EYEHEARTZOMBIES

“Lightning be damned! It’s just God showing us where to stick our swords!” Silas yelled at the top of his lungs, the men around him scrambling to find swords, guns, clothes, anything in the strobing darkness and half-sleep. A few fires were still burning in the stinging rain, more smoke and steam than light, now. In their stuttering glow, Silas could see men running, holding up their pants as they galloped to the metal footlockers that held spare swords. Belt buckles flashed yellow as they were threaded through loops. Silas smiled in the chaos. This would make things easier.

A break in the thunder brought a second rumble to his ears, this one man-made. He knew, from forward scouts, that Republic soldiers were approaching. That, of course, was why the camp was in so roiling with activity. Where was Jonas? Surely someone woke him.

“Sir?” A younger man stood in front of Silas, hair and uniform disheveled. Silas looked him up and down. At least he got his boots on, he thought. I don’t know if I would have remembered to do that myself at his age. Silas let the man stand there a few moments longer, let him get a bit more nervous about the approaching force.

“Yeah, what?” Silas’ voice was always gruff — a few kicks in the throat’ll do that to a man — but he tried to make it growl even more. Fear was good for the grunts; keep ‘em on their toes and they’ll work twice as hard to keep you happy. “If you’re just comin’ to tell me ’bout the Light lilies tiptoeing toward us, keep your breath in ya.” The soldier nodded and stepped back a pace, about to salute.

“So… what’re we going to do, then, sir?” His voice shook still, probably more now, with the uncertainty brought on by Silas’ seeming lack of concern. His eyes were wider now, at any rate. His hand hung in the air where it had stopped, halfway to his forehead, floating in front of his throat.

“Put your hand down, son,” Silas said, not trying to be any more gruff now than normal. He glanced around again at the chaos. He locked eyes with a soldier across one of the fussing fires, one of the spies that had brought the news. The man touched his ear, pressing one of the few electronic ears they had been able to bring with them further into his ear, to hear over the din of the camp. Silas saw his Adam’s apple bobble up and down and tried to read the man’s lips, but couldn’t. He ignored the young soldier next to him for a few more seconds until the spy shook his head, then he turned back to the recruit. “We’re not doing anything yet. We’ll wait ’til the bastards make their way here, let ‘em get right here in the middle o’ the nest. Then we’ll swarm ‘em and show ‘em how to get to Heaven the fast way.” The soldier swallowed and nodded. This’ll be his first kill tonight, Silas thought. “Stick around me,” he ordered. The boy nodded again, still unable to speak.

Silas stomped through mud puddles toward one of the few remaining bonfires. The rain, as broken up as it was by the trees overhead, had put out most of the smaller fires. Several soldiers stood next to the spitting, hissing, blazing pile of wood, trying to dry their hands before the fight. They were all veterans, troops that had been with him and Jonas since Kansas City, a couple even before that. The young soldier, his nametag read “Blum” but that was just as likely wrong as it was right since uniforms were recycled so often, stomped his feet next to Silas, sticking close, like he was told. It wasn’t cold tonight, but the rain and anticipation made it seem ten degrees cooler than it really was; maybe twenty for a rookie like him. Silas tapped the soldier with the earpiece on the shoulder. Cypher turned around and smiled a tight smile at him.

“What’s the word, Cy? How long do we have ’til they come for redemption?” Silas kept his voice low, but he was sure the surrounding soldiers were straining to listen anyway.

“Twenty minutes, the Light on our side. Ten, on theirs.” Cypher was one of the few in camp that firmly bought into the idea of salvation in the Light. Probably comes from all that fancy lighting in his head, Silas thought. Technology from the past, and future, wasn’t much liked in the Legion, but it was necessary to fight on an even keel. “They’re not coming from the City,” Cypher continued.

“Then what the Devils are they doing out here on a night like this?”

“You can ask ‘em soon, Silas. Seems we really are the Darkness tonight. They’ve already hit the fence.” Cypher’s voice dropped even more for this last bit. He disliked fighting, which was probably why he was so good with electronics and scouting. Find the enemy, then let someone else fight them. Silas thought of him as a coward for it.

