by M. L. Banner
He started down the stairwell, flashlight on, and pistol pointing the way.
“What do I do about him?” the other guard asked. “Do we leave him?”
“No, he may be useful.”
“Where are we going?” the flashlight-and-bourbon-toting guard asked.
“The way out!”
40.
Cicada
As he scuttled to his residence, his hobbled left ankle screaming with every other step, Max couldn’t help compare their current situation to his battle in Basra, just before the first Gulf War: just as then, he was on autopilot. A bullet ricocheted, tearing away earth directly in front of him, driving home the sensation. Although, he seemed to hark back to his time in Basra every time he went into battle, comparing and contrasting the battle. Perhaps it was like this with every soldier.
Saving Cicada now seemed hopeless. There were simply not enough of them to hold back this horde of invaders, who were still coming over the wall and through the break in their gate. Still, he was reluctant to surrender to Plan B. He wanted them to make one final stand. He knew their rifles on several of the roofs and Shingles in the Ops tower were making the enemy’s job difficult as they attempted to scurry over Cicada’s walls. Max hoped if they could put more firepower on the breach in the gate and pick off the occasional red-robe that made it to their grounds, maybe they would have a chance.
As he ran, he told everyone he saw to meet Tom in Ops, where he would get them a weapon if they didn’t have one. He dashed through the fencing that surrounded their compound.
Max ignored the angry pain in his twisted ankle, his shot-up bicep—he felt the suture open up earlier—and the pulsating throb in his head. After pounding past Ops and Comms, for a moment, he popped out into the open—he could almost feel some of the rifles on the wall train on him—as he sprinted to his residence. More bullets were directed his way, but all were missing the moving target. They appeared to him like heavy raindrops churning the gravel or dirt each time they struck harmlessly around him. Answering each raindrop, albeit much slower, was the thunder of Shingles’s Barrett from the tower, finding each shooter.
As Max slid in the gravel to his door, jarring his ankle even more, he saw several people huddled for cover against the First House next door; they were waiting for Plan B to be called, no doubt wanting to be first in line. He waved them forward to join him. They were at first tentative, but as fear fueled them, they rushed and then clustered around Max as he opened his door and left it open for them. None had seen the inside before and they all welcomed the invitation to its safety. Max was already opening his Toy Room, its overheads blinking illumination on its many guns and gadgets. He pulled down from the wall all five of the M4s, loading each, and then handing one each to two of the five standing in his living room. They were the only ones unarmed.
“Aren’t we going to Plan B?” pleaded one of their scientists—it was something like Dr. Stich or Switch, he couldn’t remember. He looked somewhat surreal in a white lab coat with a military rifle slung around him.
“No!” Max answered, tossed the other loaded M4s and some extra magazines on the couch and went back in for more supplies. He put on his tactical vest and stuffed it with two M4 mags and two spare AK mags. He loaded both his AKs, slung one around his neck and tossed the other onto the coffee table with extra magazines. He took two grenades, but left the rest; every resident may have been trained in using a rifle but not in using explosives. Finally, he opted for the Glock 17 Gen4, rather than his favorite .45, which he laid on the table inside the Toy Room. He needed capacity more than stopping power. After loading one magazine and attaching his rig, he shoved two more mags into his tactical vest. He was ready. But he still grabbed more pistols and loaded them.
“We have to go to Plan B,” Preston yelled as he bounded into Max’s, out of breath and surprised to see the others in the living room. They parted to let him in and two nodded in affirmation of Preston’s own call to action.
“Here.” Max shoved an M4 and two magazines on him, seeing he was unarmed. “We may be there soon, but not yet.” To the others he said, “Let’s not give up our home so easily yet. I think we have a chance if we can focus on the breach in the north gate and get the stragglers who make it down the wall. They haven’t won yet.” He threw the loaded pistols he was holding onto his coffee table.
Lisa and Magdalena came in next, both disheveled, but otherwise opposite sides of the same scale. All eyes turned to them. Lisa was frantic and out of breath. She seemed ready to burst with anxiety and fear. Magdalena, on the other hand, looked calm, as though she had been in many battles. Only Magdalena had a weapon, if you could call her little paring knife much of a weapon against guns. He handed each an M4 and an extra magazine.
“But, what…” Lisa couldn’t think of what to say.
“You five”—he pointed to the group of huddlers—“you focus on the west wall and anyone that makes it down. Keep behind the perimeter fencing and you’ll be safe. Please be sure you don’t shoot one of our own. Go!” They hesitantly shuffled out and around Max’s residence, most happy that he kept them close to the rendezvous point if the horn sounded.
“Everyone else, come with me,” he said and bounded out, M4 scanning. A robed man was running on the wall, toward their nearest stairwell. Max squeezed off one shot, dropping him, and headed to the Operations tower gate. The others followed behind until they all lined up behind one of four gates in the large perimeter fence that surrounded much of the compound, separating it from the remainder of the complex.
Max stood on a picnic table and announced, “This is the demarcation line. If the enemy makes it here, we’ll call Plan B.”
