Emergency Transmission

by Sean McLachlan

  Another bullet flew past, so close David could feel the heat. He did not flinch, did not slow his pace. These were the last moments of his life and he would not falter.

  His three flankers kept up a steady fire, the staccato snap of their assault rifles drumming in his ears. Everyone knew what had happened now, the news having blown across the camp like a hot wind, and fire came at him from all directions. He heard Aaron grunt beside him, stumble, and keep going. Bullets flew past David, countless in number, but none touched him. A cry from his right told him one of his comrades wasn’t so blessed.

  David entered the camp of the Elect, passing through the tents with the knife and The Pure One’s head held high. Still the shots came, and still he remained untouched. He looked neither to the right nor left, but could see men before him laying down their arms and kneeling, their faces transported with awe, fear, or relief.

  The fire began to slacken, the continuous roar dying down to a ragged pop pop pop.

  David left the camp of the Elect behind, striding through the empty ground between it and the camp of the machete men and porters. The path before him was dim, there being almost no fuel to spare for their fires. Vaguely David could see that most of the people there were already on their knees, staring at the head of their leader.

  Fire continued behind him. He was still flanked by Aaron and another man.

  A cry came up from the camp of the machete men.

  “Heretic!”

  From several points, dark figures sprang up, machetes or spears held high. An instant later, two dropped, then two more as David’s comrades shot them down.

  That didn’t stop the machete men. They charged at him, faces twisted in fanatical rage. A spear sank into the earth inches from David’s feet. He kicked it aside and continued walking.

  A clatter beside him signaled that Aaron was changing the magazine on his M16. A second later the fire from his other surviving escort died down too and the man hurried to reload.

  For a moment he was unprotected.

  If they come upon me, I will not use this knife. It has been sanctified with the blood of a righteous killing, and it will not be used again.

  The thought came to David in a strange way, as if he was being told this, not thinking it himself.

  A dozen machete men charged at him, the closest not three meters away.

  A roar to his right as his comrade let loose on full auto. The machete man at the front erupted in a spray of gore. An instant later the two behind him got cut down too.

  Then Aaron opened fire. He had reloaded unusually slowly for such a veteran fighter. David felt a brief spike of fear, knowing his friend was gravely injured.

  If he dies, he dies doing what is just.

  Again the thought did not feel entirely his own.

  Aaron was more methodical, keeping his gun on single fire and dropping each man one by one. The roar of the full auto to David’s right died down, followed by a curse and a clatter as the man grabbed a third magazine. Still the machete men charged. Only four left. Pop. Three. Pop. Two. Pop. One.

  Click.

  Aaron was out of ammunition. The last machete man was almost within reach.

  David kept walking forward.

  It’s not in my hands.

  The machete swung down, and his blade stopped with a clang as Aaron brought up his M16 just in front of David’s face.

  Aaron swiveled and drove the butt of his weapon into the man’s stomach. The fellow doubled over. Aaron struck him in the back of the skull. There was a sickly crunching sound and the man fell flat on the ground.

  David stepped over him and kept going. Aaron snapped another magazine into his assault rifle.

  All those in the lesser camp had fallen to their knees now, except for a few who lay flat on their faces. David could only discern them from the dead by the wails coming from them, whether of grief or relief he didn’t know. He passed through the carpet of people. A man leaped up just to his right. Aaron gunned him down. After that, there was no more resistance. The firing in the camp of the Elect had died down too. David walked in utter silence save for the ringing in his ears and the thundering of his own heart.

  He passed beyond the ragged lean-tos and filthy blankets to the area The Pure One had used to address the crowd barely an hour before.

  It was a flat stone about a meter high at the center of a slight rise. He heard a rustling behind him. Without turning, David knew that the Righteous Horde sensed where he was going and had risen to follow.

  He stepped onto the rock and turned, keeping the head and the knife held above him, stretching his arms to their limit to give everyone a good view.

  David winced as a brilliant light erupted to his left. Aaron had lit one of the flares they had gotten from a bunker they had discovered months ago. His friend’s face was lit with a ghastly glare, looking drawn and pale. Blood soaked his side but he stood firm, resolute, looking up at David.

  Looking for guidance.

  David turned to the crowd that had assembled. He saw the same look there. The same need. The same desperation.

  They were waiting for him to speak.

  Now what?

  He never thought he would be alive at this point.

  “The Pure One is dead,” he called out. “I have killed him.”

  The crowd roared its approval. David spared a look at Aaron. His friend smiled.

  “He told us, over and over again, that we were at fault for our plight, that it was our fault we suffered. He told us we were unclean in our hearts, and it was true.”

  The crowd shifted uneasily. David tensed. He had never spoken in front of so many people before, and he had no idea how to move them.

  “We were unclean. We were unclean because we listened to this madman!”

  David shook the head. The last drops of the leader’s blood dripped out of His neck to spatter on David’s face.

  “God came to me in a vision,” David said, starting a sentence he did not know how to finish. “Yes, God came to me in a vision, and the Lord said … the Lord said that I must slay our leader with this knife, and that we must go to the sea. There I will give this foul head as a burnt offering and the Lord will tell me what to do. The Lord has also commanded a feast for this glorious night. This false prophet has been hoarding food. That food is now yours!”

