"Tell the truth!"
The furious men moved closer, and the plastic tree and presents went flying when he tried to use them for a shield.
"We'll beat it out of ya!"
"Did you know?"
Their eyes and voices were full of hate, demanding answers. Again, he started to answer and was cut off - this time by a huge, vicious rumbling under their feet.
It came hard and fast, sawdust from the stairs falling over them as it pounded closer through the rock and stone. Adrian had been in enough hot landing zones to recognize the danger, and threw himself to the tiled floor, putting a hand on the gat (4) in his pocket, as some of the men followed his lead. Others lunged his way, thinking he was trying to escape.
"Get him!"
"Incoming! Get down!"
The walls above them exploded an instant later, blown away like brittle leaves in the fall, and then the small, neat house above them was crumbling, burying them alive.
6
These were the first and most direct effects of the War on American soil, the beginning of a hard new world where all authority disappeared. In less than one day, calm, arrogant safety vanished and took with it, the rest of society's perceived protections that had always been taken for granted…like calling 911.
Angela - Ohio
"He didn't say Ft. Defiance. He didn't."
The very pale woman dropped the stained hospital scrubs she'd just changed out of and gripped the back of the kitchen chair. Oblivious to the gunshots and screams outside, and to the pains tearing through her slightly rounded belly, she watched the CNN report on the plasma T.V., listening to them tell of an impact over 1200 miles from her Cincinnati home.
".. latest word is five million dead, another two million injured or exposed, and the cloud is moving west, northwest towards the Alabama State line at 37 mph. Camp David is gone, Houston, all the coastal oil refineries…"
"Charlie?"
The woman slid to her knees on the plush carpet of the two-bedroom apartment, the agony in her chest worse than the bands of pressure clamping around her stomach, pushing down. Footsteps thudded in the halls outside her door, followed by more shouts. Both went unnoticed.
"It can't be!"
The cell phone slid out of her hand, liquid suddenly oozing down her thighs and swollen legs as Christmas lights flashed mockingly in place of emergency blinkers.
"I would know!" she cried suddenly, doubling over, "I would know!"
The door in her mind rattled and she grunted in pain, trying to draw on a gift (curse) she had locked away over a decade ago, but she was weak and those magic halls remained closed.