The Void (13 page)

This was the mindset as they prayed and sprayed, indiscriminately, shooting into the herds of mindless rabbles. They saw no difference between the rabbles and rebels; they were one in the same. The sinkhole yawned, opening up more. A hiss fluttered out, and then, a sigh. Lightning crackled and thunder rolled across the darkening clouds; it started to rain.

During the bloodshed, as the soldiers had no choice but to shoot, praying it hit somewhere amongst the hordes of college kids and high school kids, Morgan walked up to the hole and dropped two more jars down the abyss. Then he returned to his screaming mother. Embry yelled for Morgan and Meredith to leave with him, after stealing an army truck. They left for the school.

IV

The parents watched their children being slaughtered on the nightly news. The rain came from the eastern front and pummeled the playgrounds of the elementary hillside. A flash of blinding white thundered overhead, pouring the rain in violent cloudbursts.

“They’re killing our children,” one father yelled. The television was hooked in the center of the auditorium as Valerie Jun tried to keep the assembly under control. The itch on her hands and shin became worse.

“That’s not fucking right,” another yelled. “They did nothing wrong!”

“Please keep calm. Going out there is going to make things worse,” Valerie said over the ruckus. “Please don’t do anything that might jeopardize the situation. It’s just a demonstration. Everything will be under control.”

“You call that a demonstration? I’m getting text messages and video clips of a bloodbath,” an agitated mother bellowed. “The news isn’t even showing the whole picture. My son is saying he just went there to party and now the cops are shooting at them. The cops are shooting at them!”

“Fucking pathetic groups of teabaggers!” Valerie shouted, eyeballs popping outward. “I said calm the fuck down!
CALM DOWN YOU SHITHEADS!”

A voracious silence gobbled down the interior halls of the gymnasium which had been converted to an auditorium. The original lecture theater, in the opposite wing, was shut down due to renovations. The wind wailed against the high rise windows. Branches of elm trees planted alongside the outside of the gym wall moaned and shrieked.

Nobody spoke. None of the parent figures could utter a word; they’d never seen or heard the vice-principal curse in such a manner.

“You are a pathetic excuse for a school board member, you know that?” a parent hollered from the back.

“This is not a civil rights movement!” a black member of the administrator rang out. “You need to understand that. So sit your ass down, all of you.”

A white board member spoke up. “We can’t do anything about this,” he said, pointing at the TV monitor then out the doors. “They wouldn’t even allow us to anyway. We’re under martial law, people, don’t you get it?”

“They can shoot us, at will, if they wanted to,” Valerie said.

“By whose orders?”

“Your own government.”

All of them turned to the tank. On the tube, they all saw the heavy machinery of the US tank rolling in on screen.

“We’re all leaving now. They’re kids. They don’t deserve to die at the hands of a monster.” a burgeoning hero said.

A slow rebellion began to form from the inside. Parents would defend the younger generation at the hands of another younger generation inside the military.

Vanity plagued this generation. It reached the hearts and minds of the little ones. As time progressed, the younger generation became worse and worse, and Tina wouldn’t have it any other way. It helped her mission and accomplished her goals. Riding the gravy train, allowed her to manipulate the goofballs screwing up their lives thinking the world owed them a favor. The more highly they thought of themselves, the shallower the pool of insight was which made them perfect to become possessed.

Kids these days,
she thought, as she sidled her way into the army tank. They did her bidding without them knowing. They wanted the brand name without any of the hard work.

Tina licked her lips, gliding her forked tongue over her glossy yellow fangs. Her fragile twelve-year-old hands picked up a soldier inside the hatch and snapped his neck. His companion stood up, hands to his holster, panicking, pulling the butt of his gun, but it was already too late. Up in the air, her eight legs, protruding from her sides, punctured his skin and worked themselves in frenzy.

Her sharp clawed dug into his organs as he screamed. His eyes rolled up to show white. Blood pumped out of his mouth, and then, he was ripped in half, torso disconnecting with his abdomen, splashing organs and bodily fluids like a broken hose. She tossed him against the rear of the tank. Spasms rolled through her body as she toggled the switch on, turning the eyepiece of the turret. It rotated a hundred eighty degrees, as she looked in the scope, her fingers fluttered over the red button. She pressed it. It sounded like a bomb had exploded, except the shell had landed outside and blew apart the mobile command unit stationed a short distance away.

She giggled a high pearly laugh. It was a freak-house; she loved turning the neighborhood into a circus. She watched teenagers killing adults, adults killing teens, men killing men, all a ghastly shadow stretching and waning, huffing and screaming, underneath a moonlit backdrop. She started the heavy machinery.

The tank clinked and clanked, its wheels groaning to life as it moved across the pavement with a lumbering momentum. She shot another blast of heavy artillery shell, blowing the vehicles obstructing her path. National Guard splattered in a wall of blood.

