“IED! Back up!”
Tyrone and Peter dived to the ground. The first two trucks vanished in a cloud of fire, smoke, and sand. Pain, like a thousand blows. Ears throbbing. Blood clogging his nostrils. Camel dung smeared across his face.
Peter staggered to his feet. The truck lay in a smoldering heap—a turtle flipped on its back. It sizzled and hissed in the flames. One remaining tire turned like a pinwheel in a breeze.
His knees buckled. He fell—then rose again. He stumbled toward his burning truck.
He stepped over a severed hand.
Someone grabbed him short of the inferno. Louis’s funeral pyre. The additional armor plating had shredded like tinfoil, along with the truck behind. Peter passed a man on the ground looking confused, as if waiting for the punchline of a joke. Both his legs had vanished. Others writhed and screamed. Seared like pigs roasted too long. Medics rushed to save them.
The ringing in his ears drowned out Colonel Colrev’s orders. A group of six soldiers followed the colonel toward the squat buildings, Tyrone among them. He ran to catch up.
The soldiers attacked the first house, with three men covering the windows and back door, and the other three storming it, led by the colonel. Peter reached them as they stormed the second house. Screams of terror, then a burst of shots.
Peter grabbed Tyrone’s arm.
“He’s massacring them, Ty! We have to do something!”
Anger twisted Tyrone’s face. “They killed Matt and Louis!”
“These are just families—”
“They’re fucking barbarians!” Tyrone grabbed Peter’s flak vest and pulled him close. His bloodshot eyes oozed hatred. “The Bible says an eye for an eye, and it’s time we took our share of fucking eyes!”
“Jesus changed that,” Peter said. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.” But Tyrone wasn’t listening.
The colonel emerged and led the assault on the third house, choosing different men to follow him inside each time. Peter and Tyrone covered the back door.
More gunfire, more screams, then silence.
“This is wrong!” Peter shouted at Tyrone. No response. More gunfire, more screams, silence.
At the final house, Colonel Colrev motioned to Peter and Tyrone.
The colonel kicked in the door, and they entered the house—little more than a concrete box with windows.
A family of five huddled on a single rug in the corner. Scraps of extra clothing, dented cooking utensils, and a Quran sitting atop a low wooden pedestal against a wall. A child’s doll lay abandoned on the floor, its arms askew and button eyes staring at the ceiling. Colonel Colrev and Tyrone yanked the adults apart. Then forced them onto the ground with hands behind their heads. Peter covered them with his rifle.
The colonel tore the woman’s veil from her head. Her dark hair spilled across her face. The children cried, and the father pleaded in broken English.
“I love America. George Bush great man. George Bush great—”
Colonel Colrev shot him in the head with the casualness of extinguishing a cigarette. The man’s wife shrieked and threw herself on top of her mate, as if to keep his soul from fleeing his body.
The colonel shot her through the back. She flipped about. A second bullet, and she went limp.
Peter’s stomach cramped, his eyes locked on the dead bodies.
The colonel motioned to Tyrone. His dark face gleamed with sweat, eyes narrowed to slits, hatred etched in every muscle. He fired two semi-automatic bursts into the sobbing grandmother’s chest. She crumpled into a heap. Tyrone’s expression remained hard as stone.
“Now you.” The colonel pointed to Peter and motioned to the two children.
Peter didn’t move, and the colonel glared into his eyes. “I’m giving you a direct order, Private. Execute those insurgents immediately!”
Peter’s hands trembled. “They’re children…”
“These Hajis watched terrorists bury bombs in the road. They probably brought them food and accepted money in return.” The colonel’s mouth came to within inches of his ear. “They watched you walk into that road, knowing what would happen. They watched your friends burn. Did even one of them shout a warning?”
Peter’s eyes remained locked on the children’s faces. The girl appeared the same age as the one in his photograph. The boy around a year younger. They gazed at him with eyes wide, and lips trembling. Both cried. The boy turned to his dead parents. A tortured whine escaped his throat. The girl stared into Peter’s eyes, unblinking, waiting.
“I … I can’t do it,” Peter said.
Tyrone frowned. “He’ll rat us out.”
“No, he won’t,” the colonel said. “Because he will either follow orders,” the colonel stepped back and pointed his .45 at Peter’s temple, “or he will be dead.”
The little boy and girl wrapped their arms around each other.
“You told me you fought for your family.” Colonel Colrev cocked the hammer on his gun. “What sacrifice are you willing to make for them?”
Peter shook his head. “I won’t do it.”
“They will die in either case. You have five seconds to decide if you’re going to join them and leave your daughter without a father to protect her. Five, four …”
Tears blurred Peter’s vision.
“Three, two …”
Don’t do it, Peter! Kayla silently shouted into his mind, trying to will his arms to lower the rifle.
“One …”
In her dream, Kayla felt Peter’s finger clamp down on the trigger. Every bullet in his clip ripped into and through their young bodies.
Then, silence.
Tyrone looked away.
