“Sorry. I keep forgetting. With any luck, the Blackwoods are still there. Dirk was a Special Forces colonel in the Army before he retired. He’ll be a big help.” He still worried about Mason and Tori. But whether his friends had been blasted to atoms or were fighting for their lives on the mirror-side of two mixed-up dimensions, he couldn’t do much to help them at the moment.
For the time being, he and Jerriel had their own survival issues.
If what she guessed was right, the other side was going to be just as mixed up and chaotic as their side was.
Would there ever be a way to cross over, back and forth?
More importantly, was there any way to undo the entire mess, and return both dimensions and their worlds back to the way they’d been before the event? The Merge?
They weren’t entirely screwed, but they were pretty damn near it.
Finally they spotted the Blackwoods’ house.
The home was an old white and blue worker house from the thirties, wrought iron fence out around the front, with a pink concrete pig statue on one of the dark brick risers of the front porch. Two pink, plastic flamingos guarded the garden spot on the right. Skunk cabbages and crocuses had already popped up all over the neighborhood.
A growing crowd of at least thirty people gathered in front of the Blackwoods’ house, complaining and talking about what to do. Dirk and Belinda stood on the porch, directing the debate.
“If nothing works,” Dirk said, “then we’ll have to go back to using bicycles and maybe horses if we can get some. We’ve already sent messengers on bikes to the County City Building and the police station on Sample.”
“What the hell are they going to do?” some whiner shouted. “If they’ve even there still. Whole chunks of town are just gone. They aren’t even there anymore!”
“Where’d these weird patches of forest come from?”
“And the monsters!”
“We can’t defend ourselves!” People in the crowd wept and moaned.
“You can’t give in to fear and panic,” Belinda said. “You have to stay focused and strong.” She was a sharp, taller woman. Glasses, green eyes, long silvering hair tied back. She wore a big dagger on the belt of her long blue skirt.
Dirk and Belle were the former baron and baroness of the local MHS medieval club, longtime family friends of David’s dead parents. In his forties like Belle, Dirk stood at medium height, still Stocky and strong. Straight, steel-gray hair tucked under a black French beret. Tough gray eyes and a long, gray moustache. He drew the sword he wore at his side.
“We can and we will defend ourselves, our homes, and our families,” Dirk said. “But we can’t just panic or hide. We need to get organized and work together. We’ve still got tens of thousands of people in this area, and anyone who can fight needs to arm themselves. We’ll form a militia–starting right now.”
“Who in the hell are you to order us around and tell the rest of us what to do?” another loudmouth said.
Dirk rested his sword on his shoulder and shook his head.
“I’m the guy who will fight these things to the last breath. My wife and I killed three of them this morning when they crashed through our picture window. I know how to use a sword, a spear, and ax, and I can shoot a bow. I can teach others how to fight. I was in the Army and I can lead people in combat. What about you, buddy? Will you arm yourself and stand with us when these things come back tonight?”
The loudmouth looked down and melted away, back through the crowd.
Others stepped forward and volunteered.
David saw his opening and pulled Jerriel along with him up to the side of the porch and stepped up.
“Hey, Dirk, Belle. Mornin’. Can you use two more volunteers?”
Their grim faces brightened in recognition.
“David!” Belle said, hugging him. “Good to see you.”
“You’re a sight, son,” Dirk said. “We could use a hundred sword fighters like you. Folks, this is my young friend David Pritchard. One of the best swordsmen I ever helped train. He’s pretty good at throwing ’hawks and archery, too. He’ll probably be training some of you directly, if you want to join the militia.”
Belinda went up to Jerriel. “David, you haven’t told us who your pretty friend is yet. She’s wearing garb, but I’ve never seen her at any events.”
David smiled. “This is Jerriel. She’s...she’s new.”
Dirk appointed block leaders and told them to spread the news and continue organizing each block from there on out. Everyone needed to secure their own home first. Then check house to house. See who was still around, who wasn’t, and if anyone needed help. They needed to recruit fighters for the militia and have them arm and armor themselves with anything they could find. Then meet up at the Century Center at noon for organization and training.
People looked scared and nervous, and still had too many questions, but at least they had things to do now. There was some kind of purpose. Even those too old or too young to fight could help out: securing homes, boarding up windows, checking supplies, and caring for others.
Some people wandered off and vanished. But most were willing to pull together and face the crisis head on. David admired that.
He and Jerriel went inside with the Blackwoods. Their living room was always chock full of medieval camping gear and supplies from the many re-enactment events they went to year round. Plus all of their various crafts and projects. They were so much like David’s parents had been that it was scary.
There was still some broken glass around, but the ruined window had a big piece of plywood over it, making the room a lot darker, even in the morning light.
Dirk and Belle were admittedly exhausted, but they threw together a hurried breakfast of sausages, eggs, fried potatoes, and toasted bread. Belle cooked on her brazier on the back porch with the screens. The Blackwoods also had a fire pit out back where they liked to cook over open flames. That would also come in handy.
