by Bible, Jake
Jesus, how much ammo do we have left?
The Consortium soldiers are surprised by the attack. Probably more surprised by the small numbers coming at them more than the actual attack itself. Who in their right mind would send barely a dozen men and women up against an army of hundreds?
Then it hits me. Hundreds. There are a lot of soldiers, but not the thousands that were coming at us. How the hell did we cut them down so fast?
I look at Stella and point at the army. I hold up my hand and tick off my fingers then point again. I slowly lower my fingers and hope she gets what I’m saying.
“I have no idea what you are saying,” she says.
Doesn’t matter. All academic anyway. Their numbers are in the hundreds, not the thousands. I’ll take the miracle and shut the fuck up.
I see a man aim his rifle at Lourdes then watch his head vaporize. The heads of the soldiers directly around him vaporize as well, about fifteen in all. The soldiers that still have their heads stop fighting and whirl about, looking for where the attack is coming from. They last all of point one second before they go all headless chic. Bodies are dropping so fast I can’t keep up. Lourdes and her people aren’t even fazed by it.
“Good idea putting some of the sisters up high,” John shouts at me. “They may be good hand to hand, but damn if they aren’t almost better with rifles.”
I give him a thumb-up. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’ll take the credit if it’s being offered.
He doesn’t see my thumb-up since his eye is to his scope and he’s too busy getting all sniper with it. See what I did there? I switched out jiggy with sniper. I’m hip. Shut up. If I say I’m hip then I’m hip! Fuck all y’all!
I am about to really agree with John, seeing more and more heads go kasplooshy, but then it’s like a juggernaut is moving up through the soldiers. Like some invisible force is just shoving them aside, rolling them like waves, ripping through the army as if it’s not a force made of highly armed men and women.
Then I see a flash of blonde hair amongst the helmeted black of the Consortium. A flash of red hair. A flash of a brunette bob. More blonde, but curly.
The sisters are in it now. Not just shooting from up high (wherever up high is), but now in the thick, in the middle, ripping, shredding, kicking, and killing.
That’s when I realize a very significant fact. It’s probably something the others have already realized. Shit, I probably already realized but don’t remember.
The Consortium may have the numbers, but we have the training. Or at least the sisters and some of us have the training. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m trained in the deadly art of combat. More importantly, I wouldn’t say that about the Consortium soldiers, either.
I look about and see a pair of binoculars on Stella’s belt. I point at them and she frowns. I roll my eyes and give her a pitiful look. She acquiesces and hands them over to me. I take a quick look and smile then hand the binoculars back to her.
“They’re just regular people,” I say. “Survivors like us. Not a fucking army of soldiers.”
Stella sighs. Right. She has no idea what I’m saying.
But even so, I’m right.
The soldiers... No, wait. The “soldiers” are emaciated. I needed the quotes there. If I had two hands, I could do air quotes. I should get some sort of prosthetic for that. Everyone would love it if I could do air quotes all the time.
Anyhoo, they look sickly, like they’ll drop dead at any second. Some of the men and women are barely standing up. They sway on their feet until they get hacked to death by the sisters or get their brains blown out by the sisters or get hacked or shot by Lourdes’s folks.
Long story short: we are kicking their ass with our smaller numbers.
Of course, there is always a grey cloud inside the fucking silver lining. Stupid clouds.
“Oh, fuck me,” I mutter. Pretty sure it sounds like “gubble flup flup.” My ears are starting to get used to how I actually sound. With some luck maybe there’s a pattern and I can create my own language. I’m sure that’s just what everyone wants to learn, some Jacese.
The fuck me was because through the smoke and blood of the battle I can see something coming. It cares about as much for the pitiful soldiers as the sisters do, crushing them with abandon as it rolls forward.
Guess what it is? No, come on, you have to guess. Fucking guess!
Fine, fine, I’ll tell you.
A tank. A big beige tank. The Consortium must have picked it up at an Iraqi War yard sale. Unlike the soldiers, though, it looks legit and ready to fuck us all up.
