RATH - Redemption (7 page)

As the drone ripped through the early morning sky, Archer continued to question his new co-pilot, having Tonya move through the rear cabin checking on the forty plus passengers, while Samuel occupied her chair. “Sam, we’ll be within visual range of Emerson’s beach within minutes and with the sun ready to come up, what are the chances we land without any problems?”

“Hey,” Samuel said. “I’m already in shock that we’ve made it this far. I’m almost ready to declare the new guy a good luck charm; you know, the guy you wanted to kill twelve hours ago.”

Archer shook his head and pointed through the glare coming out of the east. “That’s our spot, just a few hundred yards from the jetty, maybe five minutes. Let Vera and the others know to hold tight until we put down. I’d make the announcement, although I’m trying to stay off the radio until we get on the ground.”

Smiling he turned to Archer and said, “Will do.”

“What’s so funny?” Archer asked.

“Nothing’s funny, I’m still just amused that Boothe hasn’t been able to figure out what we did last night. The look on his face is going to be priceless. Can’t wait.”

“Proud of yourself, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe a little.” Samuel moved through the crowded cockpit and out into the rear cabin.

Reaching for the control panel, Archer flipped the toggle switch for the outgoing audio and lowered the mic to his chin. He turned to assure he was alone and then spoke quickly and calmly, while descending into the airspace above the beach. “Touch down in five minutes, forty-two residents incoming and no sign of the others.”

As Tonya returned, she looked confused. “Who were you talking to?”

Returning the switch to its off position, Archer turned to her. “No one…I mean, I was just talking to myself. I think being up here behind the controls for so long; I’m starting to go a little stir crazy. I’ll be better once we get out of this cockpit.”

Sliding back into the co-pilot’s seat Tonya said, “Aren’t you at all worried about what Boothe and his men have waiting for us once we do land?”

“If Samuel did his job, we’ll be the ones surprising him. Once Symon, Rath, and the others hit the beach, we shouldn’t have any problems with Boothe or his men.”

“Okay, I’ll just follow your lead.”

.      .      .

Not eating more than few bites of the previous night’s so-called dinner, Sarah’s head pounded as she lifted off the mattress and her stomach pulled in toward her spine. The thought of what awaited them and the prospect of having to spend another minute in the presence of that man left her with little hope that she’d ever see her husband again. She sat forward, turned to Lauren, and noticed her roommate had already awoken.

Lauren, now seated along the bed she’d already straightened, with her back against the wall and her head hung between her legs, quietly cried. The past twelve hours had inched by without the pair speaking and with the last conversation once again ending with Sarah scolding the young mother; neither knew where to begin the new day.

Although the room she’d been locked away in was void of windows, her internal clock told her it was morning. With that realization, Sarah watched the door like it held life, waiting for her captor to return and calming the voices in her head that spoke of the terror that awaited her. The dream she’d continually told herself to hold on to was slowly fading, as were her hopes that her husband would somehow find her. Sarah knew what she needed to do; she just no longer believed that she could.

Standing, the polished concrete floors were cool to the touch. As she began to cross the floor to Lauren, the key entered the lock and the door swung open. Emerson Boothe entered the room just ahead of his three guards. “Ladies, it’s time, please follow me.”

Into the stairwell and up to the ground floor, they followed the madman. Reaching the same door Sarah had gone through with Jonah at nearly the same time a day before, she stopped. Lauren also stopped.

Boothe, already out into the dissipating morning fog, turned and motioned to his guards. They moved toward the women and pulled them, barefoot, out into the sand. They were dragged to the top of the dune and turned back toward the facility they’d been prisoners in for the last several days.

The air thick and warm on her face, Sarah slid in next to Lauren and hugged her. Lauren neither responded nor acknowledged the gesture. She simply remained standing and stared at the sand below her feet.

Boothe shouted from his perch high above the beach, now only a few feet from the women. “Bring them out.”

Two additional guards forced four men out onto the beach, each chained to the one before and bloodied from head to toe. Void of any clothing, they were marched to a spot twenty feet from the foot of the dune and forced to their knees.

Out of the cloudless sky over her left shoulder, drifted another of Boothe’s jet-black transport drones. Sarah turned from Lauren and watched as the aircraft slowed overhead and began its vertical descent less than a hundred yards from where she stood, unable to move her focus from the tortured men in the sand.

