by Jordan Ervin
Gene spotted a large shape just ahead in the tunnel—dark against the burning wreckage of the helicopter.
“Look out!”
Marc slammed on the brakes—the nose of the Humvee dipping down as Gene and Lev were thrown forward. The Humvee’s wide off-road tires shuddered underneath and Gene thought they were about to slam into whatever wreckage he had seen under the freeway. The tires finally seized the concrete below. They barely touched the dark heap in front of them as the Humvee came to a halt, throwing them all backwards this time. Gene immediately ripped the side door open, leaping out of the Humvee and onto the pavement.
Distant rumblings continued to sound off from the city like poorly tuned drums, though they had slowed in frequency as Gene cautiously approached the tunnel. He looked back at the Humvee as Marc and Lev exited, motioning for them to watch the road behind them. Gene ran over to the wreckage—a half destroyed blue truck—and fumbled with his flashlight in one hand and his side arm in the other. His flashlight failed to immediately light up and he smacked it a few times. When the tiny LED bulbs finally ignited, Gene kneeled down and peered into the cab.
Three men were strewn about inside the ruined truck. The man in the back stirred with a groan and the man in the passenger’s seat breathed slowly, his eyes closed. Gene ignored them momentarily as he leaned in and felt the pulse of the man who had been driving the truck—a man he hadn’t seen since leaving a cabin nestled in the Montana Mountains. A faint pulse beat against Gene’s finger, causing Gene to breathe again.
“My God,” Gene whispered as he looked back at the others and shouted. “They’re alive!”
Chapter One
A Light in the Darkness
The man who couldn’t remember his name opened his eyes as the nightmare fled. He gazed out the narrow window beside him—trees and brick townhomes rushed by in a blurred haze. The man mumbled slightly to himself and tensed, wondering where he was and more importantly who he was. The soft comings and goings of a frightened and yet somehow familiar voice filled his ears, begging the nameless man to remain awake. The nameless man rotated his head slowly to the left, surveying the steel cage that surrounded him as he bounced up and down on a strangely thin bed.
Not a bed, the nameless man realized. And not a cage.
The man was in the back of a colorless vehicle, laying on makeshift padding that sat on top of a ribbed metal floor. A gray-haired soldier spoke above him, shouting as the man who couldn’t remember his name began to slip back into the familiar darkness from which he had just departed.
“Stay with me!” the frantic voice above him yelled. “Stay with me….”
The man fell back into the vast blackness as the other man’s voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once, dying like a whisper in a storm. As quickly as the nameless man’s brief escape from the dream had come, the vivid hallucination returned and he found himself back where he had dwelled moments before.
The man stood on the edge of oblivion. Hot wind swirled around him as he looked out on the fiery ruins of a fallen nation. He tried again to remember who he was, tried and failed to recall the memory he was on the verge of losing completely. Still, the man pushed that flimsy thought out of his mind, concentrating on the here and now, wherever the here and now actually was.
Hours before, he had battled against a thing of hatred, though he couldn’t remember who or what it had been. The inner blaze that had been born of his rage had grown tired and cold. The only thing he could remember was that he didn’t want to remember what had happened. There would be pain in those memories; that much he knew. He wanted to be free from life and the agony that awaited him should he live. He wanted to die and join…someone he had loved, though again he couldn’t remember who that had been. But he didn’t fear the pain itself. He was afraid of little in that place of withdrawn apathy. In fact, the only thing he did fear was what might come of him if he yielded to the anger and sorrow that lurked just beyond the void.
The sound of a swirling wind drew near and the man turned to survey an unknown arrival. A stranger—or more so a brilliant mirage that shifted in whites, silvers, and golds—approached.
“Where am I?” the nameless man asked of the newcomer, surprised at his own demanding tone.
A hard question to answer, the stranger replied, though not with audible words. Instead, the nameless man sensed the stranger’s thoughts and emotions. It was almost as though his mind answered the question as it teetered on infinity.