“No use whispering it, jelly.” He raised his voice, “Alright, boys, girls, and anything else that’s listening. The slugs are almost here, so get your asses up out of the mud. God do be with us, these that do be against us, fuck ‘em!” A cheer came up, weaker than he’d have liked, but the rain set men’s spirits to the ground. Silas grabbed his mini gatling gun from just inside the door of his nearby tent and held it in the air. Fists flew into the air all around him, some holding Lightspawned guns, some swords, and some the mechanical pistols and carbines of the Legion.

The nervous young soldier waved his sword in the air and let out a whoop that shook just slightly. Silas looked at him and smiled. He would meet death tonight; God grant he was dealing it. This would be a fight like no other.

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There wasn’t any more talk after the storm that night. Jonas had stepped out of the tent and watched Joseph edge his way to the flaps. He stood safely inside the canvas wall that held in the light and his freedom. The dark of the night, even interrupted by bolts of lightning and the few burning fires in the camp was too oppressive and foreign to him still. Jonas saw him slowly extend a hand and touch the darkness outside of the glowing triangle coming from the held-open flaps. The hand, lily white and trembling, felt of this darkness, this erotic blasphemy, for the space of three seconds, maybe five, then quickly withdrew, falling to his side again to rest against his leg. The fingers and palm were welcomed back into the fold of the light, and the Light.

The lightning and thunder led the way into the camp and the deluge followed just minutes behind. Joseph waved at Jonas when the quick, heavy drops began to fall, and called something into a thunderclap. Jonas didn’t catch the words, but he didn’t care. The rain would come hard and quick in just a few moments and he didn’t want to be caught in it. He wondered for a second if the boy would turn rabbit and run, then remembered the trembling hand from a few seconds ago. This one is cemented to us ’til morning at least, he thought. He waved a hand in return and took off at a jog toward his own tent. The jog quickly became a run, the rain chasing him back to his cramped den.

Even at a run, he ended up soaked. He stripped down to his long cotton underwear and hung the dripping shirt and trousers over his small wood stove. The drips and drops turned to steam and soon the tent was as humid as any sauna. The rain outside just added to it and it soon felt like it was raining inside, too. Jonas sighed and lay down on his cot, his underwear and skin damp but warming in the steamy room. What was he going to do about this boy?

He couldn’t send him away — he was too useful for information at this point. Could he really risk taking him into his flock? Would the boy risk his life for the other men? That was all that Jonas asked from his men: to be ready to die for each other, if needs be. He wasn’t so sure this one could live up to that agreement. And could I stand to lose Silas — or Cypher — or any of the others that he had come to know and love in his years of soldiering and leadership — for this runaway, lost man-child from the Light?

It wasn’t a question he wanted to try and answer to himself tonight. Not with the roof pressing down on him like a soaked rag. He sat up on his cot and reached across the tent to where his footlocker was. He rustled around inside, not really looking at what his hand was brushing against and moving out of the way, until his fingers curled around a familiar slick shape of metal and glass.

He pulled the framed picture out of the footlocker and let the top fall back down with a clang of wood on wood. He had no idea who the people in the image were; he had found it in an abandoned house in Kansas City. It had been sitting on a mantle in the house in an area that had been called the “suburbs”. A man smiled at him from the colorful paper behind the slightly cracked glass pane. Next to the man was a woman — his wife? — and between them, two children, both girls. Even though the family was white, and he black, he always thought of them as himself and his own family. He had a wife that he hadn’t seen in five years back in Detroit. She was taking care of their daughters — two of them, just like the picture — as best she could. Her mother was helping, if the old woman hadn’t died yet, so he was sure she was getting by just fine; his wife was a stone, a sturdy tree. She provided stability, care, and, above all else, an unending supply of herself. He wondered how his girls were doing? If they remembered their father’s face?

Tears pooled in his eyes and slowly rolled down his sweaty face. He loved the Legion, he loved the army, but he loved his wife and children more. His tour would be up in another three years. Maybe then he could go home, get a normal job, and take care of his family. If he survived until then, that was. The battles since Kansas City — Tulsa and Amarillo — had been vicious. He had lost a lot of men, both good and bad, and had had several close calls with his own neck. That sword in Tulsa; the grenade and land mine in Amarillo. Too many, too close together. One more reason to hold on the boy, he thought. Keep him a guest and I have the Devil by the toe if a fight comes.