The first shot goes wide and long, blasting apart what looks like a set of campus condos. Cracked, red tile flies up into the air and a geyser of flames shoots out towards the road behind us. None of us are hurt, but it sure as fuck makes us realize that probably won’t be the case the next time it fires.
Which it does in about three seconds.
The shell screams towards us and I’m ready to kiss my ass goodbye, but it misses again. Once the dust and smoke clears, there’s a fifteen foot wide hole in the Turnpike. I look about and we are still unharmed, but the barricade has started to shift and crumble from the impacts. You can only rock and roll so long before things fall apart.
“Fall back!” Stuart yells and everyone at the barricade gets up without hesitation.
We’re turning and running as the third shell hits. Bulls-fucking-eye!
The barricade is gone in a flash. Hunks of concrete and furniture and whatever else it was made of fly past us. I catch something across my spine and scream as pain radiates up and down my legs. I tumble to the ground and lie still for a minute, my ears ringing and my back telling me I’m not a young man anymore, so why the fuck did I decide to get in the middle of an apocalyptic war? Stupid, old man.
I still can’t hear worth a shit when Stella helps me to my feet. I can stand and I can move, but doing both hurts like a motherfucker. We keep running, or really stumbling, along the Turnpike, headed towards Baseline Road.
Without the barricade as a target, the tank is just firing at random, hoping shells blast us into smithereens. Great word that. Smithereens.
A shell lands about ten yards to our right and suddenly I’m flying through the air, Stella by my side, tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, smash!
I’m choking on dust and Stella is on top of me. No, wait, I’m not choking on dust, I’m choking because Stella’s arm is across my throat.
“Sorry,” she says and rolls off me.
The ground is shaking underneath us and I know exactly why. Here comes the tank.
It rolls up towards us and we are fucked because the barrel starts to zero in our exact position. A tank seems a little like overkill, but fuck it, what a badass way to die, am I right?
Then the sound of the tank’s treads is joined by something else. A different sound. A whumpa-whumpa-whumpa sound.
“There!” Stella yells and points up into the sky.
I look up and see one of our choppers fly by. Okay, fly may not be the best word. How about fall by?
The chopper dives straight for the tank and if I thought tank shells were loud, the impact from some chopper on tank action puts that right out of my head. It also nearly puts my head right out of my head. It makes sense. Shut up.
Stella and I roll and roll until we are in a ditch next to the Turnpike. Burning hunks of metal rain down around us, but luckily we avoid getting hit by the fiery shrapnel. We stay there, our arms over our heads, for quite a while until we think the coast is clear.
It’s a painful struggle to get up on our feet, but we make it. Holding on to each other, we stumble back towards the barricade, our mouths hanging open at the sight of the burning wreckage of chopper and tank.
“You okay?” Reaper yells as he comes up to us. He pats us down, which is a little invasive, then nods as he realizes we aren’t wounded. Well, not anymore wounded than usual. He sprints off to find those that are.
We make it
around the wreckage and through the remains of the barricade. It’s probably not the best idea, heading back to the fighting, but neither of us hesitate in the slightest. We have to see what’s happening.
There are moments in your life that will always be etched in your mind. Like a photograph has been permanently exposed against the grey matter of your brain.
The dead lie everywhere, ours and theirs. There are a few people standing and I am more than glad to see that they are our people. Some of the Consortium soldiers are still living, but they are sitting on the ground in groups with Lourdes’s people covering them with whatever firearms are handy.
None of the soldiers look like they have the strength or will to put up a fight anymore. I have a feeling they have figured that the glory that Camille promised them isn’t going to happen. They just marched halfway across the continent to get their asses handed to them by a rag tag group of survivors. Yes, we are badass, but we’re still rag tag.
I want to cheer and whoop and holler at what I’m seeing, but the tone of it all stops me. The mood isn’t celebratory. The mood is tense and frightened. Our feet scrape along the cracked asphalt, making enough noise that some people turn and see us coming. The looks on their faces tell me more than I want to know.
