The Last War

by Ryan Schow

  The Harley’s handlebars were bent, the forks turned slightly, but other than that, the American made hog was built like a tank. It started after a few tries. The Fat Boy hobbled down Sacramento going the wrong way, the bike starting to feel worse for the wear now that Stanton was demanding more of it. He turned the wrong way up Grant and headed for California Street, which was much wider and less congested with rubble and exploded cars.

  Here, the air was clear.

  Finally.

  He worked his way into second gear, but the speed wobble had him fighting the front wheel hard. Half a block later, he stopped fast and hopped off the bike, not caring that it fell over. Convulsion after nasty convulsion rocked his already battered body as he sunk to a knee and began puking.

  With each violent ejection of his grit-coated lunch—and eventually the wet remnants of breakfast—he felt better, less sullied.

  After a few soul draining minutes, he stood, gathered his wits about him, pulled up the Harley and continued up California, keeping an eye ahead for possible alleyways and side streets in case the drones decided to surprise him yet again.

  Within ten minutes, he was on Page street, only a few blocks from Macy’s school. That’s when he saw the Predator drones unloading missiles into the child development center on the corner of Page and Masonic. A sweeping wave of vertigo rocked him so hard he nearly blacked out. Something popped off the forks of the bike and the speed wobble doubled.

  The bike turned hard and toppled, Stanton jumping off just in time to not get caught underneath it.

  The child development center (what Cincinnati called “the CDC” with a bit of humor) was the building right next to Macy’s school. But that wasn’t the only problem. Behind the CDC, a fleet of drones strafed the top of Macy’s school where a dozen or so kids had gathered either for safety, or a better look at what was happening.

  Half the kids went down from being shot while the others looked like they went down for cover.

  His world drew to a swift, jarring halt.

  This isn’t happening, he told himself. But it was. All of it was happening and it was worse than even he could imagine.

  Pawing the dust from his eyes, he fought the urge to panic. Just before the CDC blew up, just before drones lit up the children, he thought he saw Macy.

  He was sure of it.

  Dissecting his memories, the girl he’d seen had long blonde hair (just like Macy), a red sweater over a white blouse and a short black skirt over white tights and black platforms (the same outfit she’d worn to school that morning). When the girl went down (please God don’t let it be my Macy!), he couldn’t tell if she was dropping for cover or falling down dead.

  Drones were suddenly everywhere.

  If he tried to get to Macy, he’d be shot in the street for sure. He was testing the limits of his bravery, but he wasn’t suicidal. Racing up the staircase of one of the homes a half block away he hid, leaning out enough to—

  “Stanton?” a woman said.

  He flashed a crazed look left and saw Cincinnati. She looked like hell, but she was here, alive! He raced down the staircase to meet her. Sobbing, her entire body quaking under the strain of the day, she nearly broke down in his arms as he dragged her up the steps to suitable cover.

  “Is that your blood?” Stanton asked, looking at her face.

  In shock, his wife shook her head back and forth.

  Oh, thank God!

  “They just shot up the school,” he said, not wanting to tell her, but not wanting to keep it from her either. “We need to get up there. I…I think—”

  “What?!” she asked, frantic, her hands digging into his arms, her mind maybe gone from all this. “What do you think?!”

  “I think maybe she might be hurt,” he admitted, wiping fresh tears from his own bloodshot eyes. “I think she’s up on that roof. Or…that she was a minute ago.”

  “Are you sure?” Cincinnati cried, her eyes boiling over with terror.

  Through the smoky haze and flames of the just destroyed child development center, he saw the drones circle once and then fly off. Kids and parents flooded out of the school, most of them injured, some of them burnt, all of them slow moving and crying.

  “Let’s go!” he said, taking her hand.

  Together they hustled down the stairs, running toward the throng of survivors and praying with all their might that their daughter was still alive.

  4

  Class let out for lunch and everyone moved into their respective groups, laughing, gabbing, trading food, ignoring apples and celery and raw broccoli. A deep concussion suddenly vibrated the building and the loud chatter, the white noise of a regular high school, dropped an octave or two before slowly starting to pick up again.

  Then another boom. Two. Closer to the school than before. Three, four and five got everyone’s attention.

  People began looking around.

  They asked questions and made quizzical looks. People were now getting up, heading outside. Macy, Trevor and Janine got up and joined them.

  “We can get on the roof!” Gracie Price said, pointing to a ladder laid on its side from when the building was painted. Janine sidled up to Gracie, the two of them familiar with each other but not friends.

  Gracie was popular and so in love with herself it made half the school sick. The only reason she suggested going to the roof was because she was wearing jeans instead of a miniskirt and she wanted everyone to see her butt.

  “Help me get the ladder,” she said out loud, not moving so much as a muscle to help. Really what she meant to say was, “Ew, someone lift that thing.”

  Janine tried, but the ladder was too heavy. She stood back up.

  Of the twenty or so people gathered outside, two boys came forward, lifted the extension ladder and set it up on the side of the building leading to the roof.

  “Look!” someone said, pointing.

  Everyone looked.

