Mercy (The Last Army Book 1) (26 page)

I looked at the children down the scope again, keeping my finger away from the trigger. An even mixture of boys and girls shot from behind the mound, none of them older than thirteen. At least half of them seemed drugged, their lifeless eyes searching for targets in a daze. The smaller children took their time to aim their cumbersome weapons—bigger than they were—and tumbled to the ground from the recoil after every shot.

A handful of adult raiders ducked behind the children, directing their fire. Soon, a raider with greying hair and wearing combat fatigues blew on a whistle and beat the children with a stick. Those who looked drugged out of their minds crept from behind the rubble and staggered toward us, firing their weapons. The others hugged the debris, taking the beating rather than facing our guns. I tried to line up a shot at the old raider, but he only exposed himself for a fraction of a second to swing his stick at the children. The bullets whizzing over my head—fired by the drugged ones—didn’t help either, but I kept looking for an opening.

The greying raider aimed his handgun at a small Asian girl. I let out a silent scream as blood spattered from the back of her head, and she slumped down to the pavement. The rest of the children crawled over the rubble and ran toward us, firing their guns as they wept.

I sat behind the safety of the steps and closed my tearful eyes, but I could see the horrific scene playing again behind my eyelids. I prayed.

I prayed, begging God to make it be nothing but a cruel illusion and that I would look down my scope again to find hardened, grownup faces parading across my reticle. I made a solemn prayer that if my cries were answered, I would toss my weapons away and never pick up a gun again for as long as I lived. I swore that I would run back to New Jerusalem, and after crying on Karla’s shoulder, I’d beg for her to teach me how to save lives rather than take them. If that didn’t work out, I could always be like Amy and read through the Bible until I had every line committed to memory; I’d preach the word of God to anyone who’d hear me. I even would have washed clothes under Mrs. Thompson’s severe gaze until the skin peeled off my hands rather than face the children’s staggering advance. I peeked from over the stairs.

They’re there. Of course they’re still there.

The children’s erratic fire drew closer while the militia cowered behind clumps of brick. I broke out in tearful sobs and looked up at the indifferent blue sky. The sun was almost directly above us, partially hidden behind the vast smoke columns dotting the city. In a few short hours, those of us still alive would be mercilessly slaughtered by the demons lurking in the shadows of the subway system below. Mr. and Mrs. Raj, Karla, Amy, and everyone else on the island would be next. We’d all be nothing but demon shit by the end of the week.

No. I won’t let them win.

I knew the path to victory would be paved with the corpses of our enemies. I had signed up to fight demons and Satanists, but if the enemy threw children at us, then I would fight children.

I gave Arjun his scoped rifle and looked down the street through the iron sights of my rifle. A little under three hundred feet away, I wasn’t able to make out any details on the approaching children. I could still imagine their tear-stained cheeks, and tiny noses clogged with snot, their small hands grasping their guns, and their trembling lips, but actually looking at them through the scope would’ve been more than I could bear. I centered my aim on the tallest child—a thin black girl with short, curly black hair—and tried to squeeze the trigger, but my body shuddered in rejection, fresh tears welling in my eyes.

“If we don’t do this, we’re all going to die here!” I yelled, trying to convince myself rather than the men and women around me.

I gritted my rattled teeth so hard it hurt and took aim once again.

I took the shot. The little girl crumpled to the ground.

I looked away, only to meet Arjun’s stare. His dim, sunken eyes, dusty cheeks, and cracked lips complemented an expression of utter defeat. He swallowed hard, bit his lower lip, and aimed his rifle at the children. He fired. The other militia fighters shot as well. It was all over in a few seconds.

The adult raiders ran toward the hotel, spraying bullets in our direction to cover their retreat. I leapt to my feet, wiping tears off my eyes. Anger seethed in my gut like a wild animal trying to claw its way out.

“I’ll kill you all!” I screamed and chased after them, firing from the hip as I ran through the piles of murdered children.

A handful of militia squads followed me, but halfway to the hotel, snipers on the top five floors poked their rifles out of the windows and fired down on us. We hugged the right side of the street, where the rubble and the remaining walls of smaller buildings covered us from their fire. At least ten militia fighters lay in agony on the bloodied pavement, but the rest of us—around twenty—resumed our dash to the hotel. We didn’t stop until we stood next to the entrance, our shoulders pressed against the sand-colored brick.

“We’ve got to wait for the others,” a Middle Eastern-looking man said, glancing back at the rest of the squads on the street. They slowly advanced toward us as they fired back at the snipers.

