Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

The Humvees peeled off the road, thrashed apart the flimsy metal gates and skid to a halt on the grassy yard of Rush University. More trucks and men came to join her. A voice on her radio announced that the entire property was covered. She replied as she looked at the buildings around her, “Keep your guns on every window.”

The building in front of her was the largest. There was a tower up against it, watching Chicago’s skyline from a safe distance.

Angela ordered her captains to close in on the other buildings. As they obeyed, she assembled a squad of a dozen men to stay with her, all of them mercs.

“The host is in this building,” she said to them, her radio on. “When he dies, this war ends. Taking him down isn’t going to be easy. He has powers like the Wizard of Seattle did. But he is still flesh. And when his flesh is lying lifeless on the floor, we go home. As of this moment, you are no longer mercenaries: you are soldiers defending your world.”

A ram broke through the doors. No gunfire came out. It was dark. She led her squad inside. Similar-sized squads were walking in through every other entrance, keeping in touch with her.

“Squad A—not a sound.”

“Squad B—no sign of hostilities.”

“Squad C—clear.”

Ten other squads reported nothing.

Angela made her way deeper into the building. A second wave of squads were making their way through the doors and windows.

In a hall close to the center of the building, her light fell on a mural. It was an image that couldn’t be put in a frame—it ended at no solid line, just faded into the white wall.

It was a landscape: flat land with no features—no vegetation, no water. Not so much as a rock. Just what seemed to be an endless plain of gray dirt. This covered the bottom half of the image. The upper half was a beautiful night sky with bright stars, sliced down the center by the rim of the galaxy. That and all the stars around it faded at the center if the mural. At that tiny point—where the endless plain met the endless sky, and both met the galaxy—was a city brighter than the stars. She gazed deeply into it, that tiny city in the massive world. She had to get close to it to see it clearly. It was enchanting. And hypnotic.

Her radio pulled her from the painting.

“Hostiles!” came a scream through static. “Hostiles at C!”

They heard gunfire from other parts of the building.

“What the fuck are these things!” came a voice with growling and screaming in the background.

“We need backup at squad A now!”

Squads throughout the building announced their distress. A deep voice overpowered them in the static.

“Deus est Mortuus! Civitatem oritur in distantia!”

Then she heard the growling herself. It echoed in the hall around them.

Flashlights traveled frantically from one side of the hall to the other. On every door. The ceiling. The vents.

Something came charging. She fired with her men. It rammed through one of them, hurling him against the ceiling. Angela put bullets into its head. They all pattered to the floor. This pig-faced thing dug its claws into another man’s face. She was helpless to defend him. Or the next one, whose head the beast crushed with its fist.

Another beast appeared and the men started running. Angela retreated into a narrow hall. She called into her radio for all units to enter with extreme caution. All weapons out, explosives when possible, flamethrowers, everything.

“All together,” she said as calmly as she could. “Every window. Every door.”

The fighting came to silence. All the men inside were dead, except for maybe a lucky few in hiding. But it would get louder very soon. She looked to the end of the hall. There was a door. Through the seams, light. She came to it, gun drawn, pushed it open.

The room was lit by a massive fireplace whose flames reflected on the polished oak dining table in the center. A man was seated at the far end. He and his table cast shadows on the wall as his fork and knife tapped against the platter.

“Welcome,” said the man. “My name is Evagrius. This is the home of the host. He knew you’d find it.”

“Where is he?” she said.

“You may think Grakus is only interested in the West,” said the man as he poked at a salad. “But he’s also watching you, lady Angela of Baltimore.”

“Your government has fallen,” she took a step forward. “Baltimore controls this city now.”

“Yes,” Evagrius tasted another bit of food. “Your men surround me. The war surrounds them. Death surrounds us all. We’re all encompassed by some inevitability. What matters is here and now. And here and now, it is you who are surrounded by us.”

More of those pig-faced demons entered—some from the door across the room, some from right behind her—each carrying a dead mercenary of hers.

Angela, a tear falling, looked to the man at the table. “Where is Grakus?”

The man poured wine. “Grakus is gone.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“I mean bye-bye. Gone. Just like me. Just like you. Who stays and who goes doesn’t matter. What matters is the chaos. And the chaos is inevitable.”

She could hear footsteps outside the room. They belonged to human men. Her men. Right outside the door. And outside the walls to her left. She saw that Evagrius was aware of them. Even the demons were.

Her radio came on. “All teams are at your position, Lady Velys. Give the word.”

Evagrius glared at her radio. “The chaos is calling.”

Angela hit the radio and ran for cover. “Now!”

Evagrius sprung from his chair. “Kill them all!”

Angela ducked behind a bar as the wall exploded and the door frames shattered. She covered her ears, wrapped herself tightly. She couldn’t keep the sound out of her head. She had never been so afraid in battle. The room shook. The noise stayed with her, and she only realized it was over when one of her lieutenants found her, held out his hand, helped her up.

No more men seemed to have been killed.

“Things got some tough hides,” said the lieutenant. “Not tough enough for armor-piercers, ha!”

“My lady,” a merc entered the room. “We stormed the tower and found his office. It’s all empty.”

Angela nodded, took a breath, and thought. She looked up. “Take me to the office.”

The merc took her through the halls, where men were still searching for any more of the pig-heads. The lights came back on. There were officers who wanted to speak with her. But her attention was elsewhere.

Grakus’s office, while equipped with everything it needed, was very plain. White carpet, gray walls, a desk and a television screen. Angela walked to the desk and found the city intercom.

She sat.

An emptiness took her. She pulled air into her lungs. To fill her body with something. She felt like there was no one with her. Like there was no one she had ever loved. Like she never even existed. She didn’t leave the chair. She waited for the feeling to pass.

When most of it had, she relaxed, sat back. She would wait until morning to talk to the people of Chicago. They all were fearful now. In the morning, the last defender of the Host’s Chicago will have fallen, and the city would still be wide awake. By then, Angela could be sure that everything was going to be alright. And she could tell them all the same.

More than a day and night herding many through darkness. He never realized just how many until the journey was over.

The sewers of Baltimore had led them to a tunnel, the tunnel to a subway line.

Managing the exodus had become almost impossible when it stretched farther back than he could see. They stopped often so that he could check on them, talk to them, make sure the sick and elderly were taken care of properly, that no one was left behind.