She drove it without any hands, her arthropod legs turning the dials and controls, making sure the tank moved forward. It rolled over several teens and an army officer who couldn’t get out of the way in time. The guard was trying to pull and innocent bystander off the street, and then, Tina was on top of them, squishing them like a roll of dough. She heard the bones crunch underneath as the bodies sprayed gory guts.

Tina chortled with delight as she maneuvered the tank in the direction of the tunnel. The tunnel led out to the main highway where it twisted toward the refuge center, several miles down the block. She ripped through the wall of concrete, snapping street lights like toothpicks, and barreled through the ten ton brick walls. She exploded on the other side as she crashed over cars after cars with the occupants still inside. She left bloodied tread marks of human entrails. At the end of the tunnel, she plowed through a truck carrying butter, and the entire yellow grease lubricated the outer hull of the giant machinery. It hummed and growled, busting through another wall, as it barreled down the street towards the Hillside Elementary school.

II

Embry, Meredith, and Morgan piled out of the truck with their belongings. They had arrived at the checkpoint. Military men circled the vehicle like hawks. At four am in the morning, a large center of guards held their guns slung over their shoulders. Red Cross worked on the disabled and the injured. Tents flapped. Rain spiraled down. Sleek overcoats of the guards dripped with wet rivulets.

“Where you guys headed?” one of the officer asked.

“We were told to come here. Do you have a safe place for us to rest?” Embry asked.

“Is this your truck?”

“No, but it’s the only transportation we had,” Meredith said, supporting her neighbor. “It’s a death camp over there. Riots.”

“We heard,” said the enforcer. “Come in.”

They did a routine check, fumigating the tires and inside dashboard. One of the personnel hopped in the front seat and put the gear in drive. Another security officer waved the drive through the gates. Embry held Morgan’s hand as he walked in. Meredith followed close behind, arms crossed. Rain drove cross hatchings across their sullen faces. They didn’t know what horrors would await them in the library adjacent to the school.

III

So you’re saying that the girl was calling for Isis?”

“Yes,” Embry said, leaning against a shelf. “Peering down a hole and calling for somebody in there. That’s when I saw a row of cars just drop inside.”

Meredith opened up a textbook and rifled through the pages.

“Did you find anything on her?”

“It says here Isis is an Egyptian god who was made from the god of chaos, Nun, and then Ra-Atum who swallowed his seed and spit out Shu and Tefnut who then mated and gave birth to Geb and Nut who then gave birth to Isis,” Meredith said. Morgan slipped quietly around an aisle and browsed through stacks of books. “That’s a lot of gods.”

“Wait, did you say he ate his own seed?”

“That’s what it says here,” she observed. “Why are there so many Gods?”

“That was how it was done in the old days,” Embry said, coughing.

“That thing back there we saw, what was it?” she asked.

“My wife,” Embry said, his voice cracking. Meredith touched his shoulder.

“No, I mean the half spider freak of a thing,” she paused. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Nothing makes sense.”

“I hear you. Whatever this is, that hole is at the center of it.”

“You think it’s some kind of curse?” he said, taking a seat beside her. “Armageddon maybe?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. She put her head down on the cool library table. “I just want this to end.”

“Your son, Morgan,” Embry said, rubbing his head. “He claims he know who the little girl is. She calls herself Tina, but in another moment, he claims she’s Neith, a goddess of war—”

“Are we safe here? What does she want?”

“Apparently, your son.”

“But my son has nothing to do with this,” Meredith said and checked on Morgan. She got up and tracked him down to a reclining chair where he was fast asleep, snoring on his side. She returned to Embry.

“What’s going on?” Meredith trembled, wiping away her tears. “I don’t know what’s happening…”

“You’re not the only one, calm down. Remember what Morgan said, that it feeds on fear.”

“He’s just a child. Why are you so intent on believing him?”

“Because he hasn’t been wrong yet.” Embry replied.

Meredith sighed and glanced at the chair where her son slept.

“If that sick little girl’s name is Neith—or whatever the hell it is—then why does she keep mentioning Isis,” she asked, standing in front of Embry and stretching, realizing just how exhausted she was.

“I’m lost as you are. We just have to play it by ear,” Embry answered, standing and gently embracing her. She hugged him back.

“It’s gonna be all right. We’re safe here.”

Meredith shuddered underneath. “Thank you, Brian. I’m so glad you’re here for me. I don’t know what I’d have done.” She trailed off, lowering her eyes.

He touched her chin, lifting her face towards his. Something happened then, and they fell on each other, grief, need and desire combining into an intense need to feel physical warmth and love.”

They moved in whispery stealthy claps, the wetness overcrowding everything else out as they fulfilled their needs with each other.

Morgan slept silently down the hall and dreamt.