Dirk pointed out the three dead torgs that he had dragged out back by the shed and the alley, with a piece of plastic pulled over them.
“We’d better eat what’s going to spoil first,” Belle said. “No more refrigeration, at least for a while.” They slurped down milk and juice.
“Thanka yoo,” Jerriel said. “Yoo are moost kind.”
Dirk stared at her, picking up on her strange accent. “We’ve only got a few hours to gear up and rest up before we go help organize the militia,” he said. “Do either of you know what in the hell’s going on? We felt that really nasty spell of pain this morning, and then these things started attacking from out of the darkness. Everything stopped working.”
David looked at Jerriel, took a breath, and told the Blackwoods what they had figured out so far.
Even that much was a lot to handle, and they still knew next to nothing.
The Blackwoods looked a little paler and stared at Jerriel even more. “How come we haven’t met others of her people?” Belle asked.
8
Mason Tyler–the Pistolero–the living weapon.
The strange monsters did in fact return that night, and in even greater numbers. They seemed to hit South Bend from every direction at once and went on a rampage of burning and destruction.
It was widely reported that most of the untried militia units broke and ran. Many panicked defenders were cut down after they were routed, while they were in the process of running away.
Even worse, many good potential leaders and fighters perished in the chaos when they could not hold their positions or their units together.
Anyone could see that the inexperienced defenders of South Bend were in for a long, grim night of terror and bloodshed. After the initial three hours, much of the west and the north of the city was on fire. The enemy seemed intent on burning everything to the ground.
But the worst unexpected factor was thousands and tens of thousands of non-combatants–women, children, the elderly, and the infirm–turned out into the cold night to fle
e. They quickly became a swelling tide of panic-stricken refugees. Those who were not hacked down, killed, or captured outright fled east or south, struggling to hide or get away from the chaotic fighting and the unpredictable enemy hordes.
Mason barely had time to think, let along focus on how scared he was. He rushed to whatever location Lieutenant Watkins directed him to, unleashing a torrent of destroying fire against the packed enemy hordes, wherever they were massed together and pouring through the defensive lines.
His blazing pistols and their devastating blasts helped stem the tide somewhat. But he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and the conflict flexed and buckled at several points and along several major battle lines. In the end, it seemed as if all he did was keep them from being completely swept away.
The defenders just barely survived.
In between battles, Mason struggled to keep his various pistols reloaded. To do so, he had to focus and keep his hands from shaking. Necessity forced him to get a handle on his fears.
He tried to always keep a couple of his guns loaded with what he began to call his special “devastator” rounds. Loads that, when he fired them off, cleared the widest path of destruction possible out in front of him.
Anything caught in the kill zone was obliterated. Mason had no control over that.
Then, even the slow-witted brutes started to get wise after suffering repeated losses and setbacks at his grim handwork.
The enemy started watching for him, trying to track the unit that brought him around. If they spotted him coming at them from a distance, they would break up and try to avoid him, choosing to attack other high value targets that were far away from his location. They knew that it would take him too much time to reach them.
At that exact moment, Mason was downtown, helping defend what was left of it.
Then the enemy forces pulled back and seemed to vanish.
A militia captain and some skirmishers raced up on bicycles.
“Lieutenant Watkins, General Benton orders you and all of your forces to proceed directly to the area around the university in all haste. The enemy is converging there in great numbers in an attempt to overrun our defenses.”
“Yes, sir. Tell the general that we’re on our way.”
Watkins swung them around and marched up Colfax and then Notre Dame Avenue.
Up ahead, as they approached the campus, they could see that the enemy had already cut them off. Numerous buildings in that entire area were already up in flames.
They could hear the unmistakable sounds of heavy fighting. There was lots of smoke, and shouting and the clash of weapons filled the air. Frightened civilians scattered in all directions.
Unfortunately, it looked as if the defenders had already broken, and reeled in full retreat.
Watkins raced them up to General Benton on his horse. “We’re here, sir. I’ve got our secret weapon with us.”
Mason hated the sound of that when they said it that way–as if he were just a thing, a tool, not even human anymore.
“I prefer being called, the Pistolero,” he started to insist. That was a lot better than just being referred to as “the weapon,” secret or not.
Benton looked at their retreating forces and snarled. “You’re too late,” the general shouted. “We ran out of arrows. The area has fallen. They’re sacking and burning everything, flooding into every building like cockroaches. By morning, they’ll have burned this whole part of town right to the ground, and we can’t stop them.”
Terrified troops shrieked, “Here they come. Run!”
Oh, hell. Mason wanted to join them.
A dark mass of monsters formed a long, deep swarm like a plague of death itself, and charged at the militia. They roared and screamed like demons.
Perhaps they were.
“General,” Watkins said. “We can throw them back. Turn our people around and let’s fight. We have to stop them!”
Even the general shook his head. “There aren’t enough of us left here, and there are too many of them. Save yourselves to fight another day…if there is another day.”