Jonas moved to put the picture back in the footlocker, then decided against it and set it down on the cracked paint of the locker, folding out the velvet stand with his large fingers. He turned back around and lay down in his cot again, knees pulled up in a fetal position; odd for such a large man, he figured, but the Devil take ‘em if anyone cared. He looked at the family in the picture, their smiles barely faded even though the picture could be decades old. The two girls watched over him as he drifted off to sleep, the rain still plopping down above his head. A few drops wormed through the tent canvas and streaked their way down the picture, tracing a wet finger around the faces preserved there.

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“Well, like you probably guessed, I live in Mile-High City. I already told you I worked in Data Logistics. Uhm.” Joseph scratched his head. “I really don’t know what all to tell you.”

“Just start with the day you came out. Yesterday, right?” Silas tried to prod the boy into telling all he knew. The Legion really didn’t know enough about the Light. Fighting a battle without some intimate knowledge of your enemy just didn’t work. He had lost enough men to bad intel. He stopped reminiscing quickly as Joseph started into his story.

“The day started out like any other, I suppose. I woke early in the moring, like I always do….”

= Joseph half-reclined in his bed, a contraption somewhere between bed and chair, strapped in at the chest and hips. A small, metal shower head was pressed against the skin of his left arm at the elbow, tubes leading away from it to a few small clear cylinders filled with different colored liquids. The first tank, a light pink color, burbled and gurgled as compressed air pushed the mild stimulant through the tubes and out through the diffuser at high pressure. The drug passed through Jospeh’s skin and began to slide through his circulation. His eyes fluttered open, but he didn’t see yet. A minute or two later, the middle cylinder, this one a medium green, bubbled. This was a stronger stimulant, to both wake the user and fill him with a hunger. It was breakfast time and Joseph couldn’t imagine being more starved. Of course, he felt like that every morning, but the thoughts came regardless. Thirty or so seconds later, the last tube shot its contents into his arm and he was fully awake and feeling fine. The bed released him and he stepped out of the small closet that the bed occupied. It slid back into the wall, closing behind him. It would pop out again tonight after work, Mass, and exercises were over. Joseph stepped over a metal grate in the floor and pressed the button to call for a shower. A minute or so later another fine mist, this one as clear as the mountain streams it come from, fell on his naked body. Its pleasant warmth enveloped him for exactly five minutes while he scrubbed and shaved. The mist cut off with a strong click and Joseph stood where he was, waiting for the air dryer to start. Not ten minutes later, Joseph was dressed and kneeling to say his prayers to the Light. =

“So, hold on a sec. I’m not really familiar with your day-to-day stuff. Sorry to interrupt. You get shot with stuff every morning just to wake up?” Jonas wasn’t sure he was hearing this right.

“Yes. And we get two shots at night to help us sleep like we should. The Light demands good health, and good health starts with sleeping like you should. ‘To bed after your lives, early the next day to rise.’” Joseph looked at Jonas over the candles like he had just sprouted a pair of horns.

“Right, right,” Jonas said. He didn’t want to get into any sort of theology this late at night. “And, so we can help you stay in good graces, what time are you supposed to go to bed, Joseph?”

“By my schedule, it would be twenty o’clock.”

Twenty o’clock. Even their idea of time was screwed up. “Alright, I think we can handle that. It was barely getting dark when I came in here. You should have another few hours before then. Please,” he gestured toward the boy, “continue.”

“So, I started to say my prayers, like every morning…”

= “Hear us, oh Lighted leader. Hallowed is thy path. Thy guidance brings us to Heaven’s bright shore. Give us this day our daily life, and allow us not to fall to Darkness. Thy will is Word. Our lives for the glory of the nation. Amen.” He stayed on his knees a few moments longer, focusing his thoughts on the Will of the Light. He stood, brushed non-existent dust off of his knees — funny how some gestures were just instictual — and grabbed his bag from the hook it hung on near the door. The door slid open and he stepped out into the hall. The twenty-ninth ring on the fourth floor was most likely the same as the twenty-ninth ring on any floor, and the same as any ring on this or any other floor. The walls and floor were sheer white, while the ceiling was covered in LifeLights. =

“Wait, sorry. What be LifeLights?”

“You don’t know what LifeLights are, either?” Joseph sighed. “They are lights — electric lights — that don’t just put off light. They send out vitamins and minerals, too. ” Joseph must have seen that Jonas didn’t understand all of this either. “They act like how the Sun use to. So we can be healthy and happy and have all that we need without dealing with this diseased world.”

