Sergeant Wills looked down the street, like he was expecting more trouble, another alpha male leading a gaggle of Burners. “We got all the residents to douse their lanterns, candles, Christmas lights. We had a scout who arrived at the baseball diamond as you started shooting. We were headed there when we found this neighborhood was likely in their path.”
“Do you know this area very well?”
“Not at all. I took a good guess, based on past experiences.”
“Are you guys cops?”
“Cops by day. Patriarchs by night.”
Part II
THE STUFF OF DREAMS
11
Wonderment
If he had saved her, he wasn’t sure how he had accomplished it. He hovered above the trees, watching the scene of survival below. Was it his sheer will? He never saw the men waiting between the houses until they opened fire. He cursed himself for his blindness. If he could have helped anyone, it would have been his men, especially Mad Pedro. It seemed less likely that his will had anything to do with the outcome.
He jumped in slow motion from rooftop to rooftop. He had been cheated. By what? By whom? He laughed at the answer he received. He was the only real power in this otherworld.
Still, his anger grew, and he hunted down many of the men whose souls drifted above the snowy street, shocked, wandering aimlessly after their quick end.
12
Another Kind of Journey
As the girls slept, Cricket sat with Sister Marie and Fritz at the kitchen table. A single lantern illuminated not only their faces but their moods, profound and sad, revealed by long spaces between questions and answers.
Sister Marie lay her hand atop Cricket’s. “I’m so sorry you were faced with such a decision.”
Cricket stood up and turned up the lantern. The darkness felt suffocating.
“I took an innocent life because he was suffering… so unbelievably.”
Sister patted Cricket’s hand, saying, “In the past when people were burned at the stake, an executioner would hasten the victim’s end by a cord around their neck that passed through a hole in the middle of the stake. The executioner would take hold of the rope and thereby strangle the poor soul. No more was to be done. No eleventh-hour escape or reprieve. No change of conditions. A terrible end was mercifully shortened.”
“And I’m that executioner.”
Fritz said, “I would have done the same thing. Except I would have taken a few more moments battling over another course of action that didn’t exist.”
Cricket replied, “I always hated the people, the mercy killers, who want to end the life of a person dying of cancer or some painful illness. Am I part of that crowd now? Doing people in who are suffering and helpless?”
Cricket’s face burned with tears. She tried to hold back the sobs roiling in her chest. She shook her head and said, “Don’t want to wake up the girls.” Fritz immediately rose and bent over her, kissing her wet face.
“The difference,” Sister said, “is that a terminally ill person isn’t tied to a stake and surrounded by people enjoying their torment, offering no consolation, no words of hope and love, lightening their burden with strong drugs. A person in a hospital bed or at home is starting a new journey, and their final hours or days of pain can be mollified, but their lives should never be cut short by the hubris of some know-it-all.
“Remember, Cricket, there are times of pain all throughout life. Saint John Paul the second, a man who enjoyed physical beauty and strength well into his later years, allowed the world to see his body failing, falling apart. A moment of great individual courage. That soul tonight was cut off from humanity, a black world of despair and suffering. He was surrounded by the worst of humanity, insane for blood.”
“You seem to know a lot about burning at the stake, Sister.” Cricket said this with no sarcasm. “Why would you subject yourself to such knowledge?”
“We have to face our dark days of the past. The Church, our European kings and queens, those of authority. Cruelty is our default position as humans. Without our connection to God, to the love of Christ in the New Testament, any of us can fall prey to evil. Tonight there was no cruelty in your actions, or worse, some high-minded falsehood about playing God.”
Fritz poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the counter and brought it to his wife.
“I’d like to meet the man who was behind the elimination of those savages tonight.”
“That’s Sergeant Wills.” Cricket thought for a moment on the serendipity of being saved and finding one of the good guys, or so she hoped. She had been escorted home by two of the sergeant’s men. “He’s coming by tomorrow.”
