He could see his daughter, Tina. She was across the street in the doorway of a house with a wiry looking American who seemed to be offering her protection. It took a moment for him to realize what was troubling him so, and then it registered in his mind, which was still hazy from the explosion.
They were both gawping open mouthed at the same thing. Sheppard followed their line of sight and locked on to what they were watching. He began to pray then, silently under his breath, and at that particular moment, he didn’t care if it was Allah or any of the other gods who heard him, for he was witnessing a miracle.
Morgan walked through the chaos. He did not rush, nor did he deviate. As he walked, thousands of spiders began to crawl out from under his clothes, and as Sheppard watched in terror, more came from his ears, mouth, and nose. They covered him, completely encasing him in a mass of jittering black bodies and scrambling legs. At first, Sheppard thought they were attacking him, but it dawned on him that their purpose was different.
They were protecting him.
A smattering of gunfire cut down two battling civilians in front of him, and although Sheppard saw clearly enough that at least two bullets hit the arachnid -covered boy, he neither slowed nor deviated from his path. Instead, where the bullets should have torn through his fragile body, shearing away muscle, and shattering bone, they stopped inches from the spiders and fell to the floor, crushed beyond all recognition. A soldier approached the boy, holding out a restraining hand to stop him. The spider covered shape made a simple gesture, a flick of the wrist, and the soldier launched through the air, twisting like a rag doll before slamming into another battling group of civilians. The spiders changed, melting together and transforming into a fine green – blue mist, which enveloped the boy as he walked through the chaos, safely shielded from both gunfire and violence alike.
One of the army transport trucks was parked horizontally across the road, giving Clifton’s command post a little shelter from the battle, but even its fifteen-ton frame couldn’t stop the boy. With another gesture of his hand, the vehicle slid back enough to give him free access.
Sheppard’s lips were dry, and he looked around for the bottle of water that had been on his table before the building fell down around him. It was then that his eyes landed on the hole in the roof, and the things that had fallen into his apartment from the one above.
IV
Clifton shouted to make himself heard over the din of the riot. He had his field telephone nestled in the crook of his shoulder, speaking to the secretary of defense, whilst simultaneously staring at a hastily acquired map of the area in order to try to bring some kind of control back to the situation.
“Yes, sir,” he shouted into the headset. “I need air support now before this situation gets out of hand, sir.”
He pointed to the map then looked at the platoon commander at the opposite side of the table.
“Get men here, here, and here, but do not open fire. I—” he turned his attention back to the telephone. “– No sir, the men I have now cannot handle it, otherwise, I wouldn’t be requesting support. Tell the president that things are going to get real ugly, real quick if I don’t get what I need.”
He looked back to the platoon commander and covered the mouthpiece of the phone with his palm. “Are you waiting for a personal invite? Go, get to those positions,” he growled and then turned his attention back to the phone.
“I’m sorry, sir, if you haven’t been briefed, but we are dealing with a potential terrorist attack on this country which I was assured I had full clearance to deal with.”
Clifton stalked around the tent, rubbing his temples with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand as he listened to what the secretary of defense had to say.
“With all due respect, sir, this situation is much more important than discussing reelection plans. I need that air support, and I need it now. Please, verify with the president and call me back.” Clifton hung up the phone and shook his head as another two officers entered the tent bearing more bad news. Clifton and the men pored over the map, trying to figure out a way to bring the chaos under control. Nobody noticed Morgan walk into the tent. He approached Clifton and came to a halt behind him.
“Sir,” he said timidly, his words snatched away by the surrounding chaos and panicked chatter around the map.
“Sir,” Morgan repeated, a little louder this time.
Still, he went unheard, so he cleared his throat and took a step forward, tapping Clifton on the back. Clifton whirled around, glared at the child, then at Grimshaw.
“How the hell did this kid get in here? This is supposed to be a secured area. Get him out of here.”
“Wait,” Morgan said, as Grimshaw grabbed him by the arm and led him firmly toward the exit of the tent.
“Wait,” he said a little louder.
Still Grimshaw steered him towards the exit.
“STOP!” Morgan screamed.
Instantly, Grimshaw was launched into the air as if Morgan was charged with thousands of volts of electricity. He slammed spine first into the edge of the desk, then crumpled to the floor.
Silence befell the tent, all apart from Grimshaw’s moaning on the floor. Clifton looked down at him, and could see that the palm of his hand where he had been gripping Morgan’s arm was burnt and bleeding, then in a single fluid motion, pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Morgan’s head.
“What the hell are you, kid?”
“I’m here to help you,” Morgan replied.
Clifton barely noticed. He simply stared in morbid fascination as the ghostly blue spiders scurried and clambered all over the child, who for his part seemed oblivious. For the first time since he was a wet-behind-the-ears G.I, fear surged through Clifton, and to his horror, as he watched, the spiders started to split, tearing open like overripe grapes and releasing yet more tiny spiders, which looked for shelter in the folds of Morgan’s clothes and hair.
Morgan smiled. “Fear makes it worse, I—”
Clifton fired.
