Overrun

by Michael Rusch

  Kirken looked at him only briefly before recognizing his face.

  A pair of strong hands reached over Kirken's shoulder and pulled Brandon from his grip. He then sensed Mel reaching both arms around his own chest to try and pull him up. The rush of air from the helicopter blades forced him to cover his nose and close his eyes.

  From somewhere deep inside his head, the voices still chased after him.

  He hobbled after the man who carried his son while Mel held him firmly by his side. The pain from his damaged shoulder, burned skin and polluted eyes threatened to make him pass out with every step.

  Tuttle moved slowly ahead of them toward the glass. Brandon's head sagged down in front of his chest. His legs barely moved. Struggling against the helicopter’s blowing wind and the unconscious teen’s dead weight, Tuttle dragged Brandon along next to him.

  The sonic noise of jet engines bellowed over their heads. In the distance, the firebomb air teams swarmed within the giant wall of new flames coming from the city ahead.

  Red and orange missile tails streaking from their wingtips crashed into the center of the streets and gouged into the bases of the decayed buildings. Whole sections of Beuford disintegrated into nothingness with every blast.

  In less than an instant, half the city was gone. Each new wave of the assault jets brought the destruction closer towards the mall.

  "Faster!" Tuttle shrieked. "There's not much time!"

  His words were drowned out by a fresh wave of planes dropping directly down over their heads and rushing to join the attack run.

  Mel pulled Kirken along more rapidly towards the glass. They were almost to the edge when gunfire from the helicopter made them turn back around.

  A J.G.U. soldier, his shape mostly hidden by the settling dirt and clouds of smoke, stood at the center of the shredded doorway with his rifle drawn. Spit from Piper's machine cannon chased him back inside the doorframe. Safely concealed by a blanket of black smoke, the soldier fired again on the escaping group from behind the door.

  Tuttle leaned Brandon's sagging form back into Kirken's arms and pulled his own weapon from his back. Joining Piper's machine cannon fire, they drove the soldier back inside the building behind an exploding barrage of metal and splintering wood.

  "Go!" Tuttle screamed while keeping his rifle pointed towards the doorway. Behind him, the pilot edged the chopper's nose closer to the observatory glass.

  Mel pushed ahead and scrambled over the window's edge to the thin metal walkway. Shielding her eyes with her hands from the helicopter’s rotor wind, she took two careful steps out. Kirken stepped onto the platform behind her clutching Brandon tightly against his body.

  He had just dragged Brandon's feet out onto the platform when more than eighty miles away Science Dome 15's Death Wall was finally lit.

  In the distance past the far side of Beuford, the sky lit up orange, then red and finally a brilliant yellow. The mammoth destruction unleashed from Science Dome 15’s Death Wall ripped across the countryside towards Beuford swallowing everything in its fiery path.

  Another quarter section of the town was buried completely and consumed by its intense fire.

  Thoughts of the apocalypse finally coming to the dying world whirled through Kirken’s head as he clung more tightly to the still form of his son.

  The shockwave pulse of the blast pounded against the chopper’s side battering it about the already tumultuous air. Its landing skids banged against the rooftop, and its nose dipped sharply toward the observatory glass.

  The back edge of its tail smashed into one of the many steel girders jutting from the roof's surface.

  The pilot pulled hard up on the controls trying to raise its nose away from the large window. Twisted pieces of the steel girder crumpled around its tail trying to wrestle the craft down to the ground. The helicopter careened a quarter turn around as the pilot tried to pull it away from the four people on the roof. It bucked violently through the air resisting his efforts to regain control.

  Finally, the pilot managed to bring the craft around and centered its weight across its bent skids near the building's edge. Tangled metal from the girder held it tightly about its tail anchoring it securely to the roof.

  Tuttle caught up to Kirken and was about to take his son from his hands again when the second blast hit.

  The force of this blast, more powerful than the first, lifted Tuttle into the air and dropped him hard across his back. Kirken fell backward away from the glass. Brandon tipped away from him and tumbled out of his arms.

  As he did, Mel teetered on the edge of the metal walkway in front of them and finally fell. The observatory window disintegrated into an oblivion of tiny shards when their bodies smashed against its surface.

  Kirken rolled over on his chest and threw out his arms trying desperately to grab them both.

  The helicopter lurched hard to its side straining against the girder. The thick metal yanked more tightly against the helicopter tail and finally ripped it from the craft.

  The cabin dipped sharply downward sending its churning overhead blades ripping into the rooftop. Its entire outer frame split instantly apart. The cabin slid to the edge of the roof, teetered on the edge for an instant, leaned forward, and finally toppled over the side.

  A moment later an explosion sounded from the ground.

  Kirken stretched his body over the edge through the shattered observatory frame. Pieces of broken glass ripped like tiny razorblade fingers into his stomach and chest.

  He clutched Brandon tightly by the arm, their bodies locked together at their wrists.

  Mel hung next to him by the equipment pack secured to her back. Its thick straps had wrapped themselves around Kirken's shoulder when she fell through.

  Both their legs twisted precariously over the ten-story drop to the flaming ground level below.

