World Memorial (42 page)

Maylee felt the ladder jerk violently beneath her. She looked down. Two bears and a deer were ramming the same spot in the wall, directly beneath her ladder. The wall crumpled and the ladder shook hard. Too hard. Maylee looked behind her and down. The ladder was extended with a chain strapping it to another ladder that reached to the ground. The whole contraption was reinforced into the ground with stone and more chains.

With each impact of the animals against the wall, the chain that held the two ladders together was loosening,  beginning to unravel.

"Oh shit," said Maylee, watching the chain. She started climbing down.

She was too late. One of the bears rammed the wall one more time and the chain unraveled. The top ladder, then the one Maylee clung to, fell forward, out over the mob.

Maylee screamed, bracing herself for impact. Then with a sudden jerk, the chain snapped taut again. The ladder stopped its fall, so quickly Maylee tumbled off of it. She caught hold of the ladder with one gloved hand.

She hung there, the second ladder now perpendicular to the ground. The chain holding the ladders together creaked in protest. Maylee swung back and forth on the ladder, trying to right herself. She couldn't.

Beneath her, just a few inches from her dangling feet, corpses groaned and reached.

* * *

Angie stood on her platform, looking down over the mob. Maylee was to her left, shouting orders to the guards on her platform. The ones on Angie's platform were firing into the mob. The townsfolk with her lobbed down Molotov cocktails and anything heavy. An older man with thinning hair tipped a cinderblock over the edge of the wall. Angie watched as it crashed into the upturned, groaning head of a dead young man with black rotten teeth. The young man's head exploded outward in a spray of thick black glop. He fell, the momentum of the block crushing him the rest of the way to the ground.

"Good job everyone!" yelled Angie. "Keep it up!" She wished she could help. She wished she could shoot a rifle or throw down something. But her ankle and her cane prevented that. All she had was her sword, and the enemy would have to get close for that, much closer than Angie was willing to let them.

She looked over the side just as a large bear slammed into the wall. It roared with frustration and rammed its head into the wall again. It looked up at Angie and bellowed through the blood pooling in its snout and mouth. Its eyes raged at her. It put its head down and slammed the wall so hard blood spattered against the metal.

Angie’s platform buckled. The bear slammed again and the platform swayed backward.

"Fuck!" yelled Angie, slipping to the edge of the falling platform. She hooked the handle of her cane over the edge. Those near the wall grabbed the edge with her. They held on tightly, trying to keep the platform from falling further. It was working, just barely.

The bear struck the platform again. Angie's cane twisted and the sword began to slip out. The platform inched backwards.

Angie took another step forward, her ankle crying out in pain. She grabbed the wall with her other hand.

"Pull!" she yelled. "Everyone pull!"

They did. Angie and the others strained as hard as they could. Slowly, the platform shifted the other way. Groaning with twisted metal, the platform swayed back toward the wall and stopped.

Angie and the others let go. The platform stayed put. Angie looked over the wall to see the bear staggering back from its last impact. It was bloody, beaten and furious. It staggered shakily but was clearly intent on making another run.

Angie pointed over the side. "The bear! Get the bear!"

The guards rushed back to their guns. The bear raced for the wall. A few guards got off shots, but they were too hurried to aim. The shots pock-marked the snow around the rushing bear. It snorted out blood neared the wall. Angie braced for impact.

A crack rang out from Angie's left. The bear's throat exploded across the snow. It grunted in pain and surprise as it fell. It slid across the snow, leaving a thick smear of blood, then slumped. Dead.

Angie looked to her left to see Park lowering his rifle.

The guards all had their guns back and ready. They resumed firing into the mob. Those with Angie threw heavy objects and homemade gasoline bombs. The platform was holding.

For now.

* * *

Park looked back from shooting Angie's bear. He cocked his rifle and glanced down at the small platform he stood alone on. He still had plenty of ammo. Satisfied, he turned back to the mob and resumed firing.

