by J. Thorn
“We have been able to tap into the government’s databases and extract records. Power is still spotty, and many servers are still running on generators, so it’s not a complete picture.”
Father raised his eyebrows and took a quick swig from his tea.
“This is information you have mined yourself?” he asked.
“I should hope. I’m the Church’s main systems analyst. I can say that the Catholics protect their information much better than the Federalists.”
The terms used by Cyrus stunned Father. He looked at the man, trying to read his eyes.
“Please continue, Brother.”
Cyrus removed a manila folder from under his garments. The stained and torn envelope protected gleaming, pristine papers. He placed each item on the table with a precise and even motion. With the pages spread out, Cyrus spun each document one-hundred-eighty degrees, facing Father.
“John Burgoyne. DOB, 03-24-74. He lives at 2913 Plainfield Road in South Euclid. Last year he earned fifty-seven thousand dollars as a website designer. At least that’s what he reported to the IRS. He is married to one Jana Burgoyne, age twenty-three. She is, or was, a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.”
Father sat back and studied the man in the robe. He sighed, tugged at the hair on his chin, and pulled out a fresh cigar wrapped in plastic.
“You say you hacked into the government’s database for this info?”
The way Cyrus smiled chilled Father to the core.
“Hacked. Yes, we hacked until we got this information.”
“Would you like a cigar, Brother Cyrus? My supply of Cubans is dwindling. This could be the last one you see for a very long time.”
Cyrus kept both hands on the table, evenly spaced from his precise documents.
“What else do you want to know, Father?”
Father put the cigar back in his pocket and slid to the edge of his seat. He stared into Cyrus’ eyes, becoming lost in the dark vortex.
“Extended family? Friends, and so on?”
“That is not information typically kept in governmental records.”
“I thought that maybe you had ‘hacked’ that stuff too.” Father accented the word almost to the point of insult.
“I must be moving on to my new assignment,” replied Cyrus, as he returned each document to the manila folder without giving Father the opportunity to examine them. “I am sure you can go through the proper channels should you wish to revisit this data. The Vatican will only fund your little escapade for so long before your claims of ‘The Revelator’ tire our Brothers. Everybody answers to someone, don’t they Father?”
Father stood, never taking his eyes off of Cyrus. He did not extend a hand or wrap up the conversation with common courtesies. Cyrus stood, as well.
“Father, there is one more piece of information I need to pass on to you.”
“And what is that, Brother Cyrus?”
“The Second Cleansing is almost underway. I suggest you send a recon report with a detailed explanation of the First Cleansing as soon as possible.”
Father stepped within inches of Cyrus’ face.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to extract that data whenever you wish. Good day, Brother Cyrus.”
The monk pulled the hood over his head and turned for the door that led back into the church. By the time Father walked out from behind the altar, the servant of the Internal Order had disappeared.
Father descended the steps into the basement, where a throng of parishioners tended to the needs of the new, pure community. He summoned the low-ranking soldiers to a concealed alcove next to the bingo board.
“I want twenty-four-hour surveillance on the grounds. No one except the Holy Spirit himself walks in these doors without my knowledge. Place two guards at every door and ground-level window. Got that?”
Nods all around.
“Secondly, I need a task force of seven men. They need to get to 2913 Plainfield Road in South Euclid. Get a two-way. The man in charge needs to be on that radio, channel number eight. I want the band open and on, twenty-four-seven. If anyone, and I mean anyone, gets near that house, I want to know about it. Do not secure, attack, defend, or otherwise engage anyone or anything, without my express permission. Are we clear on this?”
The men scattered to find their gear and load for the drive to South Euclid. Father stared at the red light on the walkie-talkie and prepared for the wait.
Chapter 31
Chunks of plaster peeled back from the area between the two windows. Two feisty squirrels chased each other across the gutter that hung from the edge of the roof. Spiderwebbed panes of glass on the first floor stood like alarming line graphs, diving down in a steep decline. The pentagram, circled in red, remained exactly as it had been painted. The Sign stood out like an open sore, festering on the face of the community.
The soldiers arrived on foot and left tracks in the wet snow, but did so without a sound. Two men ran down the driveway, securing the side door. Two more ran past them and pointed rifle-mounted flashlights into the garage. White power from LED lights performed a macabre waltz with the red points of the laser scopes, as a third pair of soldiers secured the back door.
When the synchronized timer beeped on the men’s wrists, all teams sprang into action. The front, side, and kitchen doors imploded with one ragged gasp. The wind current created by the open doors blew draperies around the room like frightened poltergeists. Papers, bags, and other pieces of debris lifted into orbit and then drifted back down under the force of gravity.
“Clear!” rang out from every corner of the wood and brick corpse. Soldiers penetrated and explored every habitable space, securing the premises and defiling family memories.
Finally, the invaders retreated from the house, weapons holstered. They met around back in the detached garage. The sergeant in charge brought his team up to speed.
“The place is secure. Our orders are to maintain covert surveillance. Under no circumstances are we to engage anyone, friend or foe, without a direct order. That means you take a bullet in the head before you fire upon an enemy.”
