by Sean Platt
“For a long time, I hated God because of what my father did — how he treated my mother and me. How he more or less made my sister kill herself. But now I understand; I see that we can’t judge Him, or know Him, by the acts of man, especially by the acts of His misguided messengers.”
There were a thousand things Brent wanted to say, but he didn’t dare breathe even one. He’d say something he was sure to regret, probably about her having a mind of her own and not needing to use it for Scripture. Instead, he shook his head and reclaimed Teagan’s hand.
“Let’s just drop it, okay? We’re going to disagree, and that’s fine. We don’t have to see eye-to-eye about everything.”
“No,” Teagan squeezed Brent’s hands tighter. “I want to understand why you don’t believe.”
“No.” Brent shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to be the one responsible for shaking whatever faith you have. If believing what you do makes you sleep better at night, who am I to fuck that up?”
“You think you can shake my faith?”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m saying that I don’t have it myself. All we’ve seen, all our horrible losses. I don’t have it in me to believe that a loving, benevolent God would allow, let alone plan, for such things.”
“It’s not for us to understand His will. Or His plans.”
“That’s bullshit. That’s something people say to justify that God’s plans suck. You think my wife dying, Paola dying, all the other innocents — men, women, and children — that’s all part of some grand plan meant for us? No way. That’s selfish thinking. Dangerous, delusional thinking.”
“Fine, Brent. Whatever.” Teagan let go of his hand, turned, took two steps toward the stairs, then turned back. “I thought we could have a normal conversation, but clearly you’re not ready to talk.”
Teagan stomped down the stairs back to the basement.
Brent wanted to follow her. Instead, he collapsed into a chair in the main house, still fully furnished — a modernized yet classic mansion, nicer than any place he’d been in before The Fall, let alone after.
He wondered why he always had to be such an idiot. Brent tipped back in the chair, remembering the many times he’d had to beg Gina to see his side of an issue yet always caved, doing what she wanted him to, thinking like she wanted him to think. He wasn’t willing to be the weak one again. Following Teagan, pleading, eventually surrendering — like he always did and always had.
No, Brent had to stand his ground. At least for now.
But then again, was it worth it? He’d be losing even if he won. He could let Teagan have her faith and stay in her good graces as much as possible. Be there for her without needing to be right. Besides, it wasn’t like Brent was even sure what he believed anymore. Maybe she was right. Maybe God did save them. Who really knew? Just because he couldn’t disprove something didn’t make it false.
He could let Teagan have her faith without needing to share it.
He stared out the window, wishing Teagan was with him, knowing he’d apologize if she was. Brent blinked, wondered if he was seeing what he thought he might be, then leaned closer to the window and saw it again.
Oh shit.
Four shuttles were zooming right toward them.
Brent screamed.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9 — Brent Foster
“They’re coming!” Brent yelled, racing through the secret door and into the basement.
Jazz looked up and met his eyes as he crashed through the doorway. “Who’s coming?”
He closed and locked the door behind him. “Guardsmen!”
Teagan rose from the couch. “You’re sure they’re coming here?”
Brent felt doubt creep in. He wanted to shrug. Instead, he said, “I don’t know for sure, but there were a lot of shuttles headed this way, and it seems like too many for a random sweep.”
The room crackled with nerves. No one spoke. Brent could hear the too-loud beating of his heart.
Emily stood beside Teagan and looked to Brent. “Can’t we hide out here? This is a secret basement, right?”
Jazz shook her head. “Sorry, kid. While the basement is lined to protect us from infrared and stuff, if they somehow know we’re here, they’re gonna find us.”
Jazz turned her back to Brent and addressed Teagan and the kids.
“You all need to get into the tunnel. And run. As fast as you can without looking back. Brent and I will get Luca and catch up, okay?”
“What if you can’t catch up?” Teagan asked.
Brent wished she hadn’t.
Then maybe God will save us.
“We will.” Brent could hear Jazz’s lie through a crack in her voice.
“Be brave,” Brent said, kissing Ben’s head.
“I will,” he said, surprisingly not crying as he led Becca and followed Teagan and Emily through the metal door, out into the tunnel.
“Wait, wait,” Jazz said, running to the gun rack and grabbing two pistols. She gave one to Teagan then found Emily’s hand. “You don’t happen to know how to use a gun, do you?”
Emily shook her head. “Sorry.”
Jazz still had her face turned from Brent, but he could imagine her smile. “It’s okay, honey. Take it anyway, just in case. You best get going. We’ll catch up.”
He wanted to kiss them all goodbye, especially Teagan. Something insistent inside him warned Brent that this might be his last chance. He ignored the voice and told them all to go. They started running.
Glass shattered upstairs. Brent could hear splintering wood — the front door breaking down.
“Come on,” Jazz said then led Brent into Luca’s room.
The man who was only a boy lay like a doll on the bed, still out cold and barely breathing.
Jazz put her hand on Brent’s shoulder. “You better at carrying or fighting?”
Brent looked at Jazz, felt embarrassed for what he was about to admit, then shook his head. “I’m not as tough as you.”
