Overrun Read online

  Kirken felt the world shut down around him like someone had switched off a light. He continued to hear the man speaking from the holovid in front of him, but his mind did not register the words.

  "Every loss we sustain puts us that much more at risk of losing this godforsaken war. That is the situation this country is in. Right now. Every explosive you set will take us that much closer back the other way.

  “If firebombing runs are our only resort, they will also be launched from high altitude to ensure at least some of them get in. Meaning the ignited fuel and explosives we dump will blanket the area. Coming from that far up, the destructive force will be less severe. Many won’t be killed outright. Thousands will be horribly burned. And they will wish it happened a different way. And you and your daughter will still be inside.”

  "And my son," Kirken heard himself say.

  "And your son," Tuttle repeated back to him from the holovid. "You will alleviate much by doing this. You have to understand that. It really will be so much worse if you don’t at least make the attempt.”

  Kirken returned from his thoughts and brought his full attention back to the holovid. He made no effort to conceal his glare from the face in front of him. He pondered for a moment just switching off the device.

  "Yeah," was all he said and dropped his head. His arm ached, his eye bled and he felt like he was going to throw up.

  "We’ll drop the necessary maps, equipment and target locations for what we want you to do. Specific location coordinates and instructions for the drop-off will follow this face-to-face transmission.

  "We will prepare the firebomb unit along with the drop team,” Tuttle’s tone relaxed slightly. “If you are unable or unwilling to complete what we ask, we’ll launch the full firebomb assault tomorrow at this same time.

  “Do you understand, Commander?”

  Kirken did not reply.

  “Commander,” Tuttle’s voice was quiet.

  "Are you really expecting to come in and get us…?"

  Tuttle didn’t answer right away.

  "We don’t see it as likely,” Tuttle finally answered after a long pause. “Troop concentration is extremely high in your quadrant. We need you to do everything you can to help us get in there.”

  "Hymph…," Kirken mumbled quietly.

  “But, if you do survive and we take the town, I swear to Christ that I'll fly that chopper in myself to get you and your family out."

  Kirken looked away from the holovid towards the blank wall behind it.

  "You've run out of opportunities to make a choice, Commander. Every dome has been sealed and security shielded by cloak to hide their locations. You gave up the right to be protected within them when you didn't report back for the recall."

  Kirken brought his eyes back to the screen.

  "The shields will not be turned off to let anyone inside. No one will go in or out until this war is over. The people you are with are already dead. By them. By you. By us. It’s been put into motion. There is nothing that can be done to change that.

  “I’m offering a thread of a chance to get you and your children out. If you refuse, you won't even have that. By attempting what we ask, you will at least have an opportunity to fight to the end against something that may or may not already have been decided by fate. You will know that you did everything you possibly could to save them. No matter what happens, nothing can ever be done to change that.”

  Kirken felt the same horrible choking feeling rising up and clogging his throat.

  "I'll meet the drop," he whispered and switched off the holovid.

  He slid himself further into the corner and continued to stare at the wall. Mel came back from where she was speaking in whispers with the children and rested her hands on his shoulders. He sat there for a long while with her at his back trying to let everything sink in. He tried to hide the sickly white he felt his face had become.

  Mel gently stroked her fingers through the blood crusted in his hair. While she did, Kirken pulled out the last few of his out-of-dome medication packets and threw them listlessly in front of him. Radiation poisoning was the least of his worries now.

  He slowly reopened the holovid to receive Tuttle's transmission of instructions and target orders. While the numbers, maps and tactical details flew across the screen in front of him, he prayed God would forgive him for what he was about to do.

  Kirken leaned back and tried to lose himself in the comfort of his daughter's touch.

  They would leave. Very soon. Mel would stay behind. It would be safer for her to remain underground with the others and wait for them to come back and get her. Despite the protests she would obviously make.

  When night came, he would take Brandon and meet the supply drop. From there they would head to the first assigned target.

  Kirken stayed there against the wall for another few minutes listening to the air quietly go in and out of his lungs. Finally, he picked himself up and walked slowly over to Brandon.

  Mel dropped her arms from his shoulders when he stood.

  Kirken relayed Tuttle’s instructions to his son. They readied themselves to leave as soon as darkness fell.

  Mel stayed sitting on the ground and quietly watched. A tear made its way slowly down her cheek.

  Chapter 13

  "How long have you known about all this?" Brandon panted breathlessly trying to match Kirken's quick pace.

  They moved at an almost dead sprint through the invaded town.

  Soldiers patrolled the roadways in trucks and jeeps. Troop stations and observation towers were at the corner of every block. Fallen bodies rotted where they were gunned down on the sidewalks and in the center of the street.

  "I didn’t know,” Kirken said stopping to catch his breath and waiting for Brandon to catch up. “I never knew. Not until now. I swear that to you.”

  They stepped into an alley away from the dim streetlights.

  "You've been military for years…," Brandon accused. His eyes and expression reflected his disbelief. “You’ve been a part of them all that time. How could you not?”

