Mercy (The Last Army Book 1)

by Freeter, John

  “Wait—try the windows!” Arjun screamed, stumbling his way toward the walls.

  “Damn, they’re blocked off, too!” one of the guys yelled. He banged against a steel curtain covering a window.

  I searched for the woman who’d just chucked the pipe bomb at the raiders, making out her face against the glow of the fire raging inside the office. “You there! Have you got any more explosives?”

  “N-no, that was my last one,” she said.

  I swallowed hard as another chorus of roars rattled the floor and racked my brain for a way to get out of that death trap. “That’s it!” I ran to the guys bashing on the curtain. “On the second floor, there’s a gap in the wall. A rocket landed there. Come on, let’s go!”

  “We’ll never make it,” the bushy-browed guy said, weeping, and fired his carbine at the steel curtain. Thin rays of light streamed in from outside. The rest of our group fired at the curtain as well. Stomping and scraping thundered from downstairs, growing louder and louder.

  “They know we’re here! Run!” I screamed and dashed for the stairs. Only Arjun and the woman followed me. The rest kept firing at the steel curtain, betting their lives on shooting their way through before the demons arrived.

  Their screams echoed up the murky staircase just as we reached the second floor.

  “I can’t see anything; we need light!” I screamed.

  Sparks scraped out of the woman’s lighter. A flame flickered for just a second, barely piercing the darkness, but I could make out two hallways stretching from either side of the landing.

  “To the right! Hurry!” I ran down the narrow hallway.

  “Where is it? Where’s the gap?” Arjun screamed, running behind me.

  “Ahead! Just keep running!” A sliver of light a hundred feet away leaked from the doorway to one of the rooms.

  A roar made the walls—and my heart—tremble. Burning demonic eyes poured from the dark stairwell and charged after us. I shouldered my rifle and fired off round after round at the monster’s hulking silhouettes as I walked backward toward the bombed hotel room. Brass casings bounced off the wall to my right and arched over my head. The plastic handguard heated up.

  Arjun and the woman turned around and opened fire as well. The demons charged at us in a single file, their massive bodies barely able to squeeze through the hallway. Our gunshots left me deaf to the monsters' wails, but their multiple eyes dimmed out as they fell, one after the other. No more demons poured in from the staircase. Only four or five remained on the hallway.

  I jerked on the trigger, to no effect. Just as I thought we had a chance of beating the monsters, I'd run out of ammo.

  “Shit, run!” I shouted and dashed toward the light. Arjun ran after me. The woman changed the magazine on her rifle and kept firing.

  I reached the bombed room in a dozen strides. “Here!” I screamed and frantically twisted the doorknob. Locked.

  Oh, Jesus, please…

  Arjun crashed into me, knocking me onto the carpet. The woman’s terrified cries rang out behind us. They didn’t last long. A stream of glowing demonic eyes dashed toward us, leaving a trail of light behind like tracer rounds.

  “It’s locked!” I screamed, getting off the floor, the demons only a few feet away. Arjun rammed the door with his shoulder.

  Wood crunched, and the door swung open. Light flooded into the hallway. I dashed through the room, shielding my burning eyes from the sun’s rays with one hand, holding my rifle with the other. I looked through the slits between my fingers to navigate the piles of bricks and blasted furniture lying on the floor.

  Despite the blinding sunlight pouring in from the gap in the outer wall, monstrous hooves still stomped behind me.

  I leapt out of the building.

  Twigs snapped and whipped my face. A thick branch smacked my ribs. I let go of my rifle, crying out in pain, and flailed, trying to grab onto the tree that had broken my fall. The charred bark slipped from my grip. I fell, knocking my legs and back on the tree’s lower branches. The ground rushed toward me—or rather, I plummeted face-first to the ground. I shielded my face with my arms before slamming onto the burnt grass. Even though my arms cushioned the fall, a wave of pain shot from my nose as I landed. A crunch. I squirmed at the foot of the tree, moaning in agony.

