Dane looked over his shoulder and moved away from him, but Jeff pulled at him.
“Dane, we have to go! Dane!”
His friend said something, but the buzzing in his ears and the panic in his own voice drowned it out. Dane grabbed his hand, squeezed it one last time, and then ran away, leaving Jeff for dead in the middle of the broken street.
“Don’t leave me! Come back . . . I saved you! I saved you!” But his friend was gone, and there was no one left to hear his screams except the towering, hawklike face of the Apostle, which seemed to look over at him for a moment, its burning red eyes focusing on him long enough for Jeff to know that he wasn’t worth its time to kill. The Apostle floated into the darkening sky, its glowing red accents making it look like the devil itself, and drifted away seemingly without a care, apparently satisfied with its slaughter. Dozens of leeches shot over Jeff’s head as its wings reassembled on its back.
It passed out of sight silently a minute later, leaving another forgettable human massacre behind. Everyone had said the Apostles didn’t bother with humans anymore, except for the vagrants, of course, but here Jeff was, about to die a meaningless death after failing to protect his family and being betrayed by his best friend, after one of them took had taken notice of the earth’s formerly dominant species.
He wanted to rest, to wither away and join the community that had kept him alive all of these years, a community that he had helped to rebuild almost a decade ago. But he couldn’t. His entire life had been a struggle, a fight like all the others in which he was the underdog, but he’d never lost a fight, and he wasn’t going to lose this one without giving all the effort he could muster.
He had always known he would die; everyone died. Most people didn’t even make it to their twenties. If disease or Apostles didn’t kill you, other humans would. The world was a brutal, unforgiving place, but he was going to survive in it for at least a little longer.
Jeff reached out with his remaining arm, found a crack in the weathered street, and pulled himself forward with a scream. Every part of his body begged him to stop, but he found another crack and pulled again. He refused to think about how many pulls it would take or how long it might be until he found someone who could help him. Instead, he screamed again as he dragged his body across the ground.
A sonic boom echoed over what was left of Fifth Springs. It washed over his body as he stared up into the dimly lit sky. A solid white Apostle in human form, only ten times the size, with radiant force-field wings, flew through the air, streaking west across the sky. Trails of burning air followed after it, leaving a beautiful scar across the evening sky.
It didn’t make any sense. The first Apostle could have killed them all from a distance or electrified the air. A second Apostle certainly wasn’t needed to finish off Fifth Springs. Jeff wanted to be upset about the pleasure the two Apostles must have taken in his pain, but he didn’t have room for any more rage. Jeff pulled himself forward again.
It was hard to believe that everything he had known was gone and that everyone he had loved was dead. Despite his agony, the thought kept surfacing to the top of his mind, with images of Chad running into his exploding home and Dane staring down at Jeff’s helpless body. The anger he felt powered him forward, slowly, across the dark town, now only illuminated by the fires that found enough structure to keep burning. His lungs burned from effort and smoke, but he continued.
He dragged himself for what seemed like an eternity. Every inch was torment; every second a reminder of what he had lost. His mind was numb from the never-ending pain by the time the sun appeared over the horizon.
Jeff shrugged off the first sounds of voices that he heard, deciding it was his mind playing a cruel trick on him, but after a minute, he could deny it no longer.
“Help,” he tried to shout, but his throat was dry, and he almost choked on his words. He kept trying as the voices grew louder.
“Hey! It’s that fighter.”
“Look at him. Got chewed up real good.”
Jeff forced himself up on his right arm, overcome with emotion at finding salvation against the odds.
“Help . . .”
“The lout is still kickin’,” said a thick man with horrible teeth and no hair on a burned patch on the left side of his head. The man was standing directly above him, the silver brave patch clearly visible on his left collarbone and his worn particle assault rifle resting loosely in his hands.
“No, he ain’t. Only got one leg,” a younger brave said from a few feet away.
They both laughed like it was the funniest joke they had heard all day. Jeff’s head hurt, and his throat felt like it had burned down with the rest of their community.
“Please . . .”
The soldiers stopped laughing and looked at each other. The older brave stepped away, and they whispered together for a minute.
“Please,” Jeff repeated. Speaking made him cough, and that caused the rest of his body to shudder in pain.
The braves stood straight as an antigravity vehicle floated past them. Seated on top of it were Mayor Gunn, a portly man with a nasty temper, and his family. His wife was good-looking but not so good-looking as to be considered exceptional, and his two children were reading well-kept books. Half a dozen braves jogged beside them in their mismatched uniforms with spotty armor.
“No can do, kid,” the old brave said. “Couldn’t carry you over to Townend. Wouldn’t do it even if I could. Tell me, though, did ya win that fight?”
“Come on—just put him out of his misery, Sean. We’re going to fall behind,” the younger brave said.
“Where . . . were you?” Jeff asked, but speaking was hard. He wanted to scream at them, to call them cowards for not attacking the Apostle like they had signed up for. From what Jeff could see, none of the braves had done a thing during the massacre, and the mayor looked as though he hadn’t missed a minute of sleep.
They had all the weapons. They were the only ones who could slow that thing down, even if for a minute, and they didn’t. Instead, they had let it enjoy itself while they hid. They were sworn to sacrifice their lives to give the people of Fifth Springs a chance if a warlord, leech, or Apostle attacked, but it was clear they had shirked their duty while the innocent died.
“Don’t see how that matters to ya at this point,” Sean said. He pulled a long metal knife from his side.
“Coward,” Jeff managed to say.
Sean froze and stared down at Jeff with anger in his eyes. He slowly slid the knife back into its holder.
“You be the courageous one,” Sean said. He pulled a small knife from his boot and placed it in Jeff’s only hand. Jeff tried to spit at the man, but he didn’t have the liquids to pull it off. Jeff longed for his old body; he could have taught the man a lesson.
“Go on, then,” Sean said. He pulled Jeff’s arm up so that the knife was pressed against Jeff’s throat.
Jeff wanted to do it, to spite the man. The knife trembled in his weak hand, brushing against his blood- and dirt-covered skin. But he couldn’t bring himself to force the blade into his own throat. Some part of him still held on to his thread of life. As bitter as his life had been and no matter how bleak the future seemed, he had never thrown in the towel on a fight.
“Sean, we gotta get going,” the other man called. He was already walking away, apparently not interested enough in the situation to keep watching.
“That’s what I thought,” Sean said as he let go of Jeff’s arm and walked after his fellow brave.
3 A NEW PROJECT
“IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I’ve seen anything like this,” Carlee said as she finished looking over another victim. The damage was catastrophic, and it reminded her of how things used to be when the Apostles still warred with one another during the Ascension.