It was only after a few minutes of this careful, highly concentrated strategy that he noticed the weight on his back and remembered the rifle hanging there that the motel owner had lent him.
Flicking his shoulder, he swung the rifle around on its strap like a boy band guitarist so that it now sat in his hands. In one fluid motion, he raised it up, much to the giant’s surprise, took aim and fired, but nothing happened apart from a hollow click.
The giant had managed to take a long-legged step towards him, but Crimson’s mind was faster as he whipped the rifle upwards, smashing the giant under the jaw with the butt of the rising rifle before slamming it forwards in a jabbing motion to catch the man in his already broken nose.
The man sank to his knees, clutching the splattered remains of his nose in his cupped hands as fresh blood spurted between his fingers.
Crimson raised the rifle up again, and now that the giant was on his knees, his face was at Crimson’s chest height. He brought the butt of the rifle down again and again and again until skin split and bone cracked, collapsing the giant’s skull and caving it inwards. Each blow slowly became wetter and duller as the man’s face was obliterated as he fell forwards with Crimson continuing the assault until he was certain that the giant was no longer a threat.
“Can we just pretend I said something badass here?” he finally gasped with his hands on his knees and the broken rifle lying on the ground beside him. “Because to be perfectly honest, I’m just too damned tired to actually think of anything.”
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chapter 35
THE MOOD OF A NATION
Summer Sloan luxuriated in the glow of her studio audience as she basked in their cheers and applause.
The thought of Bruce’s dead eyes staring up at her was still a fixture in her mind, a frozen image that was always waiting for her every time she closed her eyes. The intermittent sleep that she’d managed since had always had his face lurking somewhere in the shadows, but she was getting better at pushing the thought further and further down.
There had been no blowback so far from anyone, let alone the authorities. She’d heard the gossip around the station, but no one seemed to know anything, and if they did, then they weren’t talking… her new friend had seen to that.
The benefits of their arrangement had all been one way so far and all to her personal gain, but she wasn’t stupid enough to forget that there would be a price to pay. However far down the line, the time would come when she’d have to foot the bill, if, of course, she didn’t manage to find her way out before then.
For now, she would play along, do the shows that she was told to do, push the agenda that they wanted because in reality she was enjoying her work and the benefits that it brought. Perhaps she’d get lucky and find out that this was all they’d wanted. If life had taught her anything so far it was when you looked like she did, things tended to have a way of working out for the best, her best at least. Besides, she hadn’t thought herself capable of killing someone and yet here she was. If she could do that, then she could do anything, and Mrs Fontaine could well be just another in a long line of people who underestimated Summer Sloan.
The ARK News desk had now been replaced with a hastily assembled ‘SUMMER SAYS’ banner and set, the station now fully leaning into her position as a news personality rather than a news presenter.
Journalistically, she knew deep down that she was on shaky ground, but in truth, that voice was growing dimmer by the day. She was the face now of the movement, of the people, the face of the truth, and if history had taught us anything, it was that it was always written by the victors.
The public were now demanding investigations – into quite exactly what, they weren’t entirely sure, but they wanted answers, answers to which specific questions, they weren’t sure, but that mattered little to Summer. She was currently one of the most recognisable faces in the country and that was what really mattered.
“History is littered with those in power deciding for the people just what they need to know. They decide what’s best for us, they decide the truth, and they spoon-feed us their version,” she yelled to her people.
The audience was again filled with a range of enthusiastic nods to outright standing ovations.
“But we are done with their lies,” she continued earnestly. “We are done with their versions, with their abuses of power. The politicians in this country have forgotten the simple truth, the one truth that we all share: they work for us, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”
Placards were raised, albeit conveniently placed ones amongst the audience for maximum camera coverage. Their slogans were hand painted ones with messages such as ‘SUMMER FOR PM’, ‘SUMMER FOR ALL SEASONS’, ‘NO MORE LIES’ and ‘TRUTH SEEKERS!’
“What else have they hidden from us? 30 years ago, we were pitched into a war, a war on religion. Were your parents consulted? I know mine most definitely were not. We were shown an enemy to fight and we were told to be terrified of them. They told us, ‘here is your enemy, this is the face of fear and we shall fight them on your behalf.’ But was that the whole story?”
A loud chorus of boos and “Nos” rang out in the audience.
“What was hidden from us? Were SOUL really a terrorist organisation? Were we all really in danger from them? Or were we a victim of one woman’s paranoia and blind naked ambition? And ladies and gentlemen, I most certainly do not mean Cynthia Arrow!”
The camera cut to several people wearing t-shirts depicting Rosemary Williams’ face encased in a red circle with a red line drawn through it.
“I put it to you, my friends, that we should have been scared, we should have been terrified; there was a snake in our midst, a woman who slithered into all of our lives and laid her vile eggs there. Rosemary Williams took us into a war that SHE created, a politician that cared far more about her own power than the people, than any of us, let me tell you!”
The audience applauded again and Summer had to wait for several moments for them to calm down again.
“And what of our great saviour?”
