EDEN

by Dean Crawford

  Sawyer slowed at the end of the corridor and peeked around to the left. The main hall led to the grand staircase. Sporadic screams and the sound of gunfire echoed up from the senate chamber as though from the gates of hell itself.

  ‘The guards will be overrun,’ Hank pointed out.

  ‘They’ll hold them for as long as they can near the great hall,’ Sawyer replied. ‘We’ll move past behind them and make for the main doors and out of here. We’ll lock them behind us if we can, buy some time.’

  Sawyer crossed to the galleries that overlooked the senate chamber, where the sound of screaming prisoners and guards filled the air. Sawyer yanked the caps off two of the distress flares, the brilliant flares blazing into life amid a cloud of sparks and blue smoke as Sawyer tossed them down into the amphitheatre below.

  From his vantage point, Hank saw the flares catch on the ornate furniture and velvet fittings, flames and smoke billowing into the air to a fresh cacophony of alarmed screams.

  Sawyer turned away and led the way to the grand staircase. They jogged down them two at a time, circling around to the second floor. The sound of fighting leaped in volume, amplified by the confined corridors into deafening staccato gunshots and the shrieks and cries of human beings locked in mortal combat.

  Hank saw two of Sawyer’s men retreating down the hall, firing bursts as they went.

  ‘Hold them off!’ Sawyer yelled. ‘I’ve got your backs!’

  Sawyer brandished his assault rifle as he ran down the steps. The two guards, both of them injured, saw him coming and held their positions. Sawyer leaped to the bottom of the staircase and retreated away from the Great Hall.

  Hank ducked as gunfire shattered chips of marble and stone from the walls and floor around him.

  ‘The prisoners are armed!’ he yelled in surprise.

  Hank grabbed Bethany and the child and pushed them behind him, shielding them with his body as they retreated toward the Doric Hall and the main doors. The prisoners were firing wild bursts at the guards in their way and forcing Hank and Sawyer to duck into cover behind the rows of columns lining the route.

  ‘Open the doors!’ one of the guards bellowed to Sawyer above the din.

  Sawyer was already there. He yanked a large table out of the way of the doors, presumably some kind of barricade in case the locks failed. Hank watched from behind a pillar as Sawyer shoved a key into each of the three locks on the door and turned them before reaching down to release the catch and throwing the doors open.

  Light burst into the building and illuminated the seething mass of prisoners at the far end of the Nurse’s Hall. They saw the light as one and a great scream filled the hall as they suddenly broke cover beneath the weight of those pushing from behind and thundered toward the main doors.

  ‘Go, now!’ Sawyer yelled.

  Hank pushed Bethany in the direction of the doors and then ran behind her and hurled himself through as Sawyer let three of his men through the doors and then whirled to fire a prolonged burst of automatic rounds into the building. Hank turned to see bullets tear into the charging crowd. Sawyer kept his finger on the trigger, the chattering assault rifle spitting flame and smoke as the lethal hail scythed into the mass of humanity. Bodies twitched and jerked as they were hit, those behind tumbling over the falling corpses as though the crowd were some massive, dirty brown wave crashing through the hall.

  ‘Fall back!’ Hank yelled.

  Hank saw Bethany shielding the child from the carnage as Sawyer kept his grip on the rifle until suddenly it stopped firing, the clip emptied in a matter of seconds.

  Sawyer dropped the rifle and heaved against the doors. Hank leaped up and pushed with him as the huge doors closed on the charging mass of humanity, a flood of gaping mouths and flying limbs. Hank heaved harder and the doors slammed with a great boom that echoed through the building within.

  Sawyer turned one key in one lock, fumbled for the next and got the lock turned as the prisoners plunged en masse into the other side, the heavy doors shuddering.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Hank breathed. ‘But they’ll use the windows to get out, let’s move.’

  Sawyer jumped back from the rattling door, his features flushed with blood and his eyes jerking back and forth between the rifle at his feet and the door.

  ‘Man, you see that shit?’ he cackled, joy creasing his features.

