Mercy (The Last Army Book 1)

by Freeter, John

  I threw my rifle at him. The raider swatted it aside with his shotgun. I dashed forward, grasping the handle of the samurai sword at my side, and drew the curved blade, slashing the raider’s gut in a single, fluid motion. Blood streamed down his trousers. The raider dropped the shotgun to brace the gash. I followed with a two-handed downward slash on his shoulder. My hands tingled as the sharpened steel cut through bone. I tugged the sword out of the lifeless corpse, ready to face the rest of the frenzied horde… and found myself alone.

  I’m going to die.

  A stout raider swung his rifle at my leg like a baseball bat. Luckily, my sword’s scabbard cushioned the blow, and I countered with a slash to the face. The raider wailed, clutching his face and falling to his knees. Blood seeped through his fingers and down his shirt. I raised my blade to finish him off—a twitch of remorse in my heart—but a younger raider grabbed my right arm and tried to stick a combat knife in my stomach.

  I grabbed his wrist and screamed, pushing the knife away. The young raider made another thrust. I staggered back, the tip of the knife an inch from my side, and fell to the ground. The raider pounced on me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. Drops of sweat rolled down his nose and onto my face, his warm, acrid breath blowing over my skin as he drew his blade closer to me grunt by grunt.

  My left arm ached from the strain of holding back the stab, and the young raider had my sword arm pinned against the pavement. I gritted my teeth and cried, but his grey eyes showed no pity.

  One of the guys from my squad—the one scavenging for guns in the trench—rushed down the barricade and bashed the raider’s back with his old rifle. The raider’s face twisted with pain, and I managed to break my right arm free from his grasp. I hammered him in the head with the sword’s hilt, but he wouldn’t stop trying to thrust his knife into me.

  The raider grabbed my sword with his left hand—by the blade. I yanked it away, slicing his fingers, and stabbed him under the ribs. The awkward position sapped strength from my thrust, but the sword’s tip pierced the raider’s skin. I skewered him inch by inch, up to the hilt, and finally managed to pull his knife away from me. I twisted the sword inside him, drenching my clothes with his warm, stinking blood until the young man’s grey eyes glassed over.

  “Are you all right?” my squad member asked, staring at my busted lip as he pushed the raider’s corpse off me.

  “Yeah… thanks. Just go,” I said, gasping.

  He followed the rest of the militia as they charged down to the street toward the sand-colored hotel. I sat up, rubbing my swollen jaw, unable to hold back a few whimpers. Blood’s metallic taste flooded my mouth, and I spat out two molars. I slid my tongue along my teeth, wincing as I touched the gap at the back of my mouth.

  I spat a gob of blood and spit at the young raider’s corpse and picked up my rifle before one of the fighters rushing past me could grab it. Reloading it proved difficult on account of my shaking hands. Pain, fear, and exhaustion took hold of me. I gasped for air and bit my bloodied lip to steady myself, but the magazine still clinked against the underside of the rifle a dozen times before I managed to slide it in.

  Could my parents really be alive somewhere inside that hell? Looking at all the bodies strewn around me, I had to believe that God was looking after me. Maybe he had looked after my parents as well.

  I used the rifle as a crutch to get on my feet and slapped a fresh magazine into my handgun. The fighting ahead—by the looming hotel—intensified, the rattle of gunshots uninterrupted. I bent down and pulled my samurai sword out of the raider’s body. It made a sick slithering sound. I swung it in the air to fling off the excess blood and sheathed it. Martin might’ve looked at it with contempt, but the sword had saved my life.

  I screamed to give myself courage—and distract myself from the pain—and rushed along with the militia to the hotel.

  About two hundred militia fighters crowded behind the rubble and abandoned cars in front of the building. I spotted my squad near the front of the group and ran to them. Sparks and clumps of concrete shot into the air as the enemy—about four hundred feet away—fired upon them, but my squad didn’t return their aggression in kind. At most, they fired an occasional shot, barely aiming—trying to suppress rather than kill the enemy—and ducked back behind cover.

