The Dark Descent

by William Oday

  So this was how a revolution started.

  Had others started this way?

  By a flashpoint of circumstance and not purposeful intent.

  Had other leaders started in the same position of doubt and only in retrospect appeared confident and assured?

  I barely remembered my own name.

  Yes, more events were coming back. But a few flashes of memories were a weak foundation for a leader to stand upon.

  CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

  Bullets pinged off the other side of the barricade.

  Reflexively, I ducked, despite the barricade being tall enough to stand behind.

  A whooshing sound and a wave of heat made us all drop to the ground as a cloud of flames billowed over the top of the barricade. It roiled out and down to the ground behind us.

  A flamethrower.

  One of the more barbaric tools of war.

  General Curtis didn’t just mean to win. He meant to make a point. To make those who opposed him suffer so that others would know what waited for them if they chose the same folly.

  A whistling trail of sparks raced overhead. An instant later, an explosion in the distance echoed around the cavern.

  A rocket propelled grenade.

  The screams of the injured followed.

  Two more trails screamed by and two more explosions shook the marketplace.

  I put the megaphone to my mouth and squeezed the button. “General Curtis, you’re killing innocent people!”

  “Hold your fire!” his voice echoed from their position beyond the barricade and blocking the entrance of the cavern. “Scout, their blood is on your hands.”

  I sidled over to the edge of the barricade and peeked around the corner.

  Seventy feet away, a unit of Grays was fanned out in front of the narrow entrance. All dressed in full battle rattle and armed to the teeth. The front line crouched behind a solid wall of overlapping reinforced kevlar shields. Bullets weren’t going to do more than annoy them. Grenades would’ve made a dent, but we didn’t have any that I’d seen.

  Behind several rows of soldiers stood the general. A squad of soldiers covered him with clear protective shields.

  “Is the fugitive Martinez with you?” Curtis yelled.

  A bullet pinged off the clear shield directly in front of his face.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Martinez at the other end of the barricade with her rifle pinned to the side for added accuracy.

  She shrugged. “Worth a try.”

  The general scowled. “Fire at will!”

  Several soldiers carrying RPGs filed forward and took turns launching them into the cavern. A couple hit the barricade and the metal boomed as it absorbed the explosions.

  It held together, but the screaming around the marketplace made clear others hadn’t fared so well.

  We stayed put behind cover as a hellacious rain of firepower exploded all around. The orange glow of fires reflected off the cavern walls in the distance and the growing cloud of smoke high above.

  The inevitable lull in the fight eventually arrived.

  And I did what had to be done.

  I squeezed the button and lit the fire.

  “Listen to me, Lowsiders! General Curtis has no intention of letting anyone escape! He’s going to kill us all to send a message! The time to fight is now! My name is Scout and I will fight for you! If needed, I will die for you! Join me now if you want to live!”

  The last words echoed around the cavern.

  The sporadic report of gunfire was all that answered.

  At first, anyway.

  And then another sound overtook the gunfire and the crackling of raging fires and the shrieking of the wounded and dying.

  It came from disparate voices here and there around the marketplace. But it quickly grew as more and more joined in.

  Until at last it shook the air and drowned out all else.

  An unleashed fury so mighty it made the ground tremble. A pent up cry that released generations of injustice and transformed and focused it into action.

  They came slow at first, in ones and twos, with righteous rage burning in their chests. Before long, streams of people filed in and filled the lane behind the barricade.

  And they didn’t arrive with only their beating, burning hearts in their chests.

  They came with cold rage in their eyes.

  And they came armed with rifles, pistols, axes, metal bars and other instruments of violent revenge.

  “I’d say we’re ready to roll,” Crypto said as he cranked the steering wheel around and around. Hidden wheels beneath the metal carapace scraped and crunched the dirt as they rotated in place.

  The engine roared and the barricade lurched forward.

  And then I realized that it was no barricade.

  It was an armored vehicle.

  Then the engine coughed and died and stopped.

  Crypto cranked it over and over while bullets and RPGs hammered the opposite side, but it wouldn’t catch. He leaned out. “Push the damn thing!”

  Okay, less an armored vehicle and more a rolling pile of scrap metal.

  The two apes slung their submachine guns over their shoulders and hammered into the side of the vehicle, grunting like they were giving birth. The vehicle started to move.

  “Help them!” I shouted to the others and soon the thing was rolling toward the line of Grays like a massive battering ram.

  I turned back to the crowd of recruited fighters and waved them forward. I yelled into the megaphone, “Use the vehicle for cover and fire at will!”

  Those not pushing it forward squeezed toward the center while Martinez and I held lead positions at the corners. Every time one of the Grays popped up above their line of shields to take a shot, we sent rounds downrange to make them drop back into cover.

  Fifty feet away and the ram was going so fast we had to jog to keep up.

  An RPG shot forward and I ducked into cover to avoid getting my head taken off. It impacted and the explosion took out several people bringing up the rear.

