Fireside

by Brian Parker

  “That’ll hold them for a second. We are in some really deep shit.”

  “Was that what I think it was?”

  “Yeah. Fucking Huerta has been breeding them for meat. No telling how many of them are down there. Now they’re loose, we’ve got to get out of here now.”

  They burst into the sleeping area of the supermarket and Aeric began waving his arms above his head, shouting, “Everyone needs to leave now! The demonbrocs have escaped from the tunnels!”

  Several of the residents looked up from where they crouched, attempting to render aid to the injured who’d emerged from the tunnels below the supermarket. “Leave them! They’re going to die anyways,” he yelled as he shoved a woman away from a teenager covered with lacerations, including a cut on his thigh deep enough to see the quivering muscle beneath the skin. His femoral artery whipped back and forth, spraying blood everywhere. The kid was a goner and wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes at best, Aeric thought. That’s when he noticed the blood-soaked square of cloth on his shirt.

  The ear-shattering screech of bone claws raking against the cardboard crushing machine’s metal walls tore his eyes from the identification marking to the back room. The fucking beasts had made it out of the tunnels. It wouldn’t be long before they ripped their way through the thin steel side of the holding area.

  Aeric bent over, heedless of the blood spraying across his face and hands, and grasped the boy’s shirt, pulling his upper body up off of the ground. “Claw! Claw, look at me. Where is Huerta?”

  The boy’s eyes refused to focus on him as he answered, “Told me…let brocs out. Went to…”

  Aeric shook the kid violently, the rough fabric of his shirt causing the wound from the thorn in his hand to reopen. His blood mingled with the gore that cascaded out of the Vulture as he asked through clenched teeth, “Dammit, Claw! Where did Huerta go?”

  “North… northern gate,” Claw answered breathlessly, his head lolling backwards, stretching to the limit his skin allowed.

  “Goddammit, Claw! What about the Northern Gate?” he asked as he shook him again. Aeric set him down and then pulled his head up by the hair so the boy could see his ruined face. “What’s he doing up there? Claw! Is he going to Tennyson?”

  The Vulture’s eyes stared off towards the light of one of the torches. He was too far gone to form words. Aeric released his grip on the shock of hair and his head dropped heavily to the ground. He stood up and turned to Tyler, “Huerta escaped. He’s going to the Northern Gate. I don’t know if he’s trying to block off our escape route or if he’s trying to leave before the demonbrocs kill everything they see. We need to stop him.”

  Tyler looked at Claw’s blood streaming down Aeric’s face in disgust. “We can warn the residents about the evacuation on the way there. Let’s go.”

  They ran as fast as their tired, broken bodies would carry them from the supermarket. Behind them, the piercing shrieks of the people who’d chosen to ignore their warnings about the demonbrocs echoed across the Barrio and they died by the hundreds.

  SIXTEEN

  “Where is he, dammit?” Kendrick screamed in frustration while his men turned over the mangled bodies near the wall so he could see their faces.

  He’d allowed the bulk of his army to move forward and continue the attack while he held back to find Traxx’s body. That arrogant bastard would have surely been at the gate, prepared to fight. Except for the fact that there was no proof, Kendrick was certain that he was dead. There was simply no way that he had survived the explosion. They’d searched for his body among the hundred or so bodies at the breach point and none of them belonged to his stepfather. It was maddening.

  “Perhaps we should consider that he wasn’t here at the gate, or that he somehow survived the explosion, my lord,” Quellan offered.

  Kendrick whirled on the man and then checked his temper; Quellan had done nothing to him and had been a loyal right-hand man. “Eh, maybe you’re right, old friend. You don’t know him like I do, though. He’s one of those ‘lead from the front’ kind of guys that you read about in stories. You know the type, the do-gooders who can do no wrong and their people would follow them to Hell and back.”

  “Didn’t that do-gooder assassinate eighteen of our men in cold blood? I would hardly call him a hero.”