The windows on the first and second floors had been boarded up, and a concrete slab over the entrance protected us from enemy fire, so waiting seemed like the safest thing to do. Of course, safety was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m not letting those bastards get away,” I said, changing the magazine on my rifle. “Every second we wait is a second those sons of bitches have to hide. I’m going in—cover me!”

I charged into the building with a scream, shooting blindly around the dark lobby. My dramatic entrance was met by a hail of gunfire from five raiders positioned behind the front desk. With no light coming in from the boarded windows, only muzzle flashes lighted the room. I ceased firing and dove behind a cluster of sofas and tables in the middle of the lobby. The raiders' gunshots tore them apart, sending splinters and wads of foam stuffing flying into the air and raining down on me. The militia fighters by the entrance failed to back me up.

I opened fire on the front desk, trembling with fear and lying flat on my stomach between the shattered furniture. My rounds punched through the front desk’s wood paneling, silencing the raiders' guns. Only one of them fled to the hotel manager’s office. I squeezed a few rounds at him, but my rifle’s bright muzzle flashes had left me practically blind, and I missed.

“It’s clear! Hurry up, you cowards!” I screamed, barely able to hear myself through the ringing in my ears. I felt something warm spreading through my cargo pants' thick fabric, and I patted myself down, afraid I’d been shot.

Thank God… I pissed myself.

The darkness and the penetrating smell of gunpowder must’ve hidden it, though, because Arjun didn’t comment on it as he helped me up.

“There’s at least one left over there, inside the manager’s office,” I said, steadying my breath and pointing to the front desk.

The remains of the lobby’s furniture crunched under my boots as I walked with my cheek pressed against the stock of my rifle, ready to fire. I crept around the front desk and headed for the entrance to the manager’s office. I slung back my rifle and drew my pistol while Arjun and a handful of militia fighters lined up behind me. The rest covered the hallway into the first-floor rooms, as well as the stairs to the second floor.

“Wait,” a woman whispered, grabbing my arm. “Don’t rush in just yet.”

A flame flickered before her haggard face, followed by the hissing of a lit fuse. She chucked a pipe bomb inside the office and went for the floor. Several raiders screamed inside. I covered my ears just as an explosion shook the walls and a torrent of dust rushed out of the office.

I raised my pistol and tiptoed inside. A small fire had broken out in a corner of the spacious office, imbuing the haze with a warm golden light. One of the raiders limped toward me, half her face blasted off. She waved a rifle before her. I crouched out of the way and shot her under the chin, spraying blood onto the ceiling. Another raider fired at the spot where my head had been. His muzzle flash pierced the thinning dust cloud, and I finished him off with three shots to the chest. The rest of the militia finally poured inside. I signaled for them to keep a low profile. The sound of whimpering gave away the presence of at least one more raider inside the office.

I aimed my gun toward the sound and stepped forward, my finger wrapped tightly around the trigger. As the air cleared, the greying raider emerged, sitting in a corner near a splintered desk. His booted feet twitched, and his fatigues were plastered with fresh blood. Jagged shrapnel shards stuck out from his stomach.

“It’s you,” I said, kicking away the handgun lying at his feet.

“Please… help me… I’m—”

I snickered, holstering my gun. “What’s the matter, grandpa? You’ve got a little tummy ache?” I stepped on his mangled gut. The raider winced and moaned, deepening the wrinkles on his face. I slowly shifted my weight on him until a thin line of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “I saw what you did, you bastard.” I leaned closer to him, until our noses almost touched. “Did Pastor Tim order you to use children as a meat shield, you sick fuck?”

The man groaned in response and coughed up blood. Arjun walked up to us and raised his rifle to the raider’s face. I grabbed the barrel and pushed it away.

“No. If they want to act like animals, then they can die like animals.” I stared at the raider. “Let the bastard bleed to death.”

“Hey, check this out,” said the bushy-browed guy from my squad, dusting off the desk.

I shot one last poisonous glance at the greying raider and turned to the desk. A map of New York City lay on it. Arrows and boxes had been scribbled onto the map in red and blue marker. My skin crawled, and the room felt cold despite the fire spreading in the corner.

“Oh, shit,” Arjun said, tracing his finger along one of the arrows. “This is… this the whole attack plan! They knew everything—where we’d attack and with what strength.”

“Look at the enemy locations,” the bushy-browed guy said, pointing at the red squares in the city. “They’ve got all them gathered to meet us and the army. The southern parts of the city are practically deserted.”