  The crowd roared in approval. That last part, at least, was true. The bastard had a whole cache of food in his private supply tent.

  David jumped off the rock and strode to The Pure One’s supply tent, pausing only to call for a medic to see to Aaron. Once he got to the old army tent that stood a little behind the tent where the former leader slept, he tore open the front.

  The crowd gasped. Inside were sacks of flour, strips of dried meat, and heaps of Blue Cans. Those remarkable relics from the Old Times contained food from more than fifty years ago, perfectly preserved through some cunning technique.

  The crowd rushed in, the Elect and the machete men and the camp followers all together, cheering and grabbing everything they could. Within minutes it was all gone, and the Righteous Horde huddled around their campfires, having their first good meal in weeks. A few of David’s comrades stood nearby, guarding him as they had once guarded the man whose head he still gripped. He turned to them. They bowed.

  Fear or reverence? Does it matter?

  Graham, one of the technos, held up something in his hand. For a moment David tensed, but then he saw it was a camera, one of the many artifacts they had discovered in the bunker.

  “Yes, preserve this moment for posterity!” David said, not so much to grant permission as to keep Graham from getting shot by a member of his jumpy faction.

  David stood tall with the head and the knife. There were a series of flashes. Graham bowed and backed away.

  “Where is Aaron?” he asked.

  “Here I am, sir,” his friend said, staggering up to him. Aaron’s shirt was off and a thick bandage was swathed around his middle.

  �
��How are you?”

  “It went through my side but didn’t hit any organs, sir. The medic says I’ll be fine. Thank you for asking after me, your humble servant,” Aaron said, bowing his head.

  David blinked. Why was Aaron acting like this?

  Of course, he has to play along too.

  “Come with me,” David said, making the words come out as an order.

  They went to the luxurious white tent, now David’s tent. David still carried the knife and the head. He stuck the knife in the dirt outside and placed the head beside it. Two men from his faction flanked the entrance. David nodded to them and went inside, motioning for Aaron to follow.

  David went over to The Pure One’s body and took off the belt with the little black box. He looked at the ruined machine and grimaced. It would have been nice to have that. Shrugging, he took the body by the legs and dragged it out. Turning to the guards, he said, “Let my people do what they want with this trash, but leave the head for me. I must offer it to the Lord as I have been instructed.”

  Some of the Elect standing nearby rushed to the body and started kicking it. A crowd began to gather. David went back inside and zipped the entrance closed behind him. Aaron still stood where he had left him, looking around the interior of the tent curiously.

  “Is any of that blood yours, sir?” his friend asked.

  David shook his head. “You don’t need to call me sir when we’re alone.”

  Aaron grinned and sat down on the camp bed, looking tired. “Best that I get in practice, sir. What if someone overhears me not paying the proper respect? That was a smart move giving away all the food that motherfucker had been hiding. They’ll eat well for a day or two on that.”

  Aaron’s words trailed off uncertainly. David could guess his question.

  “We’ll get more,” David said, moving over to an ewer of water and washing his hands and face. He dried them with a towel, leaving bloodstains on the cloth, and picked up a satchel lying on the bed. “Look at this.”

  He opened the satchel. Inside was a small radio and a map. David frowned. The Pure One had banned listening to Radio Hope, saying it broadcast only lies, and he had been listening to it all this time? Shaking his head, he pulled out the map. No one other than a few trusted Elect and scouts had seen it.

  “What’s that?” his friend asked.

  David sat down next to him and spread it out. Mottled green, brown, and blue shapes covered its surface, with lines and dots scattered here and there.

  Aaron’s brow furrowed. “It’s like a photo from the Old Times. Looks strange, though.”

  “That’s because it’s taken from the air,” David said.

  “The air? From an airplane?”

  “Or one of those satellites.”

  Aaron laughed. “How could a satellite take a photo? They’re too high up.”

  David shrugged. He had heard satellites took photos, but Aaron was right, it was probably one of those myths people told about the Old Times, like that computers could talk to each other.

  “Aaron, remember how I told you we discovered a bunker the month before you joined up?”

  “Yeah, where you got all the munitions and guns.”

  “We found this map too. It shows where a bunch of other bunkers are. That’s why we’ve been marching in this direction, to scavenge the other bunkers.”

  Aaron’s eyes went wide. “So that’s where all those Blue Cans came from a few months back!”

  “Yep. And the last bunker on the map is just by the sea. We’ll get to it by midmorning.”

  “More food! Harold says the main stocks will be gone in a couple of weeks. But once we find that bunker … but wait, what if it’s empty? What if it got scavenged years ago?”

  David had thought of that possibility too, but tamped his worries down.

  “It won’t be. There will be food. The Lord told me.”

  Aaron chuckled, then stopped, growing serious and studying David. Neither said anything for a moment. Finally, David broke the silence.

  “I thought I’d be dead tonight. I’m not. Maybe this really is written. Maybe this really is a new start.”

  Aaron nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  He did not sound convinced.