Jonas was about to ask just what was so diseased about this world, and just how did the Sun do anything different now than it did before, whenever that was, but he thought better of keeping this going any longer than it had to. He was already pretty sure that the boy wouldn’t be going back to Mile-High City. He nodded like he understood completely, and motioned the boy to keep telling his story.

“Anyway, the LifeLights buzz a bit, and I happened to notice them this morning. That’s kind of funny, ’cause that’s part of why we get some of the injections; to help us live happier lives by not noticing little annoyances like buzzing lights….”

= He kept hearing the hum until he reached the cafeteria. The buzzing was replaced here by the hum of the small crowd in the dining room. Maybe a hundred people were sitting at long tables eating their meals or standing in line to receive them. Joseph took his place in line, tray in hand. He stood happily watching the telescreens that made up the giant curved wall of the dining room. A blue sky shined down on deep green grass. Joseph caught sight of a small brown shape in the distance. He wasn’t completely sure, but he thought it was a rabbit. He had seen a few last year in the zoo on the twentieth floor when he had had a day-long break. He had even gotten to touch one. The line moved forward and Joseph took his servings for breakfast: a spoonful of scrambled eggs, two slices of bacon, two triangles of toast, and a small glass of orange juice. Well, they called it orange juice. He knew from his work that real orange juice was not only scarce nowadays, but was actually _bad_ for you. He was glad that the Light had seen fit to give them something safer and better for them. He made his way over to a table where he could see the telescreen better. Yes, it was a rabbit. He smiled in his mind, to himself, proud that he had been able to make out such a rare creature from such a distance. =

A sudden clap of thunder made Joseph jump in his chair and broke the his story. The two guards jumped to their feet, too, knocking a few of the candles over as the bumped into the table. Several super-bright flashes followed closely and more booming come pouring from the sky. Jonas could see Joseph quaking in his chair and he reached a hand through the maze of candlesticks to place it on the boy’s. “Go see that everything is alright,” he said to the two guards. One of them glanced at Joseph. “We’ll be right as the rain that’s likely pounding down out there. Go. Do you not think I can take care of myself and this one?” The guard nodded and followed his partner out through the flap.

“What do you say we stop at breakfast and go see to this storm,” Jonas smiled at Joseph, hoping the boy wouldn’t give in to his fears and want to stay in the oven the tent had become in the stifling, muggy air.

Joseph, wide-eyed and growing paler by the moment, just nodded.

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The light inside the tent made Jonas’ eyes water after the deepening darkness of the night outside. Must be done for the boy, he thought. Damned Lightspawn and their fear of the natural way. Eh, after the tales of the Dark Nights than his Gran had told him, he didn’t much fault them for it. Those were the nightmares and frights of children all through the Legion. Reason enough to stay inside, under the covers, with a lamp burning and a good book if you could. Pushing down an urge to look over his shoulder, to make sure no Dark Nights boogeyman was lurking behind him, Jonas stepped all the way into the tent. This one was taller than his own. He could stand up straight in it without his head brushing canvas. Two men sat at a small wooden table in the middle of the tent, flanking a much smaller man between them. That’ll be the boy, Jonas realized, still thinking of him as a child.

The tabletop was covered with candles, all burning brightly, spitting as they encountered unincorporated pockets of fat, adding a hissing sound to a room already filled with buzzing steam from a kettle on a small wood-burning stove in the back of the tent. The crackle of wood provided more than just noise and heat for the water; its molten glow added to the ambient light of the room, chasing persistent shadows out of the far back corners. An oil-burning lamp hung from the ceiling over the table, and two others sat on boxes near the front of the tent. The heat and the light were almost unbearable.

Jonas approached the table and cleared his throat. The young man looked up at him and his eyes widened. The boy had a small frame. His white skin seemed to grow paler, more translucent, as his green eyes widened at the sight of this gigantic black man standing before him. His mouth slowly opened an inch or two, and Jonas could hear the air pop and catch in his throat. “Don’t be worried, son, I’m no more trouble than the teddy bear you carried at your mother’s breast.” Jonas’ voice was low and deep. He hoped it would calm the boy.

The two guards both stood up and saluted Jonas. He returned it and they motioned to a fourth chair at the table. He pulled it out and sat down, his rear and back happy to be on something a little more firm than his canvas chair or sagging cot. He rested his elbows on the table and looked at the “spy”.

