Manel Loureiro - The Wrath of the Just

“OK, Seth,” he said amiably. “Let’s go kick their brown asses. We’ll teach ’em who’s fucking boss.”

Seth Fretzen smiled, flashing his broken, rotting teeth—what few were left. He was having a great time too. He signaled to the militiamen and Green Guards surrounding Grapes’s tank, then got behind the wheel as the rest of the men climbed into their vehicles. They roared through the burning streets. Along the way, dozens of people ran for the shadows. Grapes sneered. I’ll take care of them later. First, I’m gonna take out the motherfuckers who’re fighting back. That’ll break their resistance and the rest’ll be gentle as lambs. Stupid shits.

The Just, they called themselves. What did justice have to do with it? In Grapes’s mind, justice died when the Apocalypse destroyed the old world. Now the only law was survival of the strong and the fit. With Greene behind him, he was the strongest of all.

As his convoy turned the corner, shots rang out from every direction. Grapes heard a howl of pain next to him as a soldier fell from the turret of a Humvee, half his head blown away. Bullets pinged against the side of Grapes’s truck and cracked the reinforced glass, leaving bumps on the inside of the door. If the truck hadn’t been reinforced, Grapes would’ve been toast.

The Aryan was stunned when one of the vehicles in his command flew into the air in a ball of fire. His men gunned down the helots who’d thrown the Molotov cocktails as they ran from the scene, but his convoy was suddenly in chaos. The veins in Grapes’s neck swelled in rage.

“Seth, call in all the reinforcements now! Let’s take out these fucking pussies! And get a heavy tank over here!”

The man nodded and barked the orders into his radio. Grapes jumped from his truck and organized his men into a firing line out of the snipers’ range. He was too pissed off to duck as bullets pinged around him.

He finally got his men into a semicircle at one corner of the plaza. The helots were mainly concentrated on the opposite side. His men were firing blindly, wasting ammo as if this were a shooting contest. Of course, they had plenty to spare: the whole fucking Navy warehouse in Gulfport.

The helots’ firepower had dwindled to a trickle compared to the torrent of fire Grapes’s men unleashed. He grunted, satisfied. He suspected that the assholes were running out of ammo, but he didn’t want to take a chance.

Suddenly a Humvee like his, but without the green cross on the side, appeared on a side street. The driver slammed on his brakes, as surprised to see Grapes as he was to see them, then revved his engine as his shooter opened fire on Grapes’s line. Its huge machine gun pierced Grapes’s armored shields as if they were soda cans, and half a dozen of men fell on the ground, writhing in pain. Then that Humvee drove off, disappearing into the shadows like an evil ghost.

Grapes scanned the night, frowning, trying to follow the roar of the Humvee’s engine as it rushed from corner to corner, hiding in pools of darkness. When his men returned fire, the Humvee disappeared behind a row of houses. The helots howled with joy.

Grapes swore under his breath. How did those fuckers get ahold of one of his vehicles? Did they have allies on the other side of the Wall? That worried him more. Grapes tried to make out who was inside as the Humvee came back for another pass, but it was too far away and the flash of gunfire blinded him.

Stopped there in the middle of the street, Grapes’s large convoy was an easy target. As the rogue Humvee made its second pass, nearly all its bullets hit their mark, forcing his men to take cover behind their vehicles. Grapes wished he had the night-vision goggles that were back at the military base. He never dreamed they would put up such a fight.

Just then he felt the ground shake. Coming around the corner, a heavily armored Bradley tank rolled over its chains, cracking the pavement.

“The tank’s here, Malachi!” Seth cried, elated.

“Have them take out those lunatics once and for all,” Grapes growled, pointing to the houses on the other side of the plaza.

The driver of the Bradley nodded. Unfamiliar with the vehicle, he ground the gears a few times before finally getting it in gear. The mammoth tank headed straight for the helots.

The Humvee crossed its path, desperately firing its machine gun at close range, but the big tank’s armor was too thick. Then the Humvee’s driver made a fatal mistake as he spun around too sharply in an attempt to avoid a blast from Grapes’s men. The Humvee skidded and the driver had to slow down to regain control. That left it a sitting duck as the Bradley fired at it broadside.

The blast hit the engine and it exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions. The Humvee’s crew ran off in the opposite direction in a hail of bullets. Two of them fell dead in the street. One screamed when a bullet struck his leg.

Grapes cursed at the top of his lungs. The men in the Humvee were white. Could there be more of them, even some of his own men? Suddenly, he didn’t feel so safe and powerful. The silent fear of an ambush stealthily seeped into his mind, but he’d come too far to retreat.

The fire from the helots’ houses had nearly burned out. From the windows, Molotov cocktails rained down on the Bradley, but the huge tank kept shooting, unfazed, and then launched a quick series of incendiary bombs into the houses. Flames peeked through the windows on the lower floor. Then something exploded in one of the houses. Its roof lifted into the air like a sailor’s hat, then crashed to the ground a few feet away. The intersection was strewn with rubble and charred remains.

Helots threw themselves out the windows on the upper floors, their clothes in flames. Grapes’s men fired at them as they fell. Their bodies continued to sizzle in the road.

A few ran out the door, wrapped in a thick cloud of smoke, coughing and stumbling.

Grapes spotted some familiar figures among the fugitives and raised his arm. “Hold your fire!” he growled. “Don’t shoot, dammit! I want those fuckers alive!”

A group of soldiers surrounded the half-dozen battered survivors. Grapes shook his head incredulously when they were dragged before him and thrown to the ground. “Strangärd, you arrogant Swedish piece of shit. You’re one of the fucking Just!”

The Swede raised his head and calmly looked up at Grapes. The gunshot wound on his right leg was bleeding heavily. “Grapes, this is a massacre. Don’t do this. You don’t have to obey Greene. You’re slaughtering innocent people just to please a crazy old man.”

Grapes stared down at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Suddenly, he burst out laughing, slapping his leg.

“I always thought you were a scumbag, but this is too much!” He leaned down and grabbed Strangärd by the collar, pressing his mouth to the Swede’s ear so no one would hear. “You idiot! You think I’m doing this for the Reverend? Don’t you realize this is my first step to something bigger? This is my manifest destiny! I’ll climb over the bodies of each and every one of those fucking bastards, if I have to. No one can stop me. No one! Hear me? I’m a god of war, you Swedish pussy. You made a big mistake crossing my path.”

He cocked his gun and pressed it against the Swede’s head. “Your uprising was over before it began.” He pointed to the smoldering ruins of the houses. The shooting continued, but it was growing weaker. The better-armed Greens outnumbered the helots and were gaining control. “If it’s any consolation, you never had a chance. Now, tell me who your pals are on the other side of the Wall. I want names, addresses, plans. Everything!”

“Eat shit, Grapes,” Strangärd spat. “We both know you won’t let me live. There’s nothing you can threaten me with. So shove it up your ass.”