  Hank stared at Sawyer for a long moment, saw the crazed look on his face slither away as Sawyer turned and jack-knifed to vomit a thin stream of bile onto the lawn. Hank turned as two guards rushed up the steps toward them, their rifles held ready.

  ‘What’s going on?’ one of them demanded, looking back and forth between Sawyer and Hank.

  ‘Prisoners have escaped,’ Hank replied. ‘They’re running riot in there, killed all the other men.’

  Sawyer spat bile from his mouth and turned to glare at the two guards.

  ‘Somebody freed them,’ he snarled. ‘How did anybody get in here?’

  ‘We didn’t see anybody,’ the guards uttered, both fingering the triggers of their rifles as they stared at Sawyer. ‘Nobody got in.’

  Sawyer raged in silence for a moment, then his shoulders sagged slightly and he nodded.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied. ‘Cover the main gates while we figure out a way to get the prisoners back under control.’

  The two guards nodded and turned away.

  Sawyer pulled one of the pistols from his belt and fired two shots. Both hit the guards square in the middle of their backs and they fell onto the steps with a sickening crunch of bone and flesh against stone. Sawyer stepped down to their groaning, twitching bodies and fired two more shots into the backs of their heads.

  Bethany shot Hank a serious look of concern as Sawyer murdered his own men. Hank watched as Sawyer took a deep breath on the morning air and then turned to him.

  ‘Time to find your ship, captain.’

  *

  Cody saw the flares spiral down into the amphitheatre from above from within his cage, brilliant arcs of light that showered fearsome sparks into dry, dusty velvet cushions and curtains and across old wooden plinths. Smoke and flame added to the hellish chaos around him.

  A blast of gunfire crashed out above the screaming prisoners as they crashed into the guards somewhere outside the amphitheatre. Cody turned and watched as the prisoners in the next cage struggled to unlock their door, screaming for release. Sauri fought his way to the keys and then to the door. Suddenly the cage door burst open and the spilled out like a dirty flood.

  ‘The keys!’ one of the trapped prisoners yelled from the side of Cody’s cage.

  Sauri yanked the keys from the open door and tossed them toward Cody’s cage. Hands reached for them in desperation and the prisoners leaped as one to catch them. Cody smashed the weaker prisoners aside as he grasped the keys and rushed for the cage door.

  A young man grabbed Cody’s arm in desperation, his eyes filled with fear. ‘Hide the keys or we’ll all be hung on the fences outside! They’re coming!’

  Cody could hear the rattle of gunfire and the hellish screams of the dead and the dying coming from beyond the hall. Others protested, shouting at Cody to open the door. Cody whirled and shoved the young man away. Another, older guy made a reach for the keys. Cody turned and smashed an elbow into his face. The man’s nose crunched flat against his grimacing features as he tumbled back and away from the door.

  Cody reached out again, tried another key, and this time the key turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open with his weight. Cody leaped out as shrieking humanity pursued him, legs and arms tumbling in a dirty mass as the prisoners rushed out of the cage and through the amphitheatre.

  Cody hurried to Reece’s inert form knelt down alongside him. Reece’s face was slack, his eyes devoid of life. Blood was no longer flowing from his wounds and Cody knew that his heart had stopped. He reached into Reece’s pocket and retrieved the chain link stolen from the Phoenix. Another death filled Cody’s chest with an achin
g vacuum of remorse, but before he could dwell on the loss any further he heard his name being called above the commotion.

  ‘Cody!’

  Sauri’s voice jerked him from his grief just as he turned and saw half a dozen guards burst into the amphitheatre. The thirty or so prisoners from Cody’s cage plunged into them as a rattle of wild gunfire sent bullets ricocheting around the hall. Cody ducked the random bullets zipping through the air, looked up to see prisoners huddling in deep mounds in their cages, cries of fear and alarm as bullets thumped into defenceless bodies as the guards fought for their lives just yards away.

  The amphitheatre filled with the screams of mankind at war, the fearful and the enraged competing for dominance.

  ‘Open the damned cages!’ Sauri yelled. ‘The guards are coming from everywhere!’

