by J. Thorn
A young boy startled Father from his reverie with a question.
“Father. Why do you continue to hold the flame to that candle? It’s already lit.”
He reached down and ruffled the boy’s wild, blond hair.
“So it is my young servant. What is your name?”
“I’m Joey.”
“Nice to meet you, Joey. What is your job here today?”
Joey pulled on the man’s robe, trying to monopolize Father’s attention.
“I’m helping my mom. She’s downstairs, making sure everyone has a place to sleep.”
“You are an obedient son. God will show favor on you and your mother. You should probably go back downstairs and make sure she has all the help she needs.”
“I will. See ya!”
The boy ran toward the steps and disappeared down the staircase before Father could respond.
A cloaked member of the clergy stepped from the shadows in the back of the church. Father looked at the doors, certain they had not recently opened.
“Father, may I have a word?”
“Please, follow me behind the altar where we can talk in private.”
The hooded monk kept even strides behind Father, managing to preserve a respectful distance. They entered the back room on the other side of the altar, where young boys stood washing towels in the sink. With a wave of his hand, Father dispersed them from the room, and assumed the role of good host.
“Sit. May I get you a beverage?”
“No, I won’t be staying long. My name is Brother Cyrus and I’m from the Internal Order.”
He paused, waiting for Father to confirm his knowledge of the Order – or show his ignorance of it.
“I do not know of you.”
“Ah, but I know about you, Father.”
Brother Cyrus raised both hands, and dropped his hood onto his back. His brown, wool robe thinned at the elbows and frayed at the edges. Cyrus’ bushy eyebrows sat upon a haggard face. Although in his early forties, premature baldness stole any semblance of his youth. Cobalt-blue eyes sat deep in his skull and held Father with a tight grip.
“I have intelligence for you.”
“On the Revelator?”
Cyrus nodded.
Father stood and walked to a miniature refrigerator, like one might find in a dorm room. He took a cold bottle of iced tea and tilted the top toward Cyrus, who held up the palm of one hand in polite refusal, then continued.
“We have been able to tap into the government’s databases and extract records. Power is still spotty, and many servers are still running on generators, so it’s not a complete picture.”
Father raised his eyebrows and took a quick swig from his tea.
“This is information you have mined yourself?” he asked.
“I should hope. I’m the Church’s main systems analyst. I can say that the Catholics protect their information much better than the Federalists.”
The terms used by Cyrus stunned Father. He looked at the man, trying to read the past from his eyes.
“Please continue, Brother.”
Cyrus removed a manila folder from under his garments. The stained and torn envelope protected gleaming, pristine papers. He placed each item on the table with a precise and even motion. With the pages spread out, Cyrus spun each document one-hundred-eighty degrees, facing Father.
“John Burgoyne. DOB, 03-24-74. He lives at 2913 Plainfield Road in South Euclid. Last year he earned fifty-seven thousand dollars as a Web-site designer. At least that’s what he reported to the IRS. He is married to one Jana Burgoyne, age twenty-three. She is, or was, a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.”
Father sat back and studied the man in the robe. He sighed, tugged at the hair on his chin, and pulled out a fresh cigar wrapped in plastic.
“You say you hacked into the government’s database for this info?”
The way Cyrus smiled chilled Father to the core.
“Hacked. Hmm. Yes, we hacked until we got this information.”
“Would you like a cigar, Brother Cyrus? My supply of Cubans is dwindling. This could be the last one you see for a very long time.”
Cyrus kept both hands on the table, evenly spaced from his precise documents.
“What else do you want to know, Father?”
Father put the cigar back in his pocket and slid to the edge of his seat. He stared into Cyrus’ eyes, becoming lost in the dark vortex.
“Extended family? Friends, and so on?”
“That is not information typically kept in governmental records.”
“I thought that maybe you had ‘hacked’ that stuff too.” Father accented the word almost to the point of insult.
“I must be moving on to my new assignment,” replied Cyrus, as he returned each document back into the manila folder without giving Father the opportunity to examine them. “I am sure you can go through the proper channels should you wish to revisit this data. The Vatican will only fund your little escapade for so long before your claims of ‘The Revelator’ tire our Brothers. Everybody answers to someone, don’t they Father?”
Father stood, never taking his eyes off of Cyrus. He did not extend a hand or wrap up the conversation with common courtesies. Cyrus stood, as well.
“Father, there is one more piece of information I need to pass on to you.”
“And what is that, Brother Cyrus?”
“The Second Cleansing is almost underway. I suggest you send a recon report with a detailed explanation of the First Cleansing as soon as possible.”
Father stepped within inches of Cyrus’ face.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to extract that data whenever you wish. Good day, Brother Cyrus.”
The monk pulled the hood over his head and turned for the door that led back into the church. By the time Father walked out from behind the altar, the servant of the Internal Order had disappeared.