“All right then, you take Luca into the tunnel. I’ll stay behind and make sure they don’t follow for as long as I can.”
This was suicide, and Brent had seen too much death already.
“No way. You’re coming with us. We can both go if we move fast.”
“Don’t argue with me, Brent. One of us needs to stay, that’s nonnegotiable. Even if we can only buy a few minutes, those minutes are likely the difference between living and dying. And we don’t need two people to hold them off.”
“We can hold them off longer if I stay.”
“Maybe, but not by much. And we both know I’m not the one with family in that tunnel.”
More glass shattered upstairs, followed by something crashing hard against the basement door.
“It’s not gonna hold,” Jazz said, meeting his eyes. “You need to go now!”
Brent sighed, nodded, reluctantly scooped Luca into his arms, and headed out of the boy’s room toward the tunnel.
Jazz grabbed a shotgun and didn’t say goodbye.
Brent ran — awkwardly, as best he could carrying Luca — out of the basement and into the dimly lit tunnel. He raced forward, hoping like hell he wouldn’t trip over any debris, thinking about how frail Luca’s body felt in his arms, and how the boy had gone from old to ancient in so little time.
He heard Jazz bellow a war cry then open fire behind him.
He couldn’t keep running.
Jazz was wrong: two people could hold them off longer than one, maybe much longer, maybe long enough to guarantee escape for Teagan and the kids.
Protecting Luca was their number one mission, but that didn’t compare with Brent’s need to keep his loved ones safe. He never signed up to sacrifice his family, no way in hell. He’d lost enough, he’d failed enough.
Brent laid Luca down against the tunnel wall then turned around and raced back toward the door, drawing his gun on the way.
He threw open the tunne
l door, aiming into the room as he did, and found Jazz crouched behind an overturned metal table in a shootout with a pair of Guardsmen. A third lay dead on the stairs.
Neither Guardsman was expecting Brent at the door. Owing to regular practice, fierce determination, blind luck, or perhaps the God he didn’t believe in, Brent managed to squeeze off a pair of shots and tag both men in the head, right through their visors.
As they fell to the ground, screaming or dying, another three Guardsmen rushed into the room, firing.
Brent ducked behind the metal table, shielding himself beside Jazz. The table’s bottom was coated with Kevlar — as if the team had planned for attack. He wondered if any of the stuff back at the other team houses was similarly modified.
“Why’d you come back?” Jazz seemed furious rather than grateful.
“To help you.”
Guardsmen fired. Bullets thunked into the table and the wall behind them.
“I don’t need help, Brent. You do. Where’s Luca?”
“He’s in the tunnel, against a wall.”
More bullets. Brent hoped the table would stay in one piece, and that none of the Guardsmen had armor-piercing bullets.
Brent made to stand and squeeze off a couple of shots, but Jazz yanked him down. He heard a bullet whizz by above.
“Dammit, Brent. You were supposed to protect him. Now you probably got all of us killed.”
Brent swallowed and said nothing, hating that Jazz was probably right.
She popped up, fired her shotgun, then fell beside Brent, her back pressed to the metal table.
Desperate to feel like a hero, Brent stood, quickly surveyed the room, saw that Jazz had managed to tag one of the three Guardsmen, set his sights on one of the remaining two, and pulled the trigger.
Brent was certain he missed.
Both guards returned fire.
Jazz loaded her shotgun.
“Yeah, well,” Brent said, “change of plans.”
Jazz screamed, “You don’t get to change plans, Brent! Get back in there, and get Luca to safety NOW!”
“No. We can take them.”
Jazz rolled around to the table’s side and blasted her shotgun again. Brent heard a Guardsman plop to the ground.
Assuming the Guardsman’s attention would be with Jazz, Brent surrendered his cover and fired again.
This time, he hit the Guardsman. He grabbed two of their rifles and brought them behind the table and dropped them to the ground.
Another three poured through the door.
Jazz ducked back behind the table beside him, still looking furious, but less willing to argue.
“You said you saw how many shuttles?”
“I dunno, three or four.”
“Then there are plenty still coming. Go!”
Jazz jumped up, but automatic strafing sent her back down.
She glared at Brent. “Go NOW!”
Brent looked behind him at the door. It was close enough that he could probably back away without getting hit and make it safely into the tunnel. But the minute he left, Brent felt certain, the Guardsmen would overrun Jazz and be right behind him moments later.
Jazz leaned around the table’s edge, over Brent, and fired blindly into the room.
“GO! You’re a shit shot, Brent. All you’re doing now is helping to make sure that Luca’s dead and that the Guardsmen all follow. You want to be a hero, then get the hell out of my way.”
It stung like his hand in a hornet’s nest, but Brent finally got it.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t give me that sorry shit. Just get Luca to safety.”
“Sorry,” Brent repeated anyway. “And good luck.”
“I’ll cover you,” Jazz said, still irritated, not bothering to look Brent’s way to say goodbye. “And shut the door on your way out.”
She grabbed one of the rifles then sprang up on the opposite side for her final attempt at clearing the room, covering Brent while he scrambled through the door.
