by Noah Mann
I removed the radio from my pack and turned it on, the flexible antenna atop it whipping in the stiff wind. With one hand on the radio, I kept the binoculars in the other, watching as the tank car crossed the rail bridge over the river, then passed the maintenance sheds. Finally it traveled under the Baker Avenue Bridge and reached a point in line with the train station.
“This is for you, Del,” I said, then brought my thumb down on the transmit button.
Miles away the signal was strong enough to overcome the squelch setting, energizing the speaker wires and passing that charge along to the electric fusing. Tiny plugs of compressed accelerant ignited, jets of hot gas firing into the blasting caps, triggering miniature explosions that expanded into the sticks of TNT.
A painful whiteness filled the binoculars. My face turned half away as I dropped them, squinting at the bright bubble of misty gas expanding outward from where the tank car had been, the milky dome, hundreds of feet in diameter, igniting a second later, flashing into a yellow-orange fireball.
I felt the heat, painful, then the wash of scalding air, like the breathy roar of some dragon spat my way. The crack of the blast, louder than any thunder I could imagine, shook the ground and the ranks of dead trees behind me, knocking the dusty grey death from them, limbs snapping to litter the earth below. I forced myself to endure the searing heat and watched the wave of fire race across the train yard and into the city, coursing down streets like rivers of flame. Whole neighborhoods were swallowed by the conflagration in an instant, the blaze rolling over buildings, across the city, nearly to the woods at the south end of town. Licks of yellow and orange swept over the river and onto the crisp waters of the lake, reaching a hundred yards out past the shore before retracting like a misdirected breath.
It had to be mere seconds, but the consumption of Whitefish by the fire I’d sent played out in some sort of mental slow motion. The blasted remnants of buildings leveled by the explosion arced through the air trailing streaks of fire, settling almost gently to earth. The train station disappeared in a shower of hot orange and yellow, tentacles of flame reaching out, drawing ever closer to the high school, then across the field beyond.
Then, I could see no more with specificity. Whitefish simply burned, smoke rolling above the inferno, obscuring the horror until darkness came and the town was lit like a pyre, fire everywhere, a crematory turned inside out. Hell on earth unleashed.
By me.
Thirty Nine
I didn’t pray for it, but rain came in the night, stopping the spread of the inferno beyond the southern edge of town, as if by divine providence. The cool water bathed me where I sat on the hill, watching the blaze consume street after street, buildings crumbling in upon themselves, gas tanks and vehicle tires adding miniature explosions in the midst of the maelstrom. Through the night I watched. When morning came I was still on the hill, awake, sleep impossible, the whole of the smoldering town before me too much to turn away from. As the clouds parted and the sun peeked through, I rose and began to walk toward Whitefish.
Bodies...
The first I saw bobbing on the river as I crossed the bridge and entered the eastern half of the town, just a charred form half landed on the muddy bank, arms and legs splayed like a skydiver in freefall. A few licks of flame still rose from a skim of the chemical that had poured into the waterway. Three more I saw in the middle of one street, where the façade of one building had collapsed and lay in mounds of shattered bricks. Perhaps they’d taken refuge in the masonry structure, believing it impervious to the fire. Likely the timber roof structure bursting into flame had convinced them of their mistake, but not soon enough that they might flee with their lives. As it was they lay in close proximity to one another, scorched rifles still in the grip of two of them. Fighters to the end.
Most of the remains I came across as I worked my way further east were alone. Individuals cut down by smoke and heat mid stride in the center of some side street, or appearing only as an appendage poking from still smoldering rubble. The crackle of wood embers bursting was the only sound beneath the stilled breeze.
Until I reached the bank.
The walls of the building had tilted in, crushing the entryway, metal frame mashed, glass door obliterated, stream of smoke pouring out and angling skyward. Beyond it I heard thrashing and crashing. And moaning. Someone was in there, and they were trying to get out.
I stood fast in front of the consumed structure and held my AR at the ready. An exhausted calm steadied me. And cold determination commanded me to act as the man crawled from the bank and fell to his knees in the street, a few yards away, burned face angled up at me. Heat had split the skin of his face, which hung in blackened flaps from each cheek, cooked red flesh below, veins throbbing. His mouth opened as if to say something, swollen lips grotesquely quivering, soot expelled as he coughed, black, sludgy mucus draining from twin holes where his nose used to be.
“Hel...”
That was all he could get out. The ‘p’ eluded him.
I raised my AR and sighted past the suppressor at his chest.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph...
A steaming pistol was melted to a holster on his belt. He reached for it but fumbled with the weapon, bringing his hands up to see what the trouble was, his singed eyelids peeling back in horror as he saw that his fingers had been burned off, just blackened stubs of bone protruding.
The bank vault had obviously given him some protection. It had allowed him to live to see this moment. But no more.
I squeezed the trigger once and a thewp sounded. His body shuddered as the 5.56 millimeter round pierced his sternum. He tipped backward and fell into the gutter, blood spilling from the wound sizzling as it hit the superheated pavement.
I turned away from the man I’d just killed and looked east. The high school lay that way. There was more killing to do.