IV

Embry awoke when the doors to the library banged open. One officer in black gear came in and motioned for Meredith. “You have the right to remain silent,” the guard rasped harshly. He had been feeling ill for the past few hours, and his skin itched. “Anything you say can be used against you in the court of law. Do you understand your rights?”

“Wait, what’s going on,” Meredith said. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re being detained for questioning regarding a murder, please come with me.”

Embry protested, but the officer pulled out his gun. “Stay there,” he growled.

“Where are we going?” Meredith said. She was being led down the corridor of the school’s lobby. She had been separated from Embry and Morgan. The keys jangled in the belt loops of the guard’s heavy slack. “Where are you taking me?”

He moved her down the hallway into an empty room. It was dark inside. Meredith heard the door close behind them.

“What’s going on?” Meredith asked, the fear rising in her voice. The guard set the gun down on the principal’s desk. He began to unbuckle the straps of his belt.

“If you say a word, I’ll fucking kill you,” the guard whispered gruffly. He pulled the buck knife from his second holster and slid the tip across her throat. He slammed her down on the desk. Meredith screamed, already knowing where this was all headed. The scent of the attacker’s sweat was cloying and unctuous. He smelled of all things wrong with men.

“Please. You don’t have to do this.”

“Shut up—just shut up. And stay still,” he growled, ripping her shirt off. Next, the bra tore open and fell to the floor. She pulled away from him, facing him, as she slapped his brawny, tanned hands away, clawing his face. She shrieked, struggling harder.

“I have a child. I have a fucking child!” she hollered, working like a madwoman. She saw the face of Embry’s wife in his face. It rippled underneath. Her pants were removed.

“I’m going to teach you what happens to little schoolgirls who spit on their master’s face.”

“You’re going to pay for this, you hear me?” Sweat dripped from Meredith’s tangled hair. “Don’t think you can get away with this, you sick fuck.” She spat in his face, again. The first time was for her son. This second was for her dead husband. She snorted a wad of mucous back and plastered the guard’s face.

He turned his head away. It splattered on the ridge of his brow and ear and then he clocked her in the face. Meredith’s head snapped back as she banged her hip on the desk. Overhead, she had the sudden image of dangling feet crowding in her periphery. Somebody was dangling from the ceiling fan. Then, it was gone. The air squeezed shut as her assailant’s hand wrapped around her neck. She pulled feebly at the hands. Her face turned a darker shade of purple, veins popping out.

“Help,” she wheezed, gasping. She struck the arms clamping her down, over and over. A clanking noise emanated in the background. The rain whipsawed back and forth, thrumming on the window that overlooked the parking structure outside. She heard the strange noise getting louder, and then the wall to her left exploded in a shower of plaster and concrete as the tank, driven by Tina, crashed into the principal’s office.

V

It took out the guard no problem. Watching a rapist get sucked under the mighty wheels of a lumbering beast was poetic, sweet justice. Meredith rolled to her side, in the nick of time. The desk split in two, coughed up in a splinter of wood, spraying everywhere, as the tank rolled back out.

She saw the turret rotate around and aim out the hole in the wall. It detonated, rocketing a blast so powerful that the shockwave blew her off her feet.

VI

The shell landed just short of the gymnasium. A fiery explosion surfaced on the map. A Google search showed a hole that was the circumference of a silo. A second live round fell from the sky, blowing apart a section of the stadium that was connected nearby.

The armed men aimed and fired into the tank. Volleys of ammunition streamed toward the outer hall, pinging and zinging, causing sparks to take wing. The tank rolled effortlessly through the structure, blowing down wall after wall of the school’s interior, cutting a swathe of destruction.

It barged toward the meeting.

VII

Inside the gymnasium, the soldiers processing Embry and Morgan were overtaken by the coup raised by the parents. A few citizens were wounded. A man screamed for medic as blood poured out of the gaping hole in his shoulder. The other citizens, about twenty in all, tied the guards down and closed the door preventing other military men from shouldering in.

The guards protecting the vicinity were told to raise their hands. They complied. Their guns confiscated, the group of Maple street house owners strapped them down to the folding chairs.

“You’re either with us or against us,” one parent said, pointing a finger at their captives.

“I’m with you all the way,” Embry said, raising his palms out flat. “Aren’t we, Morgan?”

“Yes, we are,” Morgan looked toward the end of the atrium. “It’s here.”

They heard the whistle seconds before the deafening explosion that reverberated throughout the hall. Rocks rained down, pitter-pattering on the hardwood surface of the gym.

Another boom. This time closer, the wall in the east side exploded inward, sending debris crashing into the gym. The chairs flew and hunks of floor board disintegrated into cascading shards of particle. A couple of parents soared, getting knocked off their feet, and slammed across the room, sliding on the floor. Panic spread throughout the building. Everyone screamed, especially the guards, begging the coup to release them from their bindings.