Sitting upright, I pulled Tyler into my arms and squeezed his tiny body into my chest hard enough to feel the rise and fall of his lungs. Not a whimper or a cry came from his mouth; he simply looked up at me, his father. Glancing down beyond Tyler’s forehead, my eyes landed on my wedding ring as its bent frame rolled a little off center around my finger.
That vow, a simple object that had meant so much between my wife and me…
Thinking back to her grave, where in a rage I’d nearly left it behind all those months ago, it turned out to be the sole object that saved us. Saved my son. I can’t help but look back at that and be amazed, almost like she had something to do with it all.
Somehow, I really believe she did.
After what felt like ten long minutes of painful silence, as we impatiently waited to learn if BOHICA had actually knocked Gordon’s army unconscious, a man’s voice finally shattered the stale air.
Looking up, I saw a group of people huddled around a TV monitor in the corner of the cafeteria, which appeared to be showing nothing but still images of darkness just outside our door.
“They’re all down!” the faceless voice cried out.
“Are you sure?” Richards growled.
“Yeah, no movement in the halls. They’re all passed out!”
“According to Kyle, the gas should dissipate after five or six minutes,” Richards stared at the door, pausing as if taking a moment to calculate the time that had passed. Lifting his rifle across both hands, he slowly lowered his head for a moment before his eyes landed on the hatch.
In a near solemn tone, he whispered, “Open the door. It’s time to finish this.”
I could feel it as I involuntarily slid Tyler back in Deanna’s arms. There was a madness still in the air. A thirst for blood that ran deep within our walls. Richards had said it best up in the Yard. We’ll have to kill every last one of those bastards for us to survive.
Squeezing out the door first as it opened, I sensed a slight tinge of orange hanging in the air, from what I imagine was a remnant from the gas. I could taste it on my tongue and in the back of my throat.
With each step forward, my mind started to turn a little darker. Like a disease, I felt an uncontrollable rage begin to crawl across my body. Pumping madness through my veins, my mind started doing what I can only describe as place blame. I blamed disease, cosmic dust, terrorists… it didn’t matter… something had started all this mess. I blamed the politicians, the bosses, the corporate blowhards that ran our world, creating the perfect playing field for the disaster.
Filled with the rich that ate up all the money, the poor that let them do it… I blamed all of them who fueled the monsters like Gordon, whether they knew it or not. I blamed the prophets and the futurists that spoke of a world we’d never see, creating false hope in the minds of the feeble. I blamed cell phones, the Internet, TV, all the devices used to turn us into mindless drones, unable to think for ourselves … breeding us to follow in the same ways Gordon’s men would mindlessly follow him into this battle.
With my hammer lifted high, I stepped down the corridor. My eyes landed on a few passed-out bodies holding firearms. They were obviously part of Gordon’s army. Less than thirty feet from us. I moved in with a determination for blood.
One foot after another, the blame grew. I blamed a homogenized planet, teaching us to stop thinking for ourselves, allowing us to follow celebrities and the false famous. I blamed the stupid as well as the intelligent. I blamed the wicked and the righteous.
With all that blame stewing inside, all I could think of was that this was our new world. Our new reality… it was kill or be killed. It wasn’t my fault that this was the way things were now. I hadn’t created this. Gordon’s men were the monsters, and we needed to make sure they never came back. I blamed them for following a maniac, for allowing themselves to be turned into pawns.
It would all justify my actions.
As I marched down the hall, with Richards and three other men in tow, I knew there was nothing stopping this lust for revenge. We’d fallen too far.
I could feel it. I was falling too far.
Reaching the first body, I fell to my knees and grabbed Gordon’s man by his hair. I’d be killing him in cold blood, while he was asleep, and in my very core I knew it was the right thing.
Raising my hammer in the air, flexing every muscle in my body, I prepared to finish it, when my eyes fell on the shoes. Those fucking Nike Pegasus shoes with the florescent green stripes running down the sides. The boy had told me that they were supposed to help him fly.
Letting Aidan’s hair slip from my fist, I felt like I’d been smacked in the skull as I heard his body hit the ground with a thump. Paralyzed in thought, I left my hammer sitting up in the air waiting for me to do something with it.
He was just a boy. A child who didn’t know who he was fighting or why. How many others passed out in these halls were exactly the same? Could I really blame them? Did they deserve to die in the name of Gordon Green? Were they really the true monsters? Or were they just a byproduct of the same hell we’d all been through?
With my mind spinning, I found myself screaming something out loud. At first, it didn’t register as the other men were prepping for their kills. Then I actually heard myself yelling at the top of my lungs, “STOP!”
Not listening, their lust for revenge was running too high.
Looking back down the hallway, I could see Claire covering Olivia’s eyes. She was whispering something that sounded like a lullaby into her ears, as my shouts rang through the halls.
“I SAID STOP!”
Looking up from his prey, I heard Richards scream out in a fury, “We need to destroy these monsters!” As a light reflected off the blade he was getting ready to bring down.
“There will be no more death today,” I said, staring down the base of my hammer at Richards’s head. My mind was resolute. Nothing was clearer to me. I wouldn’t allow myself to focus all that blame on these men.
I wouldn’t allow myself to fall that far. I knew I’d never come back. A pause filled the hall. Richards stood there, still with his blade held high.
“We’ve won. We’ve beaten them,” I said in a near whisper. Lowering my hammer, I glanced to Aidan’s passed-out body, and then looked back up to Richards. “Nobody else needs to die today.”
As he looked at the three men surrounding him, I could tell that Richards was making a decision. The one that would blow with the wind. The politician in him would have to decide which the right move was to get him to the top. With Jarvis down, he was next in line. Which was the move that the people would want to see?
Which way would he land?
Slowly lowering his knife to his side, he looked again at the men standing next to him and said, “Let’s get this filth locked up in the prison.”
A momentary pause from his counterparts had him screaming, “Now! You heard me, get them locked up before they wake up. John is right. We’ve already won.”
With that, his shoulders slumped as he looked down to the boy at my feet. I could see it in his eyes, if only for a moment. He realized what we were about to become.
Bringing his red-rimmed eyes back up to meet mine, he stopped and peered into my face, examining what felt like my soul. I think he was trying to figure me out. I’d shown him something he hadn’t expected. Keeping eye contact, I said, “We did the right thing here. You did the right thing,” before I slowly began to spin on one foot to turn back to the cafeteria.
As I stepped, one foot after another, down the hall, I heard Richards finally reply, “I hope you’re right, John. I hope you’re right.” He hit the microphone on his shoulders and started barking out the same orders to imprison the rest of the sleeping soldiers that laid across our floors.