Shots were being squeezed off just above them and Max smiled when he saw it was Tom already set up on the roof of a single-story supplies building, next to Residences. He was firing over the fence at the breach in the north gate, where one red-robe at a time was trying to break through the opening. Most were cut down, but some were making it through and running for cover.
“This is where we make our last stand,” Max yelled and fired off shot after shot.
Johnson ascended the spiral stairs of the Operations tower. He could hear Shingles’s .50 cal Barrett booming above him every thirty seconds or so. With each blast, two or more shots were returned, pinging the outside metal shell. Most ricocheted off but some penetrated. They would eventually silence him; Johnson was going to make sure it happened quicker.
Johnson pushed his head out of the opening in the middle of the floor and watched. Shingles was firing, positioning himself in another of the tower’s four windows, reloading, finding a target, firing and moving to another window. He had been a pillar of Cicada, having joined two years before the Event, but he never saw what was coming next. Johnson pulled out his revolver, aimed and fired one round at the back of his head. That was the end of Shingles.
Johnson bounded up the last few steps and shimmied across the floor. The last thing he wanted to do was get killed by friendly fire after waiting so long for this moment. When he was at the south-facing window-wall of the Operations Tower shack, he reached up to the lever right below it and tugged it from left to right until it clicked into place. The clack-clack-clack of the gate assembly didn’t sound immediately because of the distance between the tower and that gate. So he chanced a peek to confirm his success. On the other side of the largest gate in Cicada that opened out onto the main access road, Johnson saw hundreds of robes waiting, for him.
At first he wasn’t sure it was opening, thinking it was the auroral light playing tricks with his eyesight and the distance. But when he saw the first robed warrior press through, he knew he’d done it.
“I’m out,” cried Lisa.
“Me too,” Magdalena said.
“I’m out too, boss,” Tom hollered from the roof a few feet away.
“All right, I’m calling it; time for Plan B. Tom, would you do the honors and make sure Shingles hits the horn and gets down safely
?” Max peered up to the tower, worried a little because he no longer heard the boom of the Barrett.
“Sure thing, Max.” He hopped down off the roof of the building and jogged to Operations, his sidearm drawn and leading his way.
“Preston, take Lisa and Magdalena with you and go get those in the infirmary. I’m going to make sure there are none just behind us here. I’ll meet you in the designated spot.” Max turned back around and fired off automatic bursts from his AK. Each distinctive discharge felt like home compared to the smoother volley of his M4, which was empty, as were any serious attempts to save the complex.
They would lose Cicada.
41.
Cicada
Tom was certain something was wrong when he entered Operations, and it wasn’t the lone bloody boot print. It was the silence above. He could no longer hear Shingles firing that beautiful Barrett. Tom was sure Shingles must have bought it at the hands of one of the enemy’s snipers. He was hesitant to go up and check on him, but the need to sound the horn was far more pressing than his reluctance to learn of his friend’s fate. The lives of most of Cicada’s surviving people rested upon Tom’s shoulders. He had to blow the horn. Now.
He bounded up the spiral stairway, three steps at a time, his Glock pointed forward in case it was needed. Tom ascended these steps daily, checking up on this strange dude he called a friend. Their friendship was born from their odd status within this community, as neither were scientists and so not part of that clique. Shingles—Tom never knew his real name—was small and almost misshapen, as if he had had polio as a child. They shared a passion for weapons and shooting. Shingles was by far the best shot he had ever seen, and he knew he wasn’t bad himself. He also had an almost encyclopedic recall of gun facts, as if he were reading directly from one of Jane’s many publications. Often, Tom would bring him lunch and they would share stories—his were combat-related and Shingles’s were weapons details. Mostly, he liked the guy, who was completely unassuming and genuine.
Below the western window, he found Shingles’s crumpled body in a puddle of his own blood, a black slick that had a strange yellow shimmer from the auroral light pouring through the windows. Based on the spray on the wall, he knew someone had taken him at close range, from behind. The boot prints leading away and down the stairs confirmed this. Regardless, there was nothing he could do for his friend and he had a far more important matter than finding the bastard and seeking revenge.
“Goodbye, little buddy,” Tom whispered, and then hopped up onto the floor. He reached into the shadows for the big red button. There was no mistaking it, and in the sunlight it plainly read “Alarm.” He pushed it as he looked out the south window. He blinked once, thinking it was his old eyes playing tricks on him. It wasn’t.
“Oh my God!”
Johnson was the first person to enter the old adobe house, minutes before the horn’s blare. He pulled the warped door closed. Its ancient hinges screeched their disquiet, like some angry animal anxious to get back to its long uninterrupted slumber. Once it was closed, he latched it from the inside to make it more difficult for them to enter.
He was supposed to go to Comms first and make the call to Westerling, but a couple people were already there and his cover was already blown. He didn’t have his phone box either, but it wouldn’t matter because there were only two other places to connect: the utilities closet by the Library and in Research. He wasn’t about to take a chance on either. This was the safest place—well, it would be soon enough.