The children’s lifeless faces stared at him. Kayla wanted to scream, but couldn’t. Peter’s eyes locked on the dead brother and sister, and Kayla was forced to stare along with him. The top half of the boy’s head had vanished, but his face appeared untouched. On his cheek was a tiny scar from some childhood mishap. His brown eyes stared at his murderer. The girl’s face appeared no longer human. Her pink shirt displayed a giant kitten’s face. Three bullets had gone through the kitten’s left ear, right cheek, and the yellow bow around its neck. Blood and brains coated the shirt, obscuring all but the kitten’s large eyes.
Colonel Colrev uncocked his Colt and leaned close to Peter’s ear. “Now we’re all heroes.”
Kayla awoke from the nightmare screaming. She scrambled back through the sand as if from a snake.
It wasn’t real. A dream. My mind playing tricks. Just a dream. No one actually died. A dream. The children …
In the Bible, God gave Saul a similar order on a much larger scale. “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling …”
And Joshua. “So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”
In her dream, Peter had murdered children at the command of a man rather than God. But did that matter? Probably not to the women and children being hacked to death by Saul’s and Joshua’s swords. Could a loving God order such a thing?
Kayla rose and continued marching toward the northeast. The dream had been unlike a normal dream, the sights, sounds, and smells so detailed, etched into her mind as if an actual experience. Had she been witnessing real events? What if her punishment was life itself? Eternal and unrelenting existence spent amidst the desolation of a world destroyed by human arrogance and depravity—even her sleep tormented by the horrors of sciencecraft.
Was it even in her power to end her own life if it became too much to bear?
She held her breath. A minute passed with no discomfort, then two … then an hour. Her body slowed, and her strength ebbed without oxygen. Her pace slowed. But that was all. It ruled out drowning or hanging herself. She cl
awed at the skin on her forearm, drawing blood. The wound healed within seconds.
“What am I?” she shouted at the silent sky.
Know thyself. The monk’s words echoed within her mind.
“And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” Elias had mentioned bizarre symbols covering her body during her resurrection.
She stared into the sun, the pain a flagellation of her soul. But the moment she looked away, her eyes healed within seconds. Her body seemed indestructible—unlike her mind.
When I’m driven insane, will I think I’m cured?
Fire had failed to kill her. Ishan had even put an arrow through her heart. Nothing could thwart God’s judgment, it seemed.
What would she find when she passed through the northeast Wall of Potemia?
“And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
She prayed, sometimes on her knees, and other times while walking. She stumbled on through the night, avoiding dreams. Lack of sleep brought hallucinations.
Jesus appeared beside her and went on and on about carpentry techniques.
She forced a smile and nodded politely. “Did you rise from the dead?”
“Is it so surprising?” he asked. “You did the same yourself.”
“So, I am alive?”
“The question should be, what is life?” he said.
“Did you order Joshua and Saul to commit genocide in the Old Testament?”
Jesus frowned at a hangnail on his right index finger. “It’s not fair to hold me responsible for my Father’s actions.”
“But isn’t holding children responsible for their parents’ deeds the reasoning behind original sin?” she asked. “And I thought you and your Father were one and the same, anyway?”
“It’s difficult to explain. You’ll just have to trust that I know best.”
“Bad idea,” a deep voice warned from her side. A tall man with short horns sprouting from his temple leaned close. “Think of all the people who have prayed to this character, only to be annihilated by barbarians or plagues. You have to admit his track record is pathetic.”
Satan’s impeccable suit accented his athletic figure, and a certain magnetism suffused his handsome features. No hangnails here.
“I don’t think I should be talking to you,” Kayla said.
“Who says so?” Satan asked.
“I do!” Jehovah answered, his wild beard and untrimmed eyebrows a marked contrast to Satan. “And stop trying to make my son look bad!”
The Devil arched a sculpted eyebrow. “Who’s the one conducting a massive campaign of character assassination? Who orders people to kill their own children, gives the okay for slavery, drowns everyone at the drop of a hat for the failings of character He placed within them?”
“You raise valid points,” Kayla said with some hesitation. Was this one of his famous tricks? “But what about Hell and eternal torture?”
Satan waved the comment away. “A complete fabrication. See if he denies it.”
Kayla glanced at Jehovah, and he shrugged.
“Hell is a myth?”
“More a mistranslation …”
She asked Buddha the point of life, and the eastern mystic said, “Those who speak, do not know, and those who know, do not speak.”
“Do you mean that some truths transcend words?” Kayla asked.
He shrugged.
The arguments escalated when Mohamed and Joseph Smith arrived.
“Impostors and plagiarists!” Jehovah shouted. “Why don’t you both admit you made the entire thing up yourselves! It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain!” The self-described “jealous God” verbally assaulted Mo and Jo so relentlessly that they retaliated with a torrent of pointed recriminations.
Vishnu materialized in a deep depression, and it took Kayla a while to notice him sulking at the back of the growing crowd.
“What’s the matter?” Kayla asked, but he wouldn’t say a word.