  At that moment a strong odor from the alley reached them causing them both to gag. They looked down around to see a pair of bloated corpses wedged grotesquely against the side of the building they stood beside.

  "Brandon, I swear…,” Kirken said and moved back away. “…I've never known about anything like this. I honestly still can’t believe it myself."

  He peered cautiously around the side of the building looking for signs of the soldiers they had just left on the street. Brandon took a step closer to the building and eyed up Kirken from the back of his head.

  "C'mon," Kirken said. "Let's get moving."

  He stepped around the corner. And came back again when Brandon didn't follow him.

  "Brandon," Kirken whispered.

  Brandon remained in the alley looking down at the bodies.

  Both were women. Neither could have been more than twenty years old. Their eyes stared wide. Their mouths were fixed open in still bloody screams.

  "Brandon," Kirken said pulling again at his arm. "We've got to go. Right now."

  Brandon turned to him then. His eyes flashed through the dimness lit briefly by the nearby streetlight.

  It was then Kirken saw his rage. Desperate rage. And the same hopeless anger he felt himself.

  Also in that instant, much to his horror, he saw something more.

  There was also fear. Brandon's face was ghostly white. His expression was set like rigid stone. Completely empty of emotion or compassion, Kirken had never seen anything like this from him before.

  While Kirken watched, the rage became one with the fright. The evil Kirken feared he always held in his own heart he now saw in his son's face. It was in the wildness in his eyes. And the set in his jaw.

  "Brandon, let's go," Kirken said pulling him again.

  Brandon turned from the rotting bodies and silently followed Kirken back into the street. Kirken turned and started to run. Brandon go
t in pace behind him and did his best to keep up.

  About an hour later they were almost halfway across town. They stopped to rest at the side of the street when two J.G.U. soldiers walked from the shadows of the dark storefronts.

  The soldiers stepped through the many rotting bodies strewn about the center of the street. They prodded them roughly with the tips of their assault rifles and the toes of their boots looking for signs of life.

  Kirken grabbed Brandon by the arm and pulled him away from the beams of a single streetlight.

  The soldiers moved slowly about the dead.

  Standing close to Brandon, Kirken sensed his son’s breathing grow heavier at the sight. He could feel his anger seeping through his clothes.

  A dog barked from the shadows breaking the eerie silence. With fangs barred and a snarl rising from its throat, it lunged at the closest soldier and buried its teeth into the center of his knee.

  The other soldier quickly raised his weapon and fired. The dog dropped dead with the rest of the bodies along the ground.

  Even across a distance and in the dark, Kirken caught a glimpse of the fear they all felt behind the soldier’s startled eyes. Satisfied the dog was no longer a threat, the two soldiers continued to search the rest of the lifeless forms.

  Kirken turned around to see a line of trucks moving up the roadway towards where they stood.

  It was no longer possible to go back from the direction they had come. Buildings and dead end alleys surrounded them on every side. The only way out was past the two soldiers ahead.

  Kirken pulled Brandon along next to him and jogged closer to where the soldiers carefully stepped.

  When they were less than twenty feet away, Kirken put his hands against Brandon’s chest and pushed him back behind the large concealing frame of the streetlight. Kirken then moved further up the street.

  The soldiers continued to walk towards them still looking down across the ground.

  Kirken glanced back once more to where Brandon stood behind the light and then darted out behind the front of a sun scorched pickup truck.

  He held his breath and waited for them to slowly come.

  The soldiers continued to walk closer to the truck when the sound of jet engines drew their attention overhead.

  Kirken reached around the front of the truck and broke a headlight with his fist. The screaming engines above completely drowned out the sound.

  Pulling the largest piece of broken glass from its frame, he slowly walked out from behind the truck towards their turned backs. He raised his hand and was about to rip the glass across the closest one’s throat when the second soldier suddenly turned around.

  With only a bored expression on his face, the soldier raised his weapon towards Kirken's chest.

  Kirken kept his arm in the air and waited for the shot to come when Brandon appeared silently behind them in the dark.

  He raised a tire iron that he had snatched from the rear of the pickup truck Kirken had hidden behind and smashed it violently against the backs of their knees. One of the soldiers fired his weapon in the air in pain and surprise. Kirken dropped quickly to the ground.

  Kirken leapt back up and sprinted the short distance to the screaming soldiers. He hurled his body through the air hitting both in the chest and sending them crashing backwards into the dirt.

  A weapon fell loose from one of their hands and skittered across the pavement out of reach. Kirken rolled quickly away from their writhing bodies. When he was clear, Brandon clubbed the closest one viciously across the back of his neck.

  The J.G.U. soldier rolled on his side along the sandy ground and was still.

  His eyes blank and his breath coming in heated gasps, Brandon bent down to look at the man he had just killed. He still held the tire iron tightly in his hand.

  "Brandon! Goddamn it! Brandon!” Kirken’s cries brought his attention back around. “Augggghhh! Brandon!"

  The second soldier had quickly stood again. With two crushing blows to his chest and head, he knocked Kirken from his feet. He jumped across his chest and wedged an elbow across his neck. Kirken struggled fiercely beneath his weight.