I leaned over the map. My throat tightened as I realized Brother Tim’s motive for calling on the non-Christian militia. The raiders would grind us—and the military—down, while his troops would rush through Brooklyn practically unopposed. Looking at the enemy still waiting for us ahead in the map, a peculiar red box over Citi Field caught my eye.

“What does this mean?” I placed a finger on the box. “It’s got three X’s on top. The others only have one.”

“Fifty… fifty thousand… men,” the greying raider whispered in a labored voice. He smiled, baring his bloodied teeth. “That shouldn’t… concern you, though.” He dug a trembling hand into his pocket. “Good night… bitch.”

My hand bolted for my pistol, but a faint click came from the raider before I fired on him.

“Get down!” I shouted, leaping behind the desk.

I folded my arms over my head, but the expected blast never came. A hum reached us from the lobby, followed by metal slamming on concrete.

“The entrance is sealed off! We’re trapped!” someone screamed from outside the office.

I got off the floor and dusted myself off, my heart still pounding against my chest. Arjun and the other militia fighters rushed to the lobby. I folded up the map and stuck it in one of the side pockets of my cargo pants before running after them.

A wide steel curtain blocked the exit. A couple of the guys kicked it but barely rattled the heavy curtain.

“Stop! Listen,” another guy in our group said, dragging the others away from the curtain. A faint buzzing came from under our feet—from the basement—and then the clank of metal doors unlocking.

Booming roars and howls made the floor tremble. The few bits of glass left on the boarded windows clinked against their frames. Streams of dust cascaded from the cracked ceiling.

I slapped one of my last full magazines into my rifle before speaking.

“Demons.”

“Oh shit, we’re going to die!” the bushy-browed guy screamed and bashed the butt of his rifle against the steel curtain.

“Wait—try the windows!” Arjun screamed, stumbling his way toward the walls.

“Damn, they’re blocked off, too!” one of the guys yelled. He banged against a steel curtain covering a window.

I searched for the woman who’d just chucked the pipe bomb at the raiders, making out her face against the glow of the fire raging inside the office. “You there! Have you got any more explosives?”

“N-no, that was my last one,” she said.

I swallowed hard as another chorus of roars rattled the floor and racked my brain for a way to get out of that death trap. “That’s it!” I ran to the guys bashing on the curtain. “On the second floor, there’s a gap in the wall. A rocket landed there. Come on, let’s go!”

“We’ll never make it,” the bushy-browed guy said, weeping, and fired his carbine at the steel curtain. Thin rays of light streamed in from outside. The rest of our group fired at the curtain as well. Stomping and scraping thundered from downstairs, growing louder and louder.

“They know we’re here! Run!” I screamed and dashed for the stairs. Only Arjun and the woman followed me. The rest kept firing at the steel curtain, betting their lives on shooting their way through before the demons arrived.

Their screams echoed up the murky staircase just as we reached the second floor.

“I can’t see anything; we need light!” I screamed.

Sparks scraped out of the woman’s lighter. A flame flickered for just a second, barely piercing the darkness, but I could make out two hallways stretching from either side of the landing.

“To the right! Hurry!” I ran down the narrow hallway.

“Where is it? Where’s the gap?” Arjun screamed, running behind me.

“Ahead! Just keep running!” A sliver of light a hundred feet away leaked from the doorway to one of the rooms.

A roar made the walls—and my heart—tremble. Burning demonic eyes poured from the dark stairwell and charged after us. I shouldered my rifle and fired off round after round at the monster’s hulking silhouettes as I walked backward toward the bombed hotel room. Brass casings bounced off the wall to my right and arched over my head. The plastic handguard heated up.

Arjun and the woman turned around and opened fire as well. The demons charged at us in a single file, their massive bodies barely able to squeeze through the hallway. Our gunshots left me deaf to the monsters' wails, but their multiple eyes dimmed out as they fell, one after the other. No more demons poured in from the staircase. Only four or five remained on the hallway.

I jerked on the trigger, to no effect. Just as I thought we had a chance of beating the monsters, I'd run out of ammo.

“Shit, run!” I shouted and dashed toward the light. Arjun ran after me. The woman changed the magazine on her rifle and kept firing.

I reached the bombed room in a dozen strides. “Here!” I screamed and frantically twisted the doorknob. Locked.