  Cody leaped to his feet and dashed to the next cage along, shoved a key into the lock and turned it. The door mercifully clicked open on his first attempt and he hurled himself clear as the prisoners exploded from the cage in a flood of screams that joined the Hadean scene behind him.

  ‘No, wait!’ Cody yelled.

  The prisoners plunged into the mass of bodies and Cody saw Sauri topple as they ploughed into him, trampled by countless panicked feet as the prisoners stampeded toward the exit.

  Cody hurried to the next cage in the line and unlocked the door. More prisoners tumbled out toward the exits.

  ‘Where’s Maria?!’ Cody demanded of them as they ran past him.

  Nobody answered or even looked at him as they fled for the exit.

  Cody dashed up through the amphitheatre as the prisoners overwhelmed the guards and ripped them to shreds like a pack of wild animals. Cody saw them biting into the still conscious men like zombies from a horror movie, others stamping down on heads that crunched and fractured beneath the frenzied blows.

  The mass of prisoners blocked the exit like a singular, ugly organism of writhing limbs and shouting faces. Cody picked up a guard’s discarded assault rifle, not even sure of how to work it as the crowd finally burst through the bottlenecked exit and spilled toward the grand staircase.

  Cody hesitated as he saw Sauri’s body laying among others, trampled and broken. The Inuit stared sightlessly up at the amphitheatre ceiling, his jaw smashed and his chest deformed where his ribs had broken, some poking out against the fabric of his shirt, others no doubt impaling his internal organs.

  Cody leaped over the Inuit’s body and turned in the opposite direction to the vanishing prisoners. He dashed along the corridor toward the Governor’s office, bursting in.

  ‘Maria?!’

  Each room was as empty as the last, and in a brief moment he recalled the guards disappearing from the corridors outside the senate chamber. Cody whirled and dashed down the hall as prisoners rushed past him like a pack of wolves down toward the second floor.

  Cody leaped down the steps and then looked out through a window at the lawns in front of the senate house. There, he saw Hank Mears running down the steps outside behind Sawyer and three of his militia. Bethany ran close behind them, a child cradled in her arms, dressed in a hooded top against the blustering rain squalls spilling from the turbulent skies. A rush of gratitude and relief swept through Cody, warring with rage that seethed deep inside.

  ‘Maria,’ he whispered.

  Hank had betrayed them all, but Bethany had stood by him and protected his daughter. Cody gripped the rifle in his hands tighter as he watched Hank flee from the state house.

  Thundering footsteps echoed down the corridor from the Great Hall as the prisoners rushed down, and Cody turned and aimed as two guards burst out into the corridor from his right at the bottom of the staircase. Without conscious thought, Cody pulled the rifle into his shoulder and fired twice at the first man, both rounds hitting him hard and knocking him to the ground.

  In the commotion Cody saw Charlotte, her hands cuffed before her, break free from the second guard’s grasp as he struggled to bring his rifle to bear on Cody. He recognised Scott.

  ‘Don’t shoot man!’ the guard yelled up at Cody. ‘I’m with you! I’m with…’

  Cody lowered his rifle but the guard quivered as a bullet struck him high in the chest and he collapsed, his rifle falling from his grasp. Cody turned and saw Charlotte with the dead guard’s pistol in her hands and revenge etched into her features.

  More footfalls echoed in thunderous rhythm toward them as prisoners poured from the staircase toward the Nurse’s Hall, where dozens of armed guards stood in a line with their weapons raised. Cody ducked back out of sight, the rifle pulled close to his chest.

  Before Cody could react dozens of prisoners rushed toward the hall and into the line of fire.

  ‘Wait!’ Cody yelled. ‘Stay here!’

  Cody’s words were lost in the tumult as the citizens plunged down through the hall and straight into the incoming guards. Cody heard a rattle of panicked gunfire, screams of pain competing with the charging prisoners and then more screams as they plunged en masse into the guards. The body weight of dozens of men, women and children ploughed through the guards and drove them into the floor as hundreds of feet trampled the bodies into the unforgiving marble.

  Cody looked at Charlotte.

  ‘We need to find another way,’ he said.

