by SD Tanner
Pax grunted. “Huh. What the hell was that?”
“Guess they went home.” It reminded him it was probably time they went home too. Turning to face the battlefield, he said, “I wanna check on the troops.”
His desire to leave was growing stronger, and he strode purposefully towards the battlefield. The reserve troops had clearly deployed, and there was sporadic gunfire in the distance. Guessing their troops were mopping up the last of the super hunters, he broke into a light jog. The main battlefield was filled with bodies. In between the destroyed vehicles, were hunters, super hunters, and their own people laying haphazardly and bloodied across the battle scarred plain. The corpses of the hunters were torn apart, with missing limbs, broken skulls, and gaping holes in their bodies, still leaking black slimy goo. Now only shattered corpses, it was hard to believe they’d once terrorized earth. Scattered between the dead hunters, were the bodies of the super hunters and their own people. The red blood on the corpses of their people was already drying, and they’d taken on the waxen look of the dead. There were the cries of the injured, and small movements amongst the dead by people he assumed were still left alive, but too injured to stand. With no trees, the long, wide, flat plain was a sea of bodies, body parts and broken, still smoking vehicles. There were deep pits where armaments blew holes in the earth, and there was so much blood and oily black goo, the land beneath the bodies looked moist and darkened. Everything had taken on a flat dark brown color, and it was difficult to distinguish the bodies from the dirt. Guns were lying half trodden into the ground, and there was the sight of a disembodied hand or foot poking uselessly out of the damp dirt.
People were slowly moving around the bodies of the dead and injured, and there were groups of three or four people carrying them out of the battlefield. They slipped and slid while they tried to step over the bodies of the dead around them. It took him a moment to realize not all of the people moving around the battlefield were alive. Drifting across the uneven surface of the bodies, were people who would suddenly slowly float upward and disappear into the sky. The dead are going home, he thought almost enviously, and his need to leave grew stronger still.
Setting aside his fatigue, he looked for someone in charge, and in the distance, Jack was moving across the battlefield. Reaching Jack, he listened to his one sided conversation.
“Let them go,” Jack ordered. “We don’t have enough manpower left to deal with them.”
Jack stared at the ground, listening intently to his radio. “I know, but it’s a problem we’ll have to deal with later. I’ve got injured who need to be taken care of now.”
Whoever was talking to Jack through the radio was arguing their case, and sounding frustrated, he replied, “I understand that, Ted, but I need the birds to move the wounded back to the base. Even if you start hunting them now, you won’t find all of the escaped super hunters. We’re gonna have to hunt some down later, no matter how many we find now.”
Jack listened again. “No, Hatch radioed and said their bodies are at the Ranch. They’re definitely gone, so we’re short on commanders, and we need you and Nelson back here asap. We’ve got tens of thousands dead, and at least twenty thousand injured. I need able bodies and the birds to help move the wounded, or they’re gonna die too.”
Obviously they agreed and Jack said, “Roger that.”
Now able to concentrate on the injured, Jack looked across the battlefield, but he knew he couldn’t see the dead who were slowly drifting across the landscape. He limped around the corpses, clearly struggling on his one good leg, and he was issuing orders.
Pax appeared at his elbow. “Where did all your big buddies go?”
He assumed Pax was asking about his immortal army, and studying the battlefield, there were only the bodies of hunters, humans, blood and mud. He supposed they’d appeared out of the earth and returned to the same place. Hunkering down, he touched the ground trying to find any hint they’d ever existed. Next to his hand, he noticed a small, but brilliant light green shoot. Plucking the tiny, fragile tendril from the ground, he stood up and studied it closely. The roots of the plant were tinged with brown, and it had clearly been growing out of the land. Puzzled, he looked for more, and between the mounds of corpses, were a low sea of tiny green shoots.
Turning to TL, he held out the tiny plant that had already grown limp in his fingers. “How’s this happenin’?”
TL took the fragment of new life from him. “Dunno, but it can’t be a bad thing.”
Straightening his back, he looked across the battlefield. There was the movement of people leaving, others caring for the injured, Hatch’s fleet were flying across the sky, and there were voices of people calling to one another purposefully. Their mission was complete. The hunters were gone, order was restored, and their right to rule was enforced. He wasn’t physically tired, but his head felt worn, and he didn’t want to think anymore.
Finding Ip by his side, he put his arm around her lean shoulders. “It’s time to go, honey.”
Looking at him unhappily, Pax was almost sulking. “Do we have to go?”
“It’s the way it works, Pax,” TL replied calmly. “We live as men, we judge as men, but we enforce as Horsemen. When we’re done, we leave and the cycle starts again.
“But what about BD? I only jus’ got her back, and now you’re sayin’ I gotta go.”
He chuckled. “Pax, you’re supposed to think with your other head.”
While they stood bickering, the battlefield slowly faded away, and soon they were standing in a brilliantly white and empty space that didn’t seem to have a beginning or an end.
Pax looked around the blankness and continued to complain. “Is this home? ‘Cos if it is, it sucks. What the hell are we gonna do here? It looks borin’. Where’s all my stuff?”