  Rising into the soft blue sky were several plumes of smoke. The bursts and echoes of something big was more regular now, although not as close as the ones that disturbed the school just moments ago.

  “Is it sturdy?” Gracie said as she shook the ladder with her hands.

  The full population of males were so focused on how her jeans hugged her rear so perfectly that they never stopped to consider what would happen if she fell off the ladder and land squarely on it.

  “This is sad,” Macy whispered to Trevor, until she looked up at him and saw him staring as well. She hit him and he startled.

  “What?”

  “It’ll hold,” James Rutherford finally said, clearing his throat and looking away nervously seeing as how Gracie just caught him ogling her.

  “It better,” she said with a smile, moving one foot on the ladder, then the other.

  Leaning in, whispering into his ear, Macy said to Trevor, “It’s like she’s sauntering up the ladder, trying to get everyone to stare like a bunch of sex-starved animals.”

  “Awe,” Trevor quietly teased, “Macy hates Gracie.” And then he gave a soft chuckle. Macy didn’t care for what he was saying, but he wasn’t lying.

  Macy did hate Gracie. In fact, everyone hated Gracie.

  She was beautiful, talented, dating some boy from college and apparently getting ready to save the whales, end world hunger and restore global peace, but only if reruns of Keeping Up With The Kardashians wasn’t on TV.

  People started following Gracie up the ladder, but a few of them stayed behind, saying things like, “No way, I’m scared of heights,” or “I don’t want to get into trouble.”

  “Are you going?” Trevor asked.

  His face was pure anticipation. He wasn’t one to get into trouble, but he wasn’t a no-sack-Patrick either. He had that daring streak to him, but mostly what happened was he dared himself to play a lot of video games and change what used to be a healthy diet to Red Bull and Funions with Ding Dongs for dessert.

  He was only going because Gracie was going.

 
; By now ten or twelve people were already up the ladder, the rest were gone and it was just her and Trevor.

  “The door or the roof, Sunshine,” Trevor said. “What’s it gonna be?”

  Turning, her breath high in her throat with a bit of fear, she looked at him with serious, serious eyes and said, “I’ll go if you do, but you have to catch me if I fall.”

  “I will,” he said matching her intensity.

  “And don’t look up my skirt or I swear I’ll kill you.” He recoiled, giving her that as if! look. “I’m not kidding, Trevor. You have to promise you won’t look.”

  “I promise, I promise,” he insisted.

  It was starting to sound like the fourth of July fireworks and they were missing the show. She could see the agitation in his face, how he wanted to be up there…with Gracie.

  Whatever.

  She started to go and he followed. She stopped, looked down (he was looking straight ahead, working with all his might not to look up), and said, “Remember, you promised.”

  “I’m not looking, jeez. Go already, my freaking ankles are hurting.”

  She was almost up the ladder when the child development center next door exploded in a giant fireball. Macy almost fell. Trevor’s foot slipped.

  The ladder shook hard from them almost falling, then steadied out. Macy could hardly breathe, while Trevor was swearing under his breath below. He looked up to see if she was okay just as she was looking down to make sure he hadn’t fallen.

  It was a completely instinctual thing to do for both of them.

  “Trevor!” she screamed.

  He looked down, slammed his eyes shut and said, “I didn’t…I was just…I was afraid you were going to fall.”

  “You motherfu—”

  Another huge explosion rocked the building, but this time the ladder didn’t shake. They were hanging on for dear life already.

  Freaking out, Macy hurried unceremoniously up the ladder, trying to tuck her skirt under while stepping off the ladder and onto the roof. Trevor stood still, his attention fixed on the burning building to his right.

  “Trevor!” she called. She was worried if something happened to them, Trevor would fall and she couldn’t take that.

  When he finally came up, she was there with an extended hand.

  “You’re going to pretend to help then let me fall,” he said, sheepish, but red faced with fear.

  “I told you not to look,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him up so they could both look at the building next door.

  “There are kids in that building,” he said, his entire demeanor changing. “So maybe you shouldn’t be thinking so much about me seeing your butt in tights right now.”

  She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. The other kids were up there, standing in shock, watching the exploded building burning like a four alarm fire.

  “We should do something,” Gracie suggested.

  Someone said, “You know, Gracie, this is the first time you actually sound dumb.”

  She started to cry, trying to prove to people like Macy she still had a heart. Macy couldn’t stop staring at the school, and then something that looked like a miniature fighter plane zipped down the street heading right for them.

  “The city’s under attack,” she told Trevor.

  It wasn’t so much the child development center next door, but the rising columns of smoke in the distance.

  That’s when the approaching plane opened fire, making her friends dance a minute or two before dropping dead. Seven people just collapsed, including Trevor.

  “No,” she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes flooding. She dropped to her knees before him, watched his eyes looking this way, not sure what was happening but totally out of it. Then he coughed up a bit of blood and started gulping for air, almost like a fish out of water.

  When she was younger, before they moved to San Francisco, her parents had a travel trailer they towed behind a Chevy Tahoe. Vacationing back then was going to KOA campgrounds all along the west coast. At places like that, there was always a nearby lake or some stocked ponds. Her father taught her to fish from one of those stocked ponds and when she caught her first rainbow trout, she reeled it in, so excited she couldn’t stand still.

