by Ryan King
Into chaos.
Chapter 4 – Desertion
Nathan Taylor felt like a butcher. He sat on the hill overlooking Redstone Arsenal in silence. Whenever someone sought to approach him, Luke Carter intercepted them and sent them away.
He wasn’t by any means unfamiliar with warfare. Major Taylor had served multiple combat tours and was a veteran of low-intensity conflicts in places most people couldn’t find on a map. Still, the sheer scale of the carnage was something he hoped he would never see again. Nathan feared he would be seeing those images in his mind for the rest of his life.
Touring battlefields had been one of his pastimes as a history buff. When stationed in the United States, Nathan had taken his family to Shiloh, Gettysburg, Antietam, and a score of other Civil War battlefields. When they were in Europe, they had visited the Somme, Normandy Beach, and Verdun. Nathan had tried to imagine how a general felt sending wave after wave of soldiers into certain death in order to win a battle.
Sadly, now he knew.
“General,” said Luke from his elbow. He pointed to the right and handed Nathan a pair of large binoculars.
Nathan looked through them and saw what looked like an old telephone pole being pushed upwards against the perimeter wall of the embattled compound below. A man in JP uniform was attached to the crossbeam of the pole with what appeared to be spikes through his forearms and feet. Although he could not hear the man’s screams, his face clearly showed the agony he was in.
“Do we have any snipers nearby?” Nathan asked.
“Just down the hill,” Luke answered.
“Do it.”
Luke nodded and moved away. A moment later, there was a single rifle shot. Looking through the binoculars, Nathan saw that the man now hung limp with a neat red hole through his forehead.
“They’ll be more,” said Luke, moving up beside him again. “Likely some of Green’s men or maybe others they’ve captured.”
About to reply with some angry retort, Nathan found he couldn’t speak and put the binoculars up to his face to conceal the emotion. I never wanted any of this, he thought. At least Joshua isn’t here.
“I think we weakened that section of the west wall,” Luke said, pointing.
“There has to be a better way. We can’t just keep sending waves of men against them.”
Luke shrugged. “That’s been the nature of siege warfare for millennium. It’s either assault or starve them out. And we can’t wait to starve them out, not with other possible rockets.”
Nathan turned to look behind him at their primary camp where the men and women were resting after the last assault. It had taken all of his abilities to keep the army from splintering after the rocket was fired. They still did not know where it went, or what damage had been done, and most wanted to go home to ensure their families’ safety. Nathan had convinced them of the need to eliminating the means to fire more rockets. He had also been forced to appeal to their desire for vengeance against the Huntsville forces.
“Assault or starvation,” Nathan said. “There is also another way.”
“Harry Giles didn’t look like the sort to foment rebellion. Think what you want of Lacert, but he’s a master at instilling fear in others. To wait for someone to take him down from the inside would be a mistake.”
Nathan nodded. “So more assaults?”
“Yes. We focus on the western perimeter closest to the rocket launch pad. We support with artillery as best we can. Meanwhile, we’ve got sappers digging tunnels under the north wall. Once there, we can plant explosives and blow a hole in their defenses.”
“How close are they?”
“About twenty-five more meters to the wall,” said Luke, “but they’ve hit rock. The diggers will have to go around if they can.”
“And if they can’t?”
Luke shrugged. “They start over with a new shaft.”
Nathan swore and his knuckles turned white on the binoculars.
Running to their rear caused them both to spin around. A panting young lieutenant drenched in sweat ran up to them both and saluted quickly.
“What is it?” asked Luke.
The young officer gulped in air for several seconds before he could speak. “The McCracken Regiment, sir. They heard that Paducah was hit…by the rocket. Their commander told them…they…”
“What is it?” asked Nathan.
“They’re leaving, sir,” the man finally spat out. “The whole regiment took one of the barges at gunpoint and is loading up now. They say they’re going home.”
“They can’t be allowed to leave,” Luke told Nathan. “If they do, word will get out, and then we’ve lost the army. It will simply melt away.”
Nathan shook his head. “Damn fools.” He turned to Luke. “Take two of the active regiments and stop them.”
Luke raised his eyebrow in question.
“Use force if needed. Try to get them to see reason, but don’t let them get away.”
“Yes, sir,” said Luke, saluting Nathan. He grabbed the young lieutenant by the elbow, and both jogged down the hill to the main camp.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he thought.
Nathan saw a bright flash from the top of a building near the center of the encircled base below. He put the binoculars to his eyes and looked at the building. On the roof, there was someone with binoculars looking back at him from just outside of sniper range. A man with long blond hair.
Grinning at him.
Chapter 5 – Fly in a Jar
Jason Green had always known he wanted to be a soldier. His father had been a soldier, a man who had fought valiantly and been hideously wounded in Vietnam before returning home.
His father had not been the brooding or distant type. He was just a man who loved his family and tried to live the best he could. Jason had always been surprised when other kids had asked, “Why does your daddy look that way?” Jason often forgot that his father appeared different from others.
