The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  The first hit came shortly before 10:00 AM, from the north of them. There was no warning beforehand, no sound of a helicopter engine, nothing. Suddenly tracers were slamming down into the ground, moving from one sleeping bagged figure to the next with devastating accuracy. The attack lasted less than five seconds, just long enough for the guards to begin returning fire. Entire clips of ammunition were blasted into the dark sky in the general direction that the tracers had come from, but with no aiming point and no visual reference, none of them came within twenty yards of the helicopter. Just as the guards were reloading and starting to take count of the wounded, more tracers slammed in, this time from the northwest. The guards themselves were now the targets and two of them were mowed down by lightning bursts of 5.56-millimeter shells. And again, before an accurate defense could be initiated, the attacker disappeared.

  Follow up attacks took place at 12:30 AM and at 3:00 AM, each of them killing an average of two soldiers per firing run. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to keep the militia awake and trembling, to keep most of them on edge and scared. By the next morning the exhaustion that resulted would start to affect judgment.

  And little did the militia know that back in the town they had left behind, other events were taking place that would have a profound effect on their future.

  Lieutenant Livingston was currently second-in-command of all the troops remaining in the Auburn township - second only to Barnes himself. He was a long-standing veteran of the militia, his service in it stretching considerably back to before the fall of the comet itself. He had personally led the assault on the town of Colfax and Grass Valley. He had once served in the United States Army as a military policeman.

  At 1:45 AM, while the rest of the militia was lying awake some fifteen miles to the southeast, trembling in fear of another air attack, he was sound asleep and snoring in his bedroom, Mindy, the favorite of his three wives, sleeping soundly beside him. Mindy was naked, as was Livingston himself - they had engaged in a lengthy session of sexual congress before retiring four hours before. Mindy had no idea what was about to occur - she was not one of Jessica's inner circle. Livingston certainly had no idea either.

  The door had been left open as they slept but neither heard the stealthy footsteps of Madeline, the junior of the three wives, and Kendall, the senior of them, as they crept out of the bedroom down the hall and made their way down to the kitchen.

  "Are you sure," Kendall, who had never been more scared in all her life, asked her companion quietly, "that the other women are going to go through with this too? If they don't, we're going to be burned at the stake in the morning."

  "We're going through with it, aren't we?" Madeline, or Maddie, as she was known, asked with cold logic. "The others will do it too."

  "But if they don't?" Kendall asked. "What happens then?"

  "Then all is lost. It's a chance we'll have to take. To tell you the truth, it'll be worth it in any case. Now let's get it done."

  Kendall offered no further protests. Slowly, carefully, Maddie opened a kitchen drawer and removed a huge butcher knife of the sort that was usually used for chopping very large cuts of meat. It was a knife she had spent a good portion of the previous day rubbing obsessively with a whetstone and it was now nearly sharp enough to shave with. She hefted it, testing its weight for a moment and liking the way it felt in her hands. "Let's do it," she said, holding it down near her side. She opened another drawer and pulled out a two-cell flashlight. She handed this to Kendall, who took it blankly, keeping it turned off. Without waiting to see if her companion would follow, she began tiptoeing towards the stairs.

  Kendall, feeling her body surging with nervous adrenaline, feeling her very hands trembling, started after her. The dice had been thrown.

  They made their way upstairs and then down the hallway until they were standing outside the darkened master bedroom. They could see nothing but they could hear Livingston snoring lightly and both knew the interior of the bedroom intimately. They made their way to the side of the bed and paused.

  They didn't talk, didn't make a sound until Maddie, the knife in her left hand, gripping it by the handle, said: "do it."