He slammed it shut behind him, feeling like he was leaving Jazz to her doom. No time for regrets: he scooped Luca up and raced ahead at full speed.
He kept racing, hearing the volleys of gunfire, thankful that Jazz was buying them time — more time than he thought she could. He kept going, gunshots fading, knowing that as long as they boomed in the distance, he had clear passage and maybe a chance.
He pushed himself harder, wishing he was in better shape, picturing how easy Barrow had made it seem, carrying Luca like a comforter on the way to the washing machine.
Suddenly, the gunfire stopped.
Brent hated himself, wondering if he should lay Luca down so he could run faster. The kid was nearly dead, but that didn’t excuse Brent from being a coward.
Still, he had to save his family, no matter what.
Brent laid Luca down and raced into the darkness.
He made it about twenty yards down the tunnel, fear muffling his guilt, desperate to catch up to the others while simultaneously hoping that they’d run far enough that he’d never be able to catch them.
If he couldn’t, then neither could the Guardsmen.
Brent rounded a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. Marina was standing with Teagan, Emily, and the children.
Brent was thrilled to see Marina. Maybe the two of them could hold off the Guardsmen long enough for everyone else to get away. Hell, Marina could probably do it herself.
Brent yelled, “They’re coming!”
He noticed that neither Barrow nor Jevonne was present.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
Marina shook her head. Her eyes were sad, and something else. “They didn’t make it.”
Before Brent could wonder what that something else was, Marina raised her gun and fired.
A bullet burned through his gut.
Brent fell to the ground and saw Emily vanish.
* * * *
CHAPTER 10 — Boricio Wolfe
Boricio felt sure that someone was in the dilapidated house with him and Lisa.
He crept into the living room, holding his gun while looking around at the detritus of years. The house was decayed: rotting wood swallowed by cobwebs, the stench of dust and mold burning his nostrils.
Lisa stepped out of the kitchen and looked at Boricio with her eyebrows raised. “What has you so — ”
Boricio shook his head with a finger to his lips and gestured around the house.
Lisa nodded, and together they searched. He could hear her racing heart next to his.
From nowhere, Emily flashed into existence.
Boricio jumped back, barely holding his scream.
Lisa spun around, aiming her gun on the girl.
“No!” Boricio yelled, grabbing Lisa’s wrist, squeezing it tight and raising her arm in the air.
Emily looked at them with terrified eyes.
“They got them.”
“What?” Lisa and Boricio asked together.
“The aliens.” Her voice trembled. “They came and got them.”
Boricio licked his dry lips. “Got who?”
A beat, as if she had to catch her breath then, “Everyone.”
* * * *
EPILOGUE
One minute, Ed was in the belfry, waiting for the explosion. The next, he was surrounded by utter darkness.
He was in some kind of void, wondering if death was an absence of any sensation, and if it had claimed him. No God. No Heaven. No Hell. Only nothing.
But that wasn’t quite the case.
Ed felt cold.
And suddenly, he was gasping for air.
A flicker of light above!
His body spilled into motion, acting on instinct, clawing at what felt like soil, pushing, pulling, himself upward. Only after his hands broke through the surface did Ed realize he was crawling out of the ground, like an undead monstrosity scrabbling up from the grave.
He stood and looked around, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu, even though he w
as certain he’d never been wherever he was.
Best Ed could tell, in what felt like dawn’s early light, he was in some kind of grove. His grave was smack dab in the middle of a rich brown soil road running forever in two directions like the Yellow Brick Road leading to Oz. On either side of that road were flowering bushes with the largest, brightest flowers he’d ever seen, seeming to glow with an eerie incandescence.
Just beyond the flowering bushes were thousands of massive ancient redwoods that looked thousands of years old, climbing into the sky. Streams of sunshine flowed like a river through breaks in the canopy. In those streams, motes of dust, pollen, and other things too tiny to identify floated in what felt like slow motion.
Where the hell am I?
Luca must’ve teleported him away from danger, again, just before the grenade went off in the belfry. Where’s Boricio and Lisa?
He looked down at his ribs, searching for the stabbing wound. But it was gone, as was any trace of blood. Ed was also wearing different clothes: charcoal pants, a white long-sleeve shirt, and a gray jacket. Clothes he’d worn more than two decades ago, when he’d first started on the job.
What the hell is happening?
“Luca?”
No response.
Ed heard a babbling brook to his right.
His feet decided to follow the sound before his mind had agreed it was a good idea. He stepped through a thick green bush with large purple flowers that looked like nothing he’d seen on Earth. Branches retreated as he stepped through, to protect the flowers or clear his way.
The environment’s surreality caused his head to spin in confusion. Had Luca teleported him to some other dimension? An alien world? Ed wasn’t sure what scared him more — to think that he was on some other world far away from everyone he knew, or … another possibility. That he was dead, and this was some kind of afterlife — Heaven? Hell? Limbo?
He pushed himself to walk faster to find the water. The answer that might be there. He couldn’t get lost in this massive forest. If he did, Ed would certainly lose his mind.