Oh, Jesus, please…

Arjun crashed into me, knocking me onto the carpet. The woman’s terrified cries rang out behind us. They didn’t last long. A stream of glowing demonic eyes dashed toward us, leaving a trail of light behind like tracer rounds.

“It’s locked!” I screamed, getting off the floor, the demons only a few feet away. Arjun rammed the door with his shoulder.

Wood crunched, and the door swung open. Light flooded into the hallway. I dashed through the room, shielding my burning eyes from the sun’s rays with one hand, holding my rifle with the other. I looked through the slits between my fingers to navigate the piles of bricks and blasted furniture lying on the floor.

Despite the blinding sunlight pouring in from the gap in the outer wall, monstrous hooves still stomped behind me.

I leapt out of the building.

Twigs snapped and whipped my face. A thick branch smacked my ribs. I let go of my rifle, crying out in pain, and flailed, trying to grab onto the tree that had broken my fall. The charred bark slipped from my grip. I fell, knocking my legs and back on the tree’s lower branches. The ground rushed toward me—or rather, I plummeted face-first to the ground. I shielded my face with my arms before slamming onto the burnt grass. Even though my arms cushioned the fall, a wave of pain shot from my nose as I landed. A crunch. I squirmed at the foot of the tree, moaning in agony.

A demon the size of a car landed less than ten feet away from me, shaking the ground with its massive hooves. Pain and fear left me paralyzed. The monster turned its eyes—two on either side of the head—toward me and shrieked, enveloping me in a sulfuric stench.

Black blood gushed from its eyes like tears and streamed down its thick brown snout. The blood caught fire, engulfing the creature’s head in smoky flames. A sorrowful wail resounded from the beast’s open jaws. It swung its leathery tail at me. I pressed myself against the ground. The tree trunk cracked at the impact. Large red blisters swelled in between the black scales on the demon’s back, bursting into flames as they popped. The fire spread all over its body. Seconds later, only a mound of ashes remained on the ground.

“Ar… Arjun? Arjun!” I screamed, crawling around the tree. I looked up at its blackened branches but didn’t find him hanging there.

I knelt and wept, choking on the blood spouting from my broken nose and the gap in my molars.

Arjun hadn't made it. The woman hadn't made it. My squad hadn't made it. No one who followed me into the building had made it. I grasped my necklace, my arm trembling, as I fought the urge to tear it off my neck. Guilt clung to me like mud… and not just for the people butchered inside the hotel.

We’d killed children—I’d killed children—and God had just let it happen. What had they done to deserve being used like that? To die like that? What had any of us done to deserve this? And why the fuck couldn’t I just die along with the others? Why had I gotten away with only a few bruises and a broken nose when I had the most blood on my hands? I let go of my necklace and clawed at the ground, crying and screaming.

A militia squad ran up to me. The rest of our forces on the street had finally reached the building.

“Are you all right?” a young blond guy asked, crouching before me. “What the hell happened in there? Where are the others?”

I shook my head and gazed at the other squads as they ran toward the hotel’s entrance. I pushed the blond guy away, picked up my rifle, and chased after them as fast as my aching body would allow.

“Let’s get this thing opened!” a tall man shouted upon reaching the bullet-riddled steel curtain.

“No, wait!” I screamed, limping along the sidewalk. “There’s a bunch of monsters inside! It was… it was a trap. They wanted us to storm the building in force and then lock us inside with those things.”

The tall man stared at my broken nose. His gaze then moved to my bloodied, piss-stained clothes.

“Are you sure?” He placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Yes, I’m sure, you moron!” I swatted his hand away. “If you open that gate, people are going to die, all right?” I looked at the militia fighters gathered in front of the steel curtain. They stared at me with a mixture of fear and pity. I took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that… it’s just that a lot of people just died in there… really… really bad, okay?”

I reached into my side pocket for the enemy map. The younger militia fighters raised their guns at me. I couldn’t help snickering, which didn’t help put them at ease.

My smile dropped as I extracted the map that had cost so many people their lives. “What’s your name?” I asked the tall guy.

“Edward.”

“Okay, listen to me, Ed,” I said, clutching the map and pointing at the bullet-ridden curtain. “That’s not the only trap the enemy has prepared for us. Unless someone in charge of this mess takes a look at this map, we’re all going to die. I promise you that.”

Edward looked into my eyes. I frowned and struggled not to blink. He turned away, toward the steel curtain. Blood seeped under it… the blood of those torn to shreds by the demons in the lobby.

“All right. I think we can work something out,” Edward said.