  Arjun lay behind a short flight of brick steps leading into a wrecked house. I crouched next to him. His eyes and cheeks glistened with tears. A line of about fifty raiders hid behind a short mound of debris next to the hotel, only peeking out of cover to fire at us. After the meat grinder we’d just been through, I couldn’t accept that the pitiful opposition in front of us had blunted our assault.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted, shaking Arjun’s shoulder. “You’ve got a damned sniper rifle—kill those bastards!” He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  I took Arjun’s scoped rifle from his sweaty hands and aimed at the raiders ahead. I’d never used a scope before, but at that range I figured it wouldn’t matter. I took deep mouth breaths to steady my aim—the air rushing in stinging the bleeding gaps left by my missing molars—and prepared myself to squeeze a shot as I centered a target on the reticle.

  Oh my God.

  I took cover next to Arjun, hugging the rifle. My skin crawled, and even the pain faded away as a chill ran down my spine.

  “They’re children,” Arjun said, looking at me with teary eyes. “They’re just children.”

  Chapter 46

  I looked at the children down the scope again, keeping my finger away from the trigger. An even mixture of boys and girls shot from behind the mound, none of them older than thirteen. At least half of them seemed drugged, their lifeless eyes searching for targets in a daze. The smaller children took their time to aim their cumbersome weapons—bigger than they were—and tumbled to the ground from the recoil after every shot.

  A handful of adult raiders ducked behind the children, directing their fire. Soon, a raider with greying hair and wearing combat fatigues blew on a whistle and beat the children with a stick. Those who looked drugged out of their minds crept from behind the rubble and staggered toward us, firing their weapons. The others hugged the debris, taking the beating rather than facing our guns. I tried to line up a shot at the old raider, but he only exposed himself for a fraction of a second to swing his stick at the children. The bullets whizzing over my head—fired by the drugged ones—didn’t help either, but I kept looking for an opening.

  The greying raider aimed his handgun at a small Asian girl. I let out a silent scream as blood spattered from the back of her head, and she slumped down to the pavement. The rest of the children crawled over the rubble and ran toward us, firing their guns as they wept.

  I sat behind the safety of the steps and closed my tearful eyes, but I could see the horrific scene playing again behind my eyelids. I prayed.

  I prayed, begging God to make it be nothing but a cruel illusion and that I would look down my scope again to find hardened, grownup faces parading across my reticle. I made a solemn prayer that if my cries were answered, I would toss my weapons away and never pick up a gun again for as long as I lived. I swore that I would run back to New Jerusalem, and after crying on Karla’s shoulder, I’d beg for her to teach me how to save lives rather than take them. If that didn’t work out, I could always be like Amy and read through the Bible until I had every line committed to memory; I’d preach the word of God to anyone who’d hear me. I even would have washed clothes under Mrs. Thompson’s severe gaze until the skin peeled off my hands rather than face the children’s staggering advance. I peeked from over the stairs.

  They’re there. Of course they’re still there.

  The children’s erratic fire drew closer while the militia cowered behind clumps of brick. I broke out in tearful sobs and looked up at the indifferent blue sky. The sun was almost directly above us, partially hidden behind the vast smoke columns dotting the city. In a few short hours, those of us still alive would be m
ercilessly slaughtered by the demons lurking in the shadows of the subway system below. Mr. and Mrs. Raj, Karla, Amy, and everyone else on the island would be next. We’d all be nothing but demon shit by the end of the week.

  No. I won’t let them win.

  I knew the path to victory would be paved with the corpses of our enemies. I had signed up to fight demons and Satanists, but if the enemy threw children at us, then I would fight children.

  I gave Arjun his scoped rifle and looked down the street through the iron sights of my rifle. A little under three hundred feet away, I wasn’t able to make out any details on the approaching children. I could still imagine their tear-stained cheeks, and tiny noses clogged with snot, their small hands grasping their guns, and their trembling lips, but actually looking at them through the scope would’ve been more than I could bear. I centered my aim on the tallest child—a thin black girl with short, curly black hair—and tried to squeeze the trigger, but my body shuddered in rejection, fresh tears welling in my eyes.

