After the Fire

by Will Hill

  My first thought is that it’s one of those I’m hearing now.

  I stop in the middle of the yard and look past the Front Gate, straining my ears. The noise is a low rumble that sounds like an engine, but after a few seconds I realize something.

  It’s getting louder.

  Around the yard, I see several of my Brothers and Sisters stop as well. Nobody says anything, and nobody looks particularly concerned, but they’re listening. They’re all listening. On the porch of the Big House I see Bella cradling one of her children, and by the side of the Chapel I see Jacob Reynolds staring south, his eyes narrow.

  The rumbling gets steadily louder, until the ground starts to shake beneath my feet. Occasionally – very occasionally – some local drives up to the Front Gate so they can see The Lord’s Legion weirdos for themselves, but this doesn’t sound like a car or a pickup truck.

  It sounds bigger.

  A lot bigger.

  The hairs on my arms are standing up, and my stomach feels hollow, like I haven’t eaten for days. My gaze is fixed on the first bend in the dirt road, maybe a hundred metres outside the Front Gate.

  The early morning air is warm, and absolutely still. It feels like everything has been put on pause, like the whole world has been told to take a ten-minute break. Then something huge and black rounds the bend, and everyone starts to run and shout at the same time.

  It looks a lot like the tanks I saw on TV before The Purge, in the days when we were still allowed to watch movies – six giant wheels carrying an angular metal box with a long pole sticking out at the front and a circular turret on top. It’s moving slowly down the dirt road, its engine roaring and belching smoke, but there’s something horribly inevitable about its rumbling approach.

  Jacob lumbers across the yard, bellowing at the top of his voice, as people start to sprint in every direction. The front door of the Big House slams open and Father John strides out onto the porch, a deep frown of annoyance on his face. I see his eyes spring wide before he disappears back inside, his booming voice echoing out across the yard as he bellows for everyone to arm themselves.

  Gooseflesh breaks out across my skin.

  Arm themselves.

  I think about the AR-15 Amos gave me. It’s lying on my bedside table, loaded and ready for use.

  The tank stops outside the Front Gate, and I see a line of vehicles appear behind it around the bend in the road. There are black vans with the letters ATF printed on their sides and red-and-white ambulances and dark green jeeps and half a dozen black-and-white cars. One of the cars turns to one side as it stops, and what’s printed on its door stops my heart dead in my chest.

  LAYTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.

  I can’t move. Can’t breathe.

  I just stare at the words as my mind fills with a single terrible thought.

  I did this.

  Around me, people are running in every direction. I hear confused cries that sound like they’re being made by children, but as I try to force myself to turn and look for them I see Luke come running out of Building Twelve with an AK47 in his hands, and the look of gleeful joy on his face shocks me out of my paralysis.

  I run towards him, shouting for him to put it down, as the turret on the top of the tank opens and a dark shape – a Government – appears. It has a bullhorn in its hand, and I’m still far away from Luke when its amplified voice blasts out across The Base.

  “Members of the Holy Church of The Lord’s Legion,” it says. “We are in possession of a Federal arrest warrant for John Parson and a Federal search and seizure warrant for these premises, both produced in accordance with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and both signed by Judge Warren Hartford of Layton County. Please assemble in the central yard with your hands raised while we execute these warrants.”

  I’m still running towards Luke when he skids to a halt at the edge of the yard and raises the AK47 to his shoulder. I hear someone yell “Gun!” and I scream for him to put it down because I know who these people are and why they’re here and this isn’t what I wanted, oh Lord, this isn’t what I wanted at all.

  Fire licks from the barrel of the AK47 as Luke pulls the trigger. The shots are deafening in the still morning air, a drumbeat of metallic explosions. A short burst of gunfire rattles out from somewhere near the Front Gate and dust erupts into the air as bullets hammer into the ground where Luke was standing. But he’s already moving, sprinting towards the Chapel and disappearing around its side. Screams of fear and howls of fury float across the yard, and as I stare at the bullet-shredded patch of ground where Luke was standing, gunshots ring out from what sounds like everywhere all at once, as though the entire world is suddenly full of flying lead.

