Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  Colley lowered his voice. “But what about Dolby? I think we’ve got to get him to the hospital. If we don’t, I think he’s gonna die…”

  Hackworth gritted his teeth. If they drove this shot-up military transport, full of boxed-up guns and civilians and the one hostage they still held, the soldier who had been in the passenger seat… if they drove this apocalyptic war wagon up to A&E, what did they think was going to happen?

  Hackworth shook his head. “We’re gonna get nicked if we do that. They’ll probably arrest us on sight – unless they shoot us on sight.”

  Colley looked into the side of Hackworth’s face and gripped his upper arm. “Come on, man. We just drive by, push him out on the curb – and lay on the horn as we drive off. We’ve got to. We can’t take care of him.”

  Hackworth nodded tiredly – and swung a screaming right onto Great Russell Street, taking them right in front of the classical columns and friezes of the British Museum, then looping back onto High Holborn, heading east.

  “We’ll take him to St. Bart’s,” Hackworth said. That would only be a ten-minute detour. But now he spared a look away from the road and over at his long-time number two. “But you be ready. Because I am just barely going to slow down for this.” He looked back at the road now with slitted eyes.

  But what he actually couldn’t stop seeing was the young soldier lying on the ground at that checkpoint behind them, flat on his back, hands held pathetically up before him, pleading, begging Hackworth with his eyes for help…

  But Hackworth had simply looked away. And then drove off.

  But he had to look away again now, from his mind’s eye. He needed to clear this from his head, put it out of his mind entirely – and for the same reason he had used to justify it at the time: he had been protecting his people. He was responsible for them. And their lives had to matter more than other people’s.

  But a deeper, more human part of him also knew that he had crossed a terrible moral Rubicon – and that they were all now blasting headlong down some horrific moral Slip’n’Slide. With God knew what waiting for them at the bottom.

  And God only knew what they would become.

  Or maybe not all of them. Maybe just him. And even there among all his people, with whom he had shared and suffered so much for so long…

  Hackworth had never felt so alone.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, they had managed to get Dolby out in front of the hospital and then get away again, back on the road blasting north. Central London was falling away, yielding to the dingier, sparser, and more suburban high streets of north London in zones three, four, and then five.

  Colley came forward again. He said, “We found the truck’s first aid kit and got Brown’s leg wrapped up. I don’t know how fast he’s gonna be able to move.”

  Hackworth shrugged. They’d deal with that then.

  Colley sat down in the passenger seat, seeming to catch his breath for the first time since the gunfight at the checkpoint. “That was twice we’ve been saved by everything going to hell.”

  Hackworth nodded, realizing he was right. The first time had been at CentCom – when the chaos caused by the giant explosion inside had allowed them to capture this truck in the first place.

  Colley looked over. “What about the other soldier?” He meant their second hostage – the one who had been riding shotgun. “Should we get rid of him, too? Cut him loose?”

  Hackworth shook his head. “Does he have a military ID?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Then we’re going to need him to get out of here. Keep an eye on him. Sit on him if you have to.”

  Colley nodded and returned to the cargo area. But ten minutes later, he was back – with the soldier in tow. “He asked to speak with you.”

  Hackworth looked over his shoulder. The soldier looked like he was about fourteen years old – wide eyes and ears that stuck out from his head. “What is it?”

  When he answered his voice was quiet – but perfectly composed. Not afraid. He said, “You’ll have a much better chance with me up here in front.”

  Hackworth’s immediate reaction was suspicion. But he stole another glance at the kid, and didn’t see any deception on his face. Moreover, he was right. They were ultimately not only going to need him up front. They were going to need him driving. “Take a seat, kid.”

  He did so, while Colley hovered behind them.

  “It’s okay,” Hackworth said. “Go back and look after Brown.”

  Colley nodded and left.

  And the two men – one on his way out of the wrong side of middle age, the other just becoming a young man – rode in silence for a few minutes. The silence was either cordial, or suspicious. Probably some of both.

  Finally, the boy said, “What happened to Brandon?”

  Hackworth looked over. He guessed that was the name of the driver.

  “Back at the checkpoint,” the boy further prompted.

  “He jumped out and warned them,” Hackworth said, his voice tight. “He tried to grass us up.” He hoped that would be warning enough to the kid.

  “You can’t blame him for that. It was his job – his duty.”

  “It was bloody stupid was what it was.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Hackworth’s immediate, human reaction was to lie – to spare this kid the pain of learning his friend was gone. But he realized he needed to use it. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, no,” the kid said. His voice was still composed – but he turned his head away and stared out the window.

  Hackworth realized the kid thought he had killed him. And as useful as that too might be, he couldn’t bear taking the blame for it. “It wasn’t me, for God’s sake. It was the marauders who killed him.”

  The kid looked back at him. “What’s the difference? Between you and the marauders?”

  That shut Hackworth up good. What the hell WAS the difference?

  Now the silence they rode in had a very different flavor.