Father descended the steps into the basement, where a throng of parishioners tended to the needs of the new, pure community. He summoned the low-ranking soldiers to a concealed alcove next to the bingo board.
“I want twenty-four-hour surveillance on the grounds. No one except the Holy Spirit himself walks in these doors without my knowledge. Place two guards at every door and ground-level window. Got that?”
Nods all around.
“Secondly, I need a task force of seven men. They need to get to 2913 Plainfield Road in South Euclid. Get a two-way. The man in charge needs to be on that radio, channel number eight. I want the band open and on, twenty-four-seven. If anyone, and I mean anyone, gets near that house, I want to know about it. Do not secure, attack, defend, or otherwise engage anyone or anything, without my express permission. Are we clear on this?”
The men scattered to find their gear and load for the drive to South Euclid. Father stared at the red light on the walkie-talkie and prepared for the wait.
Chapter 31
The house sat in a coma. Chunks of plaster peeled back from the area between the two windows. Two feisty squirrels chased each other across the gutter that hung from the edge of the roof. Spiderwebbed panes of glass on the first floor stood like alarming line graphs, diving down in a steep decline. The pentagram, circled in red, remained exactly as it had been painted. The Sign stood out like an open sore, festering on the face of the community.
The soldiers arrived on foot and left tracks in the wet snow, but did so without a sound. Two men ran down the driveway, securing the side door. Two more ran past them and pointed rifle-mounted flashlights into the garage. White power from LED lights performed a macabre waltz with the red points of the laser scopes, as a third pair of soldiers secured the back door.
When the synchronized timer beeped on the men’s wrists, all teams sprang into action. The front, side, and kitchen doors imploded with one ragged gasp. The wind current created by the open doors blew draperies around the room like frightened poltergeists. Papers, bags, and other pieces of debris lifted into orbit and then drifted back down under t
he force of gravity.
“Clear!” rang out from every corner of the wood and brick corpse. Soldiers penetrated and explored every habitable space, securing the premises and defiling family memories. One rifle cracked the protest of the wind.
Finally, the invaders retreated through the house, weapons holstered. They met around back in the detached garage. The sergeant in charge brought his team up to speed.
“The place is secure. Our orders are to maintain covert surveillance. Under no circumstances are we to engage anyone, friend or foe, without a direct order. That means you take a bullet in the head before you fire upon an enemy.”
The young servicemen looked up at each other and then back down at their muddied boots as he continued.
“We are looking for a John or Jana Burgoyne, owners of the house. Here is a picture of John.” The sergeant held up a pixilated image, taken and then enlarged from the original in the department of motor vehicles. “We’ve got no visual for Jana yet, but they’re working on it. The Covenant believes that these two might be searching for each other, and this is the first place they’ll probably try to check. Keep an invisible profile. We might have to let them remain in the place for up to thirty-six hours before we raid it. In addition, any other hostile forces that might arrive are not to be engaged.”
The men shuffled their boots in the wet snow. Some clicked the safety on their automatic weapons. The sergeant sensed their deep unease.
“Okay. Listen guys. If someone opens fire on us, let ’em have it. I don’t care what the ‘official’ order is; we’re not going to stand there and let the enemy fill us with holes. I got your back on that. But if civilians make their way here, we gotta do everything we can to keep ourselves hidden and keep them contained.”
Men nodded and caressed the triggers of their assault rifles.
“Let’s fall back into position and get the hell away from this house. Hopefully we didn’t kick up the dust while they were watching. Radio silence. Stay within eyeshot of each other, communicate with hand signals. Get comfy boys, we could be here a while.”
The intruders faded into the surrounding environment, leaving the house to shed silent tears.
Chapter 32
“How many?”
“Don’t know. At least ten, maybe fifteen. But they’re raining bullets by the thousands.”
The burly man nodded, pulled his scope up, and placed the cross hairs on a distant, helmeted head. He yanked the trigger back. The machine gun howled in protest and let loose a shower of deadly missiles. A bright-red burst exploded, and the far off man fell face-first into a freshly dug grave.
“Now there’s nine.”
***
John pulled Alex down an embankment while shouts and screams resonated off the grave markers. His ears rang, though the explosions were subsiding for the moment. Alex moaned and his eyes fluttered open for a second. A maroon patch bloomed on his shoulder, and a piece of torn material from his pants exposed an additional flesh wound on the calf.
John grabbed a water bottle from his bag and poured it on his friend’s face. Alex continued to moan, and raised an arm, shielding his face from a violent memory. John scrambled around him, checking for more wounds.
He looked up into the somber sky through bare tree limbs. Outbursts of snowflakes doused a clear vision of the moon. John and Alex remained hidden behind faded headstones. Their attackers held the top of the ridge, firing down into the gulley. Bullets continued to sizzle the cold air and dance from headstone to tree.
John felt a sting on his cheek. He reached up to swat away the annoyance and felt warm blood on his face. The close call woke him from his momentary daze. Alex lay on the ground, coughing, but alive and conscious.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
Alex burrowed his face into the frozen grass as another barrage of machine-gun fire responded to his question.