His mother told him a story once. She said that when she went to the Walter-Reed burn hospital where her husband had been evacuated to after being stabilized in Japan, she hadn’t recognized him. She had walked the ward looking at faces after concluding that the bed number the orderly identified must be a mistake.
Finally, he had opened his eyes, seen her looking around in frustration, and called her name. He smiled sadly at her because he knew what he looked like. After their helicopter crashed in that remote jungle, he had burned over sixty percent of his body before the crew chief managed to drag him out of the cockpit, burning himself badly in the process.
Many men would, and some did, avoid or hide from their wives. Some drove them away in self-pity masquerading as selflessness. “You deserve better,” or “How could anyone love someone like me?” But not his father. He knew his wife loved him, and he loved her. It had not always been easy, but they had built a life and a family.
One day, Jason came home crying with a bloody nose. “What happened?” his father asked.
“They called you a freak,” Jason said, looking away from his father’s hideously scarred face. “They laughed and made fun of you.”
His father had stared at him silently for a few minutes, thinking. Finally, he said, “Follow me. I want to show you something.”
Jason followed the man out to the garage and over to a far corner. His father moved several boxes of clothes out of the way, revealing a long wooden footlocker. He lifted one corner of the box up and pulled out a key lying underneath and then used the key to open the padlock on the box. He lifted the lid and stood aside.
Staring down, Jason moved forward uncertainly. On top, there was a green flight suit with captain’s rank and his father’s name. Underneath were dozens of black and white photos. Jason gazed at each of them in wonder realizing the smiling young man in all the pictures was his father, before he was burned.
Underneath the photos was a folded American flag and a packet of letters. His father reached down and took th
ose away. “Forgot those were in there,” he said with a smile. He then pointed down at a long thin metal box. Jason pulled out the box and opened the top. Inside were curiously shaped folders.
“Open them,” his father said, and Jason noted the smile was gone. Now he looked sad and a little hesitant.
In wonder, Jason pulled out and carefully laid on the concrete floor three Purple Heart medals, two Bronze Star medals, and a Silver Star medal.
“That last one is the kicker,” Jason’s dad said, pointing to a larger folder with a large box attached.
Pulling it out, Jason opened the folder slowly and stared. Even at a young age, he understood what the Medal of Honor meant. He ran his fingers across his father’s name and felt as if he was going to faint. He read the citation with wonder and then opened the box. Inside was the unmistakable inverted five-pointed star attached to a pale blue ribbon containing on word: Valor.
“It’s yours,” his father said. “If you want it. Maybe it will help you more than it has me.”
Jason looked at his father is shock.
“Whenever someone laughs at your father, remember that award and look at it.”
In the years to come, Jason looked at it often and not just when someone gazed at his father with disgust or pity or amusement.
There was a dull pounding noise from high above and Jason realized he had been asleep. He didn’t want to open his eyes or smell the fumes or feel the coldness.
“Wake up, wake up,” says a loud voice from above.
Jason finally peered up out of the large metal fuel container they had imprisoned him in. A blond-haired man with blue eyes looked down on him from the small opening twenty feet above. Next to him was another covered pipe going up further to vent excess fumes.
For a moment, Jason could imagine what the man saw. A pitiful creature lying naked in a foot of gasoline, filth floating around him. Twice a day, someone came and a Ziploc bag filled with water and another with food was dropped inside. Both would splash into the gasoline, and Jason would eagerly consume their contents. During the first few days—or weeks, it was hard to judge time—he had tried to keep his waste in the bags, but had eventually given up. Now he lived in a urine, feces, gasoline cocktail.
“Brother, it’s hard to see, isn’t it?” asked Vincent Lacert. He then pulled out a cigarette lighter and opened the top. A thin, incredibly bright flame appeared above Jason.
Jason Green imagined that Vincent had produced the lighter in an effort to terrorize him, but he just smiled upwards. He knew he was never getting out of his current prison alive and he had always wanted to be like his father. Maybe burning ran in the family.
“Poor soul is deranged,” Vincent said to himself, looking down with interest. “Wouldn’t you like to get out of there?”
Green laughed. He started to speak and had to cough and spit a wad of foreign material into the liquid around him. “You can’t really expect me to believe you’re ever going to let me out of here?”
Lacert shrugged. “No, not really. You’d be surprised though by how many people do believe just that very thing.” He looked down the slick walls of the container. “Honestly, I’m not sure how the hell we would get you out of there even if we wanted to. Clean up is going to be a bitch for someone.”
Green shook his head. “This is the worst interrogation ever.”
“Oh, I don’t want anything from you. I’m just bored right now and thought I’d come down and check on all the little flies in jars.”
Lacert stared at him expectantly, and Green resisted the urge to ask about his men and women. He knew that was what the man wanted. To torment him with threats or stories of torture. Even through the thick walls he had heard the screams.
“Other than entertainment,” asked Green, “what is it exactly that you want?”