From a distance of fewer than three feet, Morgan should have been killed, his head exploding in a shower of claret and bone, however, the reality was that he didn’t even flinch. Instead, Clifton saw the most bizarre thing he had ever experienced. He saw the bullet crumple in the air inches from Morgan’s face and fall to the ground. The boy looked at them, and then shook his head.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” Clifton said.
“Because now you’ve made them mad.”
The boy walked out of the tent, clambered up onto the top of one of the armored trucks which were parked across the street, and looked at the hole. His curiosity replaced by fear, Clifton followed, climbing up to stand beside the boy and look out at the carnage. As they watched, a deep, rumbling groan emitted from the hole, making it grow ever wider. Embry’s mailbox, which had stubbornly clung to the perimeter of the hole for the last few hours, finally succumbed and slid down into the dark. The people started to panic, attacking each other in their attempts to get away from the ever-widening sinkhole.
“Do something!” Grimshaw shouted, glaring at Clifton as he clutched the wrist of his burnt hand, his teeth gritted in pain.
He had no response; he could only watch, his command of the situation now free of the already loose hold which had been retaining.
“Sir!” Grimshaw shouted as the people started to brawl, and others still began to wrestle guns from the soldiers and fire indiscriminately.
Clifton turned to Morgan, staring wide-eyed at the boy, who was watching events unfold with a troubled frown.
Why isn’t he afraid?
Clifton asked himself, then with no other option, knelt on the floor beside Morgan.
“What do we do? How can we stop it?”
Clifton didn’t notice, but Morgan’s eyes flicked towards Embry and Tina, who were still watching from the door of his house.
“They want her.”
“Want who? Who do they want?” Cl
ifton bellowed as the noise built into a deafening roar.
Morgan looked at Clifton, and although his eyes still had the childlike innocence that would be expected, there was something else, a darkness hovering just below the surface, and that alone brought the horror racing back to Clifton.
“I can fix it if you let me,” Morgan said, not breaking eye contact with Clifton.
He hesitated, and then cast an eye to the full-blown riot on the streets below.
“Do it. Do whatever you have to,” he screamed, staring at the child with a twisted half grimace on his face.
The boy nodded, and squinted up to the sky.
V
The MH-60L Direct Attack Penetrator hovered thirty-five feet above the street. Pilot Lance T. Crebble, was holding station above the smoldering remains of the apartment complex. As he looked at the violence unfolding below, he was grateful to be in such a lofty position. He adjusted the position of the helicopter, enabling him to get a better view of the hole. Although he was curious, he was always of the opinion that not thinking about what something could be was better than dwelling on it too much. It was like when he was in Baghdad. It’s easier to fire missiles into a compound when they are just a bunch of monochrome smudges on a monitor screen, something that he was sure would be infinitely more difficult if he thought to consider those inside as people he was—
Get out.
The thought appeared forcefully into his head, and was so strong, so alien; he almost passed it off as someone speaking it into his ear. He glanced around the cockpit, but as expected, he was alone.
Get out. NOW.
It wasn’t a thought, nor an idea, but a command. Given to him with such authority that he felt his skin tingle with fear.
Jump. Before it’s too late.
He looked down at the street below and saw no place with which to safely land. He tried to lower the chopper towards the ground but was dismayed to find that the controls were not responding.
The helicopter was moving towards the hole.
VI
Clifton watched open mouthed as the young boy pointed at the helicopter, and seemed to drag it across the air with his hand. Clifton watched as the pilot jumped clear, landing hard in the back of a flatbed truck, his legs breaking on impact. The chopper was spinning now, slewing in ever accelerating circles as it raced towards the hole.
“Are you putting it in the hole?” Clifton shouted, his voice an octave too high as he stared at the chopper, performing maneuvers that no human could hope to ever replicate.
“No,” Morgan said, not taking his eyes off the chopper as he raced it through the air. Clifton realized then that this was no mere boy, this was something else. Something not covered in any of his training exercises and manuals, something that nobody could have prepared for.
Morgan closed his eyes and launched the gunship towards Embry’s house.
VII
She has to die.
Morgan’s words echoed through Embry’s mind as the MH-60 slewed towards the house. He couldn’t move, and like a deer caught in headlights, he stared at what he was certain was his coming death. The chopper banked as it neared, its rotor blades exploding in shards of lethal steel as they connected with the concrete. Although he had learned to hate his existence and had welcomed death with open arms, now, at the end, he realized that he did want to live, and that life actually did matter to him. It was, however too late, and he let out a hoarse scream and threw his arms up instinctively to protect himself as the chopper slammed into the house, its fuel tanks igniting, and, in turn, exploding the three remaining hellfire missiles on board. Embry’s house exploded in a deafening roar, Fuel-fed flames tearing through the structure with ease and bringing the entire building down in a fiery explosion.
Embry had always been of the belief that when faced with death, a person’s life would flash before their eyes, but for him, nothing happened. He wasn’t sure if it was because that particular myth was purely bullshit, or, more likely, that he hadn’t done anything worth remembering.
The house collapsed in on itself, the flaming, blackened skeleton of the chopper sliding straight through the building, and taking with it a portion of his neighbor’s house too, leaving it without an upper corner wall.