Boothe turned to the women and said, “Right on time, that Archer is punctual if nothing else.” And as the drone finished touching down near the shore break, he made his way to the four men lying in the sand. Back to Sarah he said. “Your husband is out there, somewhere close, waiting for his chance to take you from me. I don’t know where, but I’m sure of it. Call to him.”

Sarah stood motionless, staring back at him.

“Your choice.” He held out his right hand and after being handed a pistol, fired one round into the forehead of the bloodied man to his right. Before his victim’s body hit the ground he again made his demand. “Sarah, this is the last time I ask.” He turned the weapon on the next man in line and pushed the barrel into his ear. “Call to him.”

The three men lying before her we’re already dead. Boothe would execute them either way, although she knew her husband, and how this situation would have played out had he been anywhere within earshot. Shouting his name wouldn’t change the events about to unfold either way.

Sarah closed her eyes and melted as the words left her lips. “Benjamin, please do not show yourself. If you love me, I want you to get as far from—”

As Boothe discharged the three remaining men from this world, Sarah flinched and dropped to her knees. She wept as the drone opened its rear cargo doors and as the dust settled around the massive airship, she noticed those exiting were not Boothe’s people.

The turquoise ocean sat fifty feet to the left, framed by the morning fog and fading trails of sand. Archer stepped from the cockpit and lowered the rear doors as the warm coastal breeze filtered in. This was the first actual sunrise he’d seen in months; if he didn’t already known better, he’d have guessed that this part of the planet was about to experience its first summer day in over a year. Although with the colossal winter storm just miles to the east, it reminded him of why he was here today, fighting for his life. “Everyone out!” Archer moved into the rear cabin and began herding the residents out onto the beach. “There isn’t time, leave your things; we’ll come back for anything you may need.”

Many did what they were told without question and marched out into the sand. Others, including Vera stayed behind, looking for answers. “What’s happening, where are the others? The beach looks deserted.”
 

“I’m sure Rath, Symon, and the others will be coming up over that ridge any moment now. That is if they haven’t already moved on Boothe’s compound. Let’s get the others out onto the beach so we can get a head count.”

A familiar voice flooded the interior. “Archer… move them out.”

Standing between Archer and her people, Vera reached back and slapped him with an open hand. “What did you do?”

“What I needed to do to survive.”

“So, you sacrificed everyone that you’ve ever known to that murderous sociopath to save yourself? Like father like son, I guess.”

He turned to strike her and then lowered his hand. “Just get outside. It was over for you and the others the moment you allowed Benjamin Rath into our mountain.”

“I’m not willing to believe that you brought everyone here, simply to just let us die. You’re a disgrace. Not only to the people who trusted you, but to our race as a whole.” As Vera turned and walked into the daylight, many residents had already begun to turn back the moment they noticed Boothe’s men striding toward the aircraft.

Through the passenger bay and out into the sand, Archer moved around and passed the former residents of the Patch, as they were being herded back toward the dune. He marched through the packed sand toward Boothe and eyed his target, Benjamin Rath’s wife.

Many horrified and frozen in place at the sight of the four casualties tried to run, only to be brought down with a hit from a well-placed stun baton.

.      .      .

As his men lined the residents three deep, just feet from the fallen prisoners, Boothe stood between the two women as Archer joined them atop the dune. He ordered the six children removed from their families and taken inside the facility. Three boys and three girls were torn away from their mothers and fathers at gunpoint. His lack of compassion for the children proved just how far Emerson Boothe had traveled from his former self. One of the fathers was hit with a stun baton continually until his limbs went rigid and he lay face down in the sand, blood running from his left eye.

The three girls trailed the boys toward the facility as Lauren finally lifted her head from the ground below. She recognized the whimper of her little girl and tracking the sound, laid eyes on her as she passed behind the last row of residents. Without asking for approval and unfazed as the men in black shouted for her to stop, Lauren ran to her little girl. “CHLOE!”