“So, I hear as you’ve been lost from the Light. That true?” The boy’s face quirked funny and he looked like he was about to cry. “What is it, boy? That not the true of the matter?” The boy still sat where he was, hands in his lap and his shoulders slumped. Either he was stupid or scared. Jonas’ voice took on a softer air. “Come on, son. We can’t help you if you don’t level with us. Where you kicked out? Did you do something wrong and get put out to be taken by the beasts?” He didn’t dare ask the question that was on all the minds of those in his camp that knew about the boy. Are you a spy? Did you come here to doom us? No, he didn’t dare ask that of this child before him.

The boy looked up, a slight fire in his eyes. Ah, some spirit after all, Jonas thought. The boy swallowed, then said, “No, I wasn’t kicked out. I’m not a criminal. I believe the Light as true as I follow the Light-Bringer.” His mouth closed with a slight snap and his eyes fell back to the flickering flames. “Could — could we get any more light in here. It’s still so dark.”

Jonas glanced at the two men, both wide-eyed with the idea of more light and more heat in this small space, especially with four bodies adding to the humidity. “Can you get by with how it is, son? I do believe we’d be might pressed to fit one more glowing lamp in this tent. Aside from the fact that I do believe we’d all pass right out from the heat and that wouldn’t get no talkin’ done, and that’s what we’re hear for.” The boy thought for a second, then nodded.

Lightning flashed outside, quickly followed by a clap of thunder. The boy jumped in his chair at the sound and shook for a few seconds. He’s never been out here before. Jonas realized just how scared the boy must be. He couldn’t imagine having to live in one of those Cities; it couldn’t be any better suddenly being outside of one. “It’s just thunder, it can’t hurt you.” That didn’t seem to help. Maybe get his mind off of where he is…or, rather, where he isn’t. “What’s your name, son?”

The boys eyes were still wide from the thunder, but his mouth seemed to work just fine. “By the grace of the Light, I’m Joseph DL429,” he said. DL429? What the hell was that? Jonas didn’t let his lack of understanding show, or did as best he could, at least.

“‘DL429,’ huh? How ’bout you tell us what that means?” He tried to smile and look as safe as he could, but he couldn’t read anything deeper than fear on the boy. The two guards both looked very interested in this bit of information, too. No one really knew much about the inner workings of the Cities, or even of the Republic as a whole. They kept people and secrets equally well.

“Well, the ‘DL’ is my job: Data Logistics. I make sure that news and other updates make sense. The government wants to make sure everyone understands everything. The only way people can be happy and productive is if they know and understand everything that goes on.”

“You make the news make sense, huh? OK, well, what’s the ‘429′ bit, then?” Jonas wasn’t sure he believed the “know and understand” bit, but maybe things were more transparent on the inside. He didn’t much care to find out firsthand, though.

“That’s where I live,” the boy continued. “I live on the fourth floor down, and the twenty-ninth ring out.”

“Can you draw, son? I’m not real good at coming up with these pictures in my head unless I see ‘em first hand or drawed out. Can you help me with that?” Jonas motioned to one of guards and the man got up and fetched a piece of yellowed paper and a thick, flat pencil from a small desk on the side of the room.

“I can try,” the boy said. He picked up the pencil and held it clenched in his fist like a dagger. He stabbed the tip down on the page and started to draw circles, each larger than the last. He drew thirty of them, total, then began to divide each into three sections. When he was finished, he put the pencil down on the table and stared at Jonas. “Does that help?”

Jonas slid the paper over to him and looked at it a bit more carefully. It was smudged in places from the boy’s hand and arm rubbing across the loose graphite, but he could get the idea of the ‘429′ location. “Why are the rings all divided? What does that mean, Joseph?”

The look on the boy’s face said only one thing: How do you not know this? He answered, though. “On most of the rings, the two large areas are dormitories. The smaller area is a public space, like for cafeterias or motion picture screens, or computers for playing games.” He waved his hands around to illustrate each concept, but the movements were lost on Jonas. So were many of the terms. Motion pictures? Computers playing games? He nodded, though, not wanting to appear stupid.

“And what about the other floors, Joseph? What’s on them?”

The boy looked confused for a second, then said, “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know? Haven’t you lived here all of your life?” The last question came out harder than Jonas had intended it, but it was out there already. He wished, not for the first time, that words came on strings that you could pull back into your mouth.

