American Blackout (Book 2): Slaves Beneath The Stars Page 12

“But Sister Marie, maybe a person doesn’t know if it’s bad.”

  “All of us know if it’s a right or wrong decision.” Sister and Cricket both glanced out the window, seeing Ann approach, thankfully without the girls.

  “Kitchen’s getting crowded,” Ann said, walking in. “Fritz is helping the girls.”

  “Cal, you know right from wrong,” his dad said, aiming a “stick around for the discussion” look at his wife.

  “I know. But how can adults forget?”

  Sister said, “They don’t forget, Caleb.”

  Caleb moved toward the bowl of apples and examined them before snatching one near the bottom, which made the two on top roll off. Ethan rescued them before they rolled off the table.

  Caleb folded his arms. “Doctor Claubauf says all we need is science.”

  Cricket felt a chill hearing the name, a man who had come to her rescue. She had no idea he had been giving classes in his secular fundamentalist view of the world, and was glad he had been banished from their community.

  Sister Marie frowned, and Cricket thought Claubauf should have added, “All you need is love,” the Beatles’ cheap answer to a world of thorns and madmen. In her short twenty-two years, Cricket had learned from Sister Marie that the love that Christ talked of was a hard-won love brought about by a profound shift in people’s fallen natures, unlike the Fab Four’s appeal to the mindless tribalism of teenagers. “All You Need Is Love” was a haughty declaration about easy access to a great virtue, Sister had once summed up for Cricket.

  In late summer, Cricket had dealt with the Brazilian, who also had wanted Christianity’s end. Cricket knew with certainty that her religion, even when flourishing, would always come under attack in the world, with or without electricity.

  The pint-size lecturer continued. “Doctor Claubauf said that from our study of the natural world all problems can be solved. I want to help society someday by becoming an engineer. I have to study and learn. God doesn’t know anything about engineering.”

  Sister Marie said, “God is the master engineer, Caleb. God calls to us to learn about the natural world, to love the world, and he tells us to love one another. That’s how we heal this broken world. And God is there to completely forgive the worst of our sins. He reminds us to go and sin no more, to lead a good life. You see, it’s the devil who makes us turn our backs on God’s message.”

  The devil and Doctor Claw, Cricket almost said aloud.

  “Now, Sister Marie,” Ann Davies spoke up just as Hank Holaday walked into the already packed kitchen. “I appreciate the religious training you’ve given the boys, but I think bringing up scary things like the devil is unnecessary.”

  “He is scary,” Sister Marie said. “He looks to hurt us terribly, make us lose sight of God. A little bit at a time until God no longer exists.”

  “I’m afraid those Sunday Bible studies are going to have to come to an end.” Ann ignored her husband’s look of disbelief.

  Caleb finally bit into the apple, crunching loudly.

  “Mrs. Davies,” Sister Marie addressed the boys’ mother, and Lawrence interrupted her.

  “Boys, go and check on the girls. They may need help.”

  Both kids ran out the door, glad to be done with the adult discussion.

  Sister Marie said, “I don’t spend my time with your boys scaring them with images of devils in red suits and pitchforks. The devil is a force with which we must reckon. Do you believe in God?”

  Ann zipped up her white hooded sweatshirt and shoved her hands in the pockets. “Of course I do, Sister. And I know there’s evil in the world, evil produced by people. You said it yourself. We make choices. And some people make evil, horrible choices and act on those choices.”

  In a deep meditative state, Ajax heard the sound of a great wind in the distance, building, mustering its strength for an attack, for in this otherworld everything was predatory, willful, even the wind, a fact that Ajax relished. He also heard the eternal battle of words being waged. When he left his body it was for the otherworld, where he could act, even strike an enemy, and perhaps someday kill. But right now, the mundane act of people talking was the greatest of arts in this fluid realm, a war of ideas. He wished he could enter the conversation. Of course, his arrival would make a big splash, heart-stopping, he mused.

