Overrun (31 page)

The blasts caused Brandon to
stumble along the stairwell, now completely engulfed in flames, and drop to his
knee. Kirken reached his arm around Brandon's chest and hauled him back to his
feet.

They sprinted up the burning
stairs away from the soldiers now finally visible on the floor below.

Two more grenade shots pounded
into the base of the stairway causing the entire structure to sway. Kirken
tightened his grip around Brandon and half-dragged, half-pulled him faster to
the top of the disintegrating stairs.

They were two steps from the top
when what was left of the obliterated escalator crumbled away from beneath
their feet. Brandon lunged past his father and grabbed hold of a piece of the
floor just above them before the flaming structure caved completely in on
itself and plummeted below.

In the same movement, he turned
his body around and grasped Kirken by the wrist while the wreckage fell away
from under him.

Kirken dangled in the open air
and clawed for the broken pieces of floor hanging in front of him. Brandon's
arm shook with the strain it took to hold Kirken's weight.

Kirken hooked a piece of metal
stabbing out into the open air towards him with his foot and used it for
support while Brandon hauled him over the edge of the ripped floor.

When Kirken swung his legs over
the ledge, Brandon continued to pull him in closer not yet releasing his grip
across his wrist.

Kirken stretched himself out on
his back and fought to regain his breath. He rested his head only a few feet
from the ripped edge to which the escalator had been recently attached. Brandon
let go of his arm, turned and walked a few steps away.

"Mel!" he yelled into
the quiet of the undamaged mall level. The sound of the fires burning beneath
them stopped pounding at their ears. The voices of the chasing soldiers were
also gone. Only the echo of Brandon's voice remained.

"Mel..!" he called
again.

Kirken raised his own tortured
body and tried to force it to stand. He stopped on his knees and pressed a
gloved hand across the small flames on his shoulder and the top of his head.

He had almost stood completely
up when the blasts of two more weapons shots thundered from the darkness ahead.

The first shot buried itself
into Brandon's shoulder wrenching his body backward. The second tore a hole
about an inch lower just above his chest.

Brandon’s legs flew out from
beneath him. His body sailed backwards into Kirken knocking them both to the
ground. Kirken grabbed at the floor with his arms and held Brandon with his
legs to keep them both from toppling over the edge.

Brandon shrugged himself angrily
from Kirken's hold and bolted back to his feet. A third shot rang out opening
flesh at the center of his already-wounded shoulder and pounding him back down
to the floor.

"Son of a bitch!"
Kirken screamed and fired two rounds from his sidearm towards where he had seen
the flashes of the weapons blasts. His shots were followed by the sound of a
body crashing down heavily in front of them.

Brandon rolled over on his side
and pressed at his wounds with his hand. Slowly, he pulled his body up to its
knees and inched over towards the soldier Kirken had just shot.

The J.G.U.'s body still moved
slightly showing some faint signs of life. One of his legs stretched out across
the torn ledge and the dying flames below. A dark circle of blood stained the
center of his chest.

Brandon's legs rocked unsteadily
as he stood, this time more tiredly, again to his feet.

Brandon limped gingerly toward
him while Kirken, still stretched out on the ground, looked on behind him. The
soldier’s arms and shoulders shook weakly. His eyes rolled to the top of his
head from the pain of his own recent wounds.

Brandon stood over his broken
body and stared across him to the nearby ledge and the raging fires below.

For a moment, the soldier raised
his own eyes and looked back at Brandon. Brandon crouched down next to him when
he did.

Even from where he watched just
a few feet back, Kirken could feel the fury and pure utter darkness within the
gaze Brandon returned.

Brandon leaned his head directly
over the soldier's face so close their noses almost touched. The soldier's body
lost its shake and became rigid and tight.

Brandon bent in closer and began
to speak softly into the soldier's ear. He turned defiantly away as Brandon's
whispered taunts fell more rapidly into his ear. His body began to shake again.

Brandon's voice increased in
ferocity and pitch from soft-spoken utterances Kirken could not hear to enraged
jeers and shrieks. Brandon pressed his mouth closer to the soldier's ear. His words
became a maddened scream.

He reached out and pulled away
the rifle the soldier still clutched across his chest. With his other hand, he
nudged his body closer to the floor's broken edge. Thick bursts of spit flew
from Brandon's lips with each new enraged shout.