  Like red hot poker tips had been dragged along the length of his skin, the pain of shattered bone coursed up and down Kirken's arm. An agonized shriek escaped his lips.

  He prayed to every muscle in his body for one last ounce of strength to pull her up. His body shook from the effort and quickly began to slip. He sensed Tuttle dive next to him to catch hold of his feet, and he heard him scream from somewhere behind his back.

  But Kirken's mind was not there.

  With her arms grasping helplessly upward, Mel's body twisted slowly about on the straps of her pack.

  "No," Kirken heard himself plead. "Oh dear God, please, no."

  Brandon's grip about his wrist began to weaken, and his fingers slid slowly down through Kirken’s hand. Thick pieces of splintered glass dug themselves harder into his stomach and skin.

  Through a thick sting of tears, Kirken watched Mel’s pack begin to stretch. The buckles holding it to her back started to bend, snap and break.

  She reached her hand slowly toward him and lightly brushed it against the side of his face.

  Kirken fought back the pain and grief doing their best to overtake him and struggled to keep his hold.

  Chapter 42

  Mel felt her body swing gently from the straps of her equipment pack still secured tightly to her back. She let her eyes drop down towards the source of the stinging hot air licking lightly at the tips of her feet.

  The terror of the present world, which had smothered and destroyed the rest of her other senses, was finally gone leaving her soul a hollow empty shell. Only fleeting tinges of regret remained. They too disappeared slowly with every breath her lungs fought to make.

  Her entire being was numb. Color no longer registered across her eyes. The innocence of life she had always treasured and clung to was finally dead. The world had become a grey dreadful place.

  She now envied those lucky enough to have already left it.

  The flames below did not scare her. In fact she felt them beckon. A small force hidden within their hungry jaws pulled at her seeming to offer her comfort within the womb of their scathing sea.

  A whisper from somewhere deep insid
e her heart beseeched her to slip from her shoulder harness and fall away.

  For the moment, she ignored the voice and lifted her head up. She felt the panic and sorrow reach from her father's eyes and hold her like a sturdy vine from an ancient steady tree. She saw the pain etched across his face and tried to close her ears against the agonized howls coming from his lips.

  Mel dropped her head again and prayed the straps keeping her on her father's arm would suddenly come loose.

  "Mel!" she heard her father scream. "Just hold on. Please!"

  Her body lurched up slightly as her father strained to pull her and Brandon back up to the ledge.

  Her brother hung limply next to her. Even at the sound of their father's voice, his body did not move. His still form swayed gently against her side. His scorched hair prickled lightly across the skin on the back of her neck.

  Mel twisted about and looked back towards her father. Tears fell in torrents from his eyes and splashed across her face. Some dropped gently into the center of her own. She held hers wide open and did not blink them away. She felt his body tremble violently against the weight he tried to hold.

  Looking away from his eyes, she finally saw the source that beckoned her.

  There was another face pressed close to her father's. Another pair of eyes stared down at her. A tiny hand reached towards her from behind her father's shoulder offering to pull her up.

  Her torment had returned. The vision of the small boy she had left dead in the bunker had come to her again.

  The boy’s head rested on her father's shoulder and pressed lightly against his cheek. With imploring eyes, he begged her for the reasons she wasn’t able to prevent his untimely end. Though this time, the accusations and blame previously etched across his face did not exist. He seemed more at peace.

  The boy struggled to touch her.

  "No," Mel pleaded softly, her soul yearning for release. She felt strong steel fingers of guilt wrap around her throat threatening to squelch out her voice.

  "I'm so sorry," she said again. "Please let me go."

  "No!" she heard her father shriek again. His face had turned a flaming red. His scream reflected years of kept rage finally allowed to be loose. "Mel, just hang on!"

  Mel reached up to him trying to let him know by her touch that everything was alright. Her hand swept through the hot sweat against his forehead. She sensed the agony his own body endured. She felt his muscles tighten as he struggled again to pull both of them up.

  Yet, their weight was just too much. Brandon started to slip from her father's grasp.

  "Oh God, no," she heard her father plead.

  She stared into her father's eyes one last time trying to ignore the vision of the boy across his shoulder.

  It was then the strap holding her finally broke. Her reflexes overpowering her will, her arms shot through the open air and wrapped themselves roughly around Kirken's shoulder.

  Kirken slid further over the observatory edge. A new howl bellowed from his throat. Mel saw the man from the helicopter drop beside him and struggle to hold them all by Kirken’s feet.

  "Oh, please, no…," her father moaned. “…not this…”

  From somewhere within his shattered body he still found the strength to hold her without the straps of her pack and keep her from her fall.

  "You have to grab tighter!" he yelled at her. "Grab tighter! Goddamn it!"

  "No," she heard herself say softly again.

  The vision of the boy squirmed further down her father's shoulder towards her. Holding out his own arm, his face pleaded with her earnestly to let him help pull her up.

  "Mel!" Kirken screamed again. Veins pulsed along his forehead, and the tendons in his arm threatened to burst from his skin.

  "No," Mel mouthed once more. She let go of his arm and allowed herself to slip from his grip.

  She heard her father let out one last scream. And then through the thick hot air, her body dropped.