Ip gave Pax a dirty look and sighed deeply.
Ip speaks: We are a force, not a life. We do not live, we do not die. This is our home and time will fly.
“She never makes any goddamn sense.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: New Eden (Angel)
Five Years Later
The sun shone through the window, and it cut a brilliant white sheath of light across the rumpled double bed. Ted bounced across the room and landed by her side, wearing a boyish grin on his handsome face.
“Good morning, Angel and company,” he said, and he kissed her and then her distended belly.
Laughing, she said, “Get off us. I really need to pee and you’re not helping.”
Pulling back the thin blanket, he helped her to her feet, and her long nightgown slid over her stomach and down her legs. She and Ted married shortly after the Great Battle. She’d hoped to get pregnant much sooner, but it’d taken over four long years, and she was due to give birth any day now. Pulling a light robe over her nightgown, she sat down on the bed while Ted put her slippers on her feet.
Looking at the top of his head lovingly, she said, “I can’t wait to be just me again.”
Ted looked up at her from the floor and winked. “Me neither.”
Having gotten her slippers on, he ran his hand up her leg and between her thighs and sighed. “I miss that.”
She slapped the top his head playfully. “Stop it, I feel like an elephant.”
“Well, you look like one hot mama to me.”
He helped her to her feet, and she kissed him before leaving the room, heading to the bathroom. With her due date so near, she was relieved of most of her duties, and she took her time washing before heading downstairs for breakfast. Mom was already in the kitchen, and food was laid out on the old and scarred wooden table.
“Good morning, honey. How’s my grandchild today?”
Although they weren’t related, Mom adopted her and Ted as her own, and according to her, their unborn baby was to be her grandchild. For all her brightness, she knew Mom and Pop still deeply mourned the loss of their sons, and they could never fill such a big gap in their lives. Pop was often heard to complain parents should never out
live their children, and it didn’t matter to them the Horsemen weren’t human, nor were they really dead. Gears, Pax and TL would always be their boys and they missed them.
“She’s doing well.”
“You don’t know it’s a girl,” Mom gently admonished.
“Well, I hope it is. We’ve got enough boys around here.”
She walked into a small room next to the lounge where Mackenzie was lying on a hospital bed. Pop had created the small room from a section of the garage, and added large double doors that opened to a well-kept garden. Putting down the bowl of food she’d brought from the kitchen, she opened the curtains and doors. A gush of warm, sweet smelling air filled the room. Mackenzie was awake, and usually he would muttering to himself happily, but today he was silent and seemed distracted. He lived in a twilight state where he could be directed to do things, but he wasn’t really connected to their reality. Pulling the covers from his body, she lowered the sides of his bed, and taking his arm, indicated he should move. Obediently, he swung his legs off the bed and stood up. Leading him to the small bathroom attached to the room, she left him in front of the toilet to take care of himself. It was like he couldn’t initiate anything, but once shown, he would do what he needed to do. He often talked to people who weren’t there, one of them seemed to be a child, and the other was clearly Max. No one understood where he lived inside his head, but it was his strange mind that told them what they needed to know for the Great Battle, so they owed him their lives.
It took her less than half an hour to make sure Mackenzie was clean and had eaten, and then she led him to a big cushioned rattan chair in the garden, where she knew he would be safe and content for a few hours.
He’d been uncommonly quiet while she fed him and worried, she asked, “Are you okay?”
Mackenzie didn’t reply, but at the sound of her voice, he reached out his hand, and then let it drop into his lap. In all the time she cared for him, he never shown any awareness of her or his surroundings. Puzzled by his change in behavior, she leaned as close to him as her swollen belly would allow, and peered into his unfocussed eyes. Mackenzie seemed oblivious to her, but she felt his hand on her belly, and when she looked down, it dropped to his lap again.
“Mac? Are you okay?”
He began to mutter to himself. She stroked his head gently, and then left the room, knowing at least he was safe where he sat. Returning to the kitchen, she found a pot of porridge still simmering on the stove, and spooned a generous portion into a bowl. While she sat eating at the table, Ted and Jack came into the room discussing their next mission.
“They spotted them in a town outside of New City,” Jack said.
Ted kissed the top of her head and sat next to her. Grabbing a chunk of bread from the table, he began to spread a thick layer of butter across it, before reaching for a glass jar full of homemade jam.
“I’ll head out there with you,” Ted said, while he continued to make his sandwich.
“I think you should stay here. Me and Nelson can deal with it. You need to be here for the baby.”
She knew they were talking about the super hunters they continued to find even this long after the Great Battle. Ted and Jack were fanatical about hunting down every rumor and sighting of the demons. To date they’d found and killed thirty-two of them.
Stuffing his carelessly made sandwich into his mouth, Ted grunted, and through a mouthful of food, he said, “Yeah, alright, but keep me in the loop.”
Patting his arm in appreciation, she smiled at Jack and he nodded back at her. “Has anyone heard from the expedition yet?”
