Anthem's Fall

by S. L. Dunn

  …

  Sam Larson pressed hard on the steering wheel of his Acura, more out of exasperation than as a command to the Taurus with Connecticut plates idling in front of him. The sound of his horn was drowned out in the resonance of puttering cars that sat at a dead stop along the Manhattan Bridge.

  Twenty minutes ago, as Sam had hastened out of his office on William Street and made for his car, he had felt certain that if—god forbid—something did happen in New York, he would at the very least beat the traffic out of Manhattan.

  Sam’s situation could not have been better, given the circumstances.

  It was by chance that he had happened to drive his car to work that morning and swallowed the agonizing parking bill. Furthermore, it was by shear happenstance that Sam had been absentmindedly clicking the refresh button on The New York Times website for stock quotes when he saw the breaking news of the Chicago attack. Straightaway, it had not felt right as Sam read the bizarre headline. Preferring an approach of prudence, he stepped out early and stopped at a sandwich place near the parking garage while the broadcast was still speaking of a single skyscraper falling in the Windy City.

  The moment the second skyscraper fell, his pastrami was in the trash and he was hastily pulling his car out of the parking garage and through the intersections toward the Manhattan Bridge.

  Despite his seemingly good luck and quick thinking, Sam was forced to slam on his brakes as the lanes atop the bridge abruptly clogged to a halt the moment he crossed over FDR Drive. After several minutes of creeping along, he found himself utterly gridlocked, suspended a hundred feet over the East River and staring up past his sunroof at broad cables and naked steel girders of the bridge and blue skies beyond.

  The Billboard Top Forty radio station he normally listened to was at the moment covering what the media had tentatively dubbed, The Devastation in Chicago. Sam listened in growing disbelief as the anchors stressed that this was no nine-eleven; this was no earthquake. This was something infinitely more terrible and catastrophic. The anchors described the video footage as unspeakable, as apocalyptic. Hundreds of thousands were feared dead. The word war was repeated over and over, and it filled Sam with a very poignant kind of dread that he was not accustomed to.

  Who was responsible for the attack? What was it? How did it begin and end so abruptly? Were other cities in danger? Were other countries in danger?

  No one had any answers.

  Special correspondents and advisors were pointing fingers at everything and everyone from Al Qaeda to North Korea to the United States government itself. One evangelical correspondent even mentioned the End Times and The Second Coming of the Messiah. Sam swallowed at the man’s words, and ran his palms nervously around his steering wheel.

  A ring tone sounded over the radio program, and Sam pulled out his cell phone.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  Sam pressed his horn again. He was thankful to have the towers of Manhattan in his rearview mirror, but not at all happy about his bridge-bound location should New York be next on the terrorists’—surely, they were terrorists—hit list. Though he was not truly concerned for his immediate safety, it was more of a negligible lingering sort of trepidation in the far recesses of his mind.

  “Sam! Have you been watching the news?” his Dad asked, surely sitting behind the desk in his office in Stamford, a pile of paperwork in front of him and his phone balanced against his shoulder. “Oh my god. Chicago.”

  Sam nodded. “I know.”

  “Where are you? I want you out of the city right now.” His father’s voice was stern, his tone filled with concern.

  “I’m already on my way out now. I’m sitting in traffic on the Manhattan Bridge.”

  There was a pause. “You’re getting out of Manhattan by car? Are you crazy?”

  “No—I’m not crazy. I’m at the front end of the traffic. I got a head start.”

  “Head start? Sam it took people days to get out of the city after nine-eleven. The moment you’re off that bridge, pull your car over anywhere and get to a commuter rail station.”

  “Dad, New York isn’t even in danger. You’re being a little drama—”

  “Sam! Mom and I will pay for the bill if your car gets towed, I don’t care. Promise me you’ll get on a commuter rail at the next station you see and get as far from the city as you possibly can. I don’t care if you have to go all the way up Long Island.”

  “I . . .” Sam raised a hand in exasperation and pressed hard on his car horn again. “Okay, fine, Dad. I promise. I’ll call you when I know where I’m headed.”

