BJ Knights - The City Burns

One of the soldiers heaved a grenade at the car where the two looters with assault rifles were huddled behind. The younger looter heard the thud of the grenade hitting the other side of the car as he was putting another magazine into his rifle. He looked up at his friend and before he could get up to run the grenade blasted through the side of the car as pieces of them flew in the air.

Five of the looters that had retreated to the shops had run upstairs and smashed through the windows above. They opened fire on the soldiers below who were caught off guard. One of them took bullet in the shoulder and while another soldier took one right through the eye and dropped to the ground lifeless.

Jim stood inside the lobby watching the fight take place. Gunshots, grenade blasts, and blood. This wasn’t Phoenix anymore.

“What do you wanna do, Jim?” Brett was getting anxious.

Twink looked back at the two of them. “We gotta go help them,” he said.

Jim shook him off. “We don’t know who started firing first.”

Brett cut in. “Yeah, we do. It was our guys. They started shooting at the truck the moment they were in eyeshot of it.”

Then Jim saw Hult run around the front end of the truck to reload his magazine. Sweat dripped off his chin as bullets rained down on him and his men. He only looked up for a split second, but he saw them.

Jim immediately ducked down. “We’ve got to get out of here, now!”

Outside Hult screamed for his men. “They’re inside! They’re inside! Move back to the building!”

The group took off around the hallway and right before they turned the corner they heard the crash of glass and concrete behind them. The armored truck rammed into the lobby and Hult rushed out with the rest of his men.

Jim and Brett kept back while Coyle and Twink took the front. Annie stayed clutched to Samantha as she held her tight. They kept running through doors towards the back of the building. They ran past offices. Jim looked back and saw Hult a few hundred feet back.

“Stop!” Hult screamed. Jim fired a spray of bullets at their pursuers who ducked behind a group of walls as they ran through two main doors and into an atrium. Twink saw an exit sign atop a door leading to a stairwell. Samantha told them to head that way. “If we take it to the bottom level it’ll lead us out towards the parking garage on the side of the building.”

“If there are as many cars in there as there were in the street I’ll be able to hotwire one of them,” Twink said. Jim nodded. “Let’s go find our ride.”

Hult burst through the atrium doors, but they were gone. His breath was short as he ran around trying to find them. His men finally caught up with him. He ordered them to break up and hunt them down. They were sent off in pairs in the four corners of the room while a group stayed with Hult who turned around and eyed the exit door that Jim had just gone down.

The parking garage door flew open as Twink came barreling through. He was right. There were cars everywhere. Coyle, Samantha, Annie, Brett, and Jim came through right after. They trotted down the slope of the garage towards the exit where they saw the fading light hit the street outside. The distant sound of screams and gunfire grew louder as they got to the opening of the garage.

Twink found a truck and smashed the window and popped the lock. He dropped under the dash and ripped out the panel underneath, exposing a cluster of wires. Jim walked closer towards the opening. He started to smell something. It was faint and distant.

“Smoke,” he whispered to himself. When he stepped out onto the street he saw plumes of smoke rising into the sky. The black pillars polluted the orange and reds of the fading sunset colored backdrop.

Looters were tossing lit torches and Molotov cocktails into stores along Main Street. Men with bandanas around their faces were tearing down stop signs and anything else they could with sheer muscle. The fires were spreading. There was a spark underneath the dash as the engine turned over and came to life. “Got it!” Twink shouted.

They started to pile into the car when Hult and three of his men came barreling into the garage from the stairway door. “Jim!” Brett screamed.

Jim whipped around and dropped behind a yellow parking pillar. He opened fire on Hult and his men as Twink peeled out of the parking spot towards him. Hult’s men ducked behind cars for cover and started to shoot back. Twink slowed down enough for Jim to hop in the truck bed and they drove off. Twink took a right out of the garage away from the looters and headed for the highway. Samantha opened the small, sliding window of the truck.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Jim nodded as he rubbed his knee. “I’m alright.”

Brett searched the glove compartment for a map, but didn’t find one. “Anyone know where we’re going now?” he asked, “cuz we sure as hell can’t go back to the camp. Hult will have radioed what have happened by now.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Jim. Brett turned around and Twink slowed down.

“What are you talking about, Jim? You just shot at a Sergeant in the United States Military. That’s a federal offense.” Brett looked around the truck cabin. “We’re all fugitives now.”

Jim shook his head. “I think Hult is in on what’s been happening. I think he want this,” Jim said as he pulled the drive out of his pocket. “He wants this so they can finish whatever it was they were planning.” Brett’s mouth hung open. Coyle was the first to speak. “What did Matt tell you?” Jim told them about the hole in the firewall and the messages that were being sent encrypted from unknown sources leading up to the attacks in San Diego and across the country.

“Holy shit,” Twink murmured to himself. Annie smacked him on the shoulder. “Sorry,” he blurted out. “So how do we know?” Brett asked.

“We check in on the base and we wait. If there isn’t a commotion then we know he didn’t report it. If there is, then we turn ourselves in and get the drive to Matt, so he can do whatever it is that needs to be done to find out who did this.”

“Fugitives on the run. My mom would be so proud,” said Coyle.

Twink put the truck in drive and drove off towards the falling sun as a different orange glow began to spread across downtown Phoenix behind them.

Jim used a pair of binoculars and didn’t see any movement on the ground. The most activity he saw were some troops sent to escort a group of firefighters into the city, which was a full blaze of fury in the distance.

The smoke from the fires blanketed the night sky and the glow from the flames washed over the desert in an unearthly orange tinge. Jim climbed back down the dune to where they were camped. Brett and Twink did an inventory of what ammo and supplies they had left while Annie sat curled in a ball in Samantha’s lap. Annie looked up at her mom and asked when they could go home.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she responded. But she knew. She knew the fires would reach their home on the outskirts of the city. It was too big now. It was becoming its own entity. Annie buried her head further into her mother’s leg. “I hope daddy and Tigs are okay,” Annie whispered. “Shhh. They’re fine, baby. They’re fine,” she answered.

Jim walked over to Coyle who was leaned up against the wheel of the truck with his eyes half closed. Jim slid down next to him. “How are you doing?” Jim asked. “I could use some of that mush right about now,” Coyle half mumbled. Jim smiled and put his arm around him. Then Coyle thought for a moment. “Actually, I think I’d still hate it.”

Jim rested his head back on the metal siding of the truck. The glow from the fires rose up above the dunes. The shadows from the city danced across his face. He wondered how many died for some mad man’s search for power.