  "Brandon! Goddamn it!"

  Even in the dark, Kirken’s face was a brilliant red. He thrashed violently side to side like an animal caught in a trap trying fiercely to pry the soldier’s gloved fingers from the base of his throat.

  Finally looking away from the first soldier’s body, Brandon sprinted over. Raising the tire iron high over his head, he brought it down hard across the back of the second soldier’s head. The soldier’s body tensed briefly like a statue and then fell limply across Kirken’s chest.

  Kirken blinked away the blood that had sprayed across his face and gasped to breathe. He pushed at the soldier’s body trying to roll it off next to him when Brandon brought the tire iron down again. A sickening crunch of destroyed bone followed the second blow.

  "Brandon!" Kirken screamed trying to get up from beneath the body and back on his feet. "Brandon, don't! Stop!"

  With a blank look in his eye, Brandon brought the tire iron down again. Thick drops of blood splashed across his own face.

  "Goddamn it! Brandon no!!"

  Before he could swing another time, Kirken jumped through the air and grabbed him from behind his back. Holding him around his waist, he struggled to pin both his shaking arms to his side.

  "Brandon, you have got to stop!!"

  Brandon continued to stare at the bloody soldier on the ground. His expression remained fearless and enraged. As if he wasn’t even aware he was being held, he tried to bring his arm up again.

  “Brandon!”

  Kirken threw all his weight into the small of Brandon’s back slamming them both hard into the side of the pickup truck. With a loud breaking of glass, their shoulders smashed through the passenger window.

  Despite a large piece of glass that wedged in his skin when their arms went through, Kirken managed to keep his grip. Brandon continued to clutch the tire iron tightly in his fist. For several long minutes, neither made a sound.

  Kirken released his breath loudly and lowered his head against the back of Brandon’s neck. Brandon didn’t move and just stared at the dead soldier at the edge of their feet.

  They stayed there in the dark at the side of the truck with their arms extended through the pieces of shattered glass. Kirken held his son tightly waiting for his muscles to relax. They both listened to the echoes of the battle fading up the street.

  Finally Brandon moved his head and gazed over the top of the truck to the sidewalk.

  "Brandon…," Kirken whispered in his ear trying to choke back his sobs. "Brandon, please stop. You have to stop."

  Brandon turned around slowly in Kirken's arms.

  Blood covered his face, and his eyes stared open brightly in the dark.

  Kirken let his arms drop and cautiously stepped back. The back of his shoes bumped against the body lying on the ground.

  Brandon stood next to the truck lost in his own furious thoughts. He lowered his arms slowly and rested the tire iron loosely at his side. A drop of blood followed by another slid along its length and dripped slowly from its tip.

  Kirken reached out and took it from his hand. Brandon barely moved and only slightly relaxed his grip. Silently, Kirken walked to the next car up the street and slid it underneath in the dirt.

  "We have to go," Kirken whispered again. "It's almost time for the drop."

  For another few seconds, Brandon did not move. His eyes followed Kirken as he walked away. When he was about a block ahead and far enough away where he couldn't see, he walked to the car and crouched to his knees.

  He reached below its rusty decayed tailpipe and pulled the tire iron from underneath. Looking back at the two dead soldiers, he slowly hooked it to his belt. He then broke into a run towards where Kirken waited for him almost two blocks ahead. They exchanged wordless stares when he jogged up.

  Kirken glanced briefly at the tire iron hanging from his waist. The refle
ction from a streetlight flashed across its surface off into the night.

  They sprinted another six blocks through a sickening labyrinth of sand, blood and bodies until they finally reached the outskirts of the town.

  When they finally stopped, Kirken rested his back against the petrified cinders of a sun-scorched tree jutting from the ground. Brandon dropped next to him and rolled over onto his back.

  Kirken glanced again at the tire iron resting near Brandon's knee. He looked only briefly before wordlessly turning his gaze away. They waited there for more than three hours. Neither of them spoke during that time.

  Kirken turned his eyes toward the blackened heavens looking for signs of the airdrop and trying to push from his mind everything that had just occurred.

  Brandon rolled over on his stomach across the sandy ground and stared guardedly towards the street leading into Beuford.

  "We never should have left her,” Brandon finally said flatly with no emotion in his voice. “We should have brought her with us. We have no idea what’s going to happen.”

  Brandon’s eyes didn’t leave the street. Kirken could hear his breath coming slow, hard and controlled into the dark night. He dropped his eyes to him for a second and then skyward again.

  At that moment a black parachute floated into view. The wind caught it briefly and carried it further away from the town.

  Brandon stood quickly, and they both chased after it across the burning sand. It landed with a muffled crash in a small cluster of decayed trees about a quarter mile away.

  "Do you see any more?" Brandon asked pulling the chute from the jutting branches of a disintegrating tree.

  "One,” Kirken said rummaging through the fluttering chute Brandon worked to flatten across the ground. “I only saw one.”

  Its windswept material singed his fingers and hands. In large jagged patches, it burned straight through where it touched his clothes.