To his left, wind shook trees so hard that whole branches came loose. Somehow he remained untouched. He figured Sharon had something to do with that. He ignored it and kept shooting. He fired a shot into the forehead of a dead woman with white tangled hair and no eyes. Her head exploded and she fell to the snow, immediately lost amongst the mob. Park cocked his rifle and chose his next target.

He heard grunting behind him. At first he thought it was an illusion. A groan or growl from below echoing off of something behind him. But it came again and there was no doubting its source.

He turned to see a pair of small hands gripping the platform. A second later Lilly's head appeared. She strained with effort as she tried to pull herself onto the platform.

Park lowered his rifle and sighed. "What the fuck, Lil? Get back with the others!"

Lilly grunted and strained, pulling herself up further but not all the way. "Fuck them. I'm with you!"

Par set his rifle down, stepped to the back of the platform and knelt. He grabbed Lilly's hands and pulled her the rest of the way up, then let go of her hands and picked up his rifle again. She stood and shook her hands, clenching and opening them.

"Just keep out of the way," said Park gruffly, leaning back over the wall.

He found a new target. An old man with a large hole torn in his neck. Frozen tendons were visible, moving up and down as he worked his dead jaw. Park aimed for his head.

"Get him!" came Lilly's voice right next to him. Park looked down and saw her, standing on her toes, peering over the edge of the wall.

"Hurry! Get that old bastard!"

Park  and shook his head. He looked back at the man, fired, and the man’s head exploded backwards.

"Woo hoo!" cheered Lilly. "Take that!"

Park cocked the rifle. Lilly pointed. "There! Get the fat guy!"

Park followed her gesture and saw a large shirtless man staggering amongst the mob. His eyes oozed frozen pus and his nose was gone. He looked like he had once been muscular, but had let himself go before he died.

"He's not
that
fat," said Park, aiming.

"He's a fatty!" yelled Lilly. "Die, fatty!"

Park fired and the man's forehead ripped open as his bullet slammed through it. He slumped and fell.

Park cocked the rifle. "Who's next?"

* * *

Dr. Graham peeked out around a stack of barrels behind which he’d been hiding for hours. Many hours, trying to keep out of sight.

His whole body ached, both from cold and the severe beating he'd received from the townsfolk. He could feel that his face was swollen. He couldn't open one of his eyes and his split lip stung from the cold.

He listened to sounds of battle come from the walls. No one was in sight. Everyone was off fighting whatever was happening outside. It sounded big. Whatever it was, the town had been up all night preparing for it. Dragging out the time he had to hide. Dragging out the time he had to cower in the cold.

Anger grew anew in him. An anger he'd been nursing as he hid. At first he'd been sorry, ashamed of what he'd done. No longer. Now he was mad. Seething. He'd given his all trying to help them. Untold hours slaving, giving his considerable talents to trying to find a cure. Trying to save the world. The world!

Back when he’d first come to World Memorial, he could have hidden like they had. He could have simply taken shelter in some hut and waited for others to help him, like they had. But no, he had come forward. He had made his talents known to Angie. He had stepped up. After all he'd been through. After his beloved Beverly had died in pieces in front of him. Screaming past her hot gurgling blood as a pack of what had been people ripped at her. He'd seen that, and still he had tried to see hope. He'd tried to help.

And how had he been treated? Beaten. Dragged by a child and made to prostrate himself before the ungrateful cowards making up this town. They'd punched and kicked him. He hated them now. He hoped they all died, screaming and hopeless like Beverly had.

He took one last look around him, making sure all was clear, then stepped out from behind the barrels, shivering. He needed shelter. And help. Maybe if he could escape and find the woman from his dreams, she could help him.

He walked through the town worriedly. Shouting and shots came from all around. Something slammed against the walls. Groans in the thousands. It sounded like the town was surrounded. He hoped it wasn't. He also hoped no one saw him.

