by Doug Burbey
"Well, sir, when The Horde emerged it didn't really blow anything up, it just ripped everybody to fucking pieces. I think the smoke we are seeing is from the humans that stayed to fight with the infantry divisions before they were killed. It's not like the Air Guard base there was engaging them in ground combat. Most of the birds had already left for Wright-Patt to see if they could do anything at all to help Chicago."
"Yeah, I get that, Esper. It's just that you'd figure the complete destruction of a city would have more smoke. That's all I'm saying."
"Understood, sir. By the way, Lieutenant Colonel Kenner here has some bull shit issue with your request for battle mage support to send back family messages." Major Esper glared at Declan.
Great. Thanks, Eric. Way to set me up. Dick.
"DK, I swear by every last drop of blood in my body, if you don't get that stick out of your ass about non-combat mage uses, I'm going to shove another one in there."
"Sir, with all due respect," Declan started to say and John Reynolds cut him off.
"Screw the due respect crap. What the fuck is your problem, DK? Magic is a damn tool and we can't afford to not use it for things besides just killing demons, just because it might bite us at some later point. We'll all be dead, so it won't fucking matter." John's close-cropped silver blond hair was speckled in dried blood as he got in Lieutenant Colonel Declan Kenner's face. "So, figure out which stick is more painful to remove, the one you have, or the one I'm going to shove up your ass." The last words came out as a growl.
"You haven't seen what it does, you don't know the cost to your guys if they live." Declan stared back, circles under his eyes, the sun reflecting off the beads of sweat on his scarred shaved skull.
"And I don't care. There is no cost if we don't fucking survive."
The two men glared at each other and Declan threw up one hand in a sharp gesture. "Fine, I'll let the men know it's available, but I'm not fucking using it." The last word almost a snarl as the men stared at each other.
John sagged , rubbing his hand over his face and two days of rough stubble. "Understood."
A loud rumble of roars caused both men to turn and look into the distance, as a blood harvester started edging up the highway, a few miles away still, towards the soldiers. The demons surrounding it did their equivalent of cheering, the sound cutting across Declan's soul. Blood drained from both their faces and John closed his eyes for a brief second, then snapped them back up.
"Go, let them know of the offer, then let's go send those bastards back to the hell they came from."
"Yes, sir. And, John?" Declan said as John Reynolds started to turn away. "Thanks for still caring."
"They're my men, DK. Besides, I want to send a message to my daughter. Give her something to remember, cause I don't think I'll see her again."
The image of a girl with two different colored eyes and funky blond hair in a pony tail flashed through DK's mind, and he sagged.
Maybe if I had someone to send a message to, I'd care more.
"Understood, sir." His voice low as the might have been's were burning to ash ahead of them.
"Yeah. Declan, take care of the SSAU end and go make sure they pay for every drop of our blood they harvest. With luck we'll leave something for our children to inherit."
"With pleasure, sir." Declan tossed him a salute, meaning it, and made straight for his remaining SSAU troops waiting with the cluster of pick-up warriors they'd grabbed as they went through.
"Captain Turuk!" Declan yelled at the exhausted Canadian battle mage sitting on his truck hood. "Get with Colonel Reynolds, and what is left of his brigade, and go ahead and try that distance messaging crap."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure it will…" The Captain started.
DK just brushed past him heading towards his senior noncommissioned officer.
"I don't give a shit… Just go and do it. If it makes them feel better maybe that's something. You have ten minutes then we're back on the line. Master Sergeant Evans, unload the vests. I'm ordering the final protocols to go in effect."
Master Sergeant Evans stared at Declan for a few seconds without blinking. He appeared to be ready to argue, but then resignation washed over his face. "Yes sir, we'll start unloading the trucks and passing out the suicide vests."
"Thank you, sergeant. Wounded, pick-up warriors, active fighters. Everyone. After that… Well, everyone goes onto the line to support Colonel Reynold's tanks. No reserve. We'll buy Chicago some time. It's all we can do."
Declan looked around the pitiful remains of his SSAU team. There was not a single member of his original team remaining.
Where's Shane?
Annoyed he had to go track down people he stalked towards the last place anyone remembered seeing Shane.
I don't have time for this shit. I need him out there casting god-damned fireballs.
The truth of the statement ate as him as he strode towards the tents. Declan entered the small staging tent that was erected for people to get a moment of rest, or privacy and saw Shane in the middle of stripping off his uniform and shoving things into a rucksack.
Where the hell does he think he's going?
"What's up?" Declan asked, but hoped the answer was not what he was seeing. Shane didn't even pause in his actions.
"I'm done. Leaving. You need to come with." Shane wasn't even looking at him as he spoke.
Declan struggled to maintain control over his emotions and forced himself to respond slowly. "What? You can't just leave us. You're one of only three mages we've got left. We need you."
"We're all fucking dead, DK. And if I'm going to die, I'd rather do it balls deep in some woman and so drunk I don't feel it coming." Shane whirled and gestured in the direction of the portal, pants in a pool around his feet.
"We can't defeat them. You know it. So, fuck this, everyone I've known, everyone I've cared about is dead. You're the only person left I even give a damn about, but I'm not staying. We can't win, all we can do is die and we can't even die well enough to make a difference to that damn horde."