“I’m hoping our mayor-for-a-day is talking about some other band of mad patriarchs,” Fritz said sarcastically. “This fella seems like he’s still trying to protect the citizens of this town. Doing good police work.”
Sister Marie said, “There is so much confusion. Maybe bad things have been attributed to the Patriarchs that have no connection. We need more information. But I’m sure Becca and Angel will be pleased to learn of Sergeant Wills and his men rescuing you.”
Fritz was asleep when Cricket got up from bed and went to the window. She faced the snowy street. A few of the neighbors still had their battery-powered Christmas lights illuminated. It was three o’clock a.m. Cricket was wired yet terribly exhausted.
The girls had stayed fast asleep during her “confession” and strangled sobs at the kitchen table. She had promised the girls another visit with Elaine Givens and a trip to the zoo. Could she trust any of them, especially Becca and Angel? Tomorrow, perhaps the sergeant would enlighten them as to Cincinnati’s stability and the new government of a young woman being named mayor and her counselor, a Mexican furniture tycoon with large, dark eyes.
She was attracted to Angel, and this bothered her. She tried to rationalize her feelings: You don’t stop noticing attractive men because you’re married. I’m madly in love with Fritz, and sometimes the world looks beautiful again—and I notice the beautiful things, like a handsome, suave foreigner, a head shorter than me. What bullshit!
She knelt on the soft carpet, hands on the windowsill, and prayed. She had learned from Sister Marie that the best prayers are the ones that give praise to God and ask for His guidance. It was unnecessary to make a laundry list of desires and fears. She thought of Christ’s birth and the courage of Mary and Joseph. She closed her eyes and could see the baby in his crib: God made flesh. She was there to adore the babe in his manager.
She eyed Hank’s Nativity set. Lily had talked of more presents for the Christ Child. Lee Ann had agreed, and in early evening they had made a small fruit cup scraped from the cans of peaches and pears that had been opened recently for dinner. Sister had brought the fruit cup to the kitchen table to be eaten by Fritz and Cricket before going to bed.
Finishing her prayers, she did ask for something specific: Dear Father in heaven, please continue to protect and make safe the children. She named the girls and also Caleb and Ethan Davies at the Holaday farm and thought of the girl across the street wanting to swap her DVD collection for eggs. And on this night look after all children, everywhere. So many will never have the ordinary stumbles and joys of childhood.
She followed this with an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be.
Back in bed with her new husband, whose light snoring was more sighs with an occasional whistle thrown in, Cricket let her head sink into the pillow. Sleep came quickly, and so did the start of another kind of journey.
Cricket had been gliding over the Ohio River for what seemed like hours when a voice told her she was dreaming. All the sensations of flight came alive, a rush of electricity from head to toe. Though the darkness was complete and no lights illumined the banks where homes sat and the forest began, Cricket saw the buildings and trees with great detail and clarity, a black-on-black world.
Her speed over the water increased. She was being drawn to a specific place; something, someone wa
s reaching out for her, reeling her in. There was a crackle of electricity down her neck and spine, and her abdomen was pleasantly on fire, hooked by an invisible line of energy. She laughed at one point, seeing her arms extended in front of her, a Supergirl heroine. Her own laughter sounded odd, as if coming from underwater.
Structures, abandoned cars and trucks, were immensely fascinating and she wanted to study each angle and surface for an eternity. The same voice that had made her cognizant of being awake in her dream now cautioned Cricket to keep moving her gaze, otherwise she’d wake up.
She finally saw light, a fire close to the riverbank. In front of an open lean-to-style structure of wood were nearly a dozen people in a semicircle. She brought her legs into a standing position and landed on shore, and walked to the most famous gathering of all time.
The people in modern clothes circled the Christ Child and his parents, Joseph and Mary. Cricket stood at the edge of the group. One man rose. He was dressed in a very expensive suit, and he carried a jeweled box.