Ahead, as the smoke clears, stands our son. Charlie. But he’s not alone. He’s standing there next to a woman that I haven’t ever seen in person, only spoken to on the phone, which was surreal enough. What else is surreal is that I know her face even though I’ve never seen it.
It’s Elsbeth’s face.
Or close to it. It’s much older and there are specific differences like a sharper nose and different eyes, but damn if I’m not looking at Elsbeth thirty years from now.
“Hello, Jace and Stella Stanford,” Camille says, one arm wrapped across Charlie’s chest, the other holding a pistol which is pressed against my son’s temple. “It is good to meet you finally. I am sorry it couldn’t be in a more hospitable environment. And warmer. Why would people want to live up in these mountains? The wind is like a weapon itself.”
“Charlie? Are you alright?” Stella asks.
“Seriously?” he replies.
“He’s fine,” Stuart says, limping up behind us. “Still a smart-ass Stanford.”
“Yes, he is,” Camille says. “I thought you would have raised a more polite southern gentleman, but his mouth and the things he has said to me. Tsk-tsk-tsk. Not gentlemanly at all.”
“How’s this for gentlemanly, you fucking cunt ass bit—”
“Charlie,” Stella snaps. “Be. Quiet. Now.”
He shuts up.
A woman with a 9mm pressed to his head doesn’t scare him, but his mother does. Now that’s a good southern boy.
“What do you want, Camille?” Stella asks.
“Two things,” Camille says.
“You only have one thing to trade,” Stella says. “So choose.”
“I don’t think so,” Camille replies. “I am fairly certain that you’ll give me both in exchange for your son staying alive.”
“Talk,” Stella says.
“First, I want safe passage to the Stronghold,” Camille says. “I get there and inside and I’ll let Charlie go.”
“Why wouldn’t we just kill you once you let him go?” Stella asks. I hiss. She glares at me to shut the fuck up. I do.
“Once I’m inside the Stronghold, I’ll be safe,” Camille says. “I’ll lock it down tight and you will never be able to get to me.”
“Assuming we say yes to that, what is the second thing?” Stella asks.
“I want my daughter with me,” Camille says. “You know how hard it is for a mother to be separated from her child, don’t you, Stella? While I am a goal-oriented woman, I am also a person with a heart. My heart would be broken if I had to spend the rest of my days alone.”
“Will someone just shoot the cunt?” Charlie asks. “Seriously. We have like a dozen perfectly trained snipers. Blow her fucking head off.”
“Charlie,” Stella growls. “Let me handle this.”
“A sniper may be able to get a shot off and end my life, but not before I pull this trigger,” Camille says. “That’s why they haven’t taken the shot. They can see through their scopes that I have the hammer cocked back and even the slightest movement on my part will result in young Mr. Stanford’s death.”
“I know,” Stella says. “That’s why I haven’t told them to blow your head off. And Charlie? Shut up. No more talking. Not a goddamn word out of your mouth until after I kill this bitch.”
“That there is why I admire you, Stella,” Camille says. “You have a strength and confidence that few women have these days. The apocalypse comes along and suddenly it’s a crazy man’s world all over again.”
“Excuse me?” Stella asks, looking around. She catches the eye of each of the sisters as well as Melissa who is standing off to the side, a shotgun in the crook of her arm. “A man’s world? Could you have more of a chip on your shoulder? Do not project your feminine insecurities onto my world, Camille. At no point has this apocalypse turned into a man’s world. You are insane to think so.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Camille says and shrugs. I gasp at the shrug since it jostles the gun in her hand. A wicked grin grows on her face as she catches my fear. “But, I guess having to take care of a man like Jason Stanford may be why you think it’s not a man’s world. He’s hardly a picture of strength and virility.”
“Go fuck yourself, you slimy, privileged psychopathic cunt nugget,” I say. I know it sounds nothing like that.