  “Okay. I love you, Sam.”

  “I love you too, but you’re being really dramatic here. Chicago is a thousand miles away.”

  Sam ended the call with a roll of his eyes and turned his radio up just in time to hear a woman say something about New York City. Every hair on his body rose. He reached out and turned the volume knob to full.

  “We have received word of a possible incident starting in New York City just minutes ago.” Sam felt his intestines turn to liquid as the broadcast continued. “Though at this point the unconfirmed claims of an attack on New York remain just that: unsubstantiated. There are pockets of civil unrest being reported across the nation in nearly every major city from Los Angeles to Miami. But there is no cause to believe that whatever assaulted Chicago will spread.”

  The radio station continued to stress a lack of any reliable information as Sam stared out his passenger-side window to examine the Brooklyn Bridge. It looked to be in no better condition than the one on which his Acura was now parked. He could see lines of cars and a dozen or so semis waiting in similar traffic. Giving up with his car horn, he stared at the rear bumper of the Taurus before him, propping his elbow against the door and resting his chin in his palm as the minutes dragged on.

  The chilling words of the broadcast echoed through Sam’s mind. It did not seem possible that terrorists could plant bombs in so many buildings. What could cause that level of destruction? Sam lifted his head up when he noticed a woman open the driver-side door of a Subaru a few cars ahead and step out of her car. A truck behind him beeped. The woman was staring southward in awe, the scarf wrapped about her neck blowing in the open air. Her passenger got out as well, standing and staring in the same direction downriver. Sam looked from car to car as more people opened their doors, exited their vehicles, and gazed southward. He was reluctant to match their stares, knowing what lay in the direction of their attention. They were all looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. A sudden terrible pang of nausea rose in the back of his throat. Fearfully and slowly, Sam turned his eyes downriver.

  “Oh shit,” he moaned in a terrible whisper.

  Sam pulled at the handle of his door and stepped out onto the pavement of the bridge. He was taken aback by the gusty wind that forcefully and loudly whipped about his face as the indicator alarm chimed familiarly from his open door. Staring in disbelief down the East River, a queasy pallor began to fill his features. He watched as the Brooklyn Bridge visibly rocked, swayed from side to side, and then collapsed into the devouring water of the East River. Countless toppling and tumbling cars crashed down against the surface of the water and disappeared into the veritable abyss alongside the loose rubble and cables. The sounds traveling across the open water from the calamity were unspeakable.

  Sam was suddenly pushed forward against the hood of his car as a man sprinted by and knocked him out of the way, followed by another, and another. People were abandoning their vehicles in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and moving on foot across its length toward Brooklyn. Within seconds everyone had collectively weighed the value of their lives versus their cars, and at once Sam left his Acura idling. He became one face in a horrendously crammed marathon across the top deck.

  The events that followed the abandonment of his car all seemed to happen very quickly, though with a remarkable degree of clarity to Sam’s conscious mind.

  Sam did not allow his thoughts to slip into a panic, or�
�for that matter—to think anything at all. On the contrary, he focused on pumping one leg in front of the other as he bumped elbows with other sprinters and wheezed in the chilly Atlantic air. Perhaps it was a primal mechanism of composure in the face of imminent death. Perhaps it was raw adrenaline. Regardless of the cause, the lucid awareness of his mind felt extraordinary—almost euphoric.

  There was no screaming or shouting among the moving crowd, save a few individuals. It was not as his imagination or as Hollywood would have pictured such a rush. There was only the panting and huffing of running. The majority were simply too preoccupied with pushing forward to shout out.

  Then Sam stumbled and nearly tripped as the pavement beneath him lurched. Pinging sounds came from above. He steadied his feet and looked skyward to see a thick steel cable of the suspension bridge sailing through the open air, snapped free from its heavy load. The visible horizon of Brooklyn’s skyline shifted to a forty-five degree angle with the bridge underneath him. His orientation in space became jarred. Something hard hit him in the left hip. Sam heard a deep popping noise, and he looked down with incomprehension at the rear bumper of a Honda that had slid due to the sudden incline of the bridge. It had crushed his pelvis and pinned his lower half against the side of a Volvo. There was no pain. He heard a crumbling of pavement—or perhaps it was the pulverized bones in his legs—and a deep sound of yielding iron.