He was lucky and no one did. He turned a corner and found a blind alley he'd used before. There were no people there. It was quieter, too. It was too narrow for the others to have set up any battle station.

And the wall at the end was weak. He knew it was. He'd made it so, weeks before.

He cursed as he walked up the alley and saw that the wall was boarded up. The weak spot was reinforced.

He drew himself up. He had to be strong. He had to try. He started pulling at the boards, twisting them loose of their nails.

* * *

Dalton stood in the center of town, looking at the other children. They were tied to a large post driven deep into the frozen ground, chains stretching from the post to the waist of every child. Thick leather straps held the chains in place.

Dalton looked behind him. A moat, dug overnight and filled with gasoline, stretched around the children and the post. Guards with rifles stood around the moat. Just beyond the moat sat a beaten old pickup truck. It was the only vehicle they had left. It barely ran, but if worse came to worse, they would need it to get the kids to the fallback point.

Dalton remembered to include himself in that group.

He looked back to the children. A few of their straps were loose. He walked over to one boy and tightened the strap as much as he could without causing much pain.

The children looked nervous. The boy squirmed as Dalton tightened the strap.

"I know, guys," he said. "I know. But it will be okay. These are to hold us all in place. So the bad woman can't pull us."

The older children nodded. The younger ones saw and seemed to draw strength from it.

The fighting outside was growing very loud. Dalton knew they didn't have much time before Beulah made herself known.

A guard named April set down her gun and hopped over the moat. She stepped over to Dalton and helped with the other chains.

Dalton strode to his spot on the post and grabbed his strap. He was just about to wrap it around his waist when his body went rigid. His sight grew hazy, rimmed with a haze of white light.

The other children locked into the same rigid pose. All their eyes glowed.

* * *

Beulah stood between two large trees. The back wall of World Memorial stretched out before her. Her arms were out. She was reaching out to the children, pulling them to her.

She pulled as hard as she could, but was distracted. Not by corpses or animals. She'd found a spot along the wall too wooded for the mob to reach.

What distracted her were all the other outposts. They were ready. They had started the proceedings. The only way to stop them was to hold them back herself. They all stood, confused, around the groups of children they had collected. In Europe, in Asia, in Australia and Africa. Groups of people stood ready to kill the sacrificial children. Ready but not acting. Not acting but not quite knowing why.

She could have told them to wait, of course. But it required too much power to manifest directly in someone's thoughts. To be seen or heard by them. To expend that much energy for any one group would require letting go of the others. And if she let go, those groups would sacrifice their children while the other group did not. Beulah's plan had to be perfectly executed for the chain reaction to work, for the world to be cleansed of Sharon's chaos and filth.

So all Beulah could do was hold her other groups in check while she tried to pull the World Memorial children to the wall. The spot wasn't ideal, but it would be close enough for Beulah to set them off herself. She could do it and release the other towns all at once. The chain reaction would work and the world would be saved. Put right.

She could feel resistance from the children in World Memorial. She could feel it but couldn't focus on why. She didn't have the energy for it. She'd just have to keep pulling blindly.

She heard Sharon's mob on the other side of town, roaring and moaning and slamming into the walls. If Sharon could get to the children without killing them, it was over. The chain would be broken. The world would be doomed. Beulah pulled harder, trying to maintain the balancing act in which she found herself.

* * *

Dr. Graham pulled at the last board. Whoever had nailed it had done a good job. He twisted and pulled, but it only gave a little.

He cursed whoever had done it. He thought he heard noise beyond the wall but couldn't be sure. He told himself whatever was outside was focused on the front. He'd be fine if he could just get rid of this damned board.

He tugged at the board as hard as his swollen, frozen fingers would allow. When Dalton had dragged him outside, he hadn't had time to get his gloves or coat. Ungrateful little bastard.

The board shifted. Dr. Graham twisted it one more time and it came free.