When Darkness Reigns

by Preston L. Marshall

  “What?” Lumar asked dumb with fear.

  “Well, you're a civilian, but you've taken up arms against our enemies. Frankly, I think that was movingly brave of you, but the problem comes from what we do with you next.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your name is Lumar Lee, is that correct?” asked the old man as he produced a tablet from a pocket on his scrubs.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “So you're faced with a choice, Lumar. Normally in situations like Sangent we find a new home for displaced civilians and relocate them. For instance, once our doctors have seen to the other civilians that arrived with you they will be sent to Phoenix, Arizona. However, you’ve proven yourself useful and demonstrated considerable valor in the face of overwhelming odds. If you wish, we can send you to Phoenix with the others, or I can have a new service record created for you and transfer you to Radcliff’s unit. What do you say?”

  “I came with my friend Nate,” Lumar said. “Did you offer him the same choice?”

  “I did,” the old man said.

  “What did he say?”

  “He chose to serve, rather than take the offer to go to Phoenix.”

  “Then I'll stay too,” Lumar answered.

  “Excellent, then all that's left is for you to sign this,” the old man said handing him the tablet.

  “What's this?”

  “Release forms, just to make everything official and to make your enlistment official. I took the liberty of filling out the medical information for you. My tests told me all I needed for it.”

  Lumar flipped through the digital pages and put his marks on the lines that required it. He got the sense that he wasn't really being given a choice, but if Nate had decided to stay that was enough for him. He wondered if they were really going to just send him on his way if he refused them.

  “Here,” Lumar said offering the tablet back. “It's done.”

  “Welcome to the United States', Army Private E-1 Lee. Now let's get you out of here. I'm sure you're tired of this place and that gown.”

  The old man handed Lumar a set of new clothes and urged him to get dressed before stepping out. Lumar put on his new uniform gray, gray, and gray with a little black. In the all-white room though it almost tricked him into feeling like it was colorful. Lumar wondered if the whole world was black and white now. Maybe all the drugs and procedures had made him colorblind. Then the old man came back into the room. He was wearing a pale green set of scrubs. Somewhere in the world there was still color. He was looking forward to finding more of it.

  The old man wasn't alone this time. He had a woman in a suit of armor with him.

  “I'll be taking you to your quarters,” the woman said.

  “Alright,” Lumar replied.

  The old man gave a slight wave of his hand as Lumar was led out of the room by the soldier. Lumar gave the faintest of smiles and nodded.

  The woman walked at a brisk pace. Lumar struggled to keep up with her. Before they made it to the end of the hallway, Lumar's legs buckled under him. His shoulder slammed into the wall so hard and loud he was afraid he'd broken something. His head swam. The package of clothing the doctor had handed him tumbled to the ground and spilled its contents all over the hallway.

  The sedatives hadn't worn off yet. His heart was beating way too slowly. It was like his blood was syrup in his veins. His eyes felt dry and about to burst out of his head. He felt arms pull him back to his feet. The woman had picked him up off the floor without a word, at least not a word that Lumar heard. He found himself leaning against the wall watching her pick up his things. He tried to push off the wall and help her, but he felt himself falling again the instant he let go of the wall so he stayed.

  After she gathered up his effects she put her arm around his waist. She was practically carrying him on her hip the whole way. Lumar's feet were dragging. He was only taking one step for every four she took, but somehow it barely seemed to slow her down. They were out in the hangar again in a moment. Lumar cringed and tried to cover his head when he saw a Crusader walking in their general direction. He felt like it was going to step on them, but his escort seemed not to notice. She just made for the elevator and propped him up in the corner while she found the button for the floor she wanted. Lumar thought he fell asleep for a moment in the elevator. He felt the metal walls riding up his back and the woman scooped him up before he hit the floor again.

  She carried him out of the elevator into another colorless room, gray on gray. There had been a point of red light on the elevator's buttons. Lumar found himself missing it already. She carried him up a ramp to a series of colorless geometrically shaped buildings. When she found the one he was meant for she opened the door and hoisted him through.

  Ford and Radcliff were napping when they came in. Wallace and Jesse were nowhere to be seen. Nate bolted awkwardly upright in his seat when the door opened. His legs had been up over the sides of the loveseat and when he tried to sit up he almost fell back down into the chair's embrace. He threw his legs to the ground and sprinted to the door. In a flash of motion of his arms were around Lumar's shoulders squeezing him. Lumar realized the last time they'd been reunited it was about the same. He wondered if he had been in the same amount of danger here.

  “Lumar, what have they done to you! You look like hell! Your hair!” Nate cried.

  The woman released her hold on Lumar and let Nate take his full weight. Nate wasn't ready for it and nearly let Lumar slump to the ground. She handed Nate the package of clothing she was carrying for Lumar once Nate caught his balance.

  “I'm sorry for the state he's in,” the female soldier said. “I think they gave him too much sedative. He should be fine in the morning.”

  She saluted and ducked out of the door without any further explanation. Radcliff and Ford began to rouse during the course of the exchange.

  “What time is it?” Lumar moaned.