  I hurl myself to the ground and wrap my arms around my head. I hear bullets crunch into the tarmac around me and, in the distance, so far away that it might as well be the next county or even the next state, I hear the amplified voice of the Government shouting “Cease fire!” over and over again – but the roar of guns doesn’t seem to reduce in the slightest, let alone stop.

  I scramble to my feet, and frantically scan the wide expanse of The Base. Some of my Brothers and Sisters have taken cover behind buildings and trees and hunks of machinery. One or two are frozen where they stand, their eyes squeezed shut, their faces full of terror, but most of them are firing streams of bullets in the direction of the Front Gate. Screams float above the thunder of the gunfire and I can’t tell which are pain and which are violent euphoria at the Final Battle having begun at last.

  I sprint off the yard, keeping as low as I can. I risk a look to the south as I reach the corner of Building Eight and see four Governments dragging a limp black shape through a hole in the fence, waving furiously at one of the ambulances. The Government in the turret is still shouting into the bullhorn, demanding that everyone cease firing, but nobody seems to be paying any attention. Everyone is yelling and shooting and everything is deafening chaos and I drag my gaze away and run around the back of Building Eight, expecting to feel something punch me in the back at any moment, to see my own blood spray out onto the dirt.

  I dart across the gap to Building Nine and drag open the door. I race along the corridor and throw myself into my room as bullets slam into the walls around me. The AR-15 is lying on my bedside table but I don’t even look at it as I crawl across the floor and slide under my bed. I wrench up the loose floorboard, grab the plastic bag with the skeleton key in it, and get back to my feet. I run back down the corridor and open the front door, but a volley of bullets smashes into the frame and I scream as I dive away and curl myself into a tight ball on the floor.

  Splinters of wood rain down on me as I crawl back to the open door. The air outside is already drifting with smoke and thick with the bitter, acrid smell of gunfire. The noise is relentless, an endless cacophony of gunpowder explosions and the crunching impact of bullets. I pull myself up into a crouch, take a deep breath, and burst through the door. I’m sprinting north as soon my feet reach the ground, heading for the row of metal boxes near the fence.

  This is my doing, all of it. I set this nightmare in motion, and I’m already sure there’s nothing I can do to stop it. But there is something I can do.

  I can make sure Honey doesn’t die like an animal in a cage.

  I’m halfway around the yard, ducking and weaving along the edge of the tarmac, when the door of the Big House opens and Father John appears again, his face blazing with righteous anger, an M4 rifle in his hands.

  “CENTURIONS TO ME!” he bellows. “CHILDREN TO AGAVÉ! FIGHT, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS! FIGHT TO THE LAST! THE FINAL BATTLE IS UPON US!”

  A roar goes up across The Base and the shooting somehow manages to intensify, to a level where the air feels like it is mostly bullets and my head feels like it’s being squeezed in a vice. But a single thought manages to penetrate the punishing racket; it fills my mind as I run, as cold and certain as a winter storm.

  We’re dead.

  You’ve kill
ed us all.

  “I’ve listened to every audio recording made that morning,” says Agent Carlyle. “You can clearly hear John Parson order everyone to fight to the last.”

  My throat hurts, but I manage a nod as I pour myself a cup of water from the jug on the desk.

  “Do you feel like you can keep going?” asks Doctor Hernandez. “It’s absolutely fine if you need a break.”

  I drain the little plastic cup and shake my head. “I don’t want a break,” I say. “I want to finish this.”

  He looks at me for a long moment, then nods. “All right then,” he says. “Take it slow. You’re doing so well.”

  I’m about to cut across open ground towards the box when Jacob Reynolds lurches out of the smoke in front of me, wild-eyed and armed to the teeth.