Declan took two steps towards Shane. "Fuck you, Gris. If we can delay them even a few hours we can save the people that are fleeing. Give the government time to get some rail guns here and more PASKEs for the howitzers to hit the horde inside the portal."
"Why?" Shane almost screamed it, getting in Declan's face. "We're all dead. If not today, then tomorrow, or the next day. You've seen the other side of the portals. We're almost out of weapons, we can't produce them as fast as we use them. The military is almost out of people, we've lost almost seventy-five percent of our forces fighting these portals. Hell, Europe and Asia have lost fucking millions of troops and for what? We're walking dead people, they've won. Every one of us can die here and it won't make a difference. Why die to give strangers, people we don't give a damn about, a few more hours of fear?"
Son of a bitch. We can buy everyone more time. Just stay with me brother, please.
"R&D is working on more stuff. The portable rail guns are making a difference already when paired with the PASK-Es. We'll find something that pushes them back." Even as he begged Declan doubted that would ever happen.
We're almost done with. But we have to fight to the end. It's our fucking duty.
Shane nearly scoffed. "Oh, please. They ate fucking nuclear weapons and got stronger! We killed more of us than them with that dumb-ass idea. What the hell are we going to come up with? We're done, and you know it."
Declan was done with this bullshit and shoved his face in front of Shane's. "Fuck you. This is what we signed up for, remember? To lay our lives down to protect our country, our people. You saying you are breaking your oath? Well, then I'll see you in hell, cause I'll be here doing what I agreed, and if that costs me my life so be it." He took a step back and glared. "I thought I knew you. The Shane I knew would never have turned his back on his oath or his brothers."
The sneer on Shane's face as he answered was more painful to Declan than any wound he had taken so far. "Th
e Shane you knew hadn't watched people he cared about torn to pieces, their blood being siphoned to fuel a demon horde. The Shane you knew hadn't learned how to take demon blood and let it twist him so he could control fire and kill things that came from our deepest mythologies. The Shane you knew hadn't seen tens of thousands of demons waiting to come through that portal and kill us all. That man died and good riddance. He was weak and kept thinking he could make a difference. Well one man, two men, hell a thousand can't make a difference. All we can do is die. All you have left is strapping suicide vests on wounded personnel and civilians, giving them a heartwarming speech on having to hold the line so others may live. Just more dead souls to your credit in the end. That's all any of us have left."
It's down to this and now I'll die alone.
"Well then, I'll die protecting my country, my brothers, and my oath. Yes, while holding the line as long as I can." Declan snarled and turned, storming out of the tent. His duty was to turn around and put a bullet in Shane's head for deserting, but he couldn't. That final step proved too much, instead he focused on what needed to be done.
Ten minutes later Declan, emotionally somewhere between shell shock and boiling rage, arrived at the side of the road where a hastily assembled medical aid station had been set up. There were about two dozen surviving members of the 1st Infantry Division being tended to by a couple of medics. They had been wounded early in the battle and then evacuated before Detroit fell. The medics tried to make them comfortable, but without air evacuation, or medical supply replenishment, there was nothing the medics could really do. Saving them wasn't an option.
"Who's in charge here?" Declan scanned the medic's uniforms trying to find an officer or NCO in the group. But their uniforms were all stained with dried blood making it hard to make out any ranks.
"That would be me, sir. Staff Sergeant Kirby." The exhausted voice of a young medic replied as she stopped talking to the wounded soldier on the ground and stood to face Declan.
"How many soldiers do you have here Kirby?"
"I've got seven medics and thirty-two wounded sir."
"Have all your medics stop what they're doing, head over to those trucks, and help unload." Declan pointed to where the vests were being unloaded fifty meters away. "The final protocol is in effect. You will assist in getting all the wounded in their vests. If they are unconscious, then you will put it on them and set the dead man's switch.
"No fucking way…" The medic's face blanched, then reddened, but she cut her outburst off immediately when Declan tapped his carbine's trigger guard.
"You have no choice soldier. We will do what has to be done."
"Sir, but they can't fight!"
"No, they can't." Declan felt as if the entire universe was squeezing his soul and crushing the last of its light out of him. "But they can kill a few more demons, one last time."
Declan struggled to maintain his composure. As the medic look like she was about to start protesting again.
God, you don't owe me a thing, but please forgive the sin I'm making these soldiers commit. It's not their own sin, but mine alone.
"Colonel?"
The medic and Declan both stopped and turned to the weak voice of the wounded man lying on the ground near them.
Declan turned and got down on one knee next to the wounded soldier.
"I'd like a vest please." The soldier struggled to sit up but fell back to the ground. "I want to fight one last time sir."
Declan saw the blood-soaked compression bandage the soldier's chest and was amazed he was still conscious.
"Where are you from soldier?"
"Baltimore sir."
"Ah, Ravens fan? Myself I'm a Detroit Lions fan."
The soldier laughed weakly, coughed up blood, then glanced down the road to where Detroit once stood. "No disrespect sir, but I think your team's season is now totally fucked."