  “It's almost ten,” Nate answered. “They kept you all day! I was afraid they weren't going to bring you to us!”

  “Sorry,” Lumar apologized. “I didn't mean to make you worry about me. I guess I'm a soldier now. I signed something.”

  “You’re not the only one. They drafted me in too.”

  “Yeah,” Lumar sighed. “That weird old doctor told me that. I wasn't about to let you go off and do something like this on your own.”

  “You must be starving!” Nate shouted. “We've got stuff for sandwiches in the kitchen. It's just bologna and bread, but you know, bologna's one of the few foods that's the same as it was before the war. If you like it anyway.”

  “That sounds great,” Lumar replied.

  “Well you two, it’s always good to hear I’ve got some new faces to work with,” said Radcliff. “I'm glad you made it back to us alright kid. You two better get some real sleep after your snacks though. The morning's always here before we want it to be.”

  “Probably right,” Lumar replied.

  Nate helped Lumar to the kitchen. He ended up leaning against the counter while Nate made him some food. He could still barely stand even though his head was clearing. Nate made him the driest bologna sandwich he had ever eaten. The bread was stale and chewy. There were no condiments. The sandwich served its purpose, even if it was sub-par. The emptiness inside him welcomed the morsels greedily and churned angrily at how long it had taken Lumar to appease it. He was afraid to push his stomach too hard lest it reject the offering so he didn't ask for seconds.

  When he finished, Nate put his arm around him and helped him up the stairs. The top floor was divided equally between a men's barracks and a women's barracks. Lumar was jealous that Jesse was going to have all that space to herself. Nate opened the men's door and led him in.

  There wasn't much to it. There were four bunk beds on either side with a narrow walkway down the middle. There was room for eight, but none of the beds were taken. Lumar realized Jesse wasn't getting her own room after all.

  At the back was another bat
hroom with a pair of shower stalls. It wasn't a separate room. There was just a stone wall three-quarters the height of the ceiling with curtains separating the two showers.

  Lumar contemplated a shower, but he was too tired to stand on his own. He couldn't bring himself to ask Nate to wash him. No amount of washing his outsides would take away the horrible feelings of weakness and drowsiness that were plaguing him anyway.

  Nate put Lumar down on one of the bottom bunks. Lumar almost asked to have one of the top bunks. He'd always wanted to sleep on the top bed in a bunk bed, but he'd never had one. His little brother and he had shared a queen-sized.

  Lumar had enough strength to unbutton the outer shirt and Nate helped him unlace the boots. Lumar could barely believe he'd been able to get them on in the first place. It was almost like moving earlier had brought on this wave of lethargy. Nate tossed a thin blanket over him. It wasn't very warm, but the comfort of being covered was enough. He didn't feel right having his friend take care of him, but he was grateful for it.

  “I'm going to be right here on the adjacent bed,” Nate said. “If you need anything just say so.”

  “Thanks man,” Lumar said. “Sorry for being such a bother.”

  “It's nothing,” Nate replied.

  It only took a moment for Lumar to fall asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  “They haven't made a sound in a while,” Ford said. “I'm sure by now they're all asleep. I wonder if Jesse and Wally realize how thin the ceiling is below them.”

  Radcliff and Ford had been sitting up in the living room for hours now without saying a word. It was well after midnight now. Radcliff just couldn't bring himself to sleep. Ford had napped for a few hours and just now started moving again.

  “What they choose to do behind closed doors is their business,” Radcliff said. “Don't say anything to them. Sex is a coping mechanism. You know how I feel about what they do, but they're adults. They can do whatever they want. It's not our place to tell them what they can and can't do.”

  “I was going for a joke,” Ford said. “They're just kids after all.”

  “Sorry. There's a lot on my mind.”

  “I can tell. You never sleep much anyway, but after something like what we just walked away from, you make some time for it.”

  “It was different this time Ford.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the past we lost of a lot friends under my command sure, more than I care to count, but Sangent was different. It was so many civilians. It wasn't a battlefield. It was people's homes.”

  “You feel guilty don't you?” Ford asked. “I can always tell what you're feeling.”

  “And it’s always annoying,” Radcliff replied. “I don't know how you read me so much better than anyone else.”

  “We've served together too long. Sometimes I think I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “You might,” Radcliff admitted. “I do feel guilty for letting Sangent die.”

  “You didn't let the city die Radcliff,” Ford sighed.

  “Yes I did, you know I did. I could have done so much more.”

  “Or you could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “I doubt it. Not against a force like that.”

  “You did what you had to do. We haven't found him yet.”

  “I know that. Sometimes I don't know if the cost is worth it. So many people have died because I haven't taken action. Usually it's other soldiers. I regretted letting them die for me, but I always took some comfort in the fact that when you put on the uniform you're expecting death at any time. Soldiers learn to embrace death as a constant companion. You know it could come for you at any moment. You live every day knowing it could be your last. Sangent didn't have that many soldiers. What soldiers we did have were mostly a bunch of kids who treated the job more like being police officers. They were all green, never fought the enemy outside of dummies and computer simulations. But even they knew the weight of the uniform. At least they'd been told what it meant.”