  Now thirty feet away and I could see the terror in the eyes of the first line of Grays. They were about to get run over and they knew it.

  I fired at one that leaned too far beyond the cover of his shield and hit him in the shoulder. He went down behind other shields before I could hit him again to ensure he was out of the fight.

  Their line parted in the middle and collapsed to the sides.

  It was almost like they were inviting us in.

  And then I saw the reason for the change in formation.

  A team of Grays hustled forward with a wheeled gun. The barrel was the size of a sewer main. Fully a foot in diameter.

  We were seconds away from getting annihilated.

  33

  I reached into the cramped pilot cabin and grabbed Crypto by the collar and yanked him out. I shoved him into the arms of one of his guards and then yelled into the megaphone.

  “Run for cover! Now!”

  I took the lead to show everyone. I aimed at the Grays and let loose with a withering barrage while darting sideways away from the rolling vehicle.

  Martinez had already seen the danger and was pulling people away on her side while also laying down suppressive fire.

  Only twenty feet away.

  Maybe they wouldn’t have time to get the big gun into the fight.

  BOOM!

  The concussive force flung me through the air like a rag doll. I hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop. The pipe sticking out of my head smacked the ground more than once sending stabbing pains radiating down my spine. I squeezed my eyes closed and fought to keep from passing out.

  Shrapnel screamed through the air in all directions.

  A splinter hit me in the leg. The metal sizzling as it seared the surrounding flesh.

  I reached down and yanked it out, wincing as it burned the pads of my finger and thumb. I rolled over and watched as the wreckage of the ram, like a battered flower of twisted and sheared
metal splayed out from the impact point, slammed into the Grays.

  It tore through their formation. The metal even more dangerous now that it was a thicket of razor edges.

  I struggled up and fired at the distracted soldiers. One down. And another.

  Martinez appeared at my shoulder and we laid down a hard rain of bullets.

  Others on the ground nearby joined in to press the advantage.

  But the Grays were pulling together again.

  A fierce firefight at point blank range broke out.

  Grays dropped right and left.

  Brave Lowsiders to my right and left did the same.

  But the Grays were better equipped and better drilled. They quickly brought their kevlar shields to bear and took cover while dishing out fire from a protected position.

  Straight into a mass of determined yet doomed resistance.

  It would be over soon.

  With all of us dead or dying.

  The rebellion defeated before it took its first breath. The revolution a flash of resistance before Curtis dealt out his final solution.

  I looked around at the carnage. The inevitable end.

  No!

  I may have screamed it aloud as I grabbed a nearby large fragment of metal. Holding it like a shield, I charged the Grays.

  Alone.

  Knowing the outcome and not caring.

  Bullets pinged off the panel, numbing my fingers.

  A roar behind me and, from the corner of my eye, I saw Martinez and the two apes joining in.

  Seconds later, every surviving fighter had a shield of misshapen metal and was charging at the remaining Grays.

  I slammed into the overlapping crease of two kevlar shields before the two soldiers holding them had time to fire. The impact laid them flat on their backs. I stomped over and kept going into the ranks behind.

  Shots fired and I knew not everyone in the charge would survive. Least of all myself. The idiot leading the charge.

  But if we failed, none of us would see another day.

  A soldier raised a pistol toward me and I slashed the butt of my rifle across his chin.

  He was out cold before his knees buckled.

  A bullet snapped by, inches away.

  I dropped to a knee, bringing the front sight up, and fired as it settled on the Gray targeting me further down the corridor.

  It hit him center mass and he went down. Two more shots hit before he slumped over.

  A knife slashed across my forearm and I jacked an elbow into the neck of the Gray holding it, sending him reeling, choking and clutching his collapsed trachea.

  It was close quarters combat now. No room for a rifle.

  Knife in hand, moving like a snake through water, I weaved in and out of striking distance from one target to the next.

  An endless chain of violent action.

  Time blurred by as both sides fought with malignant and terminal intent.

  Face to face, one or the other fell.

  Until suddenly, it was over.

  One side prevailed and the other collapsed. The rear contingent of Grays surrounding General Curtis beat a hasty retreat. They made it away before I or any of the others could disengage to pursue.

  I wanted to go after them.

  To finish the fight, but I had nothing left.

  My limbs trembled with exhaustion. I fell back against the rock wall, my chest heaving and a heart hammering inside. Blood covered my front side like I’d been hosed down with it.

  I wasn’t sure how much was mine.

  The exertion left me light-headed and I fought to stay on my feet.

  Crypto marched over to a Gray lying on the ground, holding a gut wound that wasn’t going to heal. He slammed a boot into the soldier’s temple.

  Then, as easy as if it was a slice of butter, he ran a blade across the soldier’s throat. He reached down and wiped his knife off on the soldier’s stained uniform before doing the same with his crimson-coated hands.

  A psychopath with a hygiene fetish.

  How original.