  A demon the size of a car landed less than ten feet away from me, shaking the ground with its massive hooves. Pain and fear left me paralyzed. The monster turned its eyes—two on either side of the head—toward me and shrieked, enveloping me in a sulfuric stench.

  Black blood gushed from its eyes like tears and streamed down its thick brown snout. The blood caught fire, engulfing the creature’s head in smoky flames. A sorrowful wail resounded from the beast’s open jaws. It swung its leathery tail at me. I pressed myself against the ground. The tree trunk cracked at the impact. Large red blisters swelled in between the black scales on the demon’s back, bursting into flames as they popped. The fire spread all over its body. Seconds later, only a mound of ashes remained on the ground.

  “Ar… Arjun? Arjun!” I screamed, crawling around the tree. I looked up at its blackened branches but didn’t find him hanging there.

  I knelt and wept, choking on the blood spouting from my broken nose and the gap in my molars.

  Arjun hadn't made it. The woman hadn't made it. My squad hadn't made it. No one who followed me into the building had made it. I grasped my necklace, my arm trembling, as I fought the urge to tear it off my neck. Guilt clung to me like mud… and not just for the people butchered inside the hotel.

  We’d killed children—I’d killed children—and God had just let it happen. What had they done to deserve being used like that? To die like that? What had any of us done to deserve this? And why the fuck couldn’t I just die along with the others? Why had I gotten away with only a few bruises and a broken nose when I had the most blood on my hands? I let go of my necklace and clawed at the ground, crying and screaming.

  A militia squad ran up to me. The rest of our forces on the street had finally reached the building.

  “Are you all right?” a young blond guy asked, crouching before me. “What the hell happened in there? Where are the others?”

  I shook my head and gazed at the other squads as they ran toward the hotel’s entrance. I pushed the blond guy away, picked up my rifle, and chased after them as fast as my aching body would allow.

  “Let’s get this thing opened!” a tall man shouted upon reaching the bullet-riddled steel curtain.

  “No, wait!” I screamed, limping along the sidewalk. “There’s a bunch of monsters inside! It was… it was a trap. They wanted us to storm the building in force and then lock us inside with those things.”

  The tall man stared at my broken nose. His gaze then moved to my bloodied, piss-stained clothes.

  “Are you sure?” He placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Yes, I’m sure, you moron!” I swatted his hand away. “If you open that gate, people are going to die, all right?” I looked at the militia fighters gathered in front of the steel curtain. They stared at me with a mixture of fear and pity. I took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that… it’s just that a lot of people just died in there… really… really bad, okay?”

  I reached into my side pocket for the enemy map. The younger militia fighters raised their guns at me. I couldn’t help snickering, which didn’t help put them at ease.

  My smile dropped as I extracted the map that had cost so many people their lives. “What’s your name?” I asked the tall guy.

  “Edward.”

  “Okay, listen to me, Ed,” I said, clutching the map and pointing at the bullet-ridden curtain. “That’s not the only trap the enemy has prepared for us. Unless someone in charge of this mess takes a look at this map, we’re all going to die. I promise you that.”

  Edward looked into my eyes. I frowned and struggled not to blink. He turned away, toward the steel curtain. Blood seeped under it… the
blood of those torn to shreds by the demons in the lobby.

  “All right. I think we can work something out,” Edward said.

  Chapter 48

  “This map you’ve found… it sounds too good to be true,” one of the militia commanders said through the radio. “I’m pretty sure the enemy wanted you to find it.”

  Edward, Claire—the radio operator—and I crowded on the back of a small grey van at the rear of the assault. I leaned close to the radio, several poisonous words making their way up from my gut, but Edward pushed me away.

  “Yes, I know it seems convenient, but they’ve got the whole attack mapped out,” Edward said, looking at the map. “I think we should take this seriously.”

  “There’s no time left for caution,” the commander said. “We’ve got less than six hours of sunlight left. Carry on with the attack. Good luck.”

  I shoved Edward out of the way.