This drew an instant round of booing.
“Our real life superhero? How many of you played with Cosmic Jones toys as a child? I know I did. Think of it: a comic book superhero come to life, an alien visitor descending from the stars to save us; sounds good, right? Sounds great in fact, but did anyone really take a close look at this… creature? Did anyone stop to wonder what he might really be doing here? What his plans might be? Where his true intentions might lie?”
The boos were now mixed with a confusing smattering of applause and yelled comments.
“FILTHY ALIEN!”, “SEND HIM BACK”, “WE NEVER ASKED FOR HIS HELP”, “WE NEVER WANTED IT EITHER! WE FOUGHT TWO WORLD WARS WITHOUT BLOODY GREEN MEN FROM OUTER SPACE GETTING INVOLVED”. The latter yelled comment drew its own applause.
“And what of our great hero now?” Summer asked solemnly. “Are we finally seeing his true colours? Or did we never want to look in the first place? Wasn’t it easier to swallow their lies? Wasn’t it easier for our parents to place their trust in the government so that they never had to think for themselves? There is a bloody trail of bodies now, my friends, and we shall have to look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder if we are partly to blame. Should we not have looked harder? Should we not have asked more questions? After all, are we not the cynical generation?”
The question fell hard on the shoulders of the predominately younger audience, men and women in their late twenties to early thirties, people who had been merely children when the SOUL war had ended, millennials with a healthy suspicion of older generations and those in authority.
“There has been a stink in our capital for some time now, my friends. Our past leaders have failed us. They have lied to us, but now one man is strong enough to stand up against the lies of the past and shine a spotlight on them and those of his own party, no less. Simon Clermont, our prime minister, is the one who had opened the files on Rosemary Williams and her actions. H
e fought to bring the truth to the people and he did not waver, and now we all know what really happened, thanks to him.”
The studio piped in applause that wasn’t there as faces looked at each other, unwilling or even able to bring themselves to endorse a politician, any politician.
“There is an election coming, my friends, and I would urge you all not to turn away from your duty. Now I know, I know, it is easy for us to think that they are all the same, that every politician is just the same snake in a different suit, but I would not steer you wrong, my friends. I shall be voting. I shall be exercising my God-given right to vote, a right that our forefathers died to protect, a right that they want to control. I say that we place our trust in the only politician that has our interest at heart, a man who has proven that he will not be silenced when it comes to the truth.”
The audience were still largely unconvinced. There were a few nods among the more easily swayable and of course the planted members.
“Simon Clermont knows firsthand what it is like on the front line, my friends.”
An image was shown of the prime minister’s residence, a large part of it reduced to rubble after the beast’s attack.
“Is not an attack on the very seat of our elected power not an attack on us all? Is it not an attack on very democracy? This is a man who dared to stand up for what’s right, for the truth, for all of us, and look at just how he fared; but he is not bowing out, he is not hiding, he is still standing up for all of us, and I say we return the favour.”
Summer leaned forward towards the studio audience and the camera lens to the millions of faces watching at home.
“There was a terrorist all along. There really was a monster in our midst and we never saw him until it was too late. There are bodies in the ground as I speak; there are funerals lined up for our patriots, men and women who swore an oath to protect us and our freedoms, and we have failed them.”
Behind her on the screen were now images of funerals. Flag-draped coffins were lowered into holes in the ground as weeping relatives surrounded them. Military salutes hung over the proceedings, full-dress uniformed officers read eulogies to the grief-stricken, and the studio audience fell completely silent.
A somber solo trumpet version of the national anthem started to play as an image of Simon Clermont was shown at every funeral, his own injuries clearly visible.
“But here is the thing. Here is the real heart of the matter. Our very souls are infused with the history of our great nation. We have faced down tyrants before and we shall again. It wasn’t that long ago that a man from foreign shores underestimated our strength; he thought that he could roll right over us and we stopped him at the White Cliffs. We showed our courage then; we took the fight to that monster and we prevailed. WE do not know the meaning of defeat. WE shall never falter. WE shall never fail in our duty. WE will rise and WE will stand tall again. Oh yes, my friends, WE have beaten back the darkness before and WE SHALL DO IT AGAIN!”
The sombre music was now growing into a triumphant soaring orchestra as Summer timed her intonations perfectly as the audience began to rise to their feet.
“WE SHALL TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY! WE SHALL NEVER BOW TO TYRANTS. WE SHALL NEVER GIVE UP AND WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER!”
The audience were in raptures now as the show faded out to a commercial break, the first advert of which was a pre-recorded national broadcast on behalf of the government.
A serious-looking Simon Clermont sat before the camera, his face showing several wounds that had actually been added by a makeup artist for effect at Dennison’s insistence after the originals had begun to heal.
The prime minister spoke to the people; he was elegant and statesmanlike, a man to be trusted, to be respected, to be elected.
