Trevor and Nina sat in the church basement picking at scrambled eggs and bacon.
Lori Brewer-wearing one of the biggest, cockiest grins ever seen by the likes of man-carried her tray over and sat at the table across from the two. "Mind if I join you?"
Nina welcomed, "Hey. No, sit down." "So…" "Don’t," Trevor stopped her. "Don’t or I’ll have to-"
Reverend Johnny rushed into the basement shouting, "Hells bells! Raise the alarm and man the battlements!"
They discarded their trays and hurried from the church. Trevor and Nina flanked Johnny as they jogged the road toward the estate where a convoy of dangerous newcomers waited: an Abrams tank, six big deuce and a half cargo trucks, one empty flatbed, two military Humvees with 50 caliber weapons mounted on top, and another Humvee with a TOW missile launcher as well as a pair of camouflage-painted SUVs.
Trevor, Nina, Johnny and the rest felt naked in front of such firepower. There they stood in the cold morning air facing off against a main battle tank and enough firepower to obliterate them in seconds.
Soldiers dressed in full US Army battle gear disembarked from the trucks as did a ragtag group of civilians including parents and young kids, teenagers, a few elderly, and more.
The hatch on the Abrams flew open. An early thirty-something soldier stuck his head out.
"Shit, you fellows were pretty hard to find." The man hoisted himself from the cupola.
Trevor asked, "What can we do for you, soldier?"
The man tilted and scratched his head. "Well, gee, that wasn’t the welcome I had been expecting, considering that the two guys we met out by State College said you people were taking in refugees."
Trevor's jaw dropped. Refugees? These guys?
"Name’s Major Tom Prescott. This here is what’s left of the U.S. Army, near as I can tell. We’ve been wandering around for the last few months looking for a good way to die. Then we saw ‘Bear’ Ross west of here yesterday. You know he was a linebacker for the 'Skins? Anyway, he gave us directions and told us you were putting things back together."
Trevor's concern morphed into smiles as Prescott jumped off the tank.
"Glad to meet you, Major."
– They gathered in the Command Center on the second floor of the estate. Stonewall, Shepherd, Jon Brewer, Nina Forest, Omar, and Reverend Johnny joined the discussion that included Prescott and his key people.
From power issues to the food supply to available munitions, Stone explained the situation at the estate to the new arrivals. Major Prescott shared what he brought to the table: one hundred trained U.S. soldiers including ten engineers and three chopper pilots as well as nearly half that number in civilians they had picked up along the way.
Ammunition for the Abrams was in good supply but it ate so much fuel they tended to leave it on the flatbed. They also carried plenty of small arms munitions, grenades, and mines. The fifty-caliber guns were well stocked but only one shot remained for the TOW.
After the Major catalogued his inventory, Trevor asked the question on everyone's mind: "What happened?"
The Major understood the question. He took a deep breath, scratched the side of his head, and told the story.
"We were at a base in Missouri doing a training program with the Mizzou National Guard. Fact is, though, no one was ready. Not the police, not the army, and especially not the politicians. You got to remember how an army is put together. There’s an order of battle. There are procedures. When you go marching off to war, it takes weeks to put the pieces together. It isn't just about bullets and bombs; it’s about supplies and orders."
Brewer added, "There were some units that got mobilized."
"Sure," Prescott agreed. "But organized for what? What do you do when monsters are popping up everywhere you turn? We woke up one morning in June and found monsters running through the base gobbling people up. Christ-Jesus, a lot of the guys on base…I mean…they had families, you know? You think they ran to the parade grounds to line up in neat ranks to go marching off to save St. Louis? We were fighting for our lives from the get-go."
Trevor rested a hand on Prescott’s shoulder. "Relax. This isn’t about blame. We just want to know."
"Oh man, you couldn’t blame any of us more than we blame ourselves. Most of us spent our lives getting ready to fight for, well you know, God and country and all that. But this type of war…it wasn’t war. It was like we suddenly got thrown down in the middle of the jungle with hungry lions surrounding us. Do you know how long it took just to get off base?"
Prescott shook his head and stared at the floor.
"It took a couple of days to get our house in order. Pardon my French, but things were really messed up. I don’t know how many of our guys died that first day-a lot of them were in town for the weekend, you know? So any way, they finally got the armory opened up and started getting out the big guns. By the third day we had most of the base cleared out but, Christ-Jesus, the things kept flooding in at us. We killed things by the bucket load."
Trevor said, "I’m guessing that was the story all over. If it weren’t for how much you guys did do in those first few weeks things would’ve been worse."
"Oh now, we weren’t patting ourselves on the back. We knew how bad it was out there. We saw the news reports. Thank God, the phones went out because for those first few days guys would be getting calls from folks back home. Man, you ever, you ever…" Prescott closed his eyes. "…you ever listen to someone you love begging for help? Begging…when you could hear something banging in the door and your kid screaming for his daddy? You ever do that?"