  I skid to the right, my feet churning up orange dust, and run hard towards the back of the Chapel. Bullets hammer holes in the white wall as I reach the corner of the building, and I lose my footing as I throw myself around it. I land on my hip, sending a bolt of agony screaming down my right leg, and as I try to scramble up it gives way beneath me and I fold back to the ground, howling in pain. I pound at my thigh with both hands, trying to punch feeling back into it, and I’m rewarded with a sensation that feels like someone has covered my entire leg with fire ants. The pain is so awful that for a horrible second I’m sure I’m going to puke, but when I stagger to my feet for the second time, my leg just about holds me up.

  I limp along the rear wall of the Chapel, past the row of arched windows, until movement inside the building catches my eye and I stop and peer through the glass. Luke is backing along the aisle between the rows of wooden pews, pumping yellow liquid out of a red plastic barrel and spraying it across the floor and the benches. He reaches the door that opens onto the yard, tosses the barrel aside, and pulls a box of matches out of his jeans pocket.

  Understanding slams into me. I hammer on the window with my fists, shouting his name as he strikes a match and applies the flame to the rest of the box. He looks at me and my insides turn cold, because the smile on his face is just about the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

  “THE LORD IS GOOD!” he bellows, his eyes locked on mine. Then he pitches the burning matchbox down the aisle, and dives out through the door.

  Everything turns yellow.

  There’s a sound like a thousand thunderclaps and I feel my feet leave the ground as the Chapel windows explode in a hailstorm of flying glass and fire billows out through the empty spaces. The heat is unbelievable, and I roll back and forth on the dry ground because I’m sure I must be burning, I must be on fire, because everything is so unbearably hot.

  I hear the gunfire dip as screams rise once more, and as I get to my feet, my ears ringing, the hair on my arms burned away, the Chapel roof splits open. Flames roar up and out, sending black smoke swirling into the sky. Burning chunks of wood crash down onto flat roofs, and before I’ve even had time to draw breath into my lungs it seems like half The Base is on fire.

  I stagger back from the intense heat, coughing and spluttering and trying to clear my head. Someone grabs my shoulders and spins me around and I’m sure it’s going to be Luke, that he’s going to shoot me dead with his AK47 and nobody will ever know – but it isn’t, it’s Star, her eyes bulging, her hands clutching an M16 that is almost bigger than she is.

  “Why aren’t you fighting?” she yells. “This is it, Moonbeam! The Final Battle!”

  “Where are your daughters?” I ask, my voice a hoarse croak. “Where are your girls, Star?”

  “Agavé took all the kids to the west barracks,” she says. “They’ll be safe there until the victory is won. Come with me, Moonbeam. We’ll fight for The Lord together.”

  I shake my head, and take a step back. She looks at me with complete incomprehension, then raises the M16 and aims it at my chest.

  Everything stops.

  The heat of the fire fades away, the noise of the shooting drops to nothing; even the smoke seems to hang still in the air as my heart freezes solid in my chest. Because when I look into Star’s eyes, I don’t see the woman who has mostly been kind to me, who always seemed to genuinely adore her children and love her Brothers and Sisters. Instead, I see the animal gaze of a person I don’t recognize.

  I see someone I don’t know.

  “Don’t…” I say. “Star…please…”

  She stares at me, the gun steady in her hands. I wait for my life to flash before my eyes, because that’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re about to die, but I don’t see anything and nothing happens and everything is still until Star jerks the gun away and disappears into the smoke without a word. I stand rooted to the spot, until my brain produces an image of Honey lying dead on the floor of the box and the voice in the back of my head screams for me to wake up. I take a couple of deep breaths, then turn north and run into the thickening smoke.

  My leg is still screaming with pain but it holds me up and that’s all that matters right now. The row of boxes looms in the distance, and I risk a glance over my shoulder as I head towards them.

  Fire is spreading across the bone-dry ground like running water, igniting everything it comes into contact with, and the swirling clouds of smoke are making it hard to see anything. I can see the black shapes of the Governments moving near the fence, but I can’t tell whether they’ve moved into The Base itself. The gunfire is still endless though – a constant thudding that makes my ears ring.