Zeus and a complement of Greek gods arrived drunk, and things deteriorated further. When the crowd of gods grew into the hundreds, Kayla changed direction, and left the divine mob behind.
Time became meaningless. Walk until the body passes out. Awake—walk again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat …
But there were no more dreams—the one blessing.
One day, at the edge of the horizon, a shimmering barrier became visible. Despite the dying sun and her exhaustion, after walking two days and nights without sleep, Kayla persisted. Hope, dread, curiosity, and fear battled for dominance with each step closer to her goal. Her shadow raced to the right, and amber light stained the dunes.
As the sun set, the night cut her adrift, and Kayla’s gaze wandered the dusting of stars etched with vivid clarity across the desert sky. She remembered Ishan once quoting the Quran.
“So when the stars are made to lose their light, And when the heaven is rent asunder, And when the mountains are carried away as dust, And when the apostles are gathered at their appointed time. To what day is the doom fixed? To the day of decision.”
It took the entire night to reach her goal. The morning twilight tinted the eastern sky with a promise of new life. She descended the final dune, and a supernatural awe expanded inside her at the sight of this technological sentinel that had protected Potemia for half a millennium. It towered a hundred feet high and stretched in what seemed an endless line. Supposedly, it continued right into the ocean in a complete circuit of the continent. The scale seemed beyond imagining. Its metallic surface reflected a mirror image of herself descending the dune-scape.
Oral tradition held that any human could go through the Wall to the Outside, but never in the other direction. But was this true?
Kayla halted before the Wall, gazing into the new perfection of her own face. Blessed by God, or cursed by God?
I’m finally here.
Knowledge. Truth. This remained her greatest desire. It had damned her in the eyes of her own people. They had executed and then banished her for it. And now she would know.
Her hand rose to the smooth surface and settled onto the cold metal. It felt … alive, somehow.
A glow formed beneath her hand and spread into the shape of an archway. Her eyes widened. The glow dissolved into swirling patterns of light—becoming a portal.
She gazed into the doorway of science-magic and trembled. Despite her desire, despite her banishment, she hesitated. There would be no going back.
Isn’t this what I’ve always craved? How else can I know?
Kayla drew in a final breath of her homeland—and stepped into the archway.
“And he said unto me, ʻGo in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.’ ”
The Wall swallowed her.
Chapter 7
Kayla glided through a mist of swirling energy, eyes wide with wonder. The hairs along her arms tingled and danced. With each step forward, her chest swelled with hope. What wonders might her distant cousins on the Outside have created after five hundred years of intellectual freedom?
The words of the Founder flashed before her mind: “Progress will not be stopped. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs, or ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against technology.”
A second archway appeared. It shimmered and beckoned her. She stepped through.
The first rays of the rising sun bathed her in an intense light. Her gaze scaled the towering buildings, drinking in the wonder of what they represented. The triumph of the human mind unbound.
I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life.
The sun shone brighter, and added a graphic contrast of blinding glare and deep shadow to the towering buildings. A smile caressed her lips, then faltered.
Before her sprawled the vast, rotting corpse of what had once been a great city. A few of the more robust buildings stood intact, disappearing into the dusty sky, but most had toppled into ruins. Where the
ground had been smashed open by collapsing structures, the city continued in an underworld maze that mirrored the ruins above. Through gaps in the rubble, the urban skeleton stretched to the horizon.
Not a single plant or animal appeared within the desolation. Only the wind, wandering aimlessly through the wreckage, broke the deathly silence.
Her shoulders bent beneath the weight of it. The Founder’s predictions had come to pass after all.
She recited words from the Book of Lamentations. “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people. How is she become as a widow. She that was great among the nations. And the Lord said, ʻI will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the Earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.’ ”
Her hands covered her eyes, blocking the sight of her fate. How long would she wander the ruins of this exterminated civilization—years, centuries, millennia?
She turned to the Wall and pounded on it with all the force of her undying prison of a body. The blow could have smashed through stone, but not a single vibration disturbed the Wall’s preternatural calm. Above it, the field of shimmering energy extended into the sky. Whatever magic of science imbued the Wall with its power had endured these many centuries, even after the need of its protection had vanished.
“So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life.”
She staggered back from the Wall, the reflection of her healed face staring back at her. Is this the last living face I’ll ever see? She turned and took a stumbling step toward her desolate future, but her vision swam and her heart stuttered.
She fell into a heap.
Soon the oblivion of unconsciousness captured her, and her dreams returned to the familiar body of Peter. Once more, she saw through his eyes, felt through his senses, but was barred from his thoughts.
She felt his hands gripping a steering wheel as he piloted an automobile through traffic. In the rearview mirror, his face appeared unchanged from her previous dream, except that his dark eyes smoldered with the look Minister Coglin displayed when he preached of End Times. His army uniform had been replaced by one emblazoned with a woven patch of a hissing eagle, wreathed by the words Corrections Officer—United States Federal Penitentiary.
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