Hands from both Johnny and Brewer joined Trevor’s on Prescott’s shoulders.
He sniffled, stood straight, and opened his eyes.
"So, yeah, anyway. Once we got things under control, we were told to march on out and save the day. Yessir. Save the day. We had some of our tanks and plenty of bullets. We even had enough guys to do some good. But what did they tell us to do? What do you think?"
Prescott glanced around the room, a look of contempt rippling across his face.
He spoke again in a mocking voice: "Yeah, send some of your guys here…send some more over here. That’s right, let’s go plug all the holes in the dike all at once. Our big unit that could have dished out damage was turned into a bunch of little units. We did stuff, but not nearly what we could have done. We wiped out a crap load of these, like, Indian fellows with spears and crap. I mean, they charged our tanks with spears! Can you believe that?"
Prescott shook his head at the morbid memory.
"Sometime around the fourth of July we ran into these big things. Christ-Jesus, they were bigger than cars and had teeth that kind of…God…reached out and grabbed you. They tore the turret off one of our tanks, you know? Must’ve killed twenty of our guys before we put them down with heavy shells. Pardon my French but they were straight from Hell, I think."
Shepherd and Brewer shared a glance.
"So anyway, then we start seeing organized things. I guess aliens, right? We get dive bombed by these strange planes and run into a bunch of lizards driving like these little tanks. Flames…lasers…crap like that. Blasted them, too. But they were really organized, and there were a lot of them. Spent a week or two fighting battles here and there with those things. Lost a lot of guys. We headed north, they didn’t follow."
Trevor did not ask all the questions he wanted to ask. For now. In time, Prescott could offer a wealth of information as to what lay beyond the valley walls.
"Sometime around late-July the dropped a couple of pallets of supplies for us. I think we were in Ohio around then. We were supposed to hook up with the Ohio National Guard. We got to where they were supposed to be and didn’t find anyone. Well, you know, any one alive."
Brewer asked, "What did you hear about the chain of command?"
Prescott snickered. "Oh we had tons of people yanking our chain of command. Most of our unit officers got torn up early on. We had a Colonel running our group for a few weeks until something swooped on down and carried him off. That’s when I took over. I started getting all sorts of stuff over the radio. One minute it’s the Governor of Missouri telling me what to do, then it’s the Governor-I mean, Lieutenant Governor — of Ohio. The Pentagon sent some orders. Hey, we had no rest and were running out of guys but we never ran out of orders."
Nina asked, "How’d the rest of the military do? What’d you hear?"
"Heard California was putting up a hell of a fight; dogfights in the skies over San Fran and big ground battles. The Air Force was kicking ass all over the country until they started running out of bases and fuel. After July, though, we weren’t hearing much. Rumor had it the top guns-you know the brass-got wiped out. Don’t know about that, though."
"Tell me mister Prescott, sir," Omar asked. "What about the President?"
Prescott scratched his head again as if the memories needed help coming forth.
"Well, I suppose you heard he got out of DC early on, right? The only thing I heard after that were some Pentagon folks saying he had lost freedom of movement. I guess they were having real trouble with communications and such. Point is, by August there was no President any more. No Congress. Nothing. Last I heard in September there were still a lot of army units fighting in California and the navy was out there doing some good, but otherwise there wasn’t any U.S. military any more. Same goes for overseas. The Russians got their asses kicked, or so I heard, but no details. As for us, we got torn apart little pieces at a time. Like piranha on an elephant, I suppose."
Shepherd nodded. "I figure we all guessed that’s how it went down."
Trevor said, "Couldn’t have happened any other way. I think the troops could have handled one big army dropping from the sky. Not the chaos, though. Not all at once."
"We had no warning, no time to prepare," Prescott gripped his fists tight. "When I look back, I can think of a thousand things I would have done different. I’ll tell you, I would have turned off my radio. What’s that they say? Yeah, too many chefs, you know?"
Stonewall said, "Perhaps, Mr. Prescott, divine providence has steered you through the shattered lands to this place where you can fight once again with a purpose."
The Major sighed and changed the subject. "Maybe. In the meantime, I suppose it’d be a good idea for Mr. Nehru here to take the engineers under his wing and put them to use."
"Oh my goodness yes," Omar beamed.
"That sounds like a plan," Trevor agreed but his thoughts already raced ahead with a flurry of ideas now that trained and armed soldiers had joined the estate. Nonetheless, one issue hung in the air. As the meeting broke, Trevor took Prescott aside.
"Major, there is something we need to talk about."
The soldier raised his hand.
"Don’t worry none. I’ve spent the last six months barely surviving and wasting a lot of men’s lives. I look ‘round here and, geez, you’ve been doing some damn fine work. So yeah, I know whose giving the orders."