13
Sergeant Wills
Cricket watched with satisfaction the men in blue outside their kitchen window. At the table sat Fritz and Sister Marie listening to Sergeant Wills recount Cincinnati’s history since the EMP attack. He also included the personal loss of Raymond White, a close friend of the sergeant’s, and the difficulty he’d had in filling White’s shoes.
Predator sat across from Wills at the breakfast table. As they swapped information, Predator connected the prison outbreak that had brought terror to their last home and the city of Marietta to the uptick in violence across the city. Wills agreed and didn’t have much faith in Becca’s attempt to run the city government, politicizing the court. “Out of her league.” He didn’t have much information on Angel and saw him as a suspicious character to be watched. The sergeant believed evil was afoot. “Maybe it’s just the collection of a lot of bad things happening all at once, but I smell the devil behind all this.” Cricket agreed, remembering her dream travels from last night.
The man with the gift for the Christ Child had been Angel. When a wild beast stormed the manger, it was Angel who quickly defended the Son of Man and drove the beast back into the darkness. The beast was Boots, leaving Cricket shocked and saddened when she awoke. Heroes and villains weren’t falling into the patterns she favored.
“The Coyotes don’t have a leader as far as we can determine.” Sergeant Wills spoke directly to Predator and then eyed everyone else at the table. His full beard was neatly trimmed, and he seemed to take up the space of two men, not only in size but in purpose. He had lost his son and wife in the early days after the EMP blast. Savages had stormed his house for treasure and taken his most precious treasures.
“Cricket saw their work up close,” Predator said, thanking Sister Marie, who refilled his coffee from a stash found in the basement.
Cricket said, “Officer Wills, they stalk their victims to learn their ‘sins.’ What savage out for thrills would take the time to learn about some misdeed, or even care?”
“We used to have computers with viruses, now we have people infected with the ‘right ideas,’ passing the infection on to others. There was a starting point, an initiator, a leader if you want to call ’im that. But that leader got lost, became unnecessary. Some ideas are a lot more attractive than others.”
“So, we crush them, savage by savage, like last night,” Cricket said.
“Yes, we have somewhat normal policing during the day, but at night I have a posse, good people who want to protect their families and fellow citizens. I’m getting more men and women to go out with us and protect their neighborhoods and take down the monsters as they surface.”
“Is there a danger of vigilantism?” Sister stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. She had played a number of songs that morning with PJ Bob and Cub Bob, who now had the girls in the finished basement practicing the same songs.
“Always. I had a fella just this morning I let go. A real mean son of a gun. Caught him getting rough with a suspect behind a garage. I almost knocked his block off. But he’s a friend of a friend, and I told him I’d shoot him if I caught him on the street at night.”
“Maybe a case of extreme actions for extreme times,” Cricket said.
“No, I saw it in how he talked about people. At bottom he was hateful, a bigot. He too had a vision for a brave new world: people who no longer agreed with him should be eliminated. He talks a good line about this country’s founding, upholding our values, our Constitution, but he wants all opposition to his way of thinking eliminated. I knew he was upset that I had had a white wife.”
“Small-minded and dangerous,” Sister said.
“Amen to that, Sister,” Sergeant Wills expressed. “Keep an eye out for him. He may surface, small group, sneaking about, doing their thing. He’s far from the biggest threat we’re facing, but he’s still a loose cannon.”
“Giving the Patriarchs a bad name,” Fritz said.
Sergeant Wills nodded.
“Then put him in jail?” Predator asked.
“The court and jail system is in shambles. Some really bad types went before the court and disappeared, and then we caught them with the Coyotes or involved in other criminal behavior. Becca can’t see that real law and order are necessary for stability. She’s getting into dangerous territory.”