“Keep your head down. They’ve got the top of the hill and are firing on us. As long as we stay cool and hold our position, maybe they can’t do much more damage.”
As if on cue, another deafening explosion fell from the sky. The mortar round landed near the men, blowing dirt and stone across a wide path of the cemetery.
“Right. I’m sure they won’t be firing any more of those,” said Alex.
He winced and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt. Alex took the strip and held it against the wound on his shoulder in hopes of slowing the loss of blood from his gunshot wound.
“Is that gonna work?” John asked.
“If I don’t pass out, you’ll know.”
The attacking force suddenly stopped firing. They heard shouts and commands coming from the top of the hill. John and Alex looked at each other and scrambled to reload their weapons.
“How many clips you got left?” Alex asked.
“Two. You?”
“One. If they come down this hill, we’re not going to be able to hold them off for very long.”
John shoved the clip into his gun. He swung the barrel of it over the top of the headstone that protected him from the majority of the rounds being fired in their direction. John squeezed the trigger, letting the recoil of the gun drive his aim upward and over the heads of the enemy.
Random bursts answered John’s fire.
“Stop! Man, we don’t got much left,” Alex said.
“I’m trying to buy us time. Do you think you can walk?”
“My leg has been hit, but not enough to keep me down. It’s my shoulder that hurts like hell.”
John shrugged and grabbed his bag.
“Guess I’ll leave you here.”
“Don’t be such a smart-ass. What do you have in mind?”
“If we can get to those trees over there, we might have enough cover to sneak our way through the cemetery and get to the Heights.”
Alex sat up and pain raced from his shoulder to his brain. His squinted his eyes and his mouth held a breath captive in a tight grimace.
“Do or die, right?” Alex said. He got into a crouch like a runner anticipating the starter pistol. “You’re gonna have to provide cover fire for me. I’ve got to use my one arm to hold my shoulder tight. Fire high rather than low; it’s more effective in keeping them in place.”
“Okay. On the count of three, we run for the trees.”
Alex threw his bag around his waist, and left his gun on top of the grave.
“Won’t be able to carry that and run.”
John pulled the lever back on his gun and removed the safety. With his fingers accompanied by a whisper, he began the countdown. “One, two—”
Before John could get to three, dozens of guns fired and rolled through the valley like deadly thunder. Both men spun around, searching for the source of the new volley. Rapid gunfire and exploding grenades followed the initial blasts, all directed back toward the top the ridge.
Alex looked at John and fell on his back.
“What can you see?”
“Looks like the Warriors of Christ may have found targets more evil than us.”
***
“Get some, get some!” yelled Sully, doing his best Full Metal Jacket.
He stood behind the opened door of a 1987 Dodge pickup. The broken window allowed the bulk of Sully’s frame to fill it while he fired his semiautomatic twelve gauge at the troops facing down the hill. The rest of the biker clan fanned out in a rough line, zigzagging across the top of the ridge. They used the advantage of surprise to fire lethal doses of buckshot at the Warriors of Christ. Soldiers flew through the air, flung many feet by the force of the close-range gunshot blasts. Several men managed to find cover, but Sully and the Keepers of the Wormwood killed six in the first ten seconds of the engagement. A second round of firing by the bikers obliterated another three soldiers. The remaining men hid behind overgrown trees and slanted headstones. One grenade sailed through the air and landed near the Dodge, but upon exploding it merely lodged shrapnel into inanimate objects.
***
&nb
sp; John stood, no longer fearful of getting a round to the chest.
“Wait here,” he said to Alex before breaking into a full sprint.
He ducked back and forth between headstones, climbing up the slope toward the summit as the firefight died. He heard two distinct explosions echo up and away from the fight, and then, relative silence. His ears rang and the smell of spent gunpowder forced a moment of nausea. John moved three feet toward the summit when a blow struck him on the left ear. He fell to the ground, but pointed his weapon toward the attacker. A tattooed forearm knocked the barrel off to the side.
“You don’t wanna do that, son,” Sully said.
His big man’s chest heaved and his hair tangled in his beard, from the adrenaline of the fight. The men recognized each other at the same time.
“Sully. Jesus Christ.” John let go his weapon. “I hope you have a cold beer I can use to keep my face from swelling.”
“Be glad I didn’t open your chest when I saw you climbing the hill.”
John smiled and accepted Sully’s hand. The President of the Keepers of the Wormwood pulled John to his feet.
“What the hell are you guys doing all the way over here?”
“Long story. We’re not about to pass up an opportunity to fight these bastards. Maybe even patch them over.”
“Thanks,” said John.
“For what? We didn’t come here to save your hide. Is that your buddy down there trying to crawl up the hill?”
John turned and saw Alex moving toward them, his face turned pure white, hair plastered to his forehead.