  Lawrence announced, “I want you to continue our boys’ Bible studies as long as we’re here. Ann, Sister Marie has no obsession with this topic. I’ve seen things the last few months that tell me there’s a devil whispering in some people’s ears. It’s a force that buries us so we no longer have contact with God. Then we’re capable of anything.”

  “I guess I’m outnumbered,” Ann said, shaking her head, resigned under the weight of a world fallen apart, death everywhere, and nearly losing her entire family. “The girls want to come into the church someday, but that’s their decision. My boys are not interested in becoming Catholic.”

  Sister Marie said, “It’s up to you and your husband to decide what’s best for your boys. I think what I have to offer is valuable, especially in light of so much evil and all the grotesque things that these children have witnessed. Lee Ann and Lily see the beauty in our faith. It’s the best counterweight to all this chaos. But ultimately, I’ll respect your wishes.”

  “I’m with you, Sister,” Cricket said.

  “Give us some time to figure things out,” Lawrence said.

  Hank Holaday had listened and now came around the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He had a light dressing underneath his green cotton shirt. Sister thought it was good for him to get some exercise, though adding that he should stay clear of rodeos and skydiving for a few more weeks. He took a sip and raised his hand, eager to enter the conversation.

  “Ann, I don’t know how we can even think of surviving without God.”

  “Hank, it’s not that.”

  “For your faith to be rooted in God, we have to understand the nature of evil. People who are truly evil have had help.” He lowered himself into the kitchen chair facing the boys’ mother.

  Cricket thought of every evil moment she had witnessed, and instantly all that cruelty coalesced into the image of Ajax, a large face, smiling and handsome.

  She hadn’t thought of his name and his presence in days. But now the name inspired visions of evil. She had talked to Sister and found out that the name Ajax was that of a Greek hero, who carried Achilles off the battlefield. However, the Ajax of the twenty-first century was leering over her shoulder at those tragic events in her life. The death of Uncle Tommy was at the top of the list. Perhaps because it was random and cold-blooded.

  “Sister Marie, maybe you could express more of religion’s positive role.” Ann, drained by the conversation, looked to wrap things up, wanting a spoonful of that positive cosmic force for her son. “Things like God’s goodness. His mercy. His love.”

  “There’s wisdom in your words,” Sister said graciously to Ann. “They’re young boys and girls, and I want them enjoying their lives as much and as often as possible. I won’t shy away from any of their questions, but always circle back to a loving and merciful God bestowing his grace upon our world.”

  Hank said, “And the boys should know that questioning goes on right to the end of our lives on matters of our faith. They’re doing a very Christian thing when they ask questions.”

  Cricket and Fritz surveyed the plane at sunset. The mechanics had found no damage and had fueled the aircraft from a small fuel truck delivered a few weeks earlier from Youngstown. Cricket climbed up the wing, not to sit in the cockpit but to gain a few feet of altitude, see a little more of the day’s remaining light.

  A scratchy call came from the radio left on the truck’s front seat. Fritz took it, made a few notes, glanced at Cricket, and then again started scribbling.

  He said, “A hundred soldiers are in place, spread out through Betty and Marty’s neighborhood. Half of them meet tomorrow at the Baptist church for the burial service. They’ll be arme
d.”

  “When will those poor people actually be buried?”

  “It’s done. Each one was prepared and given a quiet service with no more than twenty people in attendance.”

  “The church’s cemetery?” Cricket asked.

  “Negative,” Fritz said. “They were buried in an old cemetery on some farmer’s property. A very sad ordeal, but successful.”

  “Tomorrow we kill the killers.”

  30

  Vampire Beast

  Cricket was at the controls skimming the belly of a dark cloud deck when Fritz asked her to climb, adding, “Don’t worry, there’s not another aircraft within one hundred miles of our position.”

  She punched through fast, ignoring the gut-weakening fear of colliding with another plane. You never entered the clouds without an ATC clearance and a filed instrument flight plan. However, commercial traffic was nonexistent, and the military conducted a very limited number of flights in old jet fighters and prop-driven planes, normally staying close to base or making short hops to a nearby city or other military installation with available ground crews and usable runways. Fritz stationed off base with the Mustang was the exception.