  “Fifty thousand raiders are waiting for us at the stadium, you idiot! We’re all gonna die because of—”

  Claire flipped a switch on the console. “That’s enough.” She bit her lip.

  I leapt out of the van and kicked one of its tires. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Arjun and the others had died for nothing. The people at the barricades had died for nothing. Soon thousands more would die for nothing, as well. Edward climbed down the van and walked toward me. I turned away.

  “The commander’s right, Rebecca. It might’ve been a trap.”

  I wiped my tears away before facing him. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  ***

  I rode to the stadium in the radio van, sitting next to the back windows. Only brief firefights broke out along our route, the rattle of gunshots and the odd blast of explosives reaching us from a few blocks ahead. By the time we got to the scene of the attacks, only the dead and wounded remained, lined up on the sidewalk. Sometimes they were only a handful, other times a couple dozen. The raiders were thinning down our militia force before delivering the knockout blow at Citi Field.

  I didn’t help repel the raider’s ambushes. Instead, I combined all the ammo in my half-empty magazines, almost topping off two of them. Counting those in my rifle, I had fifty-six rounds left, plus thirty 9mm rounds for my handgun. In theory, I could kill at least eighty-six raiders—not counting those I might slay with my sword. I chuckled at my wishful thinking.

  Claire looked at me from her radio, pursing her lips and frowning.

  I waved her away. “Sorry, I was just thinking of something silly.”

  She turned back to her equipment and twisted a few dials—probably just acting busy to ignore me.

  Eighty-six raiders.

  A quick estimate of the odds against us turned my stomach. Less than twenty thousand people from the non-Christian camps entered the city. Being rather optimistic, maybe fifteen thousand fighters were left after taking the barricades. At least five thousand of those would have to head north, away from the stadium, in order to secure the bridges leading to Manhattan. So… ten thousand militia fighters against fifty thousand raiders. We’d each have to kill five enemies to break even.

  I licked my dry, cracked lips and admired the view as we bounced along the fractured road. The city looked the way I felt. Gutted buildings, piles of debris, and entire city blocks consumed by the fires that had broken out after the earthquake—leaving only the charred skeletons of buildings—adorned the landscape. The smoke columns to the west indicated that the military had reached Manhattan right on schedule. Of course, the raiders at the stadium would hit them from the flank after taking care of us, so they’d probably end up dying for nothing, as well.

  The van veered off the road and ground to a stop on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek, a little over half a mile east of the stadium.

  “This is as far as we go.” Claire folded the raiders' map. “You probably want this. I’m… I’m sorry command didn’t believe you.” Her smooth hand trembled as she offered me the map. The bulges under her eyes were at least a couple of nights in the making.

  “It’s all right—keep it.” I climbed out of the van. “If I’m right, and things go sour here, it might be of use to you. Take care.”

  “Wait!” The radio operator chased after me. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” She pointed to the van. “I’ve been on the radio all morning, and it’s a mess out there. Trust me, no one would know if you just walked away. If you’re sure it’s a trap, then… don’t go.”

  I slung my rifle back and tried to give her a hug. She took a step away. I smiled, looking down at my bloodstained, stinking clothes.

  This is what I want. This is who I am. I can’t run away from this.

  “Maybe you’re right; maybe I should just leave, but… I don’t know, I guess I still believe.” I dangled the cross on my necklace.

  It wasn’t a complete lie. Though I couldn’t stop thinking of how we’d all die for nothing—and kill for nothing—deep down I still wanted to believe that in the end everything would be all right… that a benevolent God up there in the sky would make all the spilt blood mean something.

  The young woman sighed and looked from my cross to the smoke pillars rising from Manhattan.

  “I used to believe, but after all that’s happened, I just can’t anymore.” She looked back to me with tears in her eyes. “That’s why I’m here. I got kicked out of the place where I was staying a week ago for suggesting that maybe God is evil. What about you? If you still believe, why aren’t you with the pastor’s people?”

