But the hundreds of thousands who died around him in the carnage seemed to cling to it as witness to its importance.
Seems kind of silly not to just throw this fucking thing in the trash.
But out of a sense of attachment to the item, like one might associate to a lucky coin or Saint Christopher medal, this old soldier could not throw it away. Grumbling to himself he hung up the coat; then a few tactical shirts, pants, and a pair of well-worn metal plated boots found a home underneath the hanging clothes. With the second bag, mostly comprised of tactical accessory equipment, he unceremoniously started tossing pieces onto the various shelves: a few tactical lights, a large straight edge heavy gladius styled fighting knife, empty magazines, then Velcro patches.
Wait what’s that?
He picked up a patch that was not a normal uniform accessory but lay at the bottom of his bag. One of the few remaining fun memories of him and Shane during their initial training to counter the demon invasion flooded through his mind.
They were having lunch at the food court near the post shopping center, perusing the mall ninja store full of absurd Gucci tactical equipment accessories that vendors would try to sell the soldiers. A singular item had caught both of their attention. A small round patch, light green in color, with a cartoon face of a horned demon on it. It was drawn with black and had the letters MHI underneath it. Both Shane and Doug decided they had to buy this thing and they swore they would wear it in combat. Declan smiled at the memory. But looking down at the patch and seeing that not a single drop of blood had ever touched it he realized neither of them had ever fulfilled that lunchtime promise by wearing it into battle.
He took the patch and gently, compared to his arbitrary tossing of the rest of the gear, placed the patch onto the shelf. He then shut the door on two decades of military experience.
Guess it’s time to hang it up, so what the fuck do you do now? I guess I’ll check out the Jennings VFW. I hear that's what old soldiers are supposed to do.
"Hey, Mr. Kenner!" The foreman shouted down the stairs. "I think we're about all don
e and ready for you to go hot and punch in all your activation sequences."
Time to lock down this bunker. Then I guess I'll have a beer and watch some football.
"On my way up. Matt, make sure Charles is repainting my door that he fucked up by the way. I am not paying you guys till my shit is fixed. By the way, do you know what football games are playing today?" Declan said with a smile that wasn't entirely fake.
Chapter 3 - Scattered
Kayter Reynolds pulled up to the Waffle House, parking her van sized RV at the back of the lot. She glanced at the katana lying on the passenger seat and shook her head. Instead, she picked up her .45, slipping the holster inside her jeans. Wearing it while driving became uncomfortable quickly, besides having it in the holster in front of her made drawing it easier. Doing a quick mental check of all her weapons, gun, knife, throwing blades, she opened the door and stepped out.
Standing outside her RV she looked around and then gave her home a once-over. The beige and brown RV looked boring and normal, the motorcycle on the back trailer not that unusual, as long as you didn't spend too much time inspecting it. Not sensing any danger, she pricked her finger with one of her ever-present knives and set the wards with a quick drop of blood. Slipping the knife back into the sheath at her hip, she walked towards the entrance, her stomach rumbling. The last two had lacked any booths where she could sit with her back against a wall, so she'd left. Hopefully, this one would, or she'd have to eat an energy bar and she hated those things.
Walking in, she scoped out the space and latched onto a booth in the corner, where no one could approach her from behind. In a few quick steps, the diner tiny like most of them, she slid into the booth after checking out her escape routes and verifying a clear view of the RV and bike. Perfect.
The waitress, an older black woman missing at least three teeth, waddled over, pad in hand. "What'll you have, sweetie?"