  I reach the only occupied box and make my way round to its front. I pull the plastic bag out of my pocket, rip it open, and grip the skeleton key tightly in my hand. I shout to Honey as I approach the door, telling her it’s okay, everything’s going to be all right. I slide the key into the padlock and twist it. For a millisecond it doesn’t move, but then the lock springs apart and thuds to the ground and the door creaks open and I stare into the darkness for a long moment because I don’t know what else to do.

  The box is empty.

  I spin around and try to peer through the drifting smoke. The Chapel is a raging inferno and I can see the blurry shapes of my Brothers and Sisters moving back and forth, firing guns at targets that are invisible from where I’m standing.

  I can’t see Honey.

  There’s no sign of her.

  I hear approaching footsteps and I’m suddenly very aware that I’m probably the only unarmed person for five miles in any direction, apart from the children in the west barracks. I turn in time to see Bella emerge out of the smoke, a black pistol in her hand.

  “What are you doing, Moonbeam?” she asks. “Why are you—”

  “Where’s Honey?” I say.

  “That’s none of your concern!” she shouts, her eyes flashing with anger. “Why aren’t you fighting for your Family? Where’s your—”

  “Tell me where she is, Bella!” I shout. “Tell me right now!”

  Her eyes widen and she raises the pistol, but I’m already moving because I’ve had one gun pointed at me in the last five minutes and that was more than enough.

  I slam my hand down on her wrist. The impact vibrates all the way up my arm and Bella howls in pain as the gun spills to the ground. I step forward and push her in the chest. She staggers backwards until her feet tangle and she sprawls flat on her back. My hands are balled into fists as I stride towards her because I’m scared and I’m pulsing with adrenaline and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so angry as I do right now, so completely fucking outraged. I snatch the pistol up off the ground and point it at her heart.

  “Where is she, Bella?” I growl. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “Amos let her out,” she says. Her eyes are wide, and I see fear in them as she looks at me. “I think he put her with the others.”

  “In the west barracks?”

  She nods. I don’t waste time saying anything else; I leave her lying on the ground, and head back the way I came.

  I sprint across the yard, my eyes streaming, my heart pounding in my chest.

&
nbsp; The noise of the gunfire is still deafening, and I hear – I actually hear – bullets whizzing past me, their low whines like the speeded-up buzz of insects, but I don’t slow down, and I don’t change course. The Chapel is burning out of control, its roof engulfed by roaring fire and sending up a huge black plume of smoke, and the amplified voice of the Government booms across the compound, repeating its deafening demand over and over again.

  “PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND COME FORWARD SLOWLY WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

  Nobody is listening. Not the other Governments, and definitely not any of my Brothers and Sisters.

  In the distance, back near the Front Gate, the tank rumbles forward, crushing the flimsy wire fence and churning the desert floor. Somewhere, over the engines and the endless rattle of gunfire, I can hear screams of pain and pleading shouts for help, but I force myself to ignore them and keep going: my eyes are fixed on the wooden cabins at the western edge of The Base.

  I trip over something.

  My feet tangle, and I go sprawling onto the cracked tarmac of the yard. Pain crunches through me as my shoulder hits the ground, but I grit my teeth and get back to my feet and look round to see what I fell over.

  Alice is lying on her back, her hands clutching her stomach.

  Her shirt has turned red, and she’s lying in a pool of blood that seems too big to have all come out of one person. She’s still alive though. Her eyes are dim, but they find mine, and she looks at me with an expression I can’t describe. There’s pain there, a lot of pain, and shock, and fear, and something that looks like confusion, like she wants to know how things ever came to this.

  I hold her gaze. I want to stay with her, to tell her it’s all right and that she’s going to be okay, but it isn’t all right, nothing is, and I don’t know very much about bullet wounds but I don’t think she is going to be okay.