  “Sangent's not the only city that we've lost in this war. It won't be the last.”

  “But I've never been there before when a city fell. We held them off at Dallas and Border. Those were victories. We weren't there for Atlanta or Houston or New Orleans. I know other cities fell before, but we never let a city fall on our watch. At least not since we came back from Ecuador.”

  “That was different,” Ford assured him.

  “I know it was. I couldn't do anything about that back then, but now, I could have saved all those people.”

  “You know last time we had this conversation I think it went almost exactly the opposite of this one. I was the one saying we could have done more.”

  Radcliff smiled back weakly.

  “You're right.”

  “I was furious with you for holding back. We'd lost a couple of friends that day.”

  “I remember.”

  “On the bright side, we didn't lose friends this time. Jesse and Wallace are fine.”

  Radcliff cared for Wallace and Jesse more than he showed most of the time. He'd never had kids of his own. Sometimes he felt like they were as close as he'd ever get. He would do anything for them. He didn’t want their names to be added to the list of his dead comrades.

  “We need to find him soon Ford. I'm getting soft and sentimental in my old age. Of course that's not the only thing that's bothering me.”

  “Derricks?” Ford asked.

  “This has his stench all over it. They handed me our next assignment after they released me from the exam room. I've been on enough suicide missions to recognize one when someone hands it to me. They get a weird look in their eye. It drips with guilt.”

  “What's the mission?”

  “It's a clever one, I'll say that much. On the surface it looks like a gesture of goodwill, maybe even giving us a sense of closure and revenge over Sangent's loss. We're going back to make a final sweep for survivors and to pursue the enemy back to their base of operations.”

  “Sounds a little pointless,” Ford replied. “They sent a warship out there to check for survivors. They probably could have followed the Sarsaul back to their hole much easier with that.”

  “You see what I'm saying. With just us on the ground, we're going to be chasing down an army that destroyed a city.”

  “On the ground? Why not in the hovertruck? Or a gunship?”

  “It's coming together isn't it? It's suicidal. Lumar and Nate will feel like they're getting a sense of closure. Jesse and Wallace probably will too. After that though we'll be walking right into the swarm.”

  “No chance of declining the mission I suppose?”

  “Derricks would like nothing more than to have an excuse for locking me up or letting his favorite firing squad have a go at me.”

  “I think you're exaggerating a little. He doesn't like you, but he's never done anything to intentionally kill us.”

  “You think all those missions where I was the only one you flew out were just coincidence?”

  “We're not the only unit that's suffered casualties. This has been a hard war. I think you're just being paranoid. We'll just need to be careful is all. I'll be driving. I'll get us out if it looks hairy. I don't want anything to happen to those kids either. At the end of the day we're not just fighting for Derricks. We're fighting for the survival of the human race.”

  “I know. It's just with him I feel like I can't focus on the mission. I'm always looking for the trap he's setting out for me.”

  “That was a long time ago. He was the one that put us in Sangent in the first place. I felt like that was a peace offering. Sangent was a nice quiet posting, far from the fighting.”

  “Until yesterday.”

  “Nobody could have known that was going to happen.”

  “I know.”

  “Well,” Ford yawned. “My butt's going numb from lying here like this. I'm going up for one of those bunks. You should probably do the same. I doubt they'll have us wa
it too long for that mission. They'll want us to get there before the trail's cold.”

  “The note said he wanted to brief us on the mission himself after breakfast. He’ll probably send us out shortly after that,” Radcliff said. “I'll follow you up in a minute.”

  Radcliff appreciated Ford's views. He really did. Ford was always the voice of reason, but sometimes Radcliff couldn't help but feel like Ford was playing devil's advocate. The assignment just didn't sit well with him. Anyone could do what they were being asked to do. Anyone else on base could have done it already instead of giving the Sarsaul a day's lead on them.

  He leaned back into the recliner again and stared up at the ceiling.

  “I don't guess I would have ever found him sitting around in Sangent playing watchdog anyway,” Radcliff mused. “I guess it must have been time to move on and keep looking.”

  Radcliff knew fulfilling his oath was going to cost him. There had never been any delusions about that even from the beginning. Sometimes the cost just felt too high. If it came down to it he'd crawl away from this new suicide mission alone if he had to. He hated to admit that to himself again. He'd keep fighting and keep searching. He wasn't about to let himself die before he fulfilled his oath, no matter what else that cost him. The promised reward was worth any sacrifices he had to make, but he feared he'd end up being alone when the time came to collect.

  Chapter Ten

  The night passed. The artificial sunrise was little more than turning all of the cavern's lights back on in. During the night all but a handful of the lights had been turned out to save power. It was just enough to find for someone to find their way to the light switch in case of an emergency.

  Lumar slept through the lights being turned back on even though the lights in the bunkroom had been turned on too. It was the reverie blasting through a speaker in the wall that pulled him out of his sleep. Water pouring out of the showerheads was the second thing he heard. He sat up testing himself against the effect of the drugs he'd been filled with. His head seemed clear, but it had seemed clear in the examination room until he tried to move.