When the soldier's back laid just
across the drop, Brandon pulled away and stood up to his full height. The
soldier twisted his head to look away from Brandon further feeding his frenzied
fury.

Gazing across the fiery carnage
encompassing most of the mall’s lower levels, Brandon nudged him one last time
with his boot.

Silently, the soldier’s body
fell over the side.

Brandon stood there for a moment
and continued to peer over the edge. He opened his mouth and scornfully
released a mouthful of saliva into the fiery din below.

Watching his son was like being
trapped within a horrific dream. Kirken turned his head and tried to keep the
nausea away.

"Brandon," Kirken said
hauling himself to his feet and stepping unsteadily toward him.

Brandon turned around and
stepped back from the ledge. Drops of blood splattered his face from the rounds
that had pierced his shoulder. Sweat beaded across his forehead, and his body
was tense with a failing effort to conceal its shake. His entire right side was
covered with thick blood which dripped from his fingertips when he walked.

"It's alright,"
Brandon answered him.

The intensity of his glare still
blazed from his eyes like a lightning bolt. It seemed to bring some strength
back to his battered body. He hobbled past Kirken and brushed lightly by his
side. The suffocating stink of fresh blood and scorched flesh emanated from his
body like a tangible dark cloud.

"Brandon…," Kirken
said softly again. He lowered his weapon and began to rip pieces from his scorched
clothing to cover his wounds. He reached out and pulled at his undamaged
shoulder to stop his walk.

"I said I'm alright!"
Brandon yelled more forcefully and shrugged off his father’s touch. Kirken
pulled his hand back and allowed his son to limp further away.

"Let's find her,"
Brandon voiced tiredly the words they both felt. "Let's find her
now."

Kirken bent down to retrieve the
soldier's weapon that laid near the shredded edge of the floor. He clicked its
barrel open to check for ammunition and stared over the edge into the abyss of
the fires still raging below.

The flames seemed to burn
brighter with each passing moment rather than dying down and disappearing away.

Kirken secured the J.G.U. rifle
across his shoulder and followed his wounded son into the dark.

Tuttle and Piper gripped the
handles above their heads tightly to keep from being thrashed about. Even
though they were both strapped securely to their seats, the pilot's sharp
banking maneuvers to avoid the flames and the sudden appearance of rooftops
through the smoke threw them roughly about the small helicopter cabin.

Tuttle sat in front next to the
pilot while Piper occupied the area near the large artillery cannon mounted on
the chopper's rear deck.

Tuttle shifted around in his
seat and leaned towards the back of the cabin when the electronic reproduction
of Piper’s voice sounded in his headset.

"Sir, our trackers say the
firebomb team is on schedule, unhindered and well on its way," Piper said
moving closer to face Tuttle.

Balancing on crouched knees in
the tiny back space, he braced one arm across the enormous barrel of the
freestanding weapon and the other against the ceiling to steady himself against
the violent bucks of the chopper.

"In fact they might even be
closer than we originally thought."

"How soon?" Tuttle
tried to ignore the wrenching feeling in his gut.

"Really soon," Piper
said quickly back. "We can't be more than five minutes ahead."

The helicopter veered again
sharply to its side. Tuttle held the ceiling grips with both hands and stared
out across the destruction falling away in a blur below them.

The entire city block they
approached was consumed by fire. Vehicles, whole and in destroyed parts, laid
strewn about the streets. A gaping crater spewing solid mountains of flame
marked the site where the old bank weapons armory recently stood.

Soldiers by the thousands
sprinted in every direction. Some carried away the wounded. Others hauled
weapons. The majority ran to control the fires.

"If they're not there when
we get there…," Piper said again. "…we're not going to have much time
to go in and get them. Not if we want to get out ourselves."

"If they're not on the mall
roof when we get there, we're not even going to set it down," Tuttle
answered him.

"Understood, General,"
Piper turned his back to Tuttle and began to load rounds into the large weapon.

Tuttle sat back against his
seat. Still holding the ceiling grips with one of his hands, he pulled the
straps of his gear tighter across his limbs.

The pilot remained silent and
still next to Tuttle. His eyes focused through the black smoke ahead. The
chopper dipped and swerved under the controlled spasms of his wrists as he
raced to beat the coming firebomb team to the roof of Beuford's old shopping
mall.

Mel's heart pounded
uncontrollably in her chest when she saw the escalator disintegrate from
beneath their feet. She turned away and covered her eyes, not from fright, but
from the smoke and grit that choked the air.

