The Second Coming by John Dalmas

“Simeon! Simeon!”

Who was calling him? The voice wakened him again to his responsibilities, and he made it back onto his hands and knees. “Tsunami!” His intended bellow was a croak. “Tsunami!” He lay gasping like a beached fish. How many minutes did they have? “Tsunami!” he croaked again, sure now his skin was peeling off.

Miraculously the pain stopped. Surprised he looked around, able to see again, and recognized his own body lying in the dirt. There were no flames on it. He saw his cousin Natalya sitting on her stoop like a puppet with the strings cut, leaning against the wall, staring seaward. Dear Natalya, he thought fondly, everyone’s friend.

Then the wave hit. Not the tsunami. The shock wave. He saw his body thrown twenty yards, and all eighteen of Yakovskij Zaliv’s frame houses knocked flat.

* * *

Unknown to Carl Lavender, something more serious than the three departed “militia types” was coming down a tree-lined county road nearby—a truck with the logo of a rental company. Michael Shaughnessy sat beside its driver. He’d decided to lead this strike himself, to be sure it was done right. He hadn’t been listening to commercial radio, and didn’t know about Dove’s death or the meteor. The man who’d been directing him via a security band hadn’t kept him up with events. He’d simply given directions, guiding Shaughnessy along rural roads. He’d also shown him the equipment yard, an early view from the CNN aerial camera, revealing the bus behind the machine shed.

“It should be the next crossroad,” Shaughnessy told the driver. “If there’s a sign, it should say Bell Creek Road.”

There was, and it did. The driver turned south. A half-mile ahead, some dozen cars were still parked along the road. Shaughnessy raised a microphone to his mouth, talking to the men in the rear of the truck. “We’ll arrive in about a minute. When I stop, pile out ready for action. Kill anyone in your way. The local yokels are highway police, with shotguns and automatic rifles. They may take positions behind gravel piles. Finish them off immediately; handling surrenders is too dangerous. Then hang one of the blanket charges on the fence, blow it, get through the opening and take out the bus. Don’t leave anyone from Millennium alive. Some of them may hide in the machine shed, so check it out.”

He’d gone through the instructions before, en route, giving the men time to get used to them. If they didn’t have it now, they never would.

* * *

Luther Koskela sat with the others in back. The truck carried more than a stock of weapons. If anyone looked in the rear door, all they’d see were wardrobe boxes and furniture. Behind the facade, sixteen mercenaries had made themselves as comfortable as they could, on sofas, easy chairs and mattresses. Now they got up, quiet, alert and ready. And disgruntled. None of them were happy with the “no prisoners” order. It went seriously against the principles of the mercenary brotherhood. But it was too late to back out.

They were even less informed than Shaughnessy, not even knowing that Dove had been arrested.

Luther had slipped into a dark and dangerous mood. From the beginning he’d hadn’t liked this job, but the scrap yard had RIF’d him. Needing work, he’d gone to Minneapolis, where he’d looked up an old buddy from their Nigerian days, and one thing had led to another . . . In a minute or so, there’d be shooting, with civilians in the way—Americans, bystanders who had no part in this, no fault. Nor did he have anything against police.

A crock of shit, he thought, angry with himself for getting into this.

The truck had slowed. Now it stopped. Masterson, their command sergeant, threw the door lever and lifted. The door slid up and the men piled out, Luther the last of them, M-16s ready. There were cars along both sides of the road, people standing by them. Some of them looked toward the newcomers, shock beginning to register. Luther followed Masterson and the others, for one of the few times in his life reluctant. There was a vicious sputtering of automatic rifles, the boom of a shotgun. A grenade exploded . . .

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