  Neither Livingston nor Mindy reacted to the voice. Both however, reacted when the flashlight was suddenly switched on, its beam spearing Livingston's head with illumination. Their eyes flew open at the sudden barrage of light but neither had any time to react to what happened next. Livingston was lying on his back, the covers pulled up to his shoulders, his arms beneath them. While he blinked in confusion and his sleep-muddled brain tried to figure out just what the hell was going on, Maddie reached forward with her right hand and grabbed him by the hair on the top of his head. With a sharp jerk, she yanked his head backward, exposing his neck. While he tried to free his hands from beneath the covers to fight back at this sudden attack, Maddie chopped downward with the butcher knife, it's edge slamming into his throat, just below the bulge of his Adam's apple. With a vicious, powerful stroke, she pulled it across, slicing deeply into his neck, severing his trachea as neatly as she would have the neck of a chicken. Blood began to spray into the air, both from the gaping wound and from a partially severed right carotid artery. She finished her swipe and then stepped backward, out of reach, her knife blade now red and dripping.

  Livingston sat up in bed, his eyes wide in disbelief and fear, his hands abandoning their attempt at defense and going to the wound on his neck. He tried to scream but no sound came out but a pitiful, dying gurgle. He tried to inhale and found it impossible. His eyes grew wider, his hands tightened around his throat, trying desperately to repair the irreparable damage.

  "There, you motherfucker," Maddie spat, her eyes blazing. "There's the motherfucking God's law for your ass!"

  "Maddie!" Mindy suddenly screamed, her face a terror as she saw the second mouth that had been added to her husband, as she saw the blood spurting out onto the linen. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm killing this piece of shit," she said. "Now shut the fuck up unless you want some of it too."

  "But..."

  "Shut up!" Maddie barked. "You just sit there and don't say a fucking thing!"

  While Mindy trembled in place, uncomprehending at what was taking place, Maddie and Kendall watched Livingston's desperate struggle on the bed. He flopped up and down, raising and lowering his head, his eyes growing wider and wider as he slowly suffocated to death. The only sound was the banging of his feet on the bed and the pathetic gurgling and whistling of his severed windpipe. Shortly he began to seize, his body flopping up and down as his oxygen-starved brain began to send misfired signals down his spinal column. In less than three minutes, it was over. Either the hypoxia or the blood loss - which was considerable - got the better of him. He gave one last tremendous flop and then he lie still, his body in the middle of the blood-soaked Mickress.

  "My God," Mindy cried, her hands at her face, her own eyes bugging out in disbelief. "What have you done? They'll kill you! They'll kill all of us!"

  "Keep your voice down," Maddie said, wiping her knife on a relatively clean part of the Mickress.

  "But you killed him! You murdered him!"

  "Yes we did," she said. "And it felt good too. I almost came in my panties watching that fuckhead flopping around. I only wish it could've taken longer."

  "Maddie, Kendall, what are you doing? Why did you do this?"

  "Shhh," Kendall said, stepping forward, her trembling hand still holding the flashlight. "We're not the only ones."

  "Whu... whu... what?"

  "This is happening all over town," Kendall told her. "At least we hope it is."

  "All over town?" she asked, trying to grasp what she was being told.

  "It's a revolution," Maddie said. "Soon, this entire town will be in our hands."

  "Our hands?" Mindy asked, still unable to keep from staring at the dead body of her former husband.

  "The women's hands," Maddie clarified. "And it's about Goddamn time. Now the question you have to ask y
ourself, Mindy, is are you with us or are you with the men? You need to decide right here, right now." She left unsaid just what would happen if Mindy declared that she was against. Mindy, one of the tattletale variety in the past, had been left out of the conspiracy for this reason. But now it was all or nothing. Maddie was fully prepared to dispatch her in a way very similar to Livingston's own murder if she did not agree to go along.

  Mindy continued to stare at the corpse of the man who had raped her on a nearly nightly basis, who had put himself into her ass, who had beaten her, slapped her, kicked her, who had sprayed his semen all over her body and face. She was certainly not upset at the fact of his death in and of itself, only of the possible ramifications of it. Could what Maddie was saying possibly be true?

  "Well?" Maddie said, her hand gripping the knife a little tighter.

  "I'm with you," Mindy said. "We'll probably all die, but I'm with you."