“Is this a dream?”
I like to think of it as the in-between, the stranger began, though it is as much of a dream as is the world you will soon rejoin. Perhaps it is more real, in many ways.
After a moment, the nameless man tore his eyes from the stranger and looked down upon the burning ruins. He felt as though he should remember the blazing kingdom below—felt as though he should be able to name the phantoms that cried out in pain and anguish as the flames consumed them. As though the stranger could read his thoughts, it moved toward the cliff’s edge and spoke.
Always a new name and a new empire for a new generation. But they are all as one the same.
“What do you mean?”
The kingdoms of men are always forged by the hands of men. However righteous those nations may be in the beginning, they are destined to succumb to mankind’s sin and die, just as every man is destined to die.
“I…I remember….” The man trailed off as a ray of illumination broke through the cracks in a cloudy mind.
The stranger looked to the man before turning to gaze at the fiery land below. It knelt down and scooped up a handful of dirt, letting grains of sandy ashes fall through smoky fingers before being swept away with the hot wind.
From dust you came and to dust you shall return. It is the way things are, though it is not the way things always were. The stranger paused as he looked up at the nameless man, tears forming in the nameless man’s eyes. What happened before was but the beginning of your greatest battle. What comes next will test you beyond your limits.
“And what does happen next?” the nameless man asked.
The stranger smiled, brushing his hands off on his shifting robe as he stood.
You either surrender to the beast within or you live to wage the greatest war your dream world has ever known.
The stranger approached the nameless man, extending a hand which held a ball of light, brilliant like the sun. The stranger pressed the light against the man’s chest, passing through both clothing and flesh as it buried itself deep within his soul. A euphoric bliss overwhelmed the man, revealing both memory lost and a hidden joy. The nameless man, who now remembered his name, sunk to his knees as he began to weep. The stranger approached the man, put a smoky yet surprisingly firm hand on his shoulder, and knelt down to speak.
Remember the light inside you, Adam Reinhart, and never surrender to the dragons of men.
The stranger smiled, turned, and began to walk away.
“Wait,” Adam said. “Will I see you again?”
The stranger turned back and smiled reassuringly.
We can only see the outcomes of your decisions. Some will lead you to true life while others will drive you toward final death. But those choices you make are, and always have been, yours.
Adam Reinhart raised his hand to his heart, massaging his chest where the comforting sphere of light had been implanted. It radiated from his chest, glowing like golden tendrils of cool fire. It was so bright it caused the blaze from the burning plane below to dim.
Not dim, Adam suddenly thought. Gone.
He stared down to where the fiery ruins had been and suddenly felt very afraid. The city below had vanished, as had everything else. There was only Adam and the light as a misty nothingness swirled around him.
As Adam stood motionless, staring ahead and wondering whom the stranger had been, a vine of darkness—thin and meandering like black ink twisting under water—passed by his left. Curious, Adam reached out to touch it. As he stretch
ed forward it lashed out like an uncoiled viper. It clutched his wrist, searing his flesh as though he had been seized by a giant jellyfish. He struggled with the vein of shadow, kicking up his feet as he tried to pull away. Another black thread reached out from the gray and grabbed his other arm. Then another. Then another. The gray nothing appeared solid black now, latching onto every square inch of his body as it began to squeeze him like a giant serpent.
When the blackness constricted, endangering his life, a sudden fury welled up in Adam. He wanted to fight back. Hate for the unknown darkness began to churn within him. Something, however, told him to resist the temptation to lash out in anger and to instead hold on dearly to the light inside. He tried to do so, but he couldn’t seem to suppress the rage in his heart. The anger within was now nearly as bright as the light. He could feel something growing inside, something dangerous that begged to be unleashed.
It was a longing to destroy the blackness.
He tried to hold his inner wrath at bay, but he now feared losing his life more than he feared losing the light. He took one last painful breath and released the beast from within.
