For a Devil Has Fallen from the Sky

Chapter 3-1

These are stories of the Flashback, the time-storm that vanished most the world’s population and returned the world to primordia, and thus are all connected. They are not, however, told in a linear fashion, but rather hop around the timeline at will (as is appropriate, perhaps, for a world in which time has been scrambled). Therefore, a certain nimbleness on the reader’s part is assumed. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

—WKS

By the time he’d walked all the way back to the White House and the North Lawn—carrying Fiona’s body on his lean shoulders—Calvin’s announcement was well underway, although it came to an abrupt halt when Leif appeared near the scaffold and laid her corpse at its base; after which there were gasps followed by a hushed silence—that is, save for the ubiquitous crackling of the fire.

When at last Calvin spoke, he did so as someone who had already resigned himself to her death, asking only if she had suffered, to which Leif responded, “No,” and then inviting the youth to join him up on the platform—which he did, climbing the rungs and gripping the older boy’s hand until they stood together over the crowd and the roaring pyre and Calvin turned to address his audience once again.

“And so it goes,” he said, simply, giving the moment time to breathe, allowing everyone to catch their breath, until someone unexpectedly shouted, “How did she die?” At which he turned to Leif, humbly—impotently, thought the boy—and indicated he should step forward—which the boy did, stepping to the very edge of the platform and looking down at the flames and the upturned faces, liking the way it felt, liking the way it made his blood race and seemed to snap everything into focus, liking the sense of power and purpose.

“Norsemen,” he said, bluntly, after which, having been a student of Calvin since before puberty, meaning he’d idolized him and observed him carefully in the hopes that he might one day be like him, he let the moment breathe—until, finally, he added, “They laid a trap ... and we blundered into it. And then they issued an ultimatum: Leave—now. Or die.”

“f**k them!” barked someone almost immediately, and was quickly joined by others—all of whom felt that retaliation should be as swift as it was lethal.

“We outnumber them five to one! I say we do it now, while it’s dark, and we have the element of surprise!”

At which Calvin tugged Leif back and they changed places, so that the younger boy was standing behind him as he said, “Now wait just a minute, gang, just hold that line of thought. Because, see, the thing is, we are in their territory. All right? They warned us and we—well, we rightfully ignored them, because, as you say,” He pointed at one of the teenagers, “We outnumber them. By about five to one, as you say. But that’s because we—we had a job to do. We had to come here and ... and burn what remained of the Old World, the old ways. But the Burning is done, don’t you understand? We’ve done what we set out to do, we’ve burned it f*****g all!”

He looked left and right quickly, as though to fan the flames—taking them all in, seeking to build momentum. When no one spoke up he said, “And that’s why I think it’s time to ... to consider a new way. A new paradigm, as they say. A new, well, a new purpose. A way—”

“Our purpose is to burn!” shouted someone near the front, an expression which was met with cheers and sustained applause, and at least one horse whistle.

“Yes! Yes, it is!” Calvin shouted back, and hastened to add, “And so you have! So you have. And so very, very brightly, I might add. But there comes a time when ... when time itself—begins to mutate. When your mind and your body begin to change, to evolve.”

“It’s called getting old!” someone shouted, and was met by laughter.

“It’s also called adapting; just bending ever so slightly so that instead of blowing you over the wind becomes an ally, a source of energy, and a renewable one at that. What I’m saying is ... the Burn is over. That the fields have been thoroughly cleansed and prepped and that it’s time to ... to build again. It’s time to re-learn farming, irrigation, how to brew beer, for God’s sake! Because the keg—the keg eventually runs dry. And that’s because what we’re doing here isn’t sustainable. It—it never was. But. But. You wanted a leader ... and somehow you found me. And so it was up to me in those first dark days after the Flashback to lift you up and to bolster your spirits, to channel your energy, to keep you busy and just get you through it.” He sounded fatherly, patriarchal. “To help you let go of what was—and will never be again.”

He turned toward Leif suddenly, the boy didn’t know why. “So ... no. There will be no retaliation. Not against the Norsemen, nor any other group. And there will be no more destruction.” And then he held out his hand and the boy just looked at it, wondering if he knew, wondering if he had intuited it. That Fiona and he had lain together; that he was beginning to doubt Calvin’s wisdom and leadership—just as she had. It was also when he noticed Calvin’s fingers trembling slightly—as he had seen the hands of the very old and infirm do—and when he looked to his face he could see it—the age, the wear and tear, the stress lines beginning to form around his eyes and mouth, the hint of darkness just above his cheeks. But then Calvin wiggled his fingers as though urging him to take his hand and Leif did so—gripping it firmly, assuredly—and they pulled each other into an embrace, a bear hug, slapping each other on the back, seeming to acknowledge what they had in common—which, Leif was beginning to suspect, was a penchant for leadership. And Fiona.

