I figured my soldier would understand. Maybe he’d even be pleased; his aliens were finally near.
Instead he bit his bottom lip and looked at me with brooding eyes. “A lot of people have been seeing things,” he said. “All kinds of weird things. Things that don’t always match up, don’t always fit the facts. My commander says it’s ‘stress-induced hallucinations.’ That’s what he called it. Some of the boys been gettin’ ’em too. Maybe sometimes we just see what we want to see.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “It looked so real. It felt real, too. I felt it in my skin. Like electricity. A tingle.” Then I got embarrassed, talking about my tingly skin.
“Maybe it was,” he said kindly, and I knew he was humoring me. “Anyway, I gotta say goodbye. I probably won’t see you no more . . . I’m headed out to St. Louis tonight.”
“Everyone? All the soldiers?”
“A good bit,” he said. “You know, I’m sure you’ve heard the talk.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like there could be an attack. What time you headed out?”
“Night. Maybe around oh one hundred hours,” he said, like I was supposed to be impressed. “Anyway, so long. Maybe I’ll run into you somewhere, after the war is over.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I’d like that. You seem like a real nice girl. Good luck to your family.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Aren’t you scared? Now that you might have to really fight?”
“I wish I’d stayed home in Oklahoma,” he said. “Now go on. Get your peanut butter and powdered milk.”
As soon as I got home, I went to Dad.
They’d been planning to launch the rebellion tonight, attacking lone soldiers and small patrols, raiding the ration stations, disrupting supply lines, sabotaging the movie theaters that played the propaganda reels.
But now they had my intel, they could go so much bigger.
Dad slapped me on the back. “See? I knew it. You’re a fighter, just like us. I’m proud of you, hon.” Then he called the rebels around. “New plan,” he said, and they began arguing about whether they should set a trap with the grenades as the military caravan rolled out of town, or if they should use the rifles to pick soldiers off one by one from the side of the road, or if maybe all that would be better suited as a distraction to cause pandemonium while the rest stuck with the original plan. They weren’t exactly master military strategists; the only war they’d seen was on TV.
I felt a little guilty for selling out my soldier, but he should have taken me seriously. I knew what I’d seen.
The rebels, and Nicole, set out just before midnight. Before they left, Dad gave me one of their two-way radios, so I could listen in.
The house was dark, to conserve fuel. I sat alone in the basement with a single candle, cradling one radio in my hand and listening to the other, tuned to the news. Jane sat upstairs, watching the babies while they slept, and listening to her own shows, the way she always did now. The preachers testified into the empty stretches between rural towns and lost lengths of highway; they spoke of Jesus and the devil, brimstone and blood. No wonder the kids had nightmares.
It all happened at the same time, just a little past one.
The big attack came, but it wasn’t St. Louis or Chicago or Des Moines—it was Oklahoma City. I listened as they narrated the fireballs, the melting asphalt, the endless flame. It was worse, not being able to see it, just hearing the voices as they described the worst thing they’d ever seen.
The soldiers who’d been headed to St. Louis turned around and headed south, along with most of the other soldiers in town. When I sat very still I could feel the rumble and quake of their tanks headed for the highway.
Our rebels primed for battle met their force armed for war; instead of a few prowling soldiers and peacekeepers, it was half an army.
“Run away!” I screamed into the radio, hoping my dad would hear. “Go home! Hide! They’re leaving! We can still be free!”
Maybe they couldn’t hear me. Maybe they didn’t have time to answer because they were fighting for their lives. I heard them, though; their screams and gurgles and shouts, their gasping cries for reinforcements, their pleas to fall back, their rattling breaths, just before death.
And then I understood. I was alone now, we were all of us alone, me and Jane and Larry and Sylvie and Tim. And we were fighters, too, except we were smart. Not like Mom. Not like Dad. We weren’t traitors, or collaborators; we were just going to do whatever it took to survive.
I went upstairs to tell Jane what had happened. The kids were fast asleep, the radio preachers droning on, but Jane was nowhere to be found.
I came downstairs again just in time to see her slipping in the front door, wild-haired and wild-eyed, her face smudged with dirt and ash, grinning like a jack o’ lantern, smelling of lighter fluid and flame. “My gosh, Jane. Where have you been?”
“I was lighting Ruth’s house on fire,” she said. “Ruth is a witch. This new world will be built on the ashes of the old, and in the new world there is no room for satanic practices and pagan corruption. So witches must burn.”
I stared, shocked into silence.
“Come here,” she beckoned, and I joined her in the open doorway, where I could see the crackling tongues of fire rising high above the roof, engulfing the ancient sycamores in flames.
“There will be no more war but holy war,” she said.
Part of me wanted to throttle her. But I didn’t, because she was my sister, and I knew we would need each other in the end. She was my deranged, murderous, starry-eyed sister, my mother’s daughter, but blood runs thicker than water and we would hold onto our own until our fingers bled.
“Never mind about Ruth,” I said. “I was just listening to the radios. I think Dad’s gone.”
“Not gone. Dead. I’m not a child anymore, you know, Annette.”
“I know,” I said. “Now go pack up whatever food is left. I’m going to drain the fuel from the generator. Then we’ll wake up Larry and Timmy and Sylvie. We’ve got to get out of here if we want to survive.”
“What about the other babies?”
“Jesus will take care of them,” I said. “We’ve got to care for our own. Let them sleep.”
Jane understood, as I knew she would.
I stood there with my sister at the crossroads, ready to call on goddesses vengeful and bloody, selfish and cruel . . . whatever it took to live. It didn’t matter what name she went by; for us she was the goddess of now, and we would make her power our own.
Desirina Boskovich’s short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Kaleidotrope, Triptych Tales, PodCastle, and more, along with anthologies such as The Way of the Wizard and Aliens: Recent Encounters. Her nonfiction pieces on music, literature, and culture have appeared in Lightspeed, Weird Fiction Review, Wonderbook, and The Steampunk Bible. She is also the editor of It Came From the North: An Anthology of Finnish Speculative Fiction (Cheeky Frawg, 2013), and together with Jeff VanderMeer, co-author of The Steampunk User's Manual, forthcoming in October of 2014. Find her online at desirinaboskovich.com.
IN THE MOUNTAIN
Hugh Howey
“Carry on,” one founder would say to another. To Tracy, it had become a mantra of sorts. Igor had started it, would wave his disfigured hand and dismiss the other founders back to their work. What began as mockery of him became a talisman of strength. Carry on. Do the job. One foot forward. A reminder to forge ahead even when the task was gruesome, even when it seemed pointless, even when billions were about to die.