Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

I turned around. James stood like a pillar in the middle of the aisle. The way the candlelight struck his face, deepening the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, made him seem so much older. It was like we had switched places and he was the older brother now and I was the younger. Or maybe it had been that way for a long while and I had never noticed.

“Good luck, Cal.”

The noise of the war broke the spell of the Lighthouse as he opened the door. When it closed again, that same timelessness gathered around me — only now, I could feel the lie of it. Seconds ticked away inside of me like the fall of an axe.

I leaned forward over the seat in front of me. The altar and the glimmering sign of the Path seemed huge, overwhelming. Without thinking, I laced my fingers together and closed my eyes. Terror of the beacons had led me to spend months hiding in our barracks, rehearsing all the gestures and expressions of faith until I had them down perfectly. But sitting there in that Lighthouse, peering into the darkness of my closed eyes, a prayer unspooled deep inside me and for the first time it felt like something reaching out from the very center of me.

“God,” I prayed. “Lead me to my path….”

I stepped out of the Lighthouse and into the chaos of the battle. A siren was screeching and scores of soldiers ran by in a blur of camouflage, sprinting for their duty stations. There was a flash as a missile battery on the outskirts of the base fired. Veins of smoke shot into the sky, and seconds later, there were three explosions high overhead.

With all the confusion, it was hard to be sure, but I thought I heard small-arms fire just beyond the perimeter of the base. I joined the rush of traffic headed into the command building.

“Cal!”

James was running from the kitchens and I shoved my way through the mob to meet him.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” James said. “Something’s gone wrong but no one will say what.”

Down the hallway, officers were streaming in and out of the ops center. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay here.”

A soldier swiped his key card by the doors and I timed my stride to slip in right behind him. The room was packed with generals and their men, all of them huddling over communications gear and glowing computers. I eased back into the shadows and looked for Hill.

He was standing with a group of officers before a large screen that showed a map of the United States. Path forces were displayed as gold circles and Fed forces were blue triangles. One look and it was easy to see what fueled the chaos in the room. There was a lot more blue on the board than gold and much of it was south of the Path’s frontlines. It looked like Federal forces were streaming in from the east and west simultaneously and quickly overwhelming Path forces.

“I want to know what the hell is going on,” Hill said. “The Feds were not supposed to be able to do this.”

A general in a disheveled uniform stepped forward. “Mr. President,” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “There was a wave of drone and cruise missile attacks followed by large-scale beach landings and paratroop drops from stealth aircraft in Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland.”

“Which we weren’t prepared for,” Hill said.

“Sir, I—”

“Your assessment said that the Feds weren’t supposed to have half this many troops left.”

“We’re working on it now, sir,” the general said. “If we have more time, I’m sure we can come up with an—”

A junior officer spoke up from a bank of communications gear. “Sir, it’s confirmed.”

There was a pause as the general turned to the young man. “We’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. We have multiple visual confirmations.”

The general seemed to deflate. He glanced to a tech seated by the side of the main computer screen. “Go ahead. Change them.”

With the press of a button, a large concentration of the Federal blue triangles to our south and east turned into the Union Jack of British forces. Throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania, what had been marked as Fed forces changed into the blue, white, and red of France. Other flags appeared in smaller numbers across the map. Israel. Spain. Brazil. Germany.

“Sir, we’re ready to confirm that a coalition of at least six different countries is currently operating within our eastern theater,” the general reported. “There are also indications of Russian forces attempting landings in California, and the Canadians breached the lines at Washington State.”

Another communications officer spoke up. “Sir, the Two-Three reports sightings of small team forces within our own fence line.”

The general pulled a red folder from a nearby case and held it out to Hill. “Are we ready, Mr. President?”

The room went silent. Hill stared at the red folder in the general’s hand but made no move to take it.

“Sir? They knew the consequences when they did this.”

“Have the men from Cormorant repel the coalition forces within Shrike’s perimeter,” Hill said quietly. “Commit everything else to Philadelphia.”

“But, sir—”

“Do it!” Hill snapped as he took the red folder out of the man’s hand. “I need to pray on this.”

Before anyone could say another word, Hill left the group and strode past me and through a door to an adjoining room. The officers looked from one to another while the blinking armies advanced and retreated behind them.

The door Hill went through opened with a soft click when I turned the knob. I stepped inside and closed the door. The small room was almost suffocatingly hot due to the dozens of candles that lined the desk and shelves, filling the place with a flickering glow.

Just inside the door, there was a desk made of darkly polished wood. A belt was draped across it, holding Hill’s holstered sidearm and his combat knife. His uniform was on a hook near the door.

Hill was across the room, kneeling with his back to me, in a nook where an altar had been set up. He was shirtless and barefoot. Waxy burn scars covered the whole of his back. The way the light hit them made them look like flames.

“Have a seat,” he said without turning. “I’ll be done soon.”

I crossed the room to a small couch. The red folder sat on a table in front of me. When Hill had finished his prayers, he stretched into a khaki T-shirt and sat across the table. He said nothing for a time, eyes locked on the folder.

“Sir, I wanted to talk to you about the girl who—”

“You’re from New York.”

“I… yes, sir.”

“But not the city.”

“Ithaca.”

“There’s a lake there,” he said. “Did you sail?”

I sat forward on the couch. “Sir, I’d like to—” Hill fixed me with his icy-blue eyes. “No, sir. I didn’t.”

“I sailed with my father,” he said. “He took me out on the water the day his store finally went under. Everyone told him he should just torch the place and collect the insurance money, but Dad said that when he started out in business, he promised himself he’d be honest. A man of his word. He wasn’t going back on that just because it made his life a little easier.”

“Sir, Nat—”

“Sergeant Parker made a report, Cal. The girl will be dealt with in the morning.”

“But if I could have a little more time with her, I could—”

“Your friend admitted to treason and refused to join the Path.”

“But the intelligence—”

“Was worthless,” he snapped. “Anything that girl knows is out of date. It’s over.”

I started to speak again but Hill was done. He reached for the red folder, drawing out the papers inside and regarding each carefully. A cord of tension inside of me evaporated and I fell back against the couch, feeling foolish for my whispered prayers. I imagined Nat in a cell somewhere within the base. Did she already know this was her last night?