Five minutes it took me to reach what had been the town’s high school. Just a smoking mound of stone, steel, and wood remained, stubborn pockets of flame having survived the early morning downpour to bubble hot and orange. I moved past the fallen structures, pausing to warm myself for a moment at one of the smallish fires. The wet cold of the night clung to me. The flickering little blaze did little to beat it back, leaving me tired and shivering, light wind swirling past, wicking still more of the scant warmth I had left. My knees softened without warning and my legs folded beneath me, sending me back against a heap of steaming rubble.
“I’m a good man,” I said aloud, as if giving it voice might convince me enough of its truth to bring me to my feet again. “A good man.”
I could not let myself do nothing.
I rolled to the side and used the butt of my AR to steady myself as I willed myself off the ground, looking past the remnants of the school to the field beyond, drifting curtains of smoke obscuring what lay there. What had to be there.
Layton...
When the tank car exploded and the wind dragged the raging fire into town, where would Major James Layton have gone? Where would he have retreated to?
To the very place he’d had constructed to ride out the inferno he was planning.
The smoke washed over me as I pushed forward, squinting at its acrid bite, shallow breaths burning until I emerged on the other side, the dirt field ahead charred, some boxy conglomeration of steel and concrete rising from what had once been the fifty yard line. Football players had collided there when chalk marked the once green turf. Fans cheered.
Now that spot was marked by the blackened hulk that Layton had made others build for him. How many had he allowed in with him when the fire, my fire, set upon them? Two? Ten? Twenty? Half buried in the poisoned earth, I guessed no more than ten could have fit in what I saw—if any had at all. Flames had reached it, leaping through the air on clouds of chemical vapor. Had the inferno choked the oxygen from the air within? Did the unbearable heat penetrate and turn those fortunate few inside to cinder? I didn’t know. But I would.
; I approached the bunker, mentally ticking off my place on the obliterated gridiron. Ten yard line. Twenty. Thirty.
That was when I saw the flash and felt the hot spear of copper and lead slice through my jaw, my body spinning as the crack of the first shot reached me. More followed, timed to impacts on the burned earth around me. Misses, my brain noted, the wound stunning me, slowing my reaction.
For a moment.
Stay alive...
Neil again, from memory, reminding me of the reason for my being, if not necessarily being here. I would stay alive. I would fight to stay alive.
I dropped to the ground and brought my AR into the fight, taking quick aim in the direction of the muzzle flashes still erupting from the side of the bunker and squeezing off a continuous stream of shots.
Distance is your friend. That was Del’s belief. Here, though, I had to take the fight to those who were shooting at me.
The pain in my jaw almost inconsequential at that instant, I jumped up from the ground and, weapon shouldered for aimed fire, I advanced, continuing to pull the trigger in a rhythm set to the cadence of my movement—shoot, step, shoot, step... The quieted rounds spat from the suppressor and chewed at the stone and metal where the fire was originating. As I drew nearer, step by step, I began to see that I was being shot at not from within the bunker, but just outside, the attacker using its southwest corner for cover. I shifted my aim slightly and found a shape through the briskly drifting smoke. A form.
A person.
I fired four fast shots at the figure and they dropped, the final fire from their weapon, a single, wild round, slicing through the fabric of my coat, grazing the shoulder beneath. The fiery streak it dragged across my skin caused me to recoil, slowing me for an instant. But only an instant. Dropping the magazine from my AR, which was nearing empty, I inserted a full one and neared the corner.
A gaping square hole let into the bunker, hatch that covered it peeled back. Smoke drifted out, but no sound. Edging toward the corner I peered into the dark opening and saw little more than a single, large room, one tiny fire still burning within, wispy yellow light revealing a partly charred interior.
And a pile of bodies. Ten, maybe. Dead and alive, at least two showing some movement. Writhing in pain, hideously burned, the preparations to fully insulate the bunker incomplete. One side of the exterior showed partial progress in being covered by a layer of dirt, but the flames that had swept into town created a true firestorm, racing from building to building, leaping open space to penetrate the smallest opening. As it had here.
I ignored the interior and moved on, to the corner. Just around it I saw legs extending out, black boots at the end of each. A rifle lay next to them, an older G3, wood stock singed, a chunk of the receiver punctured and splayed open. At least one of my final rounds had rendered the weapon inoperable.
And the man who’d wielded it.
Major James Layton sat against the south wall of his bunker, choking smoke rolling past his blackened form. The left side of his body from chin to knee was seared, clothing melted to bubbled skin. Recognizing him was not difficult. He’d cut quite the appearance of authority the one time I’d glimpsed him through binoculars, greeting his train crew. Even with a portion of his face burned and the rest skimmed with sooty dust, I knew it was him.
His head rolled against the outside wall of the bunker and his eyes came up, settling on me.
“Goddamn murderer,” he said.
I didn’t respond to his words. For a moment I didn’t say anything. I simply looked at him, up close, wanting to see, or sense, what might have been special about the man.
“Do you know what’s truly pathetic about you,” I said, my words stilted by the bleeding wound in my jaw.