  As Maddie had said and as Kendall had hoped, the same scenario was being repeated all over town, in every house where a man lay sleeping. In every case at least one woman was a firm member of Jessica's clan; in most, two of three or four wives were in on it; and in one case, all of the three wives were in. Not every attack went as smoothly or as silently as the attack upon Livingston had, nor did every recruitment of the wives not in on the plan go as easily.

  In Sergeant Preston's house, the good sergeant was awakened by the sound of his wife entering the bedroom to perform the deed. This forced her to move a little quicker, a little more frantically than she'd planned and Preston managed to get his hand on her wrist just as the knife came whistling in. Fortunately the wife that had been lying next to him was in on the scheme and was able to temporarily disable him - by means of grabbing his testicles and squeezing as hard as she could - long enough for her to break free and drive the knife into his chest. She was then forced - while the other wife held her hand over his mouth to keep him from crying out - to worm and squirm the blade back and forth until enough blood vessels and vital organs were ruptured to cause unconsciousness secondary to blood loss.

  In Sergeant Bristle's house, surprise was achieved but the initial knife thrust was not deep enough to either sever the trachea or rip open a carotid artery. Bristle screamed and fought for the better part of ten seconds before the tip of the sharpened knife was finally thrust directly into his Adam's apple hard enough to lodge into the cervical spine behind it.

  In Corporal Patton's house, the assassination went off without a hitch but the entire rebellion was nearly exposed when Cindy, the senior wife, who was not in on the plot, tried to run screaming into the night to find the roaming interior patrol and alert them. Cindy was stopped at the door by having the knife driven into her shoulder blades and then she was choked to death in the entryway.

  In all, however, despite a few close calls, every woman that had agreed to perform their deadly task acted upon it and every man targeted, one way or another, ended up dead. In the space of fifteen minutes, thirty of the remaining forty-five soldiers (this count did not include Barnes himself) were dead along with three wives that elected not to participate in the uprising. It pained the conspirators to have to kill their fellow women - in no case did they enjoy doing it - but they all did it without hesitation.

  Though a few screams and bangs and frantic struggles managed to sound outside the walls of their houses, the five-man patrol of men that was wandering through the night streets, searching for potential escapees or infiltrators, were never close enough to hear them. They continued on their rounds, unaware that their minority status in town had just become considerably more minor.

  Many of the women that had participated in the killings simply held in place, awaiting the next stage of the developments. Where it was possible, one representative from each household in which a sleeping man had been dispatched made their way to the rallying point just adjacent to the high school building. This only occurred in the households where more than one wife had been in on the plot from the beginning. In those houses where a single wife had done the deed, that wife stayed put in order to keep an eye on the recently recruited co-wives.

  In other houses, houses where the men were off on the Garden Hill mission but the women were part of Jessica's plot, those women slipped out and made their way to the rallying point as well. These women - sixty of them had been chosen to participate in the next phase - came armed with knives and clubs but no firearms. As per Barnes' long-standing order, no firearms were stored in houses. All of them were either in storage in the high school building or with the guards on post.

  The women made their way carefully, stealthily through the darkened streets, keeping well clear of the roving patrol for the time being. This was easy to do since the patrol used flashlights to illuminate their path. Whenever the bobbing of lights was seen in the distance, or the clanking of the automatic weapons that they carried was heard, the woman would simply hunker down somewhere and wait for them to pass or move away. By 3:00 AM, the agreed upon time for rally, all sixty women involved had checked in with Jessica, who had been waiting anxiously in place since shortly after 2:00.

  Jessica, though the tacit leader of the revolt and the inspiration behind it, was not the operational leader. She had learned enough about her own shortcomings to delegate that to others who were more knowledgeable about fighting and strategy. Five of the women in her phase two group had served in the military in their pre-comet lives. Though, being women, none of them had been combat soldiers, all had gone through basic training just like the men had. The fact that Jessica had allowed this portion of the plot to be planned by and placed in the hands of others was perhaps a testament to how badly she had been stung by her Garden Hill experiences. She knew that there was but one chance for this and one chance only.

