Empire ba-2

by Anthony DeCosmo

  JB tilted his head and his eyes glazed over as if trying to solve a complex equation. He found an answer of a kind. He stepped closer to his father and grabbed his hand, taking it with both of his own tiny hands and then holding it to his cheek as if trying to provide comfort…

  …The worst sound in all of New Winnabow called out more frantic than it had ever called out before. The alarm bell rang harder, louder, and faster than ever.

  That sound carried through the town, into bedrooms, through open bakery doors, and shook the glass window panes at the council building.

  Guards in the northwestern quadrant saw it first: a wave of beasts descending upon their village.

  Row upon row upon row pouring across the grassy field. Snarling, charging, growling; the mass of invaders smashed into the town like a tidal surge. Their columns streamed down every passage and every street and through ever open door as if they were a deluge of water filling all avenues.

  The first group of defending militia did not fire their weapons; they turned to run. The dogs dragged them down from behind, arms and hands and throats torn and ripped and crushed in the jaws of the merciless beasts.

  Sharon Parsons walked the street with her son, Tory. The wave poured directly at her.

  She stooped over and cradled her shivering son in a ball. Sharon felt the ground shake with thousands of galloping paws; she heard the click of talons on the cobblestones; she heard the snorts and yaps of the attackers.

  Then they passed her by. The dogs left her unmolested.

  She dared raise her eyes.

  Across the small street, she saw an elderly resident tumble and fall against a stack of wooden kegs. He held his cane aloft in a futile gesture of defense.

  But he did not need to. The dogs left him unharmed as well.

  A shop keeper further along the block was not as lucky. He fired a pistol at the mass which then swarmed him over, turning him into a bundle of bloody clothes in a matter of seconds.

  And still they came…still pouring in from the fields.

  Guard posts were overrun; sentries bitten and raked with razor claws.

  Billy Ray Phelps, the Sergeant-at-Arms, came out of his home wielding a shot gun amidst a fleeing mob of people.

  “Stand your ground! Fight! Call out the militia! Call out the full militia!” But no one listened.

  Phelps walked along an alleyway and heard them coming. A tremble in the ground. A growing chorus of snarls and barks.

  Then the street ahead filled with four-legged animals so tightly packed together that they seemed more like one single organism comprised of black, gray, brown, silver, and white fur.

  With a defiant roar, he raised his gun and fired.

  Two Rottweilers in the lead stumbled and fell dead but it made no difference; he might as well have thrown pebbles into the ocean.

  He fired…and fired…and fired…

  …The men inside the armory heard the commotion outside. The screaming. The howls. The gun shots.

  They saw, through the tall stained glass windows at the front of the building, silhouettes of people running through The Commons.

  The watchman opened the locked cabinets holding the town’s supply of rifles and pistols. He distributed the weapons to the handful of militiamen who had come out despite no order from the council.

  The stained glass windows exploded inward. Shards of glass rained down on the men. Dogs came jumping through like water through a breached dam…

  …Nina peeked at the carnage unfolding on the streets below.

  She found it hard to make out individual dogs because they moved in such unison, but she knew that her best friend, Odin, served as a part of that mass. She also knew that, unlike the Hunter-Killer teams, no human handlers participated in the attack. Indeed, Trevor had warned her at the rendezvous to ignore the ‘chatter’, and by that he meant the concerned calls from the Century and Legion commanders in Wilmington who had watched their K9s disobey all orders and march off to the southwest where they joined hundreds more.

  From her observation point, Nina heard the screams and cries of the dying town. She saw many bloody bodies lying in the streets like bundles of discarded, torn clothing.

  For all the horror she witnessed over the years, for all her work in the shadows, she still found the need to avert her eyes…

  …Billy Ray Phelps fired and fired despite blood dripping across his face, despite having lost two fingers, despite legs pouring out blood from torn skin. A dozen dead dogs lay at his feet. The barrel of his shotgun grew so hot he feared it might melt.

  The canines circled the crazed defender then rushed from all sides. A Husky bit into his lower leg. A Doberman leapt on his back and clamped its jaws on his shoulder. A German shepherd drove its head into his gut while a Rottweiler bit down on his arm.

  Phelps fell over, beneath the swarm, and was torn apart, piece by piece…

  …K9s battered doors with their heads, smashing through even if it cost a half dozen dogs their skulls first. They crashed through windows and jumped over walls.

  Any of the residents branding a weapon died, including a man who absently held a knife he used at breakfast and a woman carrying an unloaded gun.

  With no council to call out the full militia, resistance faded fast, particularly since the Grenadiers seized the armory in the first few minutes.

  The battle was won, but that had never been the question…

  …Trevor Stone stood on the balcony of his estate with his son clutching his hand as they watched the sun rise over the mountains surrounding the lake.

  It was a new day in The Empire.

  26. But What of the Meek?

  At last, the army moved.

  Metallic squeaks marked the crawl of tanks, the clack and clink of loose gear reverberated through marching ranks.

  After freeing the blockage of New Winnabow, the 1 ^ st Mechanized Infantry Division gushed forward with incredible speed.