The light quickly fled him as a darkness blacker than black exploded from his heart. The beast within crashed into the darkness outside, causing Adam’s awareness to stumble. He fought desperately to hold the furious beast at bay, but it was now an impossible battle on two infinitely perilous fronts. Adam then realized, with a complete sense of horror, the creature he had set free had not been attempting to beat back the bands of darkness.
It was trying to become one with them.
He fought back against both inner and outer evils as they began to overpower him. He was woefully surprised with how quickly he had abandoned the words of the stranger and he tried desperately to restore the bliss from before. But without the light, there was only the darkest night. As the darkness outside crushed him and the beast within consumed him, Adam Reinhart wept tears of defeat and submitted to them both. As he did so, a primordial creature born of the deep, blacker and more terrifying than he could have ever imagined, flapped its leathery wings and burst from every pore on every inch of his body. Adam cried out in agony and total fear as he was utterly devoured by the dragon within.
Adam Reinhart sat upright quickly, screaming in the dark as his skin bristled with a cerebral terror. As he breathed in for a second bellow, a strong hand reached from behind and seized him, cutting off his cries mid-breath. Adam struggled with the unknown man, but that struggle only lasted moments until Adam heard the other man’s voice.
“Stop, Adam; it’s Gene Smith. You’re alright. You’re safe.”
Adam’s weak muscles relaxed and he fell back, gasping for air. He raised his hands to his temples and rubbed his head gently, trying to rid his mind from the nightmare’s aftertaste.
“I dreamt…,” Adam began breathlessly. “I saw a city on fire. Everyone was dying. There was this dark—”
“That was no dream, though I wish it were.” Gene stood, hefting a lengthy carbine as he walked over to a narrow window, lifting the metal frame to survey the landscape beyond. He looked back to Adam and held a gloved finger to his lips as a waft of winter’s bite entered the room, cautioning him to remain quiet. Gene raised the rifle’s scope to his eye and peered through the opening. Adam utilized the pause to examine the room.
They were huddled in a chilly basement; three small windows were positioned near the top of the cinderblock wall next to Gene. Two rust-stained iron beams supported a long steel shaft, crisscrossed by tin ductwork and disheveled insulation. The room was dark, with only the moonlight to illuminate their concrete chamber. He glanced off to his right and for the first time noticed the two dark mounds that were sprawled across the clearing and the stranger that stared back at him silently in the dark. A few more moments of stillness passed before Gene lowered the rifle and returned to Adam’s side.
“Where are we?” Adam asked.
“About a hundred miles west of DC” Gene replied.
“Is there someone outside?”
“There is, but so long as they’re speaking French, I’m not too concerned.”
Adam’s eyes lingered on Gene, confused as more questions continued to pile high in his foggy memory.
“What do you mean French?”
“A friend of mine is out there scouting the neighborhood for supplies and threats,” Gene replied. “You’ll meet him when he gets back.”
“But how did we get here?” Adam asked as Gene knelt down next to one of the sleeping men. “Gene, how did you get here?”
Gene returned Adam’s gaze silently, the exhaustion and coldness that masked his face speaking where words did not. He approached Adam and sat down on the concrete floor quietly.
“When last I saw you, I told you I was leaving to prepare my men for war. That’s exactly what I did, just not well enough, I reckon.”
“You knew what Lukas was going to do?”
“I knew if I sat back and did nothing, we’d all be naked and unprepared when the drums of war commenced.”
“It was you,” Adam breathed. “You attacked DC?”
“Son, I tried to save DC. When I left the cabin, I gathered the allies I had and we went to work. There were only a handful of us at first, but we grew and we grew fast. As for the few of us here, that man there is Lev Ben-Aharon.” Gene motioned to a younger man with dark hair and a thin layer of stubble lining his jaw. The man glanced up from a cracked see-through tablet that was propped against his leg to nod before looking back down, swiping about the glass surface with one hand as he moved another through the air beside him. “He was Israeli Special Forces and is about the most brilliant communications and weapons research specialist alive. My friend William Bond managed to get us the information we needed to find the weakness in the drones the Patriarchs had been creating. Lev took that information and created the technology we’d need to fight back.”