When she finally looked back,
she could only see one of them at the edge of the ripped floor. For the moment,
she couldn’t tell whether it was her father or her brother through all the
falling fiery debris. Panic swiftly settled about her when she realized the
other was nowhere else in sight.

She was about to run back when a
pair of arms stabbed out of the darkness and grabbed wildly at her hair.

The excited stink of the
soldier's breath that held her was warm against the back of her neck. Mel had
no more energy left in her body to even scream. She dropped her arms to her
sides and allowed the muscles in her legs to release.

Not quite having a firm grip,
the soldier jabbed his hands out to grab her as her body fell away. He stooped
down to seize her legs, but the loud calls of another soldier drew his
attention back to the broken ledge where either Brandon or her father was
sprawled across his back.

Mel rolled quickly over and
scurried away on all fours deeper into the mall's upper level. She crawled on
her hands and knees until the space ahead of her came to an end. Long
cylindrical rails guarded the edge of the floor and a vast gap of open space
that stretched beyond it.

Mel used the rails to pull
herself up and leaned over to stare at the fires raging below on the ground
floor. Then raising her head and looking back up, she felt the black quietude
of the mall's higher levels beckon her with promised safety.

The broad openness split the
building's upper levels into two sections with more than two hundred feet of
open air between them.

The sounds of the J.G.U. voices
came again to her ears, and the heat from the raging fires pushed at her back.
Only the escalators from the ground floor seemed to offer access to the other
side of the divide.

Mel climbed to the top of the
rails and reached out toward a collection of cables and lighting structures
that stretched out across the expanse. The sound of voices behind her began to
steadily increase.

She balanced herself on top of
the rails, leaned towards the cables and jumped. Her first hand missed when
both feet had taken to the air, but she managed to grab hold with the other.
Her legs dangled over the flaming inferno below while she struggled to find a
grip with both hands.

When she finally had a firm
hold, she pulled her legs up and draped them across the ancient lamp
structures. Without looking back and reaching hand over hand across the cables,
she slowly began to make her way across.

Her breath came in short gasps
as she fought to keep a grip on the swinging cables and lights. Sharp metal
fibers lining the outside of the cables embedded themselves deeply into the
insides of her hands.

Her eyes filled briefly with
tears. Streaks of blood colored her fists. The flames below and behind threw
grotesque shadows across the walls like giant monsters surrounding her. Mel
stretched her neck muscles tight trying to hold her head up and keep her eyes
from the huge drop below.

It was then she saw the figure
standing at the edge she had just left. He stood silent and still watching her
intently while she tried to cross. When the soldier was sure that she was aware
of his presence, he raised the weapon he held hidden in his hands behind the
rails.

Mel turned stoically away and
tried to move her body faster across the swinging lights. The soldier watching
her from the ledge did not make a sound.

She was almost a quarter of the
way across when she heard the soft roar of the flamethrower. An instant later
she felt the heat.

The lights and cables around her
burst into flame. Her feet slipped from their hold leaving her dangling by her
thin arms from the hanging lights. The sharp shreds of metal guarding the cable
dug deeper into her frail flesh. Her legs hung limply next to each other across
the drop.

The pain finally brought fresh
life to her body and voice, and she let loose a bloodcurdling scream.

Two more quick burst of heat
reached out at her through the air skimming across her hands. The smell of her
own seared flesh filled her nostrils and brought another frightened shriek to
her lips.

The flaming cables twisted
gently under her weight and brought Mel around to face her attacker. The
soldier pulled the flamethrower up to the side of his chest and pointed it
towards her.

He didn’t see the two staggering
figures approach him from behind as he prepared to again fire the device.

The first figure dove to the
ground beneath his feet and knocked him backwards toward the floor. The second
grabbed him from behind around his shoulders and tackled him across his back.

In a pile of flailing limbs, the
three rolled around on top of each other near the ledge until another burst of
flame from the soldier's weapon shot into the air. The bright light and blasting
heat caused one of the figures to grab his eyes, fall back and let go.

The soldier held the second
pinned and unmoving beneath him.

The soldier threw his leg out
and drove his foot hard into the first figure's side and brought a gloved hand
down across the second figure's neck. The blows, for the moment, caused both of
them to lie still across the ground.

Mel raised her legs and hooked
them again across the cables. She then quickly scrambled further away across
the light fixtures. She was halfway to the other side when the soldier threw
the flamethrower across his back, leapt over the rail and grabbed at the
lights.