  Chapter 43

  The engine roar of the firebomb team deafened all their ears. The attack planes leading the assault swooped to within blocks of the shopping mall, released their weapons, and then screamed away.

  Only a very small section of Beuford did not lay burning behind the squadron's flight path.

  The J.G.U. vehicles speeding from the nearby streets disappeared in quick brilliant bursts of missile light. Buildings teetered over on top of themselves and crumbled to oblivion into the fiery earth.

  The planes turned up into the night their pilots readying their positions for another destructive run.

  "No!" Kirken screamed again. The fiery world around him stood still and became silent as he watched his daughter fall away from him and become swallowed by the fires raging below. "Oh please, God….no…."

  The firebomb team was now upon them. Bright red missile trails leapt from their wingtips and tore into the building's base causing the entire structure to sway.

  As if angry with the sacrifice given them, the flames reared up higher and more menacingly from where Kirken's daughter had entered them down along the ground.

  Choking, sobbing and his eyes blinded by tears, Kirken reached down with both arms and wrapped them tightly around his son. He closed his eyes and waited for Tuttle to haul them both back over the shattered observatory ledge.

  The screaming pain from his broken shoulder no longer registered across his mind.

  When they both were lying safely back on the roof, the two strong hands of the man that had rescued them snatched at Brandon's limp body and jerked him roughly to his feet.

  Kirken rolled over on his back and started to cry. The sound of the approaching aircraft bellowed loudly overhead.

  He closed his eyes and again saw his daughter’s body being consumed by thick hands of fire and smoke.

  "Kirken, get up!" Tuttle ordered him. "We have got to go!"

  Kirken couldn't bring his body to respond.

  The firebomb planes charged at the building like swarming insects. Rectangular hatches opened slowly from their undersides and spewed rivers of ignited fuel that blanketed the already-ravaged land below.

  The mall stood tall and defiant amidst a raging fiery sea. The loud hiss of missile flight filled the scorch of the surrounding air.

  "Now!" Tuttle screamed. He whirled around and dragged Brandon away from Kirken and the roof's center.

  Kirken did not get up to follow their escape. He stayed on his back near the broken ledge and listened to the crackle of flames laying quick claim to the mall roof. The deafening roar of jet engines pounded relentlessly across the top of his head.

  "Kirken!" he heard Tuttle scream again.

  And then the world exploded around him.

  Missiles trailing white smoke rammed themselves into the building's center. Invisible monstrous released energy devoured the rooftop in front of him.

  As quickly as they had come upon them, the sound of the planes died quickly away. They streaked towards the unscathed nearby hills where their pilots maneuvered them ominously back around.

  Tuttle dragged Brandon toward the pile of rubble covering the destroyed doorway and lowered him to one knee. With bare hands, he tore away at the shredded brick and metal blocking their escape.

  Kirken still didn't move as he watched the general try to save his son. Pain coursed through his body. Flames licked at his bare flesh.

  Through the stinging heat, he watched Tuttle drag and shove Brandon roughly through the opening he had created in the debris. Without looking back again at Kirken, Tuttle turned his back and followed Brandon through the doorway.

  A new sound of planes approached.

  Kirken coughed twice and cradled his tortured arm. He breathed in deeply the thick hot choke of spewed jet fuel. Blood dripped from his mouth and streamed down the scorched stubble on his chin. Slowly, he pulled himself to sit up.

  The building swayed and burned beneath him as he eyed the firebomb team circle about for another pass.

  Like thousands of screa
ming devils shrieking out his name, the flames surrounded him. The roof caved inward beneath his weight and began to tumble away. He felt his body slide towards the flaming deep that had just claimed his daughter.

  Kirken closed his eyes and allowed the fates and irony overtake him. His thoughts flashed briefly in wonder at his daughter lost and the survival of what his son had become.

  Like it had fallen with her into the depths of the roaring flames, the fight to endure and vanquish the demons he battled in his despised world was finally gone.

  The lifelong struggle they had finally won.

  The Overrun story continues…

  OVERRUN: Project Hideaway

  By: Michael Rusch

  Now available on Kindle.

  A week has passed since war has been declared on the United States by Japan's Great Union and the Plan Zero genocide attempt unleashed. It soon becomes evident the effects of the plan are not what its creators intended. The United States all too quickly finds itself about to be soundly defeated in the Dome War.

  Word becomes known of the details of Plan Zero to the outside citizenry, those ordered dead by the U. S. government and have now survived. With the U.S. military weak and losing ground, the President finds himself backed into a corner. After being forced to initiate the Plan Zero genocide on the United States people, President Ford now must answer for the sins of his administration to the rest of the world.

  One piece of technology still exists that could bring about victory for the battered U.S. forces and ease the plight of the divided country. Launched many years before the onset of war, the Beam Cannon Hardware, the United States solution to providing ozone protection to all its citizens, still floats secretly in space on the sleeping ship, Hideaway.

  Possession of this technology is considered by many to be the deciding factor in determining the outcome of the Dome War. Construction of the Beam Cannon Hardware would mean protected life for all United States citizens living in the outer world cities. It becomes the one thing Ford, a President now considered outlaw, might be able to use to appease his country.