  “That’s a long story,” I said, scratching my grimy head. “I’m not sure that God is evil, though.” My throat tightened as I remembered the dead children, lying on the street. “I think it’s us. All of us—we’re the evil ones. Maybe we’re the bad guys in this story.”

  Chapter 49

  Three thousand militia fighters assembled in front of the Van Wyck Expressway, ready to attack Citi Field from the east. I and around seven thousand others gathered at the train station just a thousand feet south of the stadium’s main entrance.

  I’d been to the stadium a few times before, whenever my dad was in the mood for some father-daughter bonding that didn’t involve a violent movie. Although the façade’s tall brick arches—which I always thought were cute, like a modern version of the Coliseum— had survived, the stadium seemed sad and empty with its light towers, billboards, and signs knocked down by the earthquake. Every single window had been shattered.

  A short wall of rubble—about three feet high—ran around the parking lot, no more than five hundred feet in front of us. Instead of cars lined up in the parking lot, small shacks stood next to each to each other in rows, made out of multi-colored pieces of cars’ sheet metal and other scavenged materials, welded or riveted together—perhaps some sort of makeshift housing.

  Raiders popped up from behind the rubble barrier every now and then, taking a glimpse of our troops massed behind the busted remains of the train station’s buildings. There couldn’t have been many more than two thousand raiders. My chest lightened with cautious optimism. I gave the cross on my necklace a quick kiss, inspired by the hum of prayer around me, but directed a feeling rather than a prayer to God.

  Please, please, please.

  Whistles rang out to spur the charge, but I stood my ground. I didn’t run forward until the screaming wave of militia was halfway to the enemy.

  The crack of gunfire lasted less than a minute. Brick and dirt shot into the air from the blast of homemade explosives. The battle cries redoubled, and the militia spilled over the barricade and into the parking lot. They rushed toward the stadium in packed columns, charging between the rows of metallic shacks. I leapt over the bloodstained debris. The corpses of the defenders were slumped against it on the other side.

  I smiled. Maybe I was wrong…

  The crest of the assault wave was two hundred feet away from the stadium’s main entrance when raiders emerged from the top and between the arches, raining automatic fire and dozens of Molot
ov cocktails down on us. I froze in place, gasping, my legs weighed down by fear and shock. The front of the charge tumbled down, torn apart by the raiders' bullets. Pillars of fire and smoke rose from within our ranks as the Molotov cocktails burst on the ground. Hundreds flailed around, covered in flames and squealing in agony, spreading chaos in our vanguard.

  The raiders perched up high shifted their fire to the rear of our assault, pouring bullets down the corridors between the makeshift structures. I dove behind one of the shacks to avoid the gunfire and pressed my trembling body against the warm sheet metal—bathed by the afternoon sun.

  A length of rusty chain and a heavy padlock lay on the ground beside the shack’s narrow entrance. I ventured a peek inside and found only a few pieces of cardboard on the ground, as well as the potent stench of urine, sweat, and excrement. Anger and sorrow swelled inside me as I remembered the cages the raider captured by Martin and me had spoken of. Could my parents have been in one of those cages? Could they be nearby?

  I peeked around the cage, aiming my rifle at the raiders firing down on us. My hands shook from the gunshots and shouting around me, but four raiders had plummeted to the fractured concrete around the stadium by the time I’d emptied my magazine. The rest of the militia fighters hiding behind the cages gathered their nerve and popped from behind their flimsy cover to shoot at the raiders, as well. The redbrick arches on the stadium’s façade were soon pocked with bullet holes, the limbs of enemy fighters swinging lifelessly from their elevated platforms.

  A distorted battle cry rang out from inside the stadium, drowning even the sound of gunshots. A torrent of raiders poured out of the entrances like thick, squirming snakes, thousands upon thousands, gunning down and trampling over the militia forces in the parking lot. I quickly climbed on top of the cage, cutting my hands on the jagged sheet metal, and lay flat on the roof to fire off another magazine at the incoming horde. It was like scooping water out of the ocean.