  “If we don’t do this, we’re all going to die here!” I yelled, trying to convince myself rather than the men and women around me.

  I gritted my rattled teeth so hard it hurt and took aim once again.

  I took the shot. The little girl crumpled to the ground.

  I looked away, only to meet Arjun’s stare. His dim, sunken eyes, dusty cheeks, and cracked lips complemented an expression of utter defeat. He swallowed hard, bit his lower lip, and aimed his rifle at the children. He fired. The other militia fighters shot as well. It was all over in a few seconds.

  The adult raiders ran toward the hotel, spraying bullets in our direction to cover their retreat. I leapt to my feet, wiping tears off my eyes. Anger seethed in my gut like a wild animal trying to claw its way out.

  “I’ll kill you all!” I screamed and chased after them, firing from the hip as I ran through the piles of murdered children.

  A handful of militia squads followed me, but halfway to the hotel, snipers on the top five floors poked their rifles out of the windows and fired down on us. We hugged the right side of the street, where the rubble and the remaining walls of smaller buildings covered us from their fire. At least ten militia fighters lay in agony on the bloodied pavement, but the rest of us—around twenty—resumed our dash to the hotel. We didn’t stop until we stood next to the entrance, our shoulders pressed against the sand-colored brick.

  “We’ve got to wait for the others,” a Middle Eastern-looking man said, glancing back at the rest of the squads on the street. They slowly advanced toward us as they fired back at the snipers.

  The windows on the first and second floors had been boarded up, and a concrete slab over the entrance protected us from enemy fire, so waiting seemed like the safest thing to do. Of course, safety was the last thing on my mind.

  “I’m not letting those bastards get away,” I said, changing the magazine on my rifle. “Every second we wait is a second those sons of bitches have to hide. I’m going in—cover me!”

  I charged into the building with a scream, shooting blindly around the dark lobby. My dramatic entrance was met by a hail of gunfire from five raiders positioned behind the front desk. With no light coming in from the boarded windows, only muzzle flashes lighted the room. I ceased firing and dove behind a cluster of sofas and tables in the middle of the lobby. The raiders' gunshots tore them apart, sending splinters and wads of foam stuffing flying into the air and raining down on me. The militia fighters by the entrance failed to back me up.

  I opened fire on the front desk, trembling with fear and lying flat on my stomach between the shattered furniture. My rounds punched through the front desk’s wood paneling, silencing the raiders' guns. Only one of them fled to the hotel manager’s office. I squeezed a few rounds at him, but my rifle’s bright muzzle flashes had left me practically blind, and I missed.

  “It’s clear! Hurry up, you cowards!” I screamed, barely able to hear myself through the ringing in my ears. I felt something warm spreading through my cargo pants' thick fabric, and I patted myself down, afraid I’d been shot.

  Thank God… I pissed myself.

  The darkness and the penetrating smell of gunpowder must’ve hidden it, though, because Arjun didn’t comment on it as he helped me up.

  “There’s at least one left over there, inside the manager’s office,” I said, steadying my breath and pointing to the front desk.

  The remains of the lobby’s furniture crunched under my boots as I walked with my cheek pressed against the stock of my rifle, ready to fire. I crept around the front desk and headed for the entrance to the manager’s office. I slung back my rifle and drew my pistol while Arjun and a handful of militia fighters lined up behind me. The rest covered the hallway into the first-floor rooms, as well as the stairs to the second floor.

  “Wait,” a woman whispered, grabbing my arm. “Don’t rush in just yet.”

  A flame flickered before her haggard face, followed by the hissing of a lit fuse. She chucked a pipe bomb inside the office and went for the floor. Several raiders screamed inside. I covered my ears just as an explosion shook the walls and a torrent of dust rushed out of the office.