The young servicemen looked up at each other and then back down at their muddied boots as he continued.
“We are looking for a John or Jana Burgoyne, owners of the house. Here is a picture of John.” The sergeant held up a pixelated image, taken and then enlarged from the original in the department of motor vehicles. “We’ve got no visual for Jana yet, but they’re working on it. The Covenant believes that these two might be searching for each other, and this is the first place they’ll probably try to check. Keep an invisible profile. We might have to let them remain in the place for up to thirty-six hours before we raid it. In addition, any other hostile forces that might arrive are not to be engaged.”
The men shuffled their boots in the wet snow. Some clicked the safety on their automatic weapons. The sergeant sensed their deep unease.
“Okay. Listen guys. If someone opens fire on us, let ’em have it. I don’t care what the ‘official’ order is; we’re not going to stand there and let the enemy fill us with holes. I got your back on that. But if civilians make their way here, we gotta do everything we can to keep ourselves hidden and keep them contained.”
The men nodded.
“Let’s fall back into position and get the hell away from this house. Hopefully we didn’t kick up the dust while they were watching. Radio silence. Stay within sight of each other, communicate with hand signals. Get comfy boys, we could be here a while.”
The intruders faded into the surrounding environment, leaving the house to shed silent tears.
Chapter 32
“How many?”
“Don’t know. At least ten, maybe fifteen. But they’re raining bullets by the thousands.”
The burly man nodded, pulled his scope up, and placed the crosshairs on a distant, helmeted head. He eased the trigger back. The machine gun howled and let loose a shower of deadly missiles. A bright-red burst exploded, and the man fell face-firs
t into a freshly dug grave.
“Now there’s nine.”
***
John pulled Alex down an embankment while shouts resonated off the grave markers. His ears rang, though the explosions were subsiding for the moment. Alex moaned and his eyes fluttered open for a second. A maroon patch bloomed on his shoulder, and a piece of torn material from his pants exposed an additional flesh wound on the calf.
John grabbed a water bottle from his bag and poured it on his friend’s face. Alex continued to moan, and raised an arm, shielding his face from a violent memory. John scrambled around him, checking for more wounds.
He looked up into the somber sky through bare tree limbs. Outbursts of snowflakes doused a clear vision of the moon. John and Alex remained hidden behind faded headstones. Their attackers held the top of the ridge, firing down into the gulley. Bullets continued to sizzle the cold air and dance from headstone to tree.
John felt a sting on his cheek. He reached up to swat away the annoyance and felt warm blood on his face. The close call woke him from his momentary daze. Alex lay on the ground, coughing, but alive and conscious.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
Alex burrowed his face into the frozen grass as another barrage of gun fire responded to his question.
“Keep your head down. They’ve got the top of the hill and are firing on us. As long as we stay cool and hold our position, maybe they can’t do much more damage.”
As if on cue, another deafening explosion fell from the sky. The mortar round landed near the men, blowing dirt and stone across a wide path of the cemetery.
“Right. I’m sure they won’t be firing any more of those,” said Alex.
He winced and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt. Alex took the strip and held it against his shoulder in hopes of slowing the loss of blood from his gunshot wound.
“Is that gonna work?” John asked.
“If I don’t pass out, you’ll know.”
The attacking force suddenly stopped firing. They heard shouts and commands coming from the top of the hill. John and Alex looked at each other and scrambled to reload their weapons.
“How many clips you got left?” Alex asked.
“Two. You?”
“One. If they come down this hill, we’re not going to be able to hold them off for very long.”
John shoved the clip into his gun. He swung the barrel of it over the top of the headstone that protected him from the majority of the rounds being fired in their direction. John squeezed the trigger, letting the recoil of the gun drive his aim upward and over the heads of the enemy.
Random bursts answered John’s fire.
“Stop! Man, we don’t got much left,” Alex said.
“I’m trying to buy us time. Do you think you can walk?”
“My leg has been hit, but not enough to keep me down. It’s my shoulder that hurts like hell.”
John shrugged and grabbed his bag.
“Guess I’ll leave you here.”
“Don’t be such a smart-ass. What do you have in mind?”
“If we can get to those trees over there, we might have enough cover to sneak our way through the cemetery and get to the Heights.”
Alex sat up and pain raced from his shoulder to his brain. His squinted his eyes and his mouth held a breath captive in a tight grimace.
“Do or die, right?” Alex said. He got into a crouch like a runner anticipating the starter pistol. “You’re gonna have to provide cover fire for me. I’ve got to use my one arm to hold my shoulder tight. Fire high rather than low; it’s more effective in keeping them in place.”
“Okay. On the count of three, we run for the trees.”
Alex threw his bag around his waist, and left his gun on top of the grave.
“Won’t be able to carry that and run.”
John pulled the lever back on his gun and removed the safety. With his fingers accompanied by a whisper, he began the countdown. “One, two—”
Before John could get to three, dozens of guns fired, the sound rolling through the valley like deadly thunder. Both men spun around, searching for the source of the new volley. Rapid gunfire and exploding grenades followed the initial blasts, all directed back toward the top the ridge.