They lost forty thousand people in the Great Battle, but there were more people left alive across the continent than they’d expected. It turned out there was an estimated two million people who’d somehow managed to stay hidden, but they’d barely been surviving while the land around them slowly died. After the Great Battle, with the hunters gone and the land safe again, they’d emerged from hiding, bewildered and frightened. Although she never left the Ranch, she heard many small settlements had formed, and every day more babies were being born. Terry told her they were even opening factories again. As part of the resettling of the world, several expeditions left to explore other countries, and everyone was keen to hear what they’d found. The expedition teams were due back six months ago, but without satellite communications, they’d no idea what happened to them.
She shook her head and said, “No, not yet.”
Jack nodded again. “Have you heard any more about the woman up north?”
Taking a gulp of his coffee, Ted replied, “No, and I still dunno if it’s true either.”
Ted tried to shield her from the rumors running through their community, but even she’d heard about the strange sightings of another city somewhere in the icy wastelands of Alaska. It didn’t make sense to her people would choose to live somewhere so remote and under such difficult conditions, when the rest of the continent was fertile with temperate weather.
“There’s too many people telling the same story for it not to be true,” Jack replied pragmatically.
Shrugging, Ted said, “I dunno about that, Jack, you know how tall stories spread. Bigfoot didn’t exist either, and people reckon they had photos of that, but they were all proven to be fakes.” Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, which was a habit she’d never gotten him to stop, he added, “We’ve gotta deal with problems as they happen. No point worrying about a problem we can’t see.”
“We couldn’t see demons and ghosts, but they nearly destroyed us.”
Ted waved his hand dismissively. “That was different, they were doing something. This is just a rumor that some woman has a camp somewhere up the north, and even if that’s true, we don’t know she’s doing anything bad up there.”
“I dunno, Ted, maybe we should send a squad to go check it out.”
Ted shook his head. “Let’s wait until the expeditions get back, and we’ll send one of the teams up there then.”
Ted and Jack finished their breakfast, and continued to discuss their mission to find yet another super hunter. She knew Ted enjoyed the missions. He told her they reminded him of the days when they would go hunter huntin’ with Gears, Pax and TL. To Ted, the Horsemen were his friends and he missed their company. He’d been particularly close to Pax, and he still told stories about their missions and the trouble they’d gotten into. The kitchen table was cluttered with the remnants of everyone’s breakfast, and she began to take the dishes to the kitchen. Through the wide window in the kitchen, children were playing, and there was the sound of muffled laughter. Usually she would be watching them, but with her lighter duties, everyone had stepped up to care for the children. Up until now, she had no children of her own, but she’d fallen in love with Bob, Ant, Mac and Ip, and she would always be their mother.
Through the kitchen window, Bob, who she knew was really Pax, ran up to Ip and playfully pulled her blonde hair. Surprised by his attack, she stepped back, tripped and landed clumsily on her behind. Briefly looking as if she might cry, but clearly deciding not to, she scrambled to her feet and ran after him. She was tall for her age, and she quickly caught up with him, crashing into his back. Bob fell to his knees and she seized the opportunity to jump on his back, and punched him repeatedly with her small fists. Bob tumbled forward again until he was face down in the grass. Ant, who was really Gears, ran over to them, and grabbing Ip around the waist, he pulled her slight body from Bob and set her gently to her feet. Bob rolled onto his back, and giving his brother a delighted grin, he held out his hand to be pulled to his feet. Ignoring the gesture, Ant fell onto his brother and began to punch him. Bob fought back fiercely, and soon the pair were rolling through the grass in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs.
After the Great Battle, they found the bodies of Gears, Ip, Pax and TL behind the house where the children were now fighting. She’d never really known them, but everyone assured her the children were just like their older selves. Ant was the largest and bossiest
of the boys, Bob was mischievous and good-natured, and Mac was reserved and thoughtful. Ip never talked, but was always content unless Bob teased her, which he frequently did. The Long March to the battlefield and the Great Battle were never forgotten, and everyone still talked about how the war against the hunters was won. The legend of Gears, Pax, TL and Ip lived on in their collective memory.
Looking beyond the continuing fight between Ant and Bob, she admired the fields of vegetables flourishing under the bright sun. Immediately after the Great Battle, the first green shoots of life began to quickly push their way past the bodies of the hunters. Within days, the entire country was green, fresh and fertile. The hunter’s bodies were rapidly absorbed into the earth, and it seemed they were used to create an abundance of new life. The sea was cleansed and new types of aquatic life appeared. Rivers were washed pure and filled with new species of freshwater fish. Even the land grew different types of fruits and vegetables, and they were still discovering new forms of animal life. Ted described it as a reboot, but Nelson preferred to call it God’s final gift to mankind. He said it was a new beginning and it was up to them to get it right this time.
Thinking of the people who were left, she wondered if Benny and Lucie would ever return. She hadn’t known either of them, but Ted and Nelson spoke of them often. They worried about Benny, but the general consensus was Lucie must have killed him. Neither had been seen nor heard of since they ran away from the Ranch before the Great Battle, but no one could believe Benny would stay away for five long years without letting them know he was alive and well.