  “He’s no hero,” Kendrick agreed. “The people love him because he’s a natural leader who does what has to be done, regardless of the damage. I’d have expected him here at the gate, getting himself shot at instead of running the defense of the city like he should have been doing.”

  “Well, he’s not here, maybe he’s learned a thing or two since you left fifteen years ago… My lord,” he amended quickly.

  Kendrick, too lost in his own thoughts, didn’t notice Quellan’s insubordinate statement. Instead, he wondered where the bastard could have gone. It wasn’t like he’d be able to escape from the city. Where else could they go?

  “Oh my god,” Kendrick said. “There’s a town, north of here. It’s called…” he trailed off as he attempted to dredge the name from his memory. After a few seconds, he grasped it and pulled it to the surface of his murky thoughts. “Tennyson.”

  “My lord?” Quellan asked.

  “They have a fallback location in Tennyson,” he answered. “It’s an abandoned town fifteen or twenty miles past the Northern Gate. When I left, they were planning to build fortifications there that would allow for someplace secure in the event of a problem in San Angelo.”

  “Should we move against this place?”

  Kendrick banged his open palm against the hood of an old pickup truck that sat near the gate. “We can’t split our forces now. We should have blocked off the Northern Gate before we attacked. I forgot about it.”

  “It’s okay, my lord, we’ll—”

  “Forgot about what?” Starr asked as she walked up to the two men from wherever she’d been in the wastes. She was naked and smiling, covered head to toe in gore; clearly she’d enjoyed whatever she’d been doing.

  “What is all over you? Is that blood?” Kendrick asked.

  Her grin widened maniacally and she responded, “Mmm…hmm. I’ve been bathing in the blood of our enemies. You’re supposed to do it too.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” he questioned.

  “The blood sacrifice will grant us access to their souls. With their souls, we can gain control of their confidence. Then, after I consume a few special parts, you’re assured a victory against the giant!”

  “This again? I told you, I’ll just kill Tyler with my gun or have somebody shoot him. I’m not stupid enough to I’d fight him hand-to-hand.” He thought about what she’d said and then asked, “Wait, did you say consume?”

  Starr ignored him and continued on, “He told me this will work. I just have to eat some of their muscles for strength and a heart or two, for courage. Then—”

  “What?” he choked. “Who told you those things?”

  She clapped her hands and hopped slightly in an annoying gesture that she’d recently adopted. Partially-dried clusters of filth fell from her, landing on the pavement with tiny plops as the blood splattered against her bare feet. “He told me.”

  Kendrick looked towards the area where he’d last seen her fifteen minutes ago. She’d been examining bodies like he’d been doing, except she didn’t know what Traxx looked like. “He, who?”

  “You know...” she tapped her forefinger on the side of her head. “I heard Him. He spoke to me! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Kendrick frowned. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Quellan shift closer from where he’d stood apart at a respectful distance away, edging closer to the two of them. “The Vultures don’t need help from some voice in your head, Starr, and we don’t need to steal the souls of these people. We’ll assure our own victory.”

  She scowled at him, placing her hands on her hips. “I thought you’d like that I took an interest in your war.”

  “An interest?”
<
br />   “Yeah, this silly little fight you have going on over the murder of someone that you never even met.”

  He didn’t understand her thought process. One minute she was talking about a voice telling her to wallow around in blood and intestines of their enemies, then the next she was saying she did it to show some type of common interest with him. She’d always been more than a little off in the head and he’d thought that it kept things exciting and interesting with her. But now, he legitimately wasn’t sure of her sanity.

  Starr had always exhibited an overzealous fondness for torture, and she liked being fist-fucked by severed appendages—which was odd until it became an exciting part of their sex life. And, truth be told, Kendrick had heard the voices whispering in his own head, urging him to avenge his father’s death. Oftentimes, those voices threatened to overwhelm him and drive him mad, but he’d been able to keep them in check so far.