  * * *

  They were moving through what looked for all the world like farmland now. It was hard to believe this was still London, still inside the M25. But the enormous Wall was starting to loom now – rising up out of the horizon.

  There was a reckoning coming – their last and toughest hurdle.

  Perhaps recognizing this, the kid started talking again. “What are you guys even doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean hijacking a military transport full of weapons. Kidnapping soldiers. It doesn’t look very good.”

  Hackworth pressed his lips together. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t. So explain it to me.”

  So Hackworth did. He told him a little about the terrible trials the Tunnelers had endured to make it this far. About how they had been let down again and again by the authorities. How they had no choice but to look out for themselves.

  The young man, both skinny and of modest height, exhaled. “Okay. Maybe I’d do the same in your circumstances. I don’t know. Maybe anyone would.”

  Hackworth looked over. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Private Borchers.”

  “No. Your given name.”

  “Liam.”

  “How old are you, Liam?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Hackworth just shook his head. Being such a young age was all but unimaginable to him. His youth was so far behind him it might as well be locked up in another dimension.

  “What’s your name, then?” Liam asked.

  “Hackworth.”

  The kid just gave him a look.

  “Will. It’s Will.” Hackworth realized no one had used his first name since… hell, ever since they went into the Tunnel on the French side, before the fall.

  “So we’re both William, then.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. We’re both William.”

  Liam put out his fist. Hackworth shook his head – but finally made a fist and bumped the kid’s. Th
en he let off the accelerator and braked them to a smooth rolling stop.

  “You’re going to have to drive now.”

  Liam nodded. But before he got out of the driver’s seat, Hackworth looked seriously into the young man’s face. “Listen. We just want to get out of here. That’s all. This place is a death trap. London is doomed. We just want to go.”

  Liam didn’t look like he agreed with Hackworth’s assessment. But he agreed to do what was asked of him. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

  Hackworth decided he trusted him. Anyway, he didn’t have a choice.

  They switched seats and got moving again.

  And the Wall loomed ahead.

  For Whom the Bell Tolls

  Kent - Two Miles South of the ZPW

  Elliott rose to his full height from the pit of destruction in his shell hole.

  And he didn’t even look back.

  The commander of 2 Para had just ordered everyone able-bodied to the rear, leaving the wounded behind. At first, because he wasn’t looking behind him, but only following the cries of the wounded, Elliott wasn’t aware of the others following him. But it turned out everyone was behind him, every healthy Para in this sector, all moving forward. No one was going back.

  No one was leaving anybody behind.

  Elliott already had his personal aid kit out when he knelt down at the first motionless figure he found. With all the debris and carnage on the ground, it took him a few seconds to realize it wasn’t a body. It was only a torso. But its nametape was intact. It read: McKay. A man from his company.

  Oh, God. Elliott swallowed a sob and moved on.

  The next one he found was familiar not just by name, but by face. A man from his platoon. A friend. A brother.

  These men were all from D Company. This was his unit. They had been the last out, covering the withdrawal of the rest of the battalion. And they had been devastated. All his brothers, every one of them… they were all gone.

  And Elliott was still here only because he’d gotten lost.

  Then he heard a moan, close by. He rose and ran over. Lying in a shallow depression was not only a completely intact body – but it was moving and looking at him. It was Jones – a man not just in his company or platoon, but his own section.

  “Jonesy, mate,” he said, his voice solidifying again. “Tell me where it hurts.”

  Jones actually laughed. He was a dark-complected soldier with black stubble that never seemed to go away no matter how often he shaved, and piercing dark eyes, nearly black. The gleam of intelligence and mischief hadn’t gone out of them. “Just about everywhere,” he said.

  It looked like he was hit worst in his legs, where there was a lot of blood, so Elliott got some big gauze pads out and started wedging them in there – the rips in his trousers facilitated this – and then started taping the pads down.

  It was only now, when he heard the first firing, that Elliott started to realize the import of the decision he had made – that everyone had made – to go back to help the wounded. Because not only was C Company moving back into the area devastated by the artillery barrage… but the great mass of the dead was at the other end of this field of charnel, and they had their own agenda for the wounded.

  And they were moving fast through the mists and drifting smoke.

  For a second Elliott was frozen – torn between his sacred duty to help his friend, and the sudden urgent need to defend them both from being fallen on and torn to bits. He stopped to take a half a dozen shots on the nearest stumbling figures, then went back to his work on Jones.

  “Can you walk?” he asked, trying to keep panic out of his voice.

  “Mate, I’m not sure I could even roll over.”

  Within another minute, Elliott had used all his pads and tape getting Jones’s wounds wrapped up – and was digging into the grievously wounded man’s own aid pouch for more – when rapid movement drew his eye, practically on top of him. He got his rifle up as the racing figure crashed into him, and used his weapon to sling it around past him – then fired six rounds into and around its head as it hit the ground.

  It was a runner, and it had almost made an end of him.