It was pitch black inside the windowless house, but he knew where to go next, having practiced this many times in similar darkness. His footsteps were heavy on the concrete floor, the only improvement to the house in the last ten years. Then from the blackness, there was a sound of a thick object on rollers being pulled across the concrete. Its echo was hollow, the adobe and wood roof absorbing most of the sound. It sounded once more and then it was silent.
The house again appeared vacant, slumping slightly from a few centuries of gravity and the elements. It awaited the rest of Cicada’s dwindling population.
When Max had emptied his last AK mag, he dropped the gun and switched to his Glock. When the horn finally blared to all of Cicada, he planned on staying only a couple of minutes before he tried to find the stragglers. He looked back several times, hearing the footfalls on the gravel behind him, just to confirm they were friendly. At least the enemy made their presence obvious in their red robes.
He wished he could see to the First House and count the numbers that passed, but the Rec Facility blocked his field of view. He’d give it another minute and call it. Beyond the fence gate there were three shots, maybe less than twenty meters from him. The fence blocked his field of view for the first five feet below it. He watched the gate creak open and a single red-robed head tentatively edged through, looking back and forth. When he assumed there was no one around, he beckoned others in. Max waited as two, then three, then several quietly walked through; he was hidden by elevation. He heard a set of running boots coming from one of his own people and saw the lead robe lift his weapon. Max emptied his Glock, rammed in another magazine and finished them off.
He hopped off the roof, watching to make sure no one else was coming through. Before closing the gate, he peeked outside to see what it looked like and now saw thirty or more shapes approaching the gate. He closed it and then dragged the bodies against it. “Thanks for your help, guys.”
It was time to go.
The Teacher was jubilant as he sashayed into the front gate of their new home, Cicada. It was just as the forked-tongued devil said it would be. The Senator had told him they would resist at first, but he had a plan for this. Francis set up five of their best sharpshooters in the trees at specific points outlined by Westerling. They would supply cover fire for their people, who would go over the walls and through the gate on the north, damaged by the explosives they were given. They should commit one-quarter of their troops to this endeavor and have the remainder wait on the other side of the main gate to the south, which would be opened, letting them in.
But the Teacher didn’t tell his people the plan because he wanted them committed to trying to make it in over the walls or through the damaged gate. This would add to the diversion’s effect. And the diversion worked perfectly as their men and women walked in without any resistance through the main gate; all the gunfire seemed to be concentrated on the other sides and the far end to the north.
When the horn blared, the Teacher was told that meant they were giving up. That they would throw down their arms and wait at some designated spot to be captured.
It reminded him of the air-raid sirens from the movies. It was all so exhilarating.
“Teacher, they seem to be running. I think we’ve won,” one of his female warriors said. She was one of the prettier ones, and one he had spent some evenings with.
“Yes, sister, Cicada is now ours.”
Max stopped at his residence, seeing a large congregation of people at the First House. He wondered why they hadn’t gone in but saw Tom arrive and knew he would figure it out. He needed to take care of a few matters at home first.
The door was still open and most of the guns picked clean: good, less for the enemy. He closed the door, wanting to not be interrupted for the next couple minutes. He hurried to the Toy Room and shoved the last remaining mags of .223 and 9mm into his vest and added one more grenade. Then he secured the door.
Now for a few personal items and a present for the home’s newest occupant.
He grabbed his SOC Gear Long Range rucksack, already filled with his bug-out gear and hydration water bladder, and lumbered to his bedroom. His injuries were catching up to him, the adrenaline starting to fade. On his bedside table, he snatched his last Frankenstein flashlight and slid it into his sack on the floor.
He pulled out his clothes hamper, a wicker basket he bought in Mexico some years ago. He lifted the top off, walked over to the bed and peeled back the sheet and covers, unused i
n over a year even after the last three days. He dumped the basket’s contents onto the bed and pulled the fabric over the now very angry rattler. Max grabbed some clothes from the closet and tossed them on the bed to provide cover to the moving lump underneath.
“I think that’s a nice housewarming gift.”
He slung his sack around his shoulder, lumbered into the living room and stared at his Decision Shelf, feeling surprisingly clear-headed after so little sleep and so much stress on his body. But his injuries were taking their toll and he was completely exhausted. Yet he felt sure of this decision. He reached up, grabbed what he wanted, and without hesitation thrust it into his sack.
One final consideration, he thought. He examined the three pictures on the entry foyer wall. Originally, he was going to take them all. After all, there were no other pictures of his grandfather or Fatima. But they were in the past. He reasoned they should stay with the house. He closed his bag, put it around both shoulders and fastened the clasp, already rearranging his weapons. He was ready.
Before exiting his residence for perhaps the last time, he looked at this place he so rarely used. It wasn’t really his home because it was empty of people that he so stridently kept out of it and therefore out of his life. He didn’t know any of them as well as the Kings, but he felt a duty to protect them all. He realized just then that he couldn’t protect everybody; he could only do what he could do and, with God’s help, many of them might survive this thing.
Looking up to the heavens he said, “If it is your will, O Lord.”
He shut the door but left it unlocked, not wanting to keep its new occupants from receiving all of the benefits of living here. A sly smile filled his face. It was probably the first time he had really smiled in the three days he had been there.