– One day later, Trevor formed a council of advisors. Evan Godfrey’s enthusiasm for the move faded when Trevor eschewed elections and handpicked the members.
Ironically, Godfrey’s work in helping new arrivals earned him a spot on the council overseeing housing and needs. Trevor put Reverend Johnny in charge of medical concerns and appointed Brewer as the point man for combat issues (with Prescott assisting).
Dante-still out scouting-would head internal security. This met with grumbles but Trevor wanted Dante on that council; the man had a way of seeing both sides of coins, even if his background lay in computers, not policing. Trevor knew that his best law enforcement people-Shep and Nina-would be needed on the front lines, not on guard duty.
Trevor placed Lori Brewer in charge of resident tracking and convinced Eva Rheimmer to travel in from her farm periodically to discuss the food supply.
Finally, Omar would handle "Science and Technology".
At the first council meeting-sans Dante-Evan bitched about the need for elected representation. Omar bitched about too many projects and not enough help. Reverend Johnny bitched about the lack of medical facilities. Eva Rheimmer bitched about having to travel all the way in from the farm to listen to all the bitching.
– On December 10 ^ th "Bear" Ross and McBride returned after having traveled all the way to Grove City in western Pennsylvania. During that trip, they contacted more than twenty survivors and spied a slew of solitary alien animals but no organized threats.
The next day Bird and Cassy Simms arrived home after having pushed far into New Jersey with the same results albeit on a grander scale: if all the people they met during their scouting trip managed to return to the estate then the ranks of survivors would grow by more than one hundred.
Dante and Kristy Kaufman completed their round trip on December 12 ^ th but brought no good news. Instead, they found something ominous outside of Binghamton, New York.
Trevor stared at a photograph as the council and other prominent survivors gathered in the command center.
Dante told them, "It’s one hellish looking thing. I mean, you stand anywhere near it and there’s like an electricity in the air."
Kristy added, "And lightning. All up there above it. Flashes in the sky."
The sphere in the photo stretched ten stories tall. It did not look as if it had been built; more as if it had been grown.
"Something bad, man," Dante explained. "I tell you, it gives me the creeps."
"And there’s things guarding it, too," Kristy said. "Disgusting things."
Reverend Johnny looked at the photo. "Perhaps it belongs to The Order, but I'm not sure."
Trevor tapped the picture.
I know someone who can.
– "I don’t be needin’ no picture," the Old Man said. "I know what you're talkin’ ‘bout."
"So it’s a gateway." Trevor stood by the fire in the forest.
"Boy, you’ve gotten really smart since the last time we powwowed."
"So these gateways are how all the aliens got here so they could kill off mankind." "I just knew you were gunna start thinkin’ you figured this shit out. Lemme tell you somethin’, if this was about killin’ off mankind you’d all be killed off by now. Some of the things out there, hell, they could rip the at-mos-fere off this world. Shit, some could crack the core and roast marshmallows on your cities as the whole ball of wax melts from the inside out." "So what? So what is all of this about?"
The Old Man clued him in… a little.
"It’s about defeat’n mankind. Beatin’. Sub-jew-gait-ing. Killin' ya’ll off, that’d be sort of anti-climatic. Turnin’ ya’ll into second-class nobody’s, now that’s an accomplishment. But it ain’t my job to go fillin’ you in on all this. Mind your bees wax."
"Wait a sec," Trevor formed an idea. "What if there’s a way to reverse the gates: suck everything back to where it came from."
"Yeah, yeah," the Old Man encouraged. "In one shot you could go sendin’ em’ all packin’! Why, it’d be over lickity-split!"
The Old Man paused for a moment to let his sarcasm sink in and then mocked, "What you expectin’? You think there’s an exhaust port on this Death Star? One lucky shot and- whammo — everything is as right as rain? Maybe you haven’t seen the light of it yet. Face it, whatchya got here is an ole’ fashioned slugfest, Trev. The Martians ain’t gunna catch cold and die. You can’t kill the mother creature and all the little ones waste away. No magic bullets."
"So, what? It doesn’t matter about this gate thing?"
"Sure it matters. The more of em’ gates are around the more re-in-force-mints the bad guys get. Take a gate out and you take a step toward wipin’ em’ all out. Cause that’s what you got to do, Trev. You got to wipe em’ all out."
"That’s it? Just shoot, kill, and blow things up?"
"Eureka! I think he’s got it! What did it used to say on that T-shirt? Oh yeah, ‘kill em’ all and let God sort em’ out.’ That’s your motto, Trevor. And you know what? You got it in you."
"You really think so?"
"Before this is over, Trevor, you’re gunna realize one important thing ‘bout yourself: your soul was damned before you was born."