  Bogart, the General’s aide, took charge of the vanguard. By noon they reached the crossroad town of Supply, North Carolina where they established a strong point guarding the intersection with Rt. 211.

  Shepherd would normally remain at the lead of his column, but he felt a higher responsibility called that day. His command vehicle and a handful of transport trucks arrived at New Winnabow where they found the streets patrolled by K9s.

  Residents-survivors-huddled inside barricaded homes or surrounded on street corners.

  Robert Parsons had built his community on the premise of avoiding violence. In a sense, he had been proven correct. Only those who did not fight survived.

  As Shepherd’s occupation force arrived, the flood of K9s receded without any word from any handler, any human.

  A chorus of misery rose from New Winnabow. Constant sobbing, cries of anguish, curses at fate, God, and most of all Trevor Stone.

  Shepherd rode into town atop his armored command vehicle between columns of dazed people wandering the streets wondering what to do now that their town had been murdered.

  He recognized some of the faces from his prior visits; a guard from a checkpoint, a baker, a woman who offered him a haircut when he toured the town that first time. They had welcomed General Shepherd then, despite what he requested.

  Now they regarded him with contempt and fear. Probably the same way the people of Raleigh had regarded Hivvan soldiers when they occupied their city.

  Jerry Shepherd had served in the United States military, as a Philadelphia police officer, and for the past five years he had fought to save humanity.

  For the first time, he played a bad guy’s role.

  The General’s vehicle stopped outside the council building, nearly blocking the thin street. Captain Cassy Simms approached her superior officer as he stepped out.

  “Sir, what are your orders?”

  Shepherd looked up and down the streets of New Winnabow. He knew there would be no snipers; no pockets of resistance. These people had not been merely defeated, they had been t
errorized.

  Cassy repeated, “What are you orders?”

  Shepherd used the back of his arm to rub sweat off his brow.

  “Medics. Get medics in here.”

  Simms frowned. “General, Sir,” she whispered so no others could hear. “There aren’t any wounded.”

  Shep understood. The Grenadiers killed anyone who resisted and ignored anyone who did not. Like everything else about New Winnabow, there had been no middle ground.

  Nina Forest’s Dark Wolves spent the next day and a half reconnoitering Hivvan positions inside the closing pocket. They provided information used for artillery strikes aimed to break up the coalescing enemy army.

  Shepherd pulled her team from the action on the afternoon of September 5 ^ th, as larger formations from both 1 ^ st and 2 ^ nd Mech bombarded the surrounded aliens, followed by a constricting band of infantry and armor. Command even found enough fuel reserves to fly a dozen sorties in support of the operation.

  As her last act in the securing of Wilmington, Nina returned to the city to help with the transition of authority to civilian administration. Rumor had it that The Emperor planned a run at Columbia as soon as the pocket collapsed. If that held true, the Dark Wolves would be in action again soon.

  Nina arrived at City Hall in Wilmington to meet with the Imperial Council’s Chief Administrator, Lori Brewer. She liked Brewer enough but the woman made her feel a little uncomfortable; she asked a lot of personal questions and spoke in a tone of familiarity. Still, she came across as a strong person, something Nina admired and of course she respected her husband, General Brewer.

  The two met in the big conference room with the raised platform, the red carpet, the three large windows, and the balcony where Denise hid the day she followed Nina around town. Unlike that day, City Hall no longer felt empty. Lori Brewer brought a team of clerks, accountants, doctors, and engineers to Wilmington.

  “The situation could be described as stable,” Nina reported. “We’re still finding lower-order nuisance animals in the old buildings, particularly basements, sewer treatment facilities, and near garbage dumps.”

  “Predators?” Lori asked as she scribbled notes on a tablet.

  “Occasionally, but most have retreated out of the city limits and into the wilderness but that’s pretty much the story all over. I’d be careful to the north of the city and the west.”

  “Organized threats? Pack animals?”

  “Nothing above animal sentience. We wiped out some Mutants when we first got here and a bunch of Gremlins. The dogs haven’t picked up a whiff of anything like that in four days, so it looks pretty good.”

  Lori consulted a paper and remarked, “With the exception of the people at Wrightsville Beach, it doesn’t look like there are many survivors in town. I see there were some scattered people out by the airport and some more along the coast to the northeast, but that’s a surprisingly low survival rate.”

  “We haven’t landed on the barrier islands yet. I heard some talk from Wrightsville survivors that a lot of people from Wilmington got out by boat in the early days. Good chance many of them headed for an isolated location that could be defended more easily.”

  “Like an island?”

  “Like an island.”

  Lori Brewer reviewed her notes, glanced at a binder with more notes, then scribbled something else in the margin.

  She said, “There aren’t enough people here to warrant keeping the city up and running, at least not until we’ve cleared all of the Carolinas. Then there might be people who want to migrate in from the rural areas. Until then, we’ll get the rail yards up and running, maybe the port, and set up check points.”

  “What about the people?”

  “I’m thinking relocation.”

  “Relocation? Moving everyone out?”

  Lori nodded and leaned forward; she sensed the officer’s interest in the topic.

  “Yes. At least for the time being. Something on your mind? Do you think they won’t want to go?”