Alex looked at John and fell on his back.
“What can you see?”
“Looks like the Warriors of Christ may have found targets more evil than us.”
***
“Get some, get some!” yelled Sully, doing his best Full Metal Jacket.
He stood behind the opened door of a 1987 Dodge pickup. The broken window allowed the bulk of Sully’s frame to fill it while he fired his semiautomatic twelve gauge at the troops facing down the hill. The rest of the biker clan fanned out in a rough line, zigzagging across the top of the ridge. They used the advantage of surprise to fire lethal doses of buckshot at the Warriors of Christ. Soldiers flew through the air, flung many feet by the force of the close-range gunshot blasts. Several men managed to find cover, but Sully and the Keepers of the Wormwood killed six in the first ten seconds of the engagement. A second round of firing by the bikers obliterated another three soldiers. The remaining men hid behind overgrown trees and slanted headstones.
***
John stood, no longer fearful of getting a round to the chest.
“Wait here,” he said to Alex before breaking into a full sprint.
He ducked back and forth between headstones, climbing up the slope toward the summit as the firefight died. He heard two distinct explosions echo up and away from the fight, and then, relative silence. His ears rang and the smell of spent gunpowder forced a moment of nausea. John moved three feet toward the summit when a blow struck him on the left ear. He fell to the ground, but pointed his weapon toward the attacker. A tattooed forearm knocked the barrel off to the side.
“You don’t wanna do that, son,” Sully said.
His big man’s chest heaved and his hair tangled in his beard. The men recognized each other at the same time.
“Sully. Jesus Christ.” John let go his weapon. “I hope you have a cold beer I can use to keep my face from swelling.”
“Be glad I didn’t shoot your ass when I saw you climbing the hill.”
John smiled and accepted Sully’s hand. The President of the Keepers of the Wormwood pulled John to his feet.
“What the hell are you guys doing all the way over here?”
“Long story. We’re not about to pass up an opportunity to fight these bastards. Maybe even patch them over.”
“Thanks,” said John.
“For what? We didn’t come here to save your hide. Is that your buddy down there trying to crawl up the hill?”
John turned and saw Alex moving toward them, his face turned pure white, hair plastered to his forehead.
“Yeah.”
“You’d better get down there and help him out. Dude looks like he’s about to collapse.”
Sully’s men maneuvered through the cemetery, certain that they had found all the bodies. Together they loaded Alex into the back of the truck, where one of the biker chicks began working on his shoulder. Sully drove through the cemetery and back onto Mayfield Road. He headed away from town, toward Cleveland Heights. John sat next to him in the truck, looking at the caravan of three as they moved around abandoned cars and buildings marked with The Sign.
“This shit doesn’t bother you, does it?” asked John.
“Not really. This is how we live. When you’re not part of society, you don’t miss it when it goes to hell.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Your buddy is in bad shape. You’d better hope Crystal can fix him up.”
“Where are we headed?” John repeated.
“Chill, man. Nobody is going to fuck with you when you’re with us.”
“I appreciate that, Sully, but that’s not what I’m concerned about. I need to get back to my place and see if I can find my wife. I need to know if she’s alive, and if she is,
I need to find her.”
Sully turned the truck onto another street, grimacing before speaking again.
“Maybe we can help you. There ain’t much the Keepers hold sacred, but family is definitely up there.”
The truck rolled to a stop in front of an abandoned school on Cedar Road. Sully killed the engine and tapped the bed of the truck. Crystal and two men helped Alex out and carried him inside. Barely conscious, the veterinarian was clearly in trouble. His skin had turned gray, and his eyes seemed to roll around in the sockets.
“Your pal has lost a lot of blood,” one of the men said to John.
“We’ve all lost a lot,” replied John.
Sully led John through a maze of corridors until they arrived in what used to be an auditorium. The place stunk of cigarette smoke and rotten paper. On the stage, a bunch of milk crates and old lawn chairs sat around a fire ring.
“Home sweet home,” said Sully.
John sat down and rubbed his burning eyes.
Chapter 33
The sun crawled through the heavy curtain of the storm front. Renegade geese flew over the frozen land in a fighting formation. Cold moisture glistened off the pitch-black surface of the asphalt. The final survivors of summer leaves clung to the branches, while many fell to the snow-covered ground.
Commander Byron poured a hot cup of coffee from one of the pots set up in the auto shop. The soldiers had rigged an outlet to a car battery, which gave them enough power to brew the inviting beverage. Byron placed the end of his knife in the cup and mixed a packet of sugar into the black coffee. The first sip stung his tongue and paralyzed his taste buds before allowing the pleasant, bitter bite of the coffee to take hold.
Sometimes, life is about simple pleasures, he thought.
The two soldiers from across the street now stood guard at the front of the shop, arriving with the morning light. Byron debriefed the men, who saw nothing during the course of the night save for stray animals. The three men drank coffee and smoked, none of them eager to wake the woman and start the trek to her house.