The general rode off on his horse, chasing after his fleeing troops, who were already way ahead of him.
Watkins wouldn’t give in. He shoved Mason in front of him. “Start blasting, son. Let’s show these sons of bitches what you can do. Put on a show. Cut them all down!”
Mason hesitated only a second. If he was going to die there, so be it. At least he wasn’t going to be cut down from behind. He was going to go down fighting.
His only regret was not finding Tori.
Mason drew his guns, felt his adrenaline hype up, and held nothing back.
The enemy charge stalled in the face of sheets of fire and death. But then pockets of fleeing defenders accidently strayed into the killing fields in several places.
“I can’t fire with our people mixed up in there,” Mason protested. “And my blasts are getting too close to the houses and buildings as we move in. We’ll be killing our own people along with the monsters!”
“No, keep firing.” Watkins insisted. “It can’t be helped. The enemy is stuffed inside of those houses and buildings, ransacking everything and putting them to the torch. They’ll burn them all any way. We have to reduce their superior numbers, at all costs!”
Their small band strode forward, Mason’s weapons blazing, leaving a wide radius of total devastation in their passing. The vicious faces of the monsters vanished before him.
He fired until all his rigs were empty, breaking the back of the enemy assault in that vicinity and putting them to flight.
A cart was brought up, pulled by four troops, so that Mason could sit inside and reload his several pistols rapidly and efficiently during the lull. Another cart lugged his gear box behind them.
The surviving defenders saw what was done and rallied around them, for protection if nothing else.
“Form up, troops,” Watkins called to them. “Form ranks the way we taught you. Turn and fight. Stop running. We can turn the tide if we stand together!”
“We’re low on arrows, sir.” That was the common complaint.
“We do what we must. Glean what we can from the battlefield. Take the black arrows off the enemy dead. They’re shorter, but they’ll still work in a pinch. Gather up their spears and javelins, anything to fight with. We’ll take them down with whatever we have. Halt the retreat and call our fleeing forces back. Send word, send word!”
Word came that the enemy was regrouping and preparing to counterattack once more, from several directions at once.
Mason just finished reloading his last pistol, and just in time.
“Here they come again!” the warning sounded.
“We’re almost doing as much damage as the enemy,” Mason said.
“It can’t be helped,” Watkins insisted. “It’s us or them. It’s that simple. Keep firing, no matter what!”
The foe streamed at them like an onrushing flood.
Mason systematically fired in several directions, striving to hold back the dark tide. The militia fired all of their remaining arrows. Troops flung spears and javelins. They even hurled axes, hatchets, and knives right into the faces and bared fangs of the enemy advance, and barely managed to hold.
The sheer weight of the enemy numbers finally forced them to retreat behind the sheets of destroying flame that Mason’s weapons unleashed.
His guns held the enemy at bay and kept the defenders from being routed once more.
But they could not maintain such an intense level of fighting, and eventually, all of Mason’s pistols would need to be reloaded.
They were seconds away from being swallowed up.
They could only keep fighting to the last, as they became an island, trapped within an ocean of swirling foes.
Mason only had eighteen devastator rounds left. He took aim and tried to make each one of them count–cool, calm, and precise.
His roaring guns cut the horde down in droves, incinerating them in waves of ra
w, destructive power. He slew the foe in great swaths at a time. Burning buildings broke up and collapsed, shredded and brought to ruin during the course of the tumult that raged all around that key point.
The enemy went mad trying to get at them and sweep them away.
All of his pistols were at last empty. With no time to reload, Mason poured his lesser, direct fire into the enemy as they surged in up close.
The fear of death gripped him as the monsters closed in.
Just as it seemed that all would be lost, defenders poured in from countless directions, now surrounding a large surge of the monsters and cutting them off, hemming them in and spearing and hewing them down from behind a shield wall.
Further assault by the enemy became impossible. The enemy became trapped. The monsters turned every which way, attempting flee and fight their way out. More perished each second as the trap closed in around them.
Mason kept firing until he could no longer stand. He suddenly felt hollow.
All strength left him, and he pitched forward onto his face. Watkins and others feared he had been hit somehow. They checked him for wounds and tried to give him water.
The militia had the enemy on the run at last.
After hours of such fighting, all at once Mason felt more than exhausted, more than completely drained. Firing his weapons seemed to suck him dry of his very lifeforce. For the first time, he had finally reached his limit, and he knew it.
He could barely lift his head, and he gasped for air, soaked with sweat. He felt as if he were in the grips of a deadly fever. He couldn’t lift his guns in his hands, or even stand up, even if he had wanted too.
“I’m completely spent,” he said. He rolled over on his back, and struggled not to pass out. His entire body went numb.
“Pick him up,” Watkins ordered. “Get him behind our lines to a safe place. Try to get him to eat and drink something. He’s more than earned it this night.” Mason thought he saw Blondie’s face above him here and there.
The world around him and his spinning, swirling vision seemed to transform into a burning, smoking ring of fire and death.
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