And then Leif lifted his gaze—following the billowing embers—and saw that great and terrible Borealis in the sky and the dark shapes within it; saw the lights which shifted and bled in and out of each other and the alien colors which were not really colors at all but rather facets of some strange and inconceivable prism, and knew, even before he looked, that he would see those same colors in the eyes of the children below—the Lost Children; the Children of the Flashback—just as he had seen them in the eyes of the dinosaurs which now ruled the earth. And more, that if he were to look in the mirror—he’d see them in his own. And that’s when he slid the shard of glass out of his back pocket (the one he’d kept as a keepsake after making love to Fiona in the ruins) and, clasping it in both hands—so that it cut him deep before anyone else—drove it into Calvin’s lower back.

At which Time stopped. It didn’t mutate; it didn’t evolve and transform—it just stopped; for he, and he alone, had stopped it. And then he was jerking Calvin against himself, violently, brutally, again and again, sinking the shard deeper into his flesh, using it to impale his spine, until the older boy began coughing up blood—which gurgled darkly in the twilight and for the briefest of moments made one giant bubble—before releasing him completely and letting him fall backward into the fire, where he impacted like a fresh log, causing embers to explode upward, and began screaming—hideously, obscenely. Briefly.

“Salud!” cried everyone below at once, raising their fists in solidarity, even as Leif looked at the sky again and considered what he saw there, and what he had seen of himself; as he considered what he had seen in the M.I.M. Museum and in Fiona’s dying eyes.

You wanted a fresh start, he said to them—the lights, the shapes within the lights. You wanted to cleanse away the old. Let us help you.

And then he looked at his friends, his people, his tribe, seeing the Flashback in their eyes and knowing, at last, that this was its final expression, its final truth. That they were fire and needed to keep moving—keep consuming—and that their fate was to burn out and burn up, to fertilize the fields for what was to come.

To burn, and burn brightly.

To burn, and to be burned.

––––––––

“Leif? Yo, dude. Wake up. You’ve spilled your drink.”

Leif opened his lids; saw the red and black Pesquet’s parrots stirring in their cage, in the dark, blinking their dark eyes. “What ... What is it?”

Kent took the drink from his relaxed hands and sat it next to the lounge chair. “Outliers again. Testing the perimeter. Two down—Kruger and McKnight, but—”

Leif sat up with a start. “Two down? As in, shot, stabbed, what?”

“As in dead. As in bled out by the fountain, by the waterfall mirror. But we got three of—”

Leif swung his legs out of the chair. “Yeah? Well, what good does that do if we don’t even—”

“... alive.” Kent’s radio squelched and he covered its speaker. “We got ‘em alive, Leif.”

Leif moved to speak but paused—looked around the sky patio. “Well, that’s ...” A baby cried from inside the Presidential Suite. “That’s something.” He fingered the crucifix around his neck, distantly, thoughtfully. “Give me a minute. We’ll go down together.”

He stood and they went in and found the sitting room exactly how they’d left it; with the crib in the middle and Marigold and Father Severinsen gathered close—both of them peaked, ashen-faced.

Leif paused beside them and looked down at the infant—his infant, though he was barely 16. Fiona. “How’s her temperature?”

“106, but holding,” said Severinsen. His eyes flicked up and down the youth’s face. “Race will be back; and with the antibiotics. Have faith.”

“But still no radio contact?”

He shook his head.

Leif went to the window and looked out: at the crepuscular sky and the darkened Strip, the shimmering green Borealis, the necropolis that was once Vegas. “Maybe they had a run in with our friends.” He dropped his gaze to the plaza. “What’s with the crowd?”

“Probably want to see the prisoners,” said Kent. “They’re being held by the fountain.”

“Or they don’t know the ceremony’s been postponed,” said Severinsen.

He was referring, of course, to the first annual Burn’s End— which was to have been a celebration of their settling in Las Vegas (and subsequent conversion to Christianity). “You know, it’s a pity,” continued Severinsen. “They were all so excited about it, so looking forward to it being made official, to its being made law ...”

“They really were,” gushed Kent—who was supposed to be Leif’s Chief Lieutenant (but often seemed more like Severinsen’s). “Looking forward to it, that is.”