  At once he was thrown upside down, his world moving in slow motion. He was falling. Sam tumbled and spun through open space, and his vision rotated between grayish swells and white-capped crests to the crystal blue sky. As he fell closer and closer to the unwelcoming water, his mind could not, would not, comprehend what would happen upon impact.

  Plooosh.

  Cold. Dark. Hell was not blistering and fiery; it was this. The icy river clutched at his helpless body, pulling him deeper, swallowing his life and extinguishing the fire in his heart. Countless watery and gurgling screams—his own one of them—filled his ears like dreadful whale calls in the blackness.

  Then there was nothing.

  …

  Vengelis had specifically told them no theatrics, so Darien flew north up the span of the eastern river loosening cables and ripping out load bearing rivets on the several bridges. He turned and watched each monumental bridge waver and buckle before unceremoniously collapsing with a mighty splash into the river to an orchestra of shrieks—both man and steel. The span of choppy water steadily narrowed as he made his way north, and as he knocked out several smaller bridges, Darien soon recognized the conspicuous form of the Lord General flying above the rooftops to his west. With a last glance down the now unobstructed, albeit trouncing waterway, Darien veered up to meet his fellow Imperial First Class.

  “All set?” Hoff called as he came into earshot.

  “Yeah,” Darien said. “Should we head back to Vengelis?”

  “Please,” Hoff glared at him contemptuously as they came to a halt, “I’m sure he won’t have difficulty handling himself, and if he does all he has to do is call for us on the remotes. I spent way too much time stuffed in that goddamn Harbinger I. I’m enjoying the open air.”

  Hoff brushed some crumbled cement from his shoulder and soared past him, and Darien hastened alongside. “For the life of me I don’t understand what we’re doing.”

  The Lord General said nothing, but looked back and forth across the enormous now secluded city that sat imperial and proud under a crown of navy skies. A colorful park blotted in autumn hues spread out before them, its colorful stands of trees and paths enclosed on all sides by dense buildings. On its south end, the park gave way to the tremendous skyscrapers in the center of the city. Yet below the impressive spires and broad impassive facades, the teeming avenues and streets were seething with anarchy. The sounds of the felled bridges had carried like a herald of carnage across the rooftops. There was an enormous exodus northward, and countless heads and shoulders of the rushing stampede hid the very asphalt of the streets and sidewalks. It appeared as though the denizens of New York believed their city to be next on the list of destruction, and a riot seemingly five million strong was permeating through the city, a blood curdling mutiny upon civilization.

  In the crowding blocks and intersections, anything that could be picked up was being lugged and heaved through glass panes of storefronts. Men and women were running out of retail shops with armfuls of electronics boxes and lumpy heaps of new clothing. On other street corners, people were congregating and shouting at regiments of police officers armed with broad plastic shields. The rioters were flinging debris at the organized lines of pushing police. The paltry riot squads were overtly fighting a losing battle. Despite the faint pops of rubber bullet rounds and the whooshing hisses of cloudy tear gas, they were incapable of pacifying the sheer scale of havoc that was growing exponentially around them.

  “What are they doing?” Darien asked.

  “Their system is breaking down. They’re panicking,” Hoff said as he ran the back of his hand over his nose. A wafting smell of pungent tear gas had lifted in the breeze and rose to greet them, proving only a mere annoyance against their resoluteness.

  “When the Felixes attacked, we fought them to the last man—to the last child. Now we’re attacking these people and they seem to only want to fight each other.” Darien was watching the revolution below in wonder.

  “Our race was founded on discipline. Theirs . . .” The Lord General watched a group of men overtake an armored police officer and begin to beat him to the pavement, kicking and beating at his outstretched arms. “Who can say?”