The explosion that came made Sergeant Wills reach out instinctively to protect Sister Marie and Cricket. There were shouts around the table, and PJ Bob came running up the steps, the girls behind him. Debris pelted the house like hail. Fritz and Cricket went to the window and saw the unreal image of billowing snow and debris still suspended in the air and the house across the street obliterated. The girl and her mom that Cricket had brought eggs to on Christmas Eve were gone. A few small fires danced where the house had once stood.
“Sister, PJ, get to the basement with the girls,” Cricket yelled. She ran to the back of the house and saw neighbors running from their homes. She didn’t see an invading army, or even a band of Coyotes.
“What the hell was that?” Officer Wills looked to Predator.
“Son of a bitch, it’s a mortar attack!” Predator said.
“Agreed,” Fritz said, staring at the rubble across the street. “A mom and her daughter lived there. There’s no standing our ground, no hiding. Cricket, get the kids and Sister. Let’s get the hell out of here.” The next explosion came farther down the street.
Predator demanded, “All of you go to the church. Cub Bob and I are staying back here to check on the folks.” Wills gave him a thumbs-up.
Cricket ran to Predator and Cub Bob, kissing them both. “Come back in one piece.” She then ran down the carpeted steps to the basement. The girls were huddled on a long couch in front of an extinct TV.
“Everybody, we’re leaving!”
“Where to?” Lily asked.
“The church,” Cricket said.
14
Lucy in the Neighborhood with Mortars
“I need to see better,” Lucy said, and immediately one of the tallest of the slavers offered his services.
The man faced the direction of the explosion, and Lucy nimbly leapt onto his back and positioned herself atop his shoulders in time to enjoy the smoke from the explosion that competed with the snowfall. Other slavers watched their leader with trepidation. Normally, Lucy jumped onto people in order to reshape their faces with her knife or gouge out their eyes. However, this was a sporting event, and she was both spectator and player.
“I’m cold,” Lucy said, scanning the men for the best coat for her to wear. Since she was already over eight feet tall, another six-footer offered his long coat. She put it on and the slaver carrying her on his shoulders disappeared, and she declared: “Lucy the Giant.” A few men repeated the new title; others grumbled and mumbled the new name.
She gave directions for the next shelling. The 60-millimeter mortar’s range was being dialed in by one of her favorites. Ex-army, the short-haire
d captain wore an old World War One aviator’s cap. Goggles hanging from her neck, she was focused on the coordinates she read from a piece of paper. She fine-tuned the sights, the target being a quarter mile distant. She then fastened booster charges to the bombs’ tailfins in order to get the necessary range. In use since World War Two, the mortar had come from a cache of weapons seized in Lucy’s midsummer raid on Beckley’s National Guard base.
Lucy had received clear instructions from Ajax: only a mortar attack, no cleanup. That meant no booty, prisoners, or random acts of lust. Lucy had no problem with the orders. After all, this was a great war with a great purpose, and personal pleasure could not always be gained. One of her captains that morning had disagreed and said that this suburban neighborhood was full of treasure and it was a shame that Ajax couldn’t see that.
The other men, talking amongst themselves, had grown quiet, and Lucy waited for the man to say more, and he did. He thought that greater freedom needed to be given to the operational forces and that Ajax shouldn’t be micromanaging these valiant efforts from some dark corner, dreaming his so-called big dreams.
The silence of the men deepened. This man, this talker, was a natural-born leader himself, could think for himself, and Lucy liked that. But like was not as important as love. And she loved Ajax. Loved the stories of his otherworldly travels and ideas of a new era that he referred to as First Light.
Lucy accepted that some men would never understand that in the dark, so much could be revealed and learned. She would give him a chance to experience this dark new world. She charged the man, who took a defensive posture, knife out. He was surprised by her leap and perhaps imagined he’d impale her on his knife, but she dropped to the ground and ducked between his legs and cut his Achilles tendons. The man fell to the ground in pain and soon felt more devastating losses. His eyes were plucked from their sockets like ice cream scooped from the carton.
American Blackout (Book 3): Gangster Town Page 5