  Brilliant sunlight above the clouds, Cricket squinted and quickly corrected her heading. She had been in a shallow bank to the left thinking she was straight and level. A cloud deck wasn’t a reliable cue, like the horizon, for keeping the wings level and the aircraft on heading.

  Fritz communicated directly with guardsmen arriving at the church with the empty coffins. In order to adequately anger the criminals, a number of brave residents had agreed to attend the sham service to alert the criminals of their desire to keep practicing their faith.

  “Everyone’s in position. No sign of the bad guys.”

  “Why am I sitting atop the clouds?”

  “Practice. How thick was the deck?”

  “Three thousand feet.”

  “Descend to seven; then standard-rate turns, followed by steep turns. You need some instrument flying.”

  “Shouldn’t we descend where we can see the bad guys coming?”

  “We’re not going to see them. The soldiers on the ground are. I want us to be a surprise. A distraction on top of the distraction of dozens of mourners heavily armed.”

  Fritz explained that the radioman would give coordinates, conditions, and any large gathering of fighters. They were ten miles south, above the clouds and soon back in them, practicing turns like he had suggested.

  Fritz said, “Remember, come in low and stay low. Let’s not make ourselves a target by climbing.”

  Cricket practiced her maneuvers, losing altitude in her first steep turn and overcorrecting, which pushed them deeper into their seats.

  “Ah, G’s,” Fritz replied sourly. “You’ve got to do better, my dear.”

  “I prefer Hastings, Captain Holaday.”

  “Not Mrs. Holaday?”

  “I’ll be Mrs. Holaday when we’re writing out Christmas cards someday and there are mailboxes and mailmen again. Now I’m Emily Cricket Hastings, Captain Holaday.” Their last fight had made her cling more strongly to her family’s name.

  “Well, Ms. Hastings, let’s drop from the clouds and take a look. You should be positioned north of the cemetery.” Cricket cut the power and descended. If no target presented itself, she was to go to full power so the radicals could hear her roar. “Today you may have a chance to take ‘pictures’ of the savages with all six Brownings.”

  He spat out the word “savages,” reminding Cricket of her husband’s reaction to the beast they had encountered soon after their arrival at the Holaday farm.

  They had been hunting on the east end of the Hilltop where two large farms produced a swath of woods several miles long and two miles deep. They both had bagged squirrels and rabbits and cleaned them immediately. Fritz carried them in an old newspaper delivery bag that his grandpa had used as a boy.

  It was a day of cool temperatures and brilliant sunshine, but after stalking and losing sight of a buck, they found themselves in a crowded forest with oaks and maples and stands of beech, old and new growth, and a dense canopy of leaves and plenty of poison oak. The insistence of life felt grotesque to her, not something of bounty but of brutality. By late morning, a heavy overcast darkened the forest.

  Fritz pointed straight ahead. A deer? And then from the shadows of a spindly tree an old man emerged, as if the twisted tree had just given birth. Angular and bent, the man wore dark clothing. His head was lowered; his hands appeared joined in prayer. Cricket tried to make sense of what she saw. The man now seemed to be speaking quietly to someone. Slung over his shoulder was a heavy belt, supporting a long wicker basket. With a few inches on her in height, Fritz seemed to know something else, and he mumbled “My God” under his breath a few times and kept his gun raised.

  “Stay right here,” he said.

  The man looked up when Fritz was nearly on top of him. A low branch and leaves covered the bottom of his face. Cricket took several steps and saw what Fritz had seen. The long, narrow head of the man seemed to be elongated even more by the action of his mouth and sunken cheeks in sucking on the plastic tubing held tightly between thin lips.

  Fritz moved to the other side of the tree, and when he was within arm’s length of the man, said, “Show me what’s in the basket.”

  The man faced Fritz and kept sucking some dark fluid that filled the tube. The man’s eyes grew large, and he straightened himself and towered over Fritz, like an insect rearing up on its back legs to battle.