“That’s a very good question and one so few bother to ask. I want to be king and destroy all those who stand against me.”
“King of what?”
“Everything, of course. What king worth his salt is content with less?”
Green laughed. “Is that all?”
Lacert looked surprised. “You think that’s expecting too much?”
“For a psychotic deranged egomaniac like you…not at all.”
“My thinking exactly.”
Green coughed again. “What I meant was, what do you want with me?”
“Maybe you’ll come in handy. If nothing else, you’re a curiosity to me. I’ve always been fascinated by how people die. Some take forever to finally breathe their last breath whereas others just roll over and give up after hardly anything. You just never know.”
“I’m ready to die,” Jason surprised himself by saying.
“Really? You look like you still have a lot left in you. Unlike your soldiers.” Lacert laughed. “Those sad sacks are definitely ready to die, let me tell you.”
Green just stared back.
“You sure you’re ready?”
Green closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
“Well, okay then,” said Lacert. “If you’re sure, I guess you’re sure.”
Opening his eyes, Green saw the man let go of the lighter in his hand. It tumbled down in slow motion. Green followed it with his eyes, expecting the flame at any moment to ignite the thin gasoline fumes floating around the inside of the container. When the lighter was nearly to the level of his head, he reached out a hand and snatched it out of the air while closing the wheel on the flame.
Lacert chuckled. “Guess you’re not so sure, after all.” He then closed the metal lid above.
Jason pulled the lighter close into his chest, thought of his father, and went back to sleep.
Chapter 6 – Appeal to Calm
“You sure this is going to work?” asked Trailer, looking at all the wiring running into Reggie Phillips house.
“Of course it’s going to work,” answered Simon. “Nothing more to it than simple electronics.”
Trailer turned his head towards the front of the house and thought the situation was not as simple as Simon seemed to think. Thin ribbons of smoke still climbed into the sky from several downtown buildings, and reportedly over fifty people sat in the county and city jails this morning.
“How are we looking?” asked Reggie, stepping slowly out into his backyard to look down at them.
Simon didn’t bother to glance up from what he was doing. “We’re wired into the main radio transmitter downtown, which is connected to their radio tower out in Hickory. The station’s generator should give us more than enough power for a broadcast. As long as someone doesn’t run over or cut the wires running from the station, we should be okay. I didn’t have time to bury them or string them up high on the poles.”
“Thanks, Simon,” answered Reggie. “You did great. Worst case, we can always move the broadcast down to the station.”
“No,” answered Janice from behind them. “You’re still healing and weak as a puppy. I only agreed to this because you wouldn’t have to leave the house. Worst case, you simply talk to those people out there who are trampling all over my flowers and save the radio broadcast for another day.”
Jessica’s lithe form slid around the corner of the house. “People are starting to get restless in the street. Two men had to be separated after they started yelling at each other.”
“Are we ready?” asked Reggie.
Simon looked at his watch. “Almost. Tim Reynolds is supposed to turn on the generator at noon. We still have a few more minutes.”
Reggie nodded and walked through his house and towards the front door. Janice followed and, at her request, Trailer would stand beside her husband. She seemed to think the presence of the huge man would deter anyone from doing anything stupid regarding Reggie. Simon and Jessica would stay in the backyard and would have their hands full making sure the radio broadcast went off without a hitch.
As Trailer walked through the front door behind Reggie, he felt a tension and buzz in the air. He had played
dozens of basketball games at Rupp Arena in Lexington before twenty-five thousand fans and in other packed arenas around the country. On those nights, the energy in the air had seemed to make his hair stand on end. It was a good feeling.
This was not.
People let off glaring at each other to turn frightened and angry faces towards Reggie. Voices started yelling the minute he walked outside. They all pressed toward the front porch, mashing everyone tightly together. At least three hundred people were gathered around them and more were streaming in from the street.
“What’s going on?”
“When’s the power going to come back on?”
“How we supposed to make it through the winter without heat?”
“Does this mean we’ve lost the war?”
Reggie held his hands up for calm, but the voices just kept rising. Trailer reached around towards the inside of the door for his cudgel, but Reggie’s hand stopped him. “Just give them time,” he said to Trailer. “They’re scared.”
“I think maybe we should be scared,” Trailer responded. “This could turn out really bad.”
Reggie smiled. “I know. The important thing is to not look scared. That would cause them to do something they would regret. Try your best to just appear bored.”
“Bored?” Trailer asked, but Reggie had already turned away. Trailer leaned back against the front door frame, yawned, and looked at his watch.
Again, Reggie was holding his hands up for calm, but it didn’t appear to be having any effect.
“Perhaps we should go back inside for a while,” said Janice hesitantly. “At least until things calm down. Maybe ask the police to come?”
Reggie shook his head. “We don’t want people thinking there’s a reason to have police. Especially after last night. This at least needs to have the appearance of a peaceful gathering.”
Jessica stuck her head in from the house. “Simon says power is up. You’re good to go whenever you want.” She was then gone again as fast as she had appeared.