He was standing in front of the wreckage of his former residence. His wife stood by his side looking serene and proud of her man. Dennison stood behind in the puppet master’s position, but just behind him stood a striking woman, a woman who was really pulling the strings now, a woman known as Number One, Mrs Fontaine, and in her own mind as Savannah Greene, the newest member of the Clermont reelection campaign and by far the most important.
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Jamie-Lyn had just shoved a woman back out through the window when she was grabbed from behind. Her first thought was that one of the others was pulling her away from the fight but the hands quickly found their way around from her shoulders to wrap around her throat.
She tried to call out, but her windpipe was being crushed and her words came out as a soundless gasp.
Frantic strength was squeezing the life out of her, and the woman she’d just beaten back was starting to claw her way back through the broken window now with no one to stop her.
Sharp fingernails were digging into her throat and the blood was already starting to spill as she was dragged backwards with undeniable strength.
The woman in front of her was almost all the way through the window, which in one way was a bad thing but in another way, she was also closer to Jamie-Lyn.
She lifted up her boot, fighting to keep her balance as she struggled with the death grip from behind as the woman slithered her way through the window and down onto the wooden bench that ran below it.
Though she was still being dragged backwards, she fought and strained to creep forward just enough. The head of the woman coming through the window in front of her was just on the edge of the bench. Jamie-Lyn pushed forward, raised her sturdy boot and stamped down hard.
The woman looked up in time to see the falling boot but not quickly enough to get out its way. Jamie-Lyn stamped down onto the woman’s head, driving it onto the hard wooden bench below, making it effectively a curb stomp with a sickening crack. The woman’s jaw broke and several front teeth tumbled from her mouth as she slumped forwards and lay still.
The strangling grip on her throat was still choking her hard. She was still holding the kitchen knife in her hand, but it was wet and sticky with blood, making it tricky to keep a firm hold of.
Her squeamishness at the hand-to-hand combat had long since deserted her… fighting for your life would do that. Now, she turned the knife over in her hand so that it was pointing downwards in a slick move that Crimson would have approved of.
Without being able to see properly, she had to guesstimate where her opponent was and drove the blade downwards. She was rewarded with a bellowing scream in her ear which almost deafened her as the knife drove in deep enough to clip the bone and break the tip of the blade.
The pressure released from her throat and she was able to turn to see her assailant.
The slender figure staggered away from her before reaching down, and with two hands and no little effort, yanking the knife free to send a giant spurt of blood up into the air.
Jamie-Lyn stared on, her own savage triumph short-lived as she realised that the slender figure now held her weapon in its hands.
“Shit,” Jamie-Lyn muttered as she realised that she was now defenceless.
The slender figure raised its head and the hood slipped backwards, exposing a young woman’s face.
“Lilly?” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed, recognising the young woman from the motel, shocked that the sulky teenager was apparently a fully fledged member of a death cult.
Lilly didn’t answer her with words. Instead, she staggered forwards trying to stop the spurting blood from her leg with one hand and the other clasping the knife that had done the damage.
She held the knife up high, ready to stab down, and Jamie-Lyn took an instant step backwards.
There was a mass of movement all along the side wall of the building, and it seemed like no matter how many attackers they fought off and shoved back out into the night, another two took their place. They were a swarming, never-ending mass.
Lilly limped towards her, her eyes wide, wild and seemingly devoid of human emotion, the young woman little more than a wild animal now.
“Lilly, please,” Jamie-Lyn tried again with her hands held out as th
e teenager slashed out with the knife, slicing through the empty air between them and narrowly missing her hands.
For some reason, her squeamishness returned now that their attackers had a face, a young girl’s face at that.
Lilly suddenly charged forwards. The movement was so sudden that she would have caught Jamie-Lyn off-guard had it not been for the fact that one of her legs was barely working now as the massive blood loss finally overcame the young woman’s insanity.
Lilly staggered forwards and fell, caught off balance by only having one working leg. There was a weapon lying near Jamie-Lyn’s feet, one of the long-handled blades that had been dropped through the window during the various struggles.
She leaned down and picked it up, carefully avoiding another knife swipe as Lilly lashed out weakly from the ground.
The weapon felt heavy in her hands but looking down at the young woman at her feet, she was unable to use the bladed end of the staff, regardless of the lack of compassion her attacker would have no doubt shown her if their positions had been reversed. Instead, Jamie-Lyn turned the weapon over and used the heavy blunt wooden end instead of the blade.
“I’m sorry,” she said with genuine remorse as she jabbed downwards making contact with Lilly’s head and feeling a sickening dull thud.
The blow rendered the young woman unconscious, or at least that was what she hoped. The thought of taking a life, any life, turned her stomach, and executing a teenager went far beyond that boundary, but in the heat of the battle, she could just about manage it.. As she looked down, she saw that the young girl’s chest wasn’t moving up and down, no matter how long she stared at it, and for a moment, she thought she was going to vomit.
She turned away back to the window just as Link came staggering backwards into the room, struggling to keep two men out. She rushed forwards, and this time had no time to have any compunction about turning the weapon over and swinging the bladed end towards a beefy arm that was punching Link.
Capes Page 50