The cables and structures to
which Mel grasped pitched violently with the additional weight causing both her
hands to slip. Her legs held her for an instant and then also let go.

She fell only a few short feet
before another piece of the tangled lighting structure snagged her from the
open air. Mel wrapped both her arms and legs around the giant metal piece that
held her. Then like a switch had been thrown off inside her body, she stopped
moving entirely.

She hung there motionlessly a
few feet below the flaming lights and the chasing soldier. The part of her mind
guiding her movements had become completely overrun by the intense onslaught of
fright.

"Mel!" Brandon
screamed. He pulled himself groggily to his feet and hobbled to the rails along
the ledge. Blood covered his entire left side, and his body rocked on top of
unsteady legs.

The soldier secured himself
across the flaming light cables and edged closer towards where Mel was perched.

"Mel!" Brandon yelled
again and with obvious pain in his effort climbed to the top of the rails.

"Brandon don't!"
Kirken called after him raising himself from the small flames burning around
him on the floor.

But it was too late. Brandon had
already jumped. His arms and legs flailed through the sudden expanse of open
air. His body fell just behind the J.G.U. soldier, and his arms snaked quickly
around the tangle of sharp cables. Finding his grip, he hung suspended above
the faraway ground.

The lights lurched and twisted
beneath the sudden strain of Brandon's weight causing the soldier to turn his
attention away from Mel. He slid swiftly back across the cables towards Brandon
and rammed his fist into the center of Brandon's left eye.

The blow snapped Brandon's head
back in surprise jarring his hands loose. Brandon's arms flailed frantically
out as his body started to fall. He dropped halfway past the soldier when one
of his hands hooked across the soldier's weapons belt.

The soldier dropped the
flamethrower and clung desperately with both hands to the hanging cables while
Brandon clutched at his legs and waist. Their legs dangled next to each other
precariously over the drop.

The soldier shook his lower body
trying to free his legs and kick Brandon away. Brandon slid further down the
length of his body until he caught himself again on the soldier's feet.

Kirken ran to the edge of the
rail. He leaned over close to the soldier’s back and fired a round into the
center of his shoulder. His body reacting both from pain and surprise, the
soldier's hands released instantly from the cable.

Brandon clambered up the man's
body as they both started to drop. His hands, like the soldier's next to him,
whipped out desperately toward the cable structure. Grabbing only open air, the
soldier crashed through the last of the lighting and tumbled to the flaming
darkness below.

Brandon swung from the single
cable he managed to grasp with one hand and watched his body fall.

Kirken reached out and grabbing
Brandon's other outstretched arm hauled him back to the edge. With pain
screaming from his twisted shoulder, Kirken hoisted Brandon's own battered
frame back over the rails.

When Brandon was lying safely
again on solid ground, Kirken ran back to the ledge and called to his daughter.
Her legs and arms still clutched rigidly about the wreckage of the hanging
lights.

"C'mon," he said
leaning over and reaching his hand out to her. "Not that way. You have to
come back. That’s not the way we need to go."

Mel didn't look back and only
tightened her grip around the mesh of cables wrapped about her.

"Now, Mel,” he pleaded to
her softly. "You have to come back now. There isn’t any more time."

Behind him, Brandon pulled
himself back to his feet. He walked next to Kirken and reached his own hand out
to her.

"C'mon, Mel," Kirken
begged again. His voice was barely audible to himself, but he didn't have the
strength left in his body to make it increase. "I promise we’ll get out.
All three of us. But only if we go right now."

Another minute passed in the
silence of the burning flames. Then Mel looked at him and slowly began to move.
Kirken and Brandon both extended their arms out further towards her as she made
her way back along the broken cables.

When she had finally reached
them, her body lurched violently from the intensity of her fear. She stretched
her own arm out to them and allowed them to gently pull her back.

When they had safely hauled her
over the rails, she grabbed them both and sank sobbing in their arms to the
floor. Kirken pulled her tightly against him and ran his fingers through her
sweat-soaked hair. Small cries but no words came with every touch.

Brandon stood over them.
Pressing hard with both hands, he tried to stop the fresh flow of blood that
had started to come from his wounds. The adrenaline and fear fueling his
battered body was finally spent. And the pain had finally come.

The bloody tire iron he had been
carrying with him all this time laid close next to him along the broken floor.