  Darien began to grow ill at ease, sickened, as of one watching livestock in a butcher house struggling desperate and dumb against the sudden awareness of the inescapability of their plight.

  “A house of cards,” Hoff muttered, marveling at the conflicting panorama of tranquil skyline and surging street level. “Just a tap and its innards of nothingness show.”

  Darien nodded silently.

  Hoff then descended, soaring southward down the avenue east of the park. His skyward swoop went unnoticed by most of the bobbing heads of the migration. A few upturned eyes saw his flight and proceeded to trip over their feet and fall in their momentary bewilderment, instantly vanishing underneath the thundering of feet. Hoff came down and landed powerfully in the center of the pushing mob, looking impossibly enormous between two abandoned cars. The men and women closest to him drew back in disbelief, causing the subsequent runners to trip over them and fall. Beside Hoff, a dozen or so beautiful horses were harnessed to ornate carriages. The horses began to rear and buck as they saw Hoff and felt the raw hysteria of the crowd. Frothing at the mouth, their hooves clapped against the pavement and they dashed in every direction, several of the carriages overturning and knocking the poor beasts to their sides as they screeched and neighed.

  The Lord General’s face was stoic as he looked down into the sea of horrified souls. The people were no different than the horses. They knew. The faces of the men and women illustrated their comprehension. In some instinctual way they understood he was not one of them; this nine-foot-tall giant had something to do with the destruction. The people in the front recoiled and backed away from him on all fours. Yet still the pack pushed them forward, pushing them toward the Lord General of the Imperial Army.

  From overhead, Darien saw there were thousands of people pushing up the avenue toward them. The men and women in the front continued to flop and claw about, hoarsely screaming for everyone to get back. But the mob was incapable of comprehension, and foot by foot they were pushed yelling in horror toward Hoff. The rhythmic thumping of helicopters descended from above, the pilots and cameramen all stricken with terror. The camera lens was locked on the growing hysteria in the streets. It was locked on Hoff.

  One of the terrible giants was in New York.

  Darien was watching Hoff’s callousness with growing unease from far above when something suddenly caught his eye. An object seemed to blaze for a moment acr
oss the clear sky with impossible speed. He looked west, but whatever it had been was already gone. Darien glared uncertainly, scanning the sky and squinting between the rooftops and towers. After a pause he slowly withdrew his attention back to watch the Lord General in the avenue below.

  Hoff leaned over and picked up a red Jeep that sat idling beside him. The owner had left it running, and the radio was still playing music, though it was impossible to hear against the riotous surroundings. He held the car over the ground as though it weighed nothing at all, the steel frame wrenching under the unusual weight displacement of his grip. Hoff spun in place to gather momentum, firmly grasping the undercarriage, and released the car. The car shot out of his hands as a projectile going straight into the crowd. It careened and bounced high into the air, plowing a grisly path through the densely packed men, women, and children. There was nowhere to move, nowhere to duck or get out of the way. Finally the barely recognizable car came to a stop outside a torn-down pizza shop awning. The mangled hood spurted blue crackling fire, and with a whoosh of air the gasoline tank caught fire, burping flames onto the trapped bystanders.

  The sadistic interior of his soul reared its hideous face, and Hoff smiled at the slaughter. He leaned down to pick up another car to bowl through the crowd. The mob now had its priorities straight, and there was a distance between its ranks and the mysterious giant. The people in the front row were trembling and gasping as though the very sight of what they had just witnessed had knocked the wind out of them. They held out their hands, pleading and crying out for him to not kill them, please not to kill them. Hoff regarded their display with scorn. He picked up another larger car and began spinning in place to throw strike two.

  BOOOOOOOOOOM!!

  At first it was unclear what had happened. The street—the entire city—rattled as though a meteor struck the pavement between Hoff and the mortified crowd. The impact was deafening, and a shockwave of cloudy debris kicked up, obscuring the chaos of the street in dust. The intersection fell into a still silence, all uncertain what had just occurred.