  “Show me,” Fritz said with such ferocity that Cricket shivered again. She raised her rifle, waist level, and ran.

  Fritz ripped away the basket, hammered the man with his fist, and what appeared to be a stuffed toy fell to the ground. The man screamed in a banshee register not at the pain of the blow but for the thing lying still on the ground. Black blood dripped down the man’s chin in the dim forest light.

  The man lunged for the toy, and Fritz stomped his foot and crushed him with a left hook. The man yelled and a knife appeared in his hands. Fritz wrestled him to the ground, took the knife, and slashed with a whirlwind of strokes. Blood sprayed Fritz, and Cricket screamed for him to stop, that the man was finished.

  Fritz had ruined the left side of the man’s neck. Cricket still feared the man even though reason insisted he was dead. “Get away, Fritz”—and he did, but not before scooping up the lifeless thing on the ground. A puppy, a cocker spaniel with a tube and catheter stuck on the inside of the dog’s front left leg. The monster had been drinking the dog’s blood. They both moved away from the man, but not before Fritz booted the basket into the brush, a traveling sippy cup for vampires.

  Fritz was breathing hard. He cradled the dog and gently pulled out the needle and tube. Cricket saw light in the dog’s eyes.

  “Let’s make a fire,” he said, and he sat with the dog in his lap and wrapped him in his scarf.

  Cricket wanted to tell Fritz that the dog wouldn’t last long, and it would be better to end his life immediately. But instead she gathered brush and dry sticks and soon had a fire raging in a clearing in the forest. Fritz used the top of his canteen for a cup, and at first the dog just stared. Soon, his back legs shook, his head snapped to attention, and his tongue reached the water for a sloppy drink.

  “Cricket, cut off a piece of meat.”

  “Oh, Fritz, he’s not going to make it—”

  “I know that. I want to keep him warm and comfortable for a while.”

  Cricket sliced a short morsel from the rabbit’s thigh, and Fritz held it under the dog’s snout.

  Cricket saw the dog’s eyes glisten, and he licked the warm meat. But he lacked the strength to chew.

  Cricket added to the fire as the sun moved directly overhead, and the long finger of smoke rose through the branches. The small dog breathed loudly, shook briefly, and then was gone. From her backpack Cricket brought out a folded camp shovel, and they dug a fairly large hole and lined it with pine
branches and the dog stayed wrapped in Fritz’s scarf.

  Neither of them ever spoke about the dog and the vampire man after they returned to the farm. That day they returned to the world in quiet conversation, holding hands, like any couple in love.

  Cricket broke through the cloud deck and saw smoke hovering over the cemetery. She looked for some structure on fire but saw only a scene akin to a Civil War battle. The two sides faced off from wooded areas surrounding the cemetery nearly a football field in length.

  Cricket stayed in her dive and came screaming over the cemetery at 350 miles per hour. She stayed low scanning for towers, and then came back around to the east and climbed to two thousand feet above the river.

  “Follow the river. Keep this altitude. I’m waiting to hear from the major.”

  Abeam of the fight, Fritz talked over the two-way radio, interrupting his discussion with heading changes. Cricket didn’t see a single soul. But the evidence persisted that a battle was raging, and both sides seemed to have impressive firepower. She saw missiles streaking across the cemetery and wondered when the militants would take aim at the P-51.

  “Cricket, our guys want ten minutes to compress the radicals to the southeastern side of the cemetery. Right now they’re spread out from the northeast to the southern part. They’re moving fast, getting aggressive, and our guys need to shove all ten pounds of the bad guys into a five-pound bag.”

  “And we stomp on the bag.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cricket kept the last heading, and Fritz asked her to reduce speed and turn west. She wheeled the Mustang smoothly onto heading and kept the cemetery in sight; it was easily located by a large warehouse across the river.

  “You’ll be attacking with the sun in your eyes,” he said.

  “A shoulder missile will make things even brighter.”

  “Yeah,” Fritz sighed. His friend Frank had been shot down in his single-seat P-51 by a shoulder-fired missile while on patrol near Youngstown only three months ago.