  “No-I mean, yes. I think they’ll go,” Forest told the administrator. “I don’t think the people here, well, I think they’ve been isolated for a long time. I think they’re eager to feel safe and be a part of something.”

  “Most are like that. There’s only ever a few who really want to stay exactly where they are and that’s usually in the larger settlements that we wouldn’t want to relocate, anyhow.”

  “What about, well, never mind.”

  “Never mind what?” Lori pushed.

  The way she stared made Nina feel weird, as if Lori knew a secret.

  Nina exhaled loudly and said, “Listen, there’s a group of kids. They’re orphans. They were all a part of a day care center at one point.”

  “Jim Brock’s kids, right?”

  It surprised Nina that Lori knew of Brock’s group; she did not think the administrator had had enough time to learn that much about the city and the survivors.

  “Umm, are they going to get split up? You know, sent off to families?”

  Lori nodded. “We’ll be looking for hosts for the kids. But you know we’re a little shy on your typical families. A lot of the orphans end up going to elderly groups or parents who are in the military. It’s tough to find perfect homes. In fact, we’ve given up on perfect.”

  “I see,” Nina fumbled.

  “You know, Mr. Brock came to see me when I first got here,” Lori said and Nina thought she saw a smile tug at on the edges of the woman’s lips.

  “He did?”

  “He told me that he really wants to find good parents for these kids. Some of them are young and will need full time moms and dads.”

  “Full time…oh.”

  “Yes,” Lori said. “He also mentioned your name. Something about warning me about you…”

  …Nina walked on to the patio deck of the condo complex.

  Jim Brock sat holding a newspaper with his back to the door and speaking to an elderly resident of Wrightsville Beach.

  “I mean, what the hell is this?” His hands waved as he read an article. “Who does this guy think he is? That’s a whole town of people, like us. I mean, Jesus, I thought this Empire was supposed to be the good guys. What if we say ‘no’ to this Trevor guy?”

  Nina saw the masthead at the top of the paper: The New American Press. She could also read the headline: TREVOR SLAUGHTERS VILLAGE.

  Inevitably, the news spread although the fact that it had already spread to an outpost such as Wilmington surprised her, particularly from a fringe publication like The New American Press. Whoever ran that rag had obviously been in a hurry to get the word out.

  “What kind of people do this?” Jim ranted, unaware Nina walked onto the patio behind him. “I mean, just like the Nazis or something. These were people! It could’ve been us!”

  Her shadow fell over his shoulder and he turned.

  “Oh, um,” Jim put down the newspaper. “Hello. Nina.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you that mad,” she said as Jim stood.

  “Oh, I, hey, um, Nina, like, I don’t think you’re like that. I don’t think you’re a Nazi. I know you wouldn’t have anything to do with anything like that.”

  “You don’t know that, Jim. You don’t know me at all.”

  “I’d like to,” he said. “But I get the feeling I’m not going to get that chance.”

  “We spent a nice couple of days down here. For me, the picnic and the walking on the beach; it was a nice little escape. Like my shopping trip with Denise. A fantasy.”

  “Fantasies aren’t real,” he pointed out.

  She shook her head ‘no’ in agreement. “I can’t really afford any fantasies these days. I was born for this war. I have to be who I am. I don’t take strolls on beaches; I don’t sit under the moonlight and make wishes on stars. I don’t,” she paused, considered for a long hard moment, and then went on: “I don’t wear party dresses.”

  “I see.”

  “Maybe, when all this is over. If i
t ever is over. Until then, I have to be strong and I have to keep on fighting. I don’t need therapy. I don’t need a shoulder to cry on.”

  “You need someone who understands you.”

  “Could be,” she admitted. “Could be that I don’t need anyone at all.”

  “Everyone needs someone, Nina. Even the strong.”

  “Is that why you went to the Administrator’s office yesterday?”

  He nodded and repeated, “Everyone needs someone.”

  “Thank you for recommending that Denise lives with me. That was nice of you.”

  “I did it for her,” Brock said. “Okay, so, yeah, I did it a little for you, too. Mostly I did it for Denise. She never had a mother, not really. I couldn’t be that for her. She learned about how to be a girl from old magazines and movies.”

  Nina said, “Those old magazines and movies are about a world that’s gone.”

  “I took care of the kids as best I could but you’re right, there are things Denise needs to learn that I can’t teach her. Partly because I don’t know, maybe partly because I’m not ready to see what the world is really like now. Not ready, to, I guess, except things as they are.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Brock glanced at the newspaper on the patio table and solemnly said, “I always thought…I always thought that the meek were supposed to inherit the Earth. Isn’t that what they told us in Sunday school?”

  She shook her head because the man could not be more wrong. Nina had seen that first hand in New Winnabow. A reminder she had needed.

  “The meek are dead. They were wiped out. This world belongs to the strong.”

  He answered softly, “That isn’t right.”

  “Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s not about that. It’s about what has to be done. It’s about reality. You know that. You survived all these years.”

  “I survived by hiding,” he confessed. “You survive by fighting. I guess we’re on the same planet, but living in different worlds.”