“Oh, dear, and his wit is gone now too,” Camille mocks. “Just another burned-out moron waiting out his days. How sad for you.”
“I can let you get to the Stronghold,” Stella says.
“Stella,” Stuart warns.
“Be quiet, James,” Stella says. Ouch. First name slap down. “I can let you get to the Stronghold, but there is nothing I can do about Elsbeth. She has to choose if she wants to go with you or not.”
“I know she will,” Camille says. “My sources have said she is quite fond of this boy. He is family, as she has put it.”
“Sources?” Stella asks.
“Did you think I just left you all alone in your mountain town?” Camille laughs. “Did you think there weren’t people following you and reporting back to me? You’ve seen the resources at my disposal. Simple surveillance equipment was hardly an issue.”
“Then you know she won’t let you live the second that door to the Stronghold closes,” Stella says. “She’ll slice you open and then join us.”
“No, she won’t,” Camille says. “She’ll come with me and she’ll stay with me. Once that door closes, it will not open again for a very long time. I doubt she’ll want to spend the rest of her days with my rotting corpse.”
Stella doesn’t respond. Camille doesn’t add anything. Arguments have been made on both sides, so now we just stand here in the middle of a scorched street-slash-battlefield. There are two powerful women holding the fate of my son’s life in their hands.
Actually, make that three powerful women.
“Camille,” Elsbeth says as she walks across the road.
Where the hell she’s been, I have no idea, but she sure has taken her sweet-ass time getting here.
“Carly,” Camille beams. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to see you.”
“Elsbeth,” Elsbeth says. “That’s my name, Camille.”
“That is not your name,” Camille says. She’s not exactly angry about it, but there is a tone in her voice that says she is not to be argued with on the point. “Your name is Carly Michelle Thornberg.”
Elsbeth sighs. It’s a true, full body sigh. Her shoulders lift and fall, her body goes slack and I can see the exhaustion coming off her in waves. Yet, as there always is, I can also see that spark that makes Elsbeth Elsbeth.
“My name is Elsbeth,” Elsbeth says. “Call me that or do not call me anything, Camille.”
“I
refuse to address you by a name that some perverted, backwoods redneck gave you,” Camille snaps. “You are from a family that has deep history in this country. You will not belittle that by accepting a false name.”
“Not a false name,” Elsbeth says. “It’s my name, Camille.”
“No, it is not,” Camille says and that calm is long gone. Nothing but venom in her voice now. “And stop calling me Camille! I am your mother! You will call me Mother!”
“No,” Elsbeth says. “I won’t, Camille.”
“Stop that!” Camille shouts.
“El...” Stella cautions.
Elsbeth’s hand twitches slightly and Stella backs off.
“I will not call you by a name you do not deserve,” Elsbeth says. “You gave me away, Camille. Just like all the parents of my sisters gave them away. You sold us to a program that would make you greater, not us. Our greatness wasn’t your concern, was it?”
Camille’s face is red. She’s itching to respond, but she holds her tongue.
“You used us,” Elsbeth says. The sisters move in closer to her. “You used us all and left us to die when the world fell apart.”
The twang in Elsbeth’s voice is slowly going away. I can start to hear the person she used to be before Pa found her. There is a distinct Yankee accent coming forward.
“You let us be warped by that man,” Elsbeth continues. The sisters are all now shoulder to shoulder with her. “You let us be cut into and brainwashed us. He drugged us, tortured us, made it so we wanted the pain, so we wanted the agony of his voice around us at all times. He did the dirty work, but it was all you in the end, Camille. Do not think for one second I don’t know that.”
“Stop calling me Camille,” Camille whispers, almost too quiet for us to hear. “Say it again and I kill the boy.”
“Fine,” Elsbeth says and I tense. “I won’t say it again.” I relax. “But I will not call you Mother either. I have a mother. I have someone that has been true and kind and has risked her life for me this past year more times than you did my entire life.”
Elsbeth looks at Stella. My wife has tears in her eyes that spill down her dirty, soot coated cheeks.