  He’d felt that she was slipping for a long time and it caused an internal conflict within him. He enjoyed her company because she was just as crazy as he was. The difference was that he walked a razor’s edge between sanity and madness; it was clear to him that Starr had lost the battle against her inner demons. It was time to let her go.

  “Starr, I need you to go back to Austin.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “You are relieved of your duties to me. Go back to Austin and remove your things from the palace.”

  Her face contorted in rage and she lunged at him. A burst of speed from Quellan brought him between the two of them and he clotheslined her, knocking her backwards.

  Starr sat on the ground, staring daggers at them and clutching her throat where Quellan’s arm had impacted. “You. You son of a bitch!” she spat. “I have done everything for you! Murdered, lied, fucked…murdered some more. Everything I’ve ever done has been for you!”

  “Starr, leave now or I will have Quellan shoot you like the pathetic dog that you are.” The captain placed the muzzle of his rifle on the bridge of her nose to emphasize Kendrick’s point.

  “You wouldn’t shoot me. You’re mine,” she hissed.

  “I was never yours, you crazy fucking whore,” he stated. “You were a useful distraction while I prepared for this ‘silly little war’ as you called it.”

  “A distraction? You’re calling me a distraction?”

  Quellan stabbed the rifle forward into her cheek, knocking her head back slightly. She scrambled backwards on her ass out of the way. “You’ll pay for this, you little-dicked asshole. I’ll kill you and eat your testicles!”

  Kendrick shuddered. “I already regret it. I should kill you right now and be rid of you. We’ve shared so much over the years that it wouldn’t feel right, though.” He smiled sadly down at her, “I do care for you, Starr; otherwise, you’d already be dead. Please, leave before I change my mind.”

  He turned and strode deeper into the city of San Angelo towards the sound of gunfire, away from her screeches of promised pain and death. Kendrick put her out of his mind and thought about Traxx. If he wasn’t killed at the breach, he’d surely be leading the defense, giving the residents more time to escape out the Northern Gate. He’d catch him and there would be no mercy given to that one.

  *****

  “Leave me!” Joseph screamed to his squad mate.

  “No way, buddy,” Gloria answered. “I spent too much time patching up that leg. I’m not gonna let you lie down and die now.”

  She didn’t allow him to argue; instead she looped her hand through the back of his equipment suspenders and pulled him towards the second barricade around the Provisions Warehouse. Somehow, the two of them had gotten left behind at the first earthwork when the Shooters repositioned to the other barrier.

  Joseph cursed his fucked up leg. He knew how they’d ‘accidentally’ been left behind. He was a liability. Without the ability to move around, anyone who stayed with him ran the risk of being surrounded and then dispatched at the Vultures’ leisure.

  He ejected the magazine from his M-4 and slapped a new one into place as Gloria drug him on his ass back towards the rest of the defenders. He pulled the charging handle back on the rifle to chamber a round and pushed with his right leg, attempting to help Gloria.

  They were still twenty feet from the second barricade when the Vultures swarmed over the top of the first line of defense. The Shooters behind him began firing and he jerked up his rifle, shooting while still moving in the opposite direction. He saw two of the attackers fall from his aimed fire and he silently thanked Captain Griffith for all the seemingly pointless training that she’d put the Shooters through.

  Far across the dead space between the two earthworks, the sound of a revving engine filled the air. Vultures scattered sideways and then the brick wall exploded. The front deck of one of the Vultures’ tanks burst through the barricade, pausing half-way through the obstacle. Oily black smoke belched from the engine as whatever they’d used for fuel propelled the monstrosity forward. The exhaust combined with the clouds of filth from the burning city to create an effective screening smoke for the Vultures on the ground, who used the cover to advance.

  When they’d rammed the wall, the tank crew had turned the gun around over the back deck to keep it from getting damaged when they demolished the earthworks. The tank pushed the rest of the way through the wall and began to rotate the main gun back towards the front once they’d cleared the debris. Although he’d never seen a tank before today, he’d seen enough to know plenty about their capabilities. If they got the turret around before he and Gloria had made it to the safety of the barricade, there would be nothing left of them.