  As it happened, Madeline was the designated leader of the operational portions. She had served two terms in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant in charge of a supply loading operation. Still she had qualified as expert with her weapon consistently in training and had taken many of the advanced leadership classes offered to her.

  "Okay," Jessica whispered to her after roll call had been taken. "We have confirmation that twenty-three of the thirty are dead. Of the other seven, we can probably assume that most, if not all of them, are dead as well. No alarm has been raised and the patrol has been spotted circling normally around town."

  Maddie nodded, still gripping the knife she had used to kill Livingston with. "I don't like to assume things," she said. "But in this case, I guess we don't really have a choice. Is Carla here?"

  "She's here and ready for action," Jessica said. "Shall we move in?"

  "Let's do it," Maddie agreed. "Put Carla out in front and the rest of us will hang just outside the arc of the light."

  Sergeants Schuyler and Dewey were standing guard in front of the main entrance to the high school. They had been on shift since 6:00 PM the previous evening and were not due to be relieved until 6:00 AM. The twelve-hour guard shifts were something new - a result of the majority of the men being away on the Garden Hill mission. Both of the senior sergeants, aside from feeling extreme fatigue and boredom, thought it beneath them to be assigned to such a lowly post for so many straight hours. But both knew better than to nod off or do anything but stand at attention before the door. Barnes was known to make unannounced visits to the posts, particularly this one since he slept right upstairs. The penalty for being inattentive on duty was three days of house arrest and reduced rations. The penalty for sleeping on duty was death by hanging.

  "Three more fucking hours," Schuyler groaned, looking at his watch. "I can't take it. I'm going batshit here."

  "No shit," Dewey agreed. "I'd almost rather be on the march than pulling guard duty." He considered for a moment. "Almost."

  "You got any more smokes?" Schuyler wanted to know. "I ran out an hour ago."

  "It ain't my fuckin fault you smoked up your rations. Don't even think you're getting any of mine."

  "Hey
fuck you," Schuyler said angrily. "Don't be so stingy. Don't you remember when..." He stopped as Dewey suddenly hit him on the shoulder and leveled his rifle foreword. "What? What is it?"

  "Who goes there?" Dewey said, his finger tightening on the trigger. The figure approaching out of the darkness was obviously female, and females were forbidden from being out after 10:00 PM for any reason. "Answer up now!"

  Schuyler leveled his own weapon and reached for the radio on his belt. It was tuned to the frequency of the guard posts and the interior patrol and could summon them in a Micker of seconds. Barnes also monitored the frequency when he was awake.

  "Don't shoot!" a meek, feminine voice pleaded. "It's me, Carla."

  "Carla?" Schuyler said, recognizing the voice of his junior wife. He lowered his rifle a little. "What the fuck are you doing out here? You know that's a beating offense!"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I had to." She walked closer, her hands empty, nothing the least bit suspicious looking about her. She seemed genuinely scared.

  "You had to? What the fuck for?" Schuyler demanded. "Get your ass over here and start making some sense right now!"

  She walked over, coming fully into the cone of light that was cast by a security spotlight mounted on the roof. "It's Jan and Laura," she said, seemingly near tears. "They're... they're..." She stopped, apparently too emotional to go on.

  "They're what?" Dewey, impatient said, staring at her. "Tell us what the fuck is going on or I'll beat you myself!"

  "They're gone," she said. "I woke up to go to the bathroom and they weren't there! I think they're trying to escape."

  "Oh Jesus," Schuyler said, shaking his head. Several of the militia members had been afraid something like that would happen while the bulk of the forces were gone. The temptation to make a run for it would be just too great. He reached for his radio to alert the interior patrol, not knowing that he had already fallen for the ruse his wife had set for him. Carla was simply a distraction, something to detract the attention of the two guards during a critical minute. That critical minute had passed.