  The next morning David, washed clean of The Pure One’s blood and wearing a new set of military fatigues, came out of his tent to find the Righteous Horde gathered in front of the rock where he had given his speech. Realizing they expected him to give the traditional morning sermon, David stepped atop the rock.

  “The Lord came to me in a dream,” he announced to the crowd. “We must march until midmorning, and then he will show us a bunker from the Old Times. Inside that bunker will be a sign. The Lord will show us the way forward. He has told me there is a steep hill above the bunker. It is there that I will offer up the heretic’s head as a burnt offering and hear the Lord’s will.”

  “Purity! Purity! Purity!”

  “Let us thank the Lord for His bounty.”

  And then he led them in an old prayer, a traditional prayer, not like the ones the old cult leader made up.

  “Our Father who art in heaven …”

  Faces lit up in recognition of the old words, and a thousand mouths continued the prayer.

  “… hallowed be thy name.”

  They continued to the end, and then he sent them to their breakfast.

  The march to the sea passed without incident. The Elect insisted that he be carried in the palanquin, and he would only relent when Aaron agreed to be carried in a stretcher instead of walking beside him. David felt strange being carried. He shouldn’t make a habit of it. He didn’t want to get soft.

  You won’t have time to get soft, he reminded himself. This isn’t going to last. You’ll be dead by springtime. Hell, you may be dead by tonight.

  The hill stood just where David said it was, just where the map had told him it would be. It was a tall, rocky eminence with steep sides. Only a few of the Elect and scouts knew how David knew it would be there, so most took it as a miracle.

  The mountains to the west had broken off by this point, replaced by scattered hills. Between them glimmered the sea. Further south, close to the shore, stretched a gleam of white speckled with other colors. The sea breeze blew shreds of plastic bags all around, lifted off that white space David could now see was an old landfill.

  A scout came up to report. David ordered the column to halt as the man got on one knee, eyes down.

  “Pure One, I wish to report—”

  “Do not call me Pure One, my son, we are all pure,” David replied.

  I’m getting good at this.

  The scout paused, then said, “Sir, we checked the area. There were a few garbage miners at that landfill, who ran when they spotted us. Shall we pursue?”

  “Let them live. We will fight only if attacked.”

  A murmur went through the crowd. David had just announced another major change.

  “Sir, we have also scouted the hill. We could not find the entrance to the bunker.”

  David almost let out a sigh of relief. If it was still hidden, then maybe it hadn’t been scavenged.

  “The Lord will guide us. Let us go there.”

  Old Times bunkers were cleverly camouflaged by a material that looked just like stone. Luckily the map gave the entrance’s precise location. David had spent the previous night memorizing it.

  When the column drew close to the base of the hill, David called a halt.

  “Bring me my right hand, the member of the Elect called Aaron.”

  The stretcher was brought forward.

  “Can you walk? We’ll go do this alone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Aaron got up stiffly and shuffled towards the hill with David. The shock Aaron had suffered the previous night, which had allowed him to get through the fight, had worn off and he looked tired and in pain.

  “Will you be all right?” David asked once they got out of earshot.

  “I will be if there’s
anything good in that bunker, sir. By the way, no one knows what to call you.”

  “Sir is fine.”

  Don’t get in the habit. I’ll be gone soon enough, my friend.

  “Are the whites upset about being led by one of us?” David asked.

  “Not that I’ve heard, sir. They’re too happy the son of a bitch is dead and to have full bellies for once.”

  David grunted. That happiness would last as long as those bellies remained full.

  They came to the hill. The side facing away from the sea rose almost sheer. The map indicated that the entrance lay at this spot. David stepped up to the rock face. From the other bunkers he had learned the trick. The false stone looked just like the real stuff around it. You couldn’t spot the entrance just by looking. The material was soft, though, made of something like plaster but able to withstand the weather. David scraped at the stone with his fingernail.

  It was hard. He moved a little to his left and scraped again. This, too, was real stone. A little more to the left, and he ran his fingernail across the surface. It left a thin scar.

  “Here it is,” David said. “Start pushing on these lumps.”

  “Yes, sir,” Aaron said.

  Please stop saying that.

  It only took a minute to find it. As David felt around, pushing on every protuberance on the false rock face, suddenly one gave under the pressure. It sank back with a click, and a meter to his right a small section of the rock slid open to reveal a numerical keypad with a red light over it.

  David had memorized the code the map gave and punched in the numbers.

  The hill gave out a low hum and an entire section of the rock face slowly receded. The crowd a few hundred meters behind them broke out in spontaneous cheering and prayers. The rock face separated and the two sides slid into a niche in what David and Aaron could now see was a thick wall in the hollow hill.

  David turned to his flock and raised his hands.

  “The Lord has brought us to a bunker from the Old Times! He will share a great bounty with us. Pray! Give up a prayer of thanks!”

  And stay where you are.

  In a single movement, the entire Righteous Horde fell to its knees and gave up loud praises to Heaven.

  David turned back to the bunker just in time to see the lights flicker on. His heart raced. The sight of working electricity always gave him the chills, like he was seeing magic.