  Elliott spun electrically when a hand landed on his shoulder, bringing his rifle up to fire again – but it was pushed gently away, and a face, very much alive, was right in his, asking: “Walker, you okay?”

  It was Staff Sergeant Bhardwaj.

  Elliott nodded, sweat falling from his face as he shivered from the adrenaline.

  “We gotta go, Private. We all gotta go!”

  Now Elliott managed to dial up his situational awareness – and he realized that in all directions healthy Paras were helping wounded ones to their feet, or else carrying them, while others fired to protect them, as the dead swarmed and descended. And many of them were also shouting variations of “We gotta go!” “Pick ‘em up and go!” “C’mon!” “Go, go, go!”

  The dead were on them, the great mass less than a hundred yards away.

  And, everywhere, small packs of runners were already bashing into the groups of wounded and rescuers. In some cases, they were put down by rapid defensive fire. In others, they weren’t. Rifle reports, shouts, and moans, all seemed to float out of the drifting smoke and mists from every direction and none. These little vignettes of maximal peril and nose-to-nose violence, some visible and some not, were being played out everywhere, all around Elliott – as close as twenty meters away, all the way to the edge of vision.

  Elliott could see Bhardwaj thrumming with nervous tension – he had dozens of men he needed to help and to lead.

  “Go,” Elliott said. He nodded at Jones. “I’ve got him.”

  The sergeant nodded, then took off again, rifle up.

  “Brace yourself,” Elliott said to Jones, as he rolled him onto his stomach. He could actually feel the wrenching pain this caused him. But Jones didn’t make a sound. Elliott hooked his elbows under Jones’s armpits and hauled him to his feet, or something like it. He then placed his right leg between Jones’s, grabbed his right hand with his left, then squatted down, wrapped his arm around Jones’s knee, and then lifted him up. Somewhere along the line, the Army had taught him how to get a wounded man into a fireman’s carry. It must have stuck.

  Luckily, Jones wasn’t a big man, but he was still fully kitted up – and Elliott didn’t even remember his own leg wound until he started running again. Tottering, more like. But they were moving.

  They were getting the hell out of there.

  * * *

  We are meat, Elliott thought. It was a horrifying thing to have go through his head. He knew that he and his brothers, that all people everywhere, were also exquisite sparks of unique consciousness – perhaps unique in the thirteen-billion-year history of the universe. We are angels, spirit creatures of hope and light and possibility and love.

  But we are also meat, he realized now. Bags of meat.

  And it occurred to Elliott, young as he was, that this might actually be the core contradiction of being human: born with the souls of angels – but mortal angels, meat angels, born to die and rot away. And that was maybe even the fundamental problem every human had to solve: how to live in a world where we are born to die.

  It was only when the C Company men were moving with the devastated and broken survivors of D Company, those still alive and who could be moved, that their own fundamental mortality and vulnerability became stark – and utterly undeniable.

  Because the dead were falling on them and taking them down.

  The runners in particular – laden with the wounded, there was almost no way the soldiers could outrun them. And firing to the rear to protect themselves was harder than most could manage.

  And so down they went, from the back of the formation first, and Elliott could hear them going down, and then he could hear the unendurable sounds of what the dead were doing to them. And he thought about how utterly horrifying it was that what had minutes earlier been a wonderful individual, one of hi
s best friends, a young man he’d lived and trained with for years, the names of whose family he knew, whose loves and passions and quirks and essential humanity were all intimately familiar to him… could now end up as nothing more or less than a meal for another creature.

  And it occurred to him that if you were both at the same time – both spirit creature of light and consciousness, and also bag of tasty meat being devoured – well, that was about as bad as you could end up. Being both at once, conscious while consumed. That was the worst thing imaginable.

  And that’s how many of his closest friends were ending up now. Their bodies had been broken by the errant artillery barrage. But they were still conscious as they were devoured. And Elliott could hear their screams.

  And all he could do was just keep running, back toward the lines, with Jonesy bouncing on his back. The best he was going to be able to do was to save his one platoon-mate. But he was goddamned well going to do that. He had to.

  And now an old joke popped into his head, one he hated himself for remembering, but also smiled at somehow at the same time: You don’t have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than the slowest guy RUNNING from the bear.

  Behind him, all around, from first to last, the healthy refused to leave the wounded – but the ones who refused to leave also got taken down, and then got swarmed. And it was only those groups going down, and attracting crowds of the dead looking for an easy meal, that was going to allow any of them to get away and survive. Maybe.

  Elliott knew he couldn’t outrun the runners, never mind the Foxtrots. He just had to keep going – and hope he kept getting lucky.

  But then suddenly his luck ran out.

  He heard a breathy shrieking sound behind him – which grew in volume, damned fast, as it grew in proximity. Elliott staggered to a stop and spun around – both to face the threat, and to shield Jones from it. He still held his rifle by the pistol-grip with his right hand. He started firing from the waist, round after round, trying to walk them onto the thing’s head, having virtually no hope that he’d be able to make the shot…