  When the fish emerged from the water though, her gaze zoomed in on the small metal hook buried in its mouth. Then those same innocent eyes couldn’t stop seeing the blood on its miniscule, almost non-existent lips. Her heart jumped, but in a bad way. Like her chest hurt at the sight of the poor thing.

  “Daddy?” she said, looking up.

  She must have been five or six years old as she stared down at it, gulping for air, in pain and starving for water.

  “Stanton put the thing out of its misery,” she remembered her mother saying.

  He’d used a pair of pliers to work the hook free. He then took the fish firmly by the tail and swung it around, smashing its head into a nearby pine. She’d never get that thumping sound out of her mind, and for some reason that’s all she could think of right then.

  Much to her dismay, Trevor was now that gulping, panicking, dying fish. He had blood splattered all over his lips and there were holes in his body. How was she supposed to help him out of this misery? She certainly couldn’t save him. Kneeling over him, sobbing, she’d held on to his hand until he was gone. That’s all she could do.

  That’s when it dawned on her.

  Looking up, she realized most of these people were dead. Including Gracie. Poor, poor Gracie, the girl with everything but a pulse.

  Maybe Macy didn’t hate Gracie after all, but she did feel bad for all the times she wished someone would knock the girl off her pedestal. Now it wasn’t someone but something, and it hadn’t taught her a lesson as much as it put a giant hole in her pretty little head.

  5

  Parents and teachers and students are pouring out of the child development center as well as Macy’s school. I blaze past a handful of freaked out students all but crashing through the front door, Stanton in tow. I might have knocked into a few of the departing kids, maybe even knocked one or two of them down.

  I didn’t stop. I can’t stop.

  My mind keeps replaying the horrors of the day over and over again, which is getting me more and more worked up to the point where if I don’t pull myself together, I swear to Jesus I might stop breathing altogether.

  Stanton is on my heels as we shove our way down a crowded hall leading to the back of the school and out to the quad. Several students are climbing down a tall ladder, bawling, screaming, blood all over them. They’re babbling incoherently and pointing up to the roof, but they just keep walking.

  “Is Macy McNamara up there?” I hear myself asking frantically. I’m grabbing kids, making them listen to me. Finally one shakes off my grip.

  Maybe that’s why they’re pointing.

  While my mouth is asking questions, my eyes are registering the blood spatter that seems to be on all of them. It could be their blood. Or like me, it could be they’re wearing someone else’s blood.

  I don’t care at this point. I only want to find my daughter.

  “They’re all shot!” a blubbering girl is saying to me on the way by, making matters worse for me. I’m thirty-three years old and about to go into cardiac arrest.

  Just go.

  I head for the ladder, grab the rails and start climbing.

  “Sin, don’t!” Stanton says.

  He’s trying to protect me from whatever it is I’ll find. He also knows me well enough to know that all of hell and the Devil himself can’t stop me from going after her, no matter her condition.

  At the top of the ladder, I see her, sitting down in front of a dead boy (is that Trevor?!), wailing.

  “Macy!” I cry.

  She turns.

  “Mom?” She sees it’s me and says, “He’s dead, Mom!”

  Hunkering down low, Stanton’s on the ladder behind me saying I should grab her, get her down from there quick before
they come back.

  “They” meaning the drones.

  I’m already on it, though. I’m already saying, “Macy, we have to go. It’s not safe up here with those things out there!”

  “Is that blood all over your face?” she asks through a hiccupping/crying jag.

  “Yeah, but it’s not mine. Seriously sweetheart, we need to go, now!”

  Looking over my shoulder, seeing her father, she says, “Dad?”

  “C’mon sweetheart, take your mom’s hand.”

  “But Trevor—”

  “I know, baby,” I hear myself saying. “But please. The whole city is under attack. We need to get someplace less…out in the open.”

  She gives a bumpy, awkward nod, wipes her eyes, then leaves her friend behind and thankfully follows me toward the ladder.

  “You go first,” I say. Then I see her skirt and say, “No I’ll go, just follow me.”

  She does as she’s told for once in her life.

  Stanton is already down the ladder talking to a teacher who is looking mortified either by the situation unfolding or by the layers of soot and ash all over Stanton’s face and clothes (nothing compliments a classic three-piece suit like the apocalypse). She’s a nice looking woman, but she’s on the verge of going to pieces. My eyes meet hers as I’m almost down the ladder. There’s a youth and incompetence in her eyes, something you’d expect of a younger teacher who hasn’t really seen the world and all the devastation it can produce.

  My feet touch solid ground and Macy follows me, giving me the kind of fierce hug only something truly horrendous and life changing can beget.

  Her body is shaking out more tears, and she’s surely replaying the events of her own nightmare. Stepping back, she realizes her stomach has been pressing into the Sig Sauer stuffed into the waistband of my jeans.

  “Is that a gun?” Macy asks a bit too loud.

  The teacher flashes me a look, almost like the three letter word (gun) has elicited far more emotions from her than dead kids or a city under siege.