  I raised my pistol and tiptoed inside. A small fire had broken out in a corner of the spacious office, imbuing the haze with a warm golden light. One of the raiders limped toward me, half her face blasted off. She waved a rifle before her. I crouched out of the way and shot her under the chin, spraying blood onto the ceiling. Another raider fired at the spot where my head had been. His muzzle flash pierced the thinning dust cloud, and I finished him off with three shots to the chest. The rest of the militia finally poured inside. I signaled for them to keep a low profile. The sound of whimpering gave away the presence of at least one more raider inside the office.

  I aimed my gun toward the sound and stepped forward, my finger wrapped tightly around the trigger. As the air cleared, the greying raider emerged, sitting in a corner near a splintered desk. His booted feet twitched, and his fatigues were plastered with fresh blood. Jagged shrapnel shards stuck out from his stomach.

  “It’s you,” I said, kicking away the handgun lying at his feet.

  “Please… help me… I’m—”

  I snickered, holstering my gun. “What’s the matter, grandpa? You’ve got a little tummy ache?” I stepped on his mangled gut. The raider winced and moaned, deepening the wrinkles on his face. I slowly shifted my weight on him until a thin line of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “I saw what you did, you bastard.” I leaned closer to him, until our noses almost touched. “Did Pastor Tim order you to use children as a meat shield, you sick fuck?”

  The man groaned in response and coughed up blood. Arjun walked up to us and raised his rifle to the raider’s face. I grabbed the barrel and pushed it away.

  “No. If they want to act like animals, then they can die like animals.” I stared at the raider. “Let the bastard bleed to death.”

  “Hey, check this out,” said the bushy-browed guy from my squad, dusting off the desk.

  I shot one last poisonous glance at the greying raider and turned to the desk. A map of New York City lay on it. Arrows and boxes had been scribbled onto the map in red and blue marker. My skin crawled, and the room felt cold despite the fire spreading in the corner.

  “Oh, shit,” Arjun said, tracing his finger along one of the arrows. “This is… this the whole attack plan! They knew everything—where we’d attack and with what strength.”

  “Look at the enemy locations,” the bushy-browed guy said, pointing at the red squares in the city. “They’ve got all them gathered to meet us and the army. The southern parts of the city are practically deserted.”

  I leaned over the map. My throat tightened as I realized Brother Tim’s motive for calling on the non-Christian militia. The raiders would grind us—and the military—down, while his troops would rush through Brooklyn practically unopposed. Looking at the enemy still waiting for us ahead in the map, a peculiar red box ov
er Citi Field caught my eye.

  “What does this mean?” I placed a finger on the box. “It’s got three X’s on top. The others only have one.”

  “Fifty… fifty thousand… men,” the greying raider whispered in a labored voice. He smiled, baring his bloodied teeth. “That shouldn’t… concern you, though.” He dug a trembling hand into his pocket. “Good night… bitch.”

  My hand bolted for my pistol, but a faint click came from the raider before I fired on him.

  “Get down!” I shouted, leaping behind the desk.

  I folded my arms over my head, but the expected blast never came. A hum reached us from the lobby, followed by metal slamming on concrete.

  “The entrance is sealed off! We’re trapped!” someone screamed from outside the office.

  I got off the floor and dusted myself off, my heart still pounding against my chest. Arjun and the other militia fighters rushed to the lobby. I folded up the map and stuck it in one of the side pockets of my cargo pants before running after them.

  A wide steel curtain blocked the exit. A couple of the guys kicked it but barely rattled the heavy curtain.

  “Stop! Listen,” another guy in our group said, dragging the others away from the curtain. A faint buzzing came from under our feet—from the basement—and then the clank of metal doors unlocking.

  Booming roars and howls made the floor tremble. The few bits of glass left on the boarded windows clinked against their frames. Streams of dust cascaded from the cracked ceiling.

  I slapped one of my last full magazines into my rifle before speaking.

  “Demons.”

  Chapter 47

  “Oh shit, we’re going to die!” the bushy-browed guy screamed and bashed the butt of his rifle against the steel curtain.