Layton’s swollen lips curled, to something I thought was a scoffing smile.
“You’re a dime a dozen,” I explained. “How many other guys are there like you who try stepping into an absence of order, to institute their own? Guys like you think power is leadership. You’re a cheap wannabe dictator. Tell me, how is it you got out of your bunker while everyone else is pretty much burnt toast? Did you use them to protect you from the flames? If I checked, would I find bullet holes in some backs in there? Did you do that to make the uncooperative ones more amenable to being used as human shields?”
The strange grin he’d managed drained away, scowling animus rising in its place. I’d hit a nerve.
“I hope that hurts,” Layton said, winking as he savored the sight of blood dribbling down my neck.
“Yeah, you got me. But I’m the one still standing.”
Layton’s expression went slack and he angled his face away.
“One more thing,” I said.
He turned once again to look at me. When his gaze met mine I brought my AR up and put a single round through his forehead. A halo of red burst upon the dull concrete wall behind his head before it tipped forward, chin against his chest, back of his skull split open.
I wanted to look on him no more. Wanted to see this place no more. The urge to leave, to run, ran headlong into the reality of my situation. The finality of what had just transpired drew the numbing energy from my body and let the pain rush back in. I managed a few steps from the bunker before stumbling, my lower half settling limp to the ground in a lopsided half sit, stiff arm planted, keeping me partly erect like some anatomical kickstand.
A year ago...
That musing thought rose for some reason. The beginning of last summer. I was blissfully ignorant of the steamroller of change already creeping my way. Creeping the world’s way. And I was happy. I was whole. I was clean.
Clean in a way I could never be again. Not after what I’d seen. What I’d done. Particularly what I’d done here. How many had I sent to their maker? How many deserved it?
All, I tried to tell myself. But that was Del talking, exhibiting the one flaw I could find in his character—a streak of moral absolutism. It was a trait both admirable and damning. He had been able to manage a life lived that way, maybe through the isolation he’d chosen for himself. No matter where he worked over the decades, he had his singular realm to retreat to. From him, because of him, I had found the will to do what I had.
I would be judged, I knew. But not there. Not then. With effort I returned to me feet and walked back through what had been Whitefish. I came upon no more survivors. I had done what I’d set out to.
Fourteen hours later I reached my refuge. With the last of my energy I cleaned the gunshot wound that had, from a quick examination, passed between my open lips and exited the back right of my jaw. I could barely open my mouth, spikes of agony erupting each time I tried. I wept as I swabbed the entrance wound inside my cheek with the strongest antiseptic I had. Wept and felt my head begin to swim. With shaky haste I caromed off walls and furniture and, fumbling my way down the hallway to my bedroom, tipped sideways onto my bed, blood soaking the pillow and mattress as I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When I woke two days later I found a few sheets of paper and penned my last testament, no point in calling it a will. There was nothing to pass on, and no one to pass it on to. Somewhere in the rambling document I asked God for forgiveness. That night the sky turned black and stabbed at the earth with lightning and shook all around me with thunder.
It seemed to me I’d received the answer to the pardon I’d sought.
Forty
Summer came and went. I mashed food as I prepared it, slipping ever smaller bits past my lips. What I managed to swallow kept me alive. Barely.
Heat sizzled across the parched landscape. The winds that Layton had waited on ripped through the mountains. Dry lightning set patches of the matchstick woods ablaze across the valley. I watched smoke rise, a dark grey column climbing into the sky. For days I wondered if the wildfire might blow my way and visit upon me what I’d arranged for Whitefish, but soon the smoke tower laid down to the east as the flames were dragged that way by the winds. I was spared.
For the moment.
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Every day I grew weaker. In the high heat of the season I found that I needed a fire even mid-day. My bones ached with a persistent chill. When I had the strength I cut wood. When I didn’t I broke pieces of furniture. Once or twice a week I turned the television on and listened to the static where the Denver station had been.
The first week of September, the static went quiet and a darkness appeared on screen. Not total, some faint light hinting that I was still seeing the news studio. The chromed edges of the anchor desk gleamed weakly. One of the monitors mounted high on the wall beyond flickered slightly. It seemed empty as I stared at it.
It was not.
The figure slouched about in the near distance, weaving between desks in the working newsroom behind where the anchors once sat. Man or woman I could not tell in the dim space. They pulled drawers open and pawed at the contents, their form and actions lost in complete shadow more often than not. Still, I knew that they were there. I could hear them.
A microphone somewhere in the studio was picking up their movement. Their breathing. Even their voice. So thin and distant it was, though, that little could be determined from it. I turned the volume all the way up until the television speakers hummed, but all that did was make the unintelligible loud. Slipping from my place on the couch I slid across the floor until I was just inches from the screen, my hollowing eyes trying to peel through the darkness a thousand miles to the south.
The figure stepped from the full shadow and into some semblance of light. A wisp of it, at least. It was a man, I thought. Or at least the features of the head made me think so. And the voice now, it came through louder, closer to some microphone, the words breathy, but also sounding male beneath the vacant tone. And they were saying something I could just make out.