“Captain Bond…is he dead?” Adam asked.
“It’ll take more than a war to kill Bond,” Gene replied as he motioned over to one of the darkened mounds on the floor. “I’m not sure that man would die for anyone but the devil himself. He took quite a pounding getting you and your friend Tanker out of DC, but he’ll live.”
“And Max?”
Gene nodded again and pointed to the other mound. “Best we can tell, he cracked at least three ribs and completely shattered his right forearm in the crash. But he’s a tough son of a bitch. He’ll live, though I reckon he might need to learn how to tie his shoes with one hand.”
“At least they’re alive,” Adam said. “David’s dead.”
“As is everyone else who didn’t bend to Lukas or get the hell out of there.”
The door opened at the top of the stairs, causing Adam to tense and Gene to raise his gun. However, as a sandy blonde-haired man descended the steps, Gene let out a sigh of relief and lowered his weapon.
“Perimeter is quiet,” the man said with a heavy French accent. “I have Lev’s motion sensors deployed and a few of your Stonewalls activated at three points. Impressive tech, I must say.”
“Did you find another car?” Gene asked.
“Oui,” the man replied. “An old truck—rusty and blue, just like your country tunes.”
“I assume this is the Frenchman you were talking about?”
“Forgive me, monsieur,” the man said as he bowed his head slightly. “I am Marc L’ecuyer. It is pronounced le-qwee-yay. Take care you remember that.”
“And why is that?” Adam asked.
“Because the last time a world war broke out, it was America and her allies, led by men named Roosevelt and Churchill, who saved France. This time, it will be General Gene Smith, the Sons of Liberty, and men such as Marc L’ecuyer who raise your country from the ashes. Perhaps the historians will remember the famous Adam Reinhart as well.”
“World war?” Adam muttered.
“You don’t think America could collapse without the whole world feeling that fall
, do you?” Gene said, shaking his head. “We don’t know much of anything about what’s going on elsewhere, but make no mistake, this is a war that will more than touch every continent.”
“And you’re a general now?” Adam asked as he turned back to Gene. “General of the Sons of Liberty?”
“Hell,” Gene began, brushing his fingers through his gray hair. “Seems if you’re the one organizing a rebellion, everyone wants your face plastered on the damn thing. As you can tell, Marc here is about as French as a baguette. I met him, Lev, and a handful of other foreign warriors years ago at a NATO conference. I’ll have you know we had quite a few non-nationals fighting for DC.”
“Where are the others?”
“Dead, dying, or hunkering down somewhere outside of DC,” Gene replied.
“I’m sorry,” Adam whispered, pausing as he forced the lump back down his throat.
“Do not fret yet, monsieur,” Marc said, a small smile touching his lips. “The fight is not over yet. You may have saved our pretty little French butts ninety years ago, but we knew how to fight from the shadows of Paris when the Germans took over. I have no doubts in our abilities to conduct ourselves in a similar fashion until more allies arrive.”
“Yeah, that may be true,” Gene cut in, “but we sure kicked this war off with one hell of a mess.”
“Forgive me, but I’m trying to wrap my head around all this without much luck,” Adam said. “You’re talking about a preplanned assault, French Legionnaires, Israeli Special Forces, and your Sons of Liberty. I mean, you’re telling me you gathered an army on American soil and no one knew about it? Last night I arrived in DC thinking Lukas was about to step down and the United States was finally going to start the rebuilding process. Now—if I’m understanding everything correctly—DC is in ruins, Lukas Chambers is now some emperor, and the USA doesn’t exist anymore.”
“You’re sitting here, aren’t you?” Marc asked. “And Gene’s here too. Are you not still Americans?”