  He screamed at her to hurry and risked a glance over his shoulder. Gloria had dragged him to within ten feet of the second set of earthworks. Joseph allowed the hope to blossom in his chest that they’d make it behind the wall.

  And then his hope was shattered.

  The rapid reports of a heavy machine gun hit him moments after Gloria’s blood cascaded down onto his helmet into his eyes. She slumped forward, dead before she hit the ground. Joseph abandoned his attempts to fire his weapon; his little rifle couldn’t do anything against the armor of a tank. He flipped over onto his stomach and pulled himself towards the barricade, fleeing in terror from the beast that had punched ten, fist-sized holes through his friend in two seconds.

  He heard the tank surge forward behind him. The metal treads clanked across what used to be a parking lot thirty years ago. Now it was a killing field. He’d almost made it to the base of the wall when his eardrums shattered and he was thrown against the brick. Debris and pieces of earthwork fell down on him from a large hole in the barricade. They’d fired the main gun from less than a hundred feet away.

  Blood poured in thick streams from his ears and nose. He kept crawling as best as his shattered body would allow through the hole that the tank had created in the wall. He barely made it through when his right let went white-hot. He rolled to the side up over chunks of rock and lay on his back behind the faulty protection of the barricade. Men and women ran towards the north, no longer bothering to defend their supplies or the city against the onslaught of the Vultures.

  Joseph looked down at his ruined body through a haze of blood and sweat. He was seeing double, maybe triple and couldn’t focus. He’d been shot through his uninjured leg. It must have been a small caliber bullet, he thought, detached from his current situation. The round had entered below his calf and exited from his abdomen near his belly button. He was done for.

  Through the ringing in his ears, the clanking of the tank echoed like it was in a tunnel. Joseph knew that he was dying. He could accept death in battle, but not getting crushed by the tank’s treads; where was the dignity in that? He turned back onto his stomach and clawed his way up the dirt of the earthworks to gain elevation, out of the path of the armored vehicle.

  Once again, the barricade exploded inwards when they rammed the second wall. He cried out hoarsely as his body slowly slid down the ram
part towards the tank. He tried uselessly to gain a handhold in the dirt, but couldn’t stop his momentum. The slide turned into a full-on fall and he rolled downwards. The fall ended with him thudding roughly on top of the vehicle’s turret.

  He felt the beast surge forward underneath him as the tank crew pushed completely through the second wall. He was dizzy and the edges of his vision started to go black. He fought against the feeling, begging the God of his forefathers for a little more time on Earth.

  He was rolled gently from his back onto his stomach when the tank’s turret turned, bringing the gun back to the front. Close by his head, the sound of metal scraping against metal caused him to turn slightly towards the noise. He stared at a round metal door of some kind and beyond the door, a man had emerged. The man leaned forward to fire the large machine gun mounted in front of the opening towards the fleeing Shooters.

  He giggled slightly to himself and pulled the last two grenades from his suspenders. They’d given him an opportunity to avenge Gloria’s senseless death. The pull-rings fit perfectly into the cuts in the joints of his fingers and he jerked them out.

  With the last of his strength, Joseph pulled himself to the hatch and dropped both grenades inside.

  *****

  “Ah, fuck! I’ve gotta slow down, Traxx.”

  He turned and regarded Tyler. Why should he care what he felt like? He’d made it evident that their friendship was over after this, so what did it matter? He slowed to a walk. It did matter to him. They’d been friends and helped each other out more than he could have ever imagined in ten lifetimes. He hadn’t stopped caring about the big guy, even if Tyler had given up on him.

  “Okay. We can walk a couple of blocks, but no more.”

  Tyler nodded and then started coughing. He bent over double, hacking violently. The pavement turned dark underneath him as fluid expelled from his lungs. It was more than a simple reaction to the acrid smoke that hung low across the city; it was his body failing him.