Thick, black smoke and intense heat combined with the thunder of shattered concrete, exploded wood, annihilated glass. Embry’s home was completely brought to the ground.
He was still screaming, and it was then as he opened his eyes that he understood. He was surrounded by the remains of his house. Smoke billowed from shattered furnishings; rooms, which were once part of his living space, were now nothing more than pulverized rubble. He, however, was unharmed. He stood upright and reached a tentative hand out to touch the semi-transparent blue dome which surrounded him. Within, no damage had occurred. The carpet which had covered his living room was plush and untouched within his sanctuary, yet beyond was lost in a mountain of debris.
His heart felt as if it had relocated into his throat, and pounded there as he squinted through the thick, black smoke and shimmering heat haze.
Tina was gone.
All that remained within Embry’s dome was her one singular smooth hand, still clenched into a fist. He looked at it in fascination, noting that it was cleaved smoothly at an angle just above the wrist. There was no blood, and as Embry looked, he could see a sickening cross section of the inner workings of her arm. Twin white circles of the Radius and ulna bones were clearly visible, as was the cross section of muscle, nerves, and skin. The rest of her was gone, destroyed in the raging fire and utter destruction in what used to be Embry’s home. Recovering a little, Embry glared across the carnage to the boy, who was still standing atop the truck. It was then that he realized that there was silence. The rioting had stopped, as had the shooting. Even the hole was now silent, seemingly, for the time being satisfied with the boy’s offering. Now, everyone’s attention was fully on Embry and Morgan.
chapter eleven
Sheppard gripped the jagged remains of the window frame, ignoring the sharp, bitter pain as the glass punctured his skin. He had seen what the boy did, and worse, he had seen what Embry had not – his terrified daughter being killed as the chopper exploded into the house. He watched now through gritted teeth as the man somehow walked out of the rubble and into the street, and the people parted as if he was some kind of god on earth. The boy also seemed to have some kind of power, and almost instantly, Sheppard’s grief transformed into rage. He had always tried to live a good life, to avoid the fanatical support of Allah that some of his countrymen chose as their lifestyle, but this single incident had not only tested his faith, it had destroyed it. It was only now, with his nostrils filled with the stench of acrid smoke, and his ears ringing from the concussion blast of the explosions, that he considered what to do. He glared at the man and boy who had caused his daughter’s death and was further enraged, for they were being neither detained nor arrested. Instead, they were both in polite conversation with what looked to be an army general. If he didn’t know any better, Sheppard could quite easily imagine that they were discussing the weather or perhaps a recently watched television program. He squeezed the window frame even tighter, the tips of his fingers turning white with the pressure of his grip.
Bastards.
His throat was dry, and he could taste the soot and dust from the explosion. He looked around the shattered remains of his apartment, looking for something to drink when his eyes landed on the backpack on the floor. It had fallen through the gaping hole in the roof where, two floors above, the Saudi men had been holed up. It had fallen through not one, but two apartments in order to land on his floor, and he crawled over to it on hands and knees, ignoring the sting of pain from razor sharp diamonds of glass which littered his floor. He also ignored the other stuff, the chewed up, fleshy remains of the people who had lived upstairs. Thankfully, although he could tell they were parts of people, they were too mangled for him to identify where on the body they came fr
om. However, just the sheer fact that the grisly, fleshy pieces now littered his apartment, made him even more furious at the American government and their insistence on flexing their military muscles at every opportunity. He reached out a bloody and shaking hand and dragged the khaki backpack towards him, brushed the glass off the top and opened it.
The device inside was alien to him, as he had never seen such a thing before. He knew well enough what it was, of course, he watched the news. He knew a bomb when he saw one, but to actually hold one in his hands, to have one in his apartment made his heart race. Tucked beside the device was a note. Sheppard pulled it out and opened it, reading the Arabic with ease.
Salem,
By the time you receive this, we shall already be with Allah.
The infidel Americans will pay dearly for their continued ignorance.
Take this device, my friend, and join us in glory.
Allah be with you.
Sheppard looked from the note to the device, then over his shoulder at the ravaged remains of his apartment. He realized then that he had nothing left. Nothing at all. No wife, and now not even his child, his sole reason for carrying on for so long without putting a bullet in his brain. In fact, his entire being felt empty, an alien vessel housing his consciousness. He knew the government had been watching him, had been sure of it for weeks, and now they had tried to kill him, and by some twist of fate, he had survived and his beautiful daughter had perished. Hot tears stung his cheeks as a single word started to fill that empty void that housed his consciousness, and as that word grew, the more it seemed like a plausible idea.
Revenge.
Wiping his eyes, Sheppard looked into the backpack, wondering if he could even figure out how to use the device in the first place. His prayers were answered when he found the second envelope, the one that gave detailed instructions on how to arm and detonate the weapon. It seemed that Allah was with him after all, and as a man with nothing to lose, he could, at least, ensure that the man and boy who had caused the death of his daughter joined him in hell. He opened the instructions and began to read.
The Void Page 10