Declan tried to smile. "Well, I guess that 0-16 season in 2008 doesn't seem so bad now in retrospect."
The soldier coughed out a half laugh.
The grating roar of the approaching demon horde sounded again as it began to move rapidly towards the assembly area. Declan heard all of Colonel Reynolds remaining tanks fire up their jet turbine engines. The unique sound of their tracks rolling over concrete, as they positioned themselves in a line, signaled that the fight was about to begin again.
The wounded soldier's eyes fluttered closed then opened back up slowly. "Sir, can you set my vest for me? I don't think I can manage it myself and from the sounds of it. Well. It's time sir."
The medic had returned and handed Declan two suicide vests then walked away and began to place them over more of the wounded.
"You got it trooper. One for you. One for me."
"We'll make them pay for messing with us, sir." The soldier said slowly as he drifted back into unconsciousness. Declan draped the suicide vest over the soldier and set its deadman trigger switch. As soon as a demon bumped into the soldier, it would be blown to hell and back by six pounds of plastic explosives wrapped in heavy ball bearings.
Pay they will, son.
Declan snapped his own vest to the front of his ammo carrier then turned to walk towards the sounds of John Reynolds tanks that were now shooting the last of their main gun rounds towards the approaching demon horde.
~~~~
The battle had intensified fast and Declan found himself in the middle of it, killing demons with a fluid grace.
Awwww damn!
Declan rolled away from the ball of fire as the tank exploded across the road from him showering the immediate area in fire and metal shards. The explosion sent ripples through the now heavy blood rain.
"Knight 6, this is DK! John, you there?! Bravo 7 is blown!" Declan tried to yell over his radio to the tank commander, but the portal's interference bubble to the north side of the road was already big enough to cut off their radio communions.
Shit, shit, shit.
Declan tried to get an understanding of what was going on around him. He had to fight to keep his mind thinking rationally as every vehicle around him was either burning or being overrun by demons. All semblance of resistance was gone. There was nothing left but the demon horde sweeping over them, explosions and fire.
Declan looked past the wall of teeth and claws and glimpsed the top of John's tank turret. He manned the fifty-caliber machine gun next to his commander's hatch. He was exposed but fighting like a warrior singularly possessed with the need to kill the enemies of mankind, when his tank erupted in a blue-black burst of electrical fire.
Good-bye John.
Declan fired into the mass of demonic flesh directly in front of him as the weapons bolt locked back and he dropped the spent magazine. He reached for his ammunition harness for another magazine.
Empty.
Now, with nothing ahead but the end, Declan let the rage take him. He could feel the hard, hot, wet claw pulling him back as it ripped into his neck and a stabbing pain through the armor covering his side. The massive rune covered demon in front of him, swinging what appeared to be a large hammer towards his head, seemed to be almost too vivid and clear.
He surrendered his mind totally to the rage.
Finally…it's over.
And flipped the switch on his final protocol vest.
White……….
~~~~
What? Leave me alone I'm tired. Go away.
The yanking on his neck was pulling Declan from his sleep.
Wha…
The pulling was persistent. Declan slowly open his eyes and squinted at the rush of light from the bright blue sky above him
"Huh… too bright." He croaked. His voice cracked and painful in his throat.
"Shit!" A startled male voice came from above him as he felt his metal identity tags drop down onto his chest.
"Mom! Dad! This one is alive!" He heard the voice again as Declan open his eyes again to see a perfect blue sky. But it was filled with circling black birds. The sweet acrid smell of bur
ned flesh filled his nose.
The panicked voice kept shouting. "Hurry, he's moving!"
Declan moved his head slightly and saw a young man wearing a scarf over his face. He was waving at someone and held a metal loop filled with military identifications tabs in his hand. Looking around he saw that he was surrounded by nothing but the dead. Demon and human alike. The fires were all out. The blood rain had stopped. Nothing but cold burned-out wreckage and thousands of corpses were left of the battlefield now.
A small group of people stopped tossing bodies into a huge crack in the earth on the side of the highway. Remnants of the life people had once led here lay scattered on the ground.
That wasn't there a second ago.
"What? Water… Please." Declan managed to whisper to the man staring at his face.
The young man pulled a water bottle from his backpack and began to open it.
"What happened here, mister? Everyone is dead, even the demons. Now there's a giant hole where Ypsi is supposed to be. Everyone is gone, but you. How did you survive?"
Declan reached out and grasped the water bottle. Surprised that his arm and hand had actually moved.
"I didn't. I died." He managed to croak out before he dropped the water bottle and the world around him went dark again.
Chapter 16
December 23rd, 2016 Walter Reed Medical Center, Maryland
Declan sat in the overstuffed chair staring out the hospital office's barred window barely listening to the navy psychiatrist.
The white-coated navy officer tapped at a digital note tablet on his lap as he continued. "Now I know you are not allowed to discuss the weapon system that the Army used at Ypsilanti, but I'm concerned about any possible medical effects it may have had on you. Witness accounts described an intense dome of glowing energy that spread like a nuclear fire centered just south of the city of Ypsilanti Michigan after Detroit fell. But all the reports said it wasn't nuclear."