  Cody led the way down to the Nurse’s Corridor, where a frenzied mass of prisoners were smashing the butts of rifles or the soles of boots and shoes into the comatose bodies of the guards laying in their way. Cody could see the bodies rolling with the blows, could see limbs bent at impossible angles and blood pooling like a scarlet lake across the flags.

  ***

  38

  Cody looked past the violent scenes to see the Doric Hall filled with a bloodied, writhing mass of groaning and wounded humanity.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Charlotte uttered as her hand flew to her mouth.

  Large numbers of escaped prisoners were hammering their fists against the main doors, the heavy doors reverberating with the blows. But nearby many were on their knees or slumped against the walls, transfixed by the terrible carnage wrought by Sawyer and his men as they fled the building. Men, women and children lay sprawled on the thick lake of blood seeping across the tiles.

  Cody stared at the horrific slaughter, unable to move as he swallowed down a bolus of vomit. He saw several of Sawyer’s guards lying dead near the doors, prisoners picking up their rifles and looking at each other. Some of them looked back up the Doric Hall at Cody, who stood with a rifle clasped to his chest.

  Cody looked across at Charlotte, who was already backing away.

  ‘You!’ shouted one of the armed prisoners. ‘Where’s that ship of yours?!’

  ‘Come on,’ Cody said to Charlotte as he turned. ‘Reece said he got in through the east wing.’

  ‘Reece?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘He freed us,’ Cody replied, ‘but he’s gone now.’

  ‘Charlotte!’

  The voice came from among the prisoners. Cody looked over his shoulder and saw Jake aiming a rifle at them.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Cody urged her. ‘Jake left me for dead back there.’

  Charlotte hesitated, her features wracked with indecision.

  ‘Charlotte!’ Jake yelled. ‘He’s a murderer!’

  Charlotte turned to look at Cody, still holding the pistol in her hand. She looked at him and he returned her gaze.

  ‘They’ve got Maria,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Charlotte stared at him. She raised the pistol. Cody snapped the rifle up to point at her before she could take proper aim.

  ‘Drop it,’ he snapped.

  The sound of the prisoners charged toward them through the Doric Hall. Cody turned and fired a burst of rounds from the rifle. The bullets hit the ceiling amid a spray of marble chips as the running prisoners scattered for cover. Cody turned the rifle back on Charlotte, who dropped the pistol.

  What felt like an age passed by, and then Cody turned and ran for the East Wing and p
rayed that Charlotte would not shoot him in the back.

  He ran through the Doric Hall and turned left toward the East Wing.

  ‘Give us your guns!’ bellowed the prisoners as they began to pursue him.

  Cody ran to the corridor adjoining the hall to the east wing and did not take long to find the shattered window. He knew that it would only take a few moments for one of the other prisoners to break a window or two themselves, and then every one of them would flood out of the state house toward the docks.

  Cody opened the door and slipped out. He dashed down the steps toward Beacon Street, leaping over the corpses of two guards sprawled across the steps that he assumed had been shot by Sawyer. One of them had a thick bladed knife attached to his belt and Cody paused and yanked it free. Beside the man he saw a handful of discarded distress flares. On an impulse he grabbed two of them and shoved them in his pockets before he ran on.

  He stopped instinctively at the main gates and hesitated there, looked left and right at the bodies strapped to the railings.

  ‘Cody?’

  The small voice reached him from the railings and he turned to see Lena strapped to the iron, her long hair lank and her eyes weary with fatigue. Cody dashed across to her and sliced through her bonds, her waif like frame toppling down onto him.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered in dismay as he held her. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

  Lena whimpered as he set her gently down, her leg injured where Sawyer’s thug had hit her. He sat her down with her back against the wall. ‘Where’s Maria?’ she asked.

  ‘Sawyer’s got her, with Bethany,’ Cody replied. ‘I’m going after her. You’re coming too.’

  Lena smiled weakly and shook her head.

  ‘Go,’ she whispered. ‘My leg won’t let me run anywhere. Just promise you’ll come back for me?’

  Cody bit his lip, felt tears form in his eyes once more.

  ‘I don’t know if I can promise that,’ he replied. ‘But if I can, I will.’