  There was silence for a few moments and those of us that had survived, twenty or so that I could see in the immediate vicinity, paused to rest and let the victory sink in.

  And then another cry rose.

  This one jubilant and with a name attached.

  My name.

  Over and over.

  Crypto stepped on and over the dead soldier and approached me with a broad smile on his splattered face. He swept a hand through his wild black hair. The blood smoothed it down like he’d just stepped out of a shower.

  He turned and gestured at the crowd of victorious survivors. “I’d say we’ve got ourselves a fire.”

  I didn’t share his enthusiasm.

  Yes, we’d won this battle but the force we’d defeated wasn’t more than a sampling of the entire security force of Grays. General Curtis had underestimated the strength of the resistance.

  He would be back and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  I didn’t expect we’d survive another full day. And while these people didn’t yet realize it, they wouldn’t either.

  Crypto turned back to me and extended an open hand. “I guess this makes us partners. Blood brothers, if you will.”

  CHOICES:

  1. Shake his hand.

  2. Punch him in the face.

  The group chose #1 and this is what happened next…

  34

  Competing urges played tug of war with my response. A part of me wanted to punch him in the face. Hard. Hard enough to break his nose and maybe even crack the orbital bone around an eye if I got lucky. Something to cause him pain. Something to make him feel the consequences of what just happened.

  But instead, I shook his hand because it was better to have an ally than another enemy. I could count my allies with a single finger. Martinez. I needed more, even if that meant accepting one with a dubious sense of morality and an even more dubious grasp of reality.

  Still, his attitude rankled me.

  I yanked him around and let go. We stood side by side, staring at the destruction of the battle. “This is the beginning, partner.”

  Already, the cries of elation at the unexpected victory had disappeared. The survivors huddled in ones and twos around those lying on the ground. There were several with serious injuries and more that were already gone.

  A woman placed a wadded up blood-soaked cloth under a dying man’s head. Silent tears streaked down her grimy cheeks. She gathered his hand in hers and held tight.

  Small comforts for his final seconds.

  His chest leaked red into the dirt. He spasmed with short airless breaths. Blood bubbled up out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. His eyes wide with a question that would never be asked.

  The woman squeezed his hand and cupped his cheek. She whispered words of soft assurance.

  “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

  She wasn’t trying to deceive him. He was dying, and they both knew it. She was only telling him that dying was okay. That he was leaving and not to worry.

  The man shuddered a final time and went still.

  Only then did the woman’s muted pain find voice. Her sobbing came out in wracking fits of animal agony.

  Further into the marketplace, the orange glow of fires burned here and there. They needed to be put out before they spread and burned the whole place to the ground.

  “Martinez, round up some of these people and help get the fires under control! Send any wounded you find to this location! We’ll triage emergency care and supplies here.”

  “On it!” She got straight to carrying out the mission.

  Screams echoed around the voluminous cavern as the toll of the attack became evident. Some of the sounds were clearly coming from the injured. Other were from the loves ones who’d found them.

  “A lot of people died and more will before it’s over,” I said, to ensure Crypto understood the point I was trying to make.

  He shrugged.
“Don’t be so glum, partner. The suffering that these people endured today has meaning. A higher purpose.”

  I snorted with disgust. “Having survived the battle unscathed, that’s easy for you to say.”

  “Agreed. But people die in utterly meaningless ways every single day. A man keels over from a heart attack. A woman is finally dragged down after long years of decrepitude. A child perishes from a devastating disease. A baby goes cold and still in its mother’s womb. Their lights blink out like sparks escaped from a fire. And, yes, they are all tragedies. But they mean nothing.”

  He surveyed the carnage before us and the disasters unfolding around the marketplace, and then turned back to me. His eyes gleamed with inner light. “This suffering has meaning. And that makes all the difference.”

  “And what if all this leads to nothing? What if today or tomorrow or the next day, we’re all wiped out?”

  It would then be impossible to claim it was worth it. The argument was irrefutable.

  He slapped my arm like we were old chums.

  With effort, I refrained from slapping his head off.

  “Well then, partner, we’d better make damn sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Do you think it’s going to be that easy?”

  “Do you think I’m that stupid? Look at me,” he said as he gestured at himself from head to toe. “Nothing in my life from the minute I was born has been easy. Easy and me aren’t on speaking terms. Whether by choice or circumstance, I have lived the path of most resistance. And I prefer it that way.”

  I stared at him a second, in wonder at how this man could have me agreeing with him one minute and then wanting to smash his face in the next.

  Maybe I should’ve led with my fist instead of that hand shake?

  “I’m going to help the others,” I said as I started off.

  I hadn’t gone three steps when the entire cavern shook with a thunderous explosion.

  It knocked Crypto off his feet and nearly did the same to me.

  I spun around to see a thick cloud of brown particulate dust explode out of the mouth of the exit corridor. The one that General Curtis and the surviving Grays had escaped through moments before.