The guards turned to Boothe for direction and he motioned for them to stand down. His patience wearing thin, he turned to the hushed crowd as they watched the mother and daughter reunite and began his tirade. “I’ll keep this short…as most of you know by now, the world is changing. I’m sure Vera has given you all the unpleasant details of why she assumes I left you behind, to perish in the mountain. I’ll give you the truth; it’s callous, although it’s also reality. The new home I’ve built wouldn’t sustain everyone for the length of time we’ll be locked away. We ran the numbers hundreds of times and one glaring fact stared back at us every single time. If we took with us, every single resident, we would have run through our supplies years too early. We never—”

Out from the third row, Samuel moved to Vera’s side and in speaking, interrupted his former mentor. “Boothe, you’re lying to these people. Why don’t you tell them how you’ve also killed off most everyone living in the Districts over the last few months? How you’ve randomly chosen to murder husbands, wives, and their children, tearing down their homes and letting them fight for their lives among the wastelands. Emerson, you’ve slipped…you are not the man you once were; the person we praised is gone. Tell them what you’ve done, these people deserve it.”

“Samuel, if you’re looking for the reason you and so many like you weren’t asked to join us, you’ve already answered your own question. You see…if people like you, people who question my every step, people who cause trouble, people who cannot follow simple orders were allowed to share my new home, how long would it be before chaos ruled our lives? How long before people were forced against one another, how long before something had to be done to gain back control?”

Boothe continued, although focusing only on his former head of technology. “Samuel, the time you spent trying to lock me out of the network here today only made my job easier. While you and Tyler were working to keep me from getting my hands on that drone, you became too distracted to see that I was already controlling it through Archer. I also recorded every word of every conversation. I just wish you could see the look on your own face. Not on my bucket list, although still very satisfying.”

Vera had heard enough and finally stepped forward; trembling as she began to speak. “Emerson, what has happened to you and why are you doing this? Why not give us all a chance to live? ”

“Vera, you’ve always been loyal, loyal to a fault. The reality is that our new home will be locked at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for twelve years. And for twelve years, there won’t be an option to open the back door and throw potential lawbreakers out. Once we’re locked in, that’s it.”

“None of these people have ever given you anything to worry about. You need to rethink your decision; these people are your family.”

“Family? None of you are my family; you’re just the people who I’ve taken care of for most of your lives. It was me…I built the facility that kept all of you from freezing to death. I was the one with the foresight to stockpile supplies and find a proper location to make surviving the end of the world possible. Now that nature has decided to change its terms, you again expect me to come to your rescue?”

Emerson Boothe paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “To each and every one of you…three decades ago, our planet was knocked off its axis. No one came to help, not the government, not even the local authorities. When God himself turned his back on you, it was me…I took you in, I gave you life, and for the last thirty-two years, I’ve been your God.”

He tried to continue, although the respondent outcry drowned any chance of following the same train of thought. Growing tired of the back and forth with the very people he was about to leave to die, Boothe reached in to his waistband, pulled his nine millimeter pistol, and fired two shots into the air. The crowd quieting, he pointed to the hills between the beach and the reviled city of Presidio.

“Go,” Boothe said. “We are done here. It looks like the man I’ve been waiting for didn’t make it here alive. Benjamin Rath is the reason my son was murdered.” He motioned to Archer. “He also killed this man’s father in cold blood. When I learned that Mr. Rath’s wife had been picked up by one of our transports, I realized that karma had evened the score. She’s here as payback for her husband’s sins, as are all of you. You took him in and then decided to betray me by not handing him over.”

Sarah turned to Boothe and spit in his face. “My husband is not a murderer.”

He didn’t react. Boothe removed a white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face, and turned to Archer. “She’s yours; I no longer have any use for her.” Turning back to the crowd he said, “Or any of you.”

Grabbing a thick handful of Sarah’s hair, Archer pulled her to her knees and then down the face of the dune. Struggling, she managed to get ahold of his wrists and with her fingernails, tore into his flesh. Blood ran down her hands and onto her palms as he writhed in pain and instinctively released her. Sarah turned away from Archer’s right cross just in time to witness Boothe ordering the execution of everyone left on the beach.

.      .      .

Sarah couldn’t distinguish whether the gunshots preceded the massive explosion or if it had been the other way around. Taking four consecutive blows to the head from Archer’s right fist, blood began to pour from the corner of her eye and into her mouth. She lay on her back fighting for her next breath and upon regaining focus, she watched the soles of Archer’s boots take flight as the nearly two hundred pound man was blown backward more than fifteen feet.

The explosion had rocked the entire beach, as residents of the Patch—including Samuel, Vera, and Tonya—gathered the others and started back toward