“I’ve never been on those floors,” the boy said. “I have no business there. And, yes, I have lived there all my life. Well, until yesterday, that is.” He dropped his gaze to the candles on the tabletop again and shuddered slightly.

“We won’t bring that up right yet, then, if it bothers you so.” He studied the boy over the flickering towers of wax and fire. He had dark hair to go with his green eyes. He was dressed in clothes from a Legion footlocker; his own had been too wet, muddy, and shredded to be worth anything as covering anymore. Jonas knew they had been taken to the camp doctor to be looked over and analyzed. There was absolutely nothing spectacular about the boy. Why would the Republic send him out? Maybe they didn’t, Jonas answered himself. He’d wait until the boy wanted to talk about it, though. No sense pressuring him and risking the chance of breaking him securing whether their future or their doom was in the mix.

“No, I don’t mind talking about it,” the boy said. His eyes had that fire in them again as he looked over the candles into Jonas’ eyes. “In fact, I want to.”

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Yep, the time is here. November. And if you’ve known me the past two years, you know I usually write a novel this month. Well, between the baby and trying to find a job, it’s not gonna happen this time around.

I am writing. But it won’t be a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. In fact, I just started writing it last night. Anyway, it’s up in the Novels area of the site. So, go read if you want and tell me what you think.

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Silas left the tent and Jonas sat back in the canvas chair and sighed deeply. This was the last thing they needed at this point. Nevermind that the man — boy! — could be a spy for the Republic; nevermind that they were so close to Mile-High City, one of the largest and most heavily guarded of the Light Cities, that you could spit on the surveillance cameras if the wind was kicking up even enough to stir a dandelion’s head; nevermind that a storm was brewing on top of the mountains to their west, threatening to flood the whole valley and wash them halfway back to Detroit. No, forget about all of that. The boy was wandering around, got caught, and now they couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of letting him go. Jonas wondered if the boy even really believed he had been caught by the Legion. By the Darkness.

A drop of rain pittered on the waxed canvas of the tent above his head and he looked up, watching the dark circle grow a mite bigger. A second drop joined the first, then a third. The storm was starting sooner than expected. He sighed again, then hoisted his large frame out of the sagging chair, standing as straight as the four-foot-tall tent would allow. He stepped out into the evening air, his skin prickling in the cool breeze. Yes, the storm was coming soon. And the weather might not be the only threat his people faced tonight.

Silas was standing a few tents down the row and apparently saw Jonas come outside. He was standing next to Jonas a few seconds later, whispering wildly to him. “I see you’ve decided to act. What’s your mind? Feed and tent the Light-cursed boy? Or will you finally pay some attention to my mind’s read and send him away. Damn fool don’t even believe we’re real. Leastways doesn’t seem to think we could rouse up no harm. I say send him back and be put with it.” Silas’ eyes had a mean shine to them that Jonas didn’t like seeing. He didn’t see it often, either.

The last time had been during the battles for Kansas City. The Light had been entrenched there pretty good; the fighting was something fierce and dirty, like a wounded fox caught in a box trap. Jonas and Silas had fought there, side by side, fought like brothers. They were responsible for leading the charge into the Armory, even. A victory that, if not bringing about the end of the siege, definitely shortened it. A new slew of Light weapons and body armor was just what the Legion had needed, since the ones they had taken before were finally starting to run out of ammunition, and they couldn’t make more. That had been lost to them years ago. Jonas sometimes wondered how good of an idea that had been of the Fathers. No, one didn’t question the past; not on days like this, at least. On that day, the day of the charge, Silas had shaken with a rage that seemed to burn at his gut like wildfire. He had carried two of the large Legion guns at his hips, their steam tanks gurgling. He had also had a sword strapped to his back and one of the Light’s own gatling guns in his hands, the bandolier of bullets trailing beside his feet.

The Armory had been fortified during the night. The Republic’s troops had dug a trench around the building and burned down all the nearby growth. It stood as a monolith on a small hill; a castle that could be attacked only by a dragon. The three hundred troops behind Silas and Jonas weren’t exactly a dragon, but they planned on taking this castle anyhow. They needed the weapons. More importantly, they needed the food and other supplies kept in the basement of the Armory.

Silas had led the charge, screaming, guns blazing, with Jonas just steps behind him. The rest of the three hundred seemed to be inches from him, their war cries echoing off the Armory walls, calling eerily up from the several-feet-deep moat ahead of them. When Silas reached the moat, he leapt, somehow clearing it solidly. Jonas followed suit, but many of the men didn’t. Those that fell into the pit scrambled to get out. The Republic had filled the pit with unimaginable horrors. Jonas shuddered, even now, not wanting any of those images to come back. He hadn’t seen all there was in there himself; most of his knowledge came from those who had been further back. They told of the fangs, the wings, the tentacles, and the pieces of soldiers spread across the muddy floor. Why did it always rain in memories?

Silas slammed into the door of the Armory and bounced back. It had obviously been barricaded from the other side. Another of the soldiers that had made it across placed a few sticks of dynamite on the metal gateway and everyone stepped back, ducking behind each other and the flimsy protection provided by the recessed doorway. The explosion sent steel shards flying through the air, striking a few of the men that had yet to reach the pit. Larger pieces tumbled over and down into the moat, striking monster and man alike. Screams came calling up from below, not all of them shaped by human tongues or mouths.

Again, Silas was the first one in. His gatling gun lit the walls of the Armory as he zipped down the first hallway he came to. Jonas could hear him cackling over the roar of the spinning muzzles. Thinking about that would come later, as Jonas ducked down the opposite hallway, kicking in a door and letting loose with his Legion gun. Each shot started with a poof of steam, followed by the hollow whistling sound of the projectile flying through the air. The small rooms with their stone walls just amplified the sound, making it sound like thousands of angry bees. He heard other beehives start up further into the building.

Once his room was cleared, Jonas moved onto the next. Pausing in front of the door, he heard Silas’ muzzles stop, the laughter dying with them. A solid clunk and a yell followed. A cold laugh from Silas came short on the heels of that, along with another agonized yell from that direction. Silas would later brag of how he had cleared the room of all but one Republic soldier. The soldier, seeing that his opponents gun was empty, pulled out a dagger and started toward Silas, lunging when he got close enough — actually managed to cut Silas’ cheek, giving him a scar he wore proudly. Silas threw the gun at him, knocking the air out of the man, then pulled his own sword and sliced open the soldier’s gut. “No reason to make his trip into the Light any faster than it has to be,” Silas would later reason. “Leave him time to see the sights; Hell comes too quick these days.”

Jonas didn’t have time to wonder what Silas was up to down the other hallway. He had broken down the next door in hallway and was met with a room of Republic soldiers in a small bunk room. Something must’ve been in the air, because the threw down his steam-powered pistols and pulled the flamethrower hose around from behind him. A twister joker’s grin filled his face as he squeezed both triggers and engulfed the beds and footlockers. Soldiers screamed and tried to grab weapons, dodge the bellowing flame, or just flee from the room. They all succumbed in the end, though, the last one being taken down by Jonas’ knife. He stood in the doorway, panting, wondering what had come over him. He would think that many more times before Kansas City was theirs.

Large, cold raindrops brought him out of his mind and back to the present. He and Silas had been walking in silence, the scarred man letting his questions and the conversation drop into the weather like leaves it the Fall. It was still there, still swirling around them, but it was of no consequence right now. They reached the small tent compound where the boy was being kept. Jonas took a deep breath and let it out in a long hissing breath. “No sense keeping the Light waiting, I suppose.” He meant both the captured boy and his god. The Legion kept their gods to themselves, each man taking care of his own bit in life. Jonas still liked to believe in a man from over two thousand years ago, come to Earth to make the world a better place. He held a bit of faith in the Light, too. He just couldn’t believe completely in a deity that would allow men like President Howell to come to power. God damn him, but this bit of the world had been a horrible place since Howell had come to his flock in the Republic.

Silas cleared his throat in the deepening evening and motioned toward the flap of the tent. Jonas nodded. “Don’t you be fretting about the boy, Silas. I take care of my own, and this whole camp is mine now. I’ll see to it ‘fore I see to any Lightspawned spy.” The scarred man’s face stayed scrunched for a few moments, then loosened as he nodded.

“Best get to it, then,” Silas said. “They’ve been waiting long enough for you to trot down here in this mist. They’ll be thinkin’ you’re an evil witch that hates the water, you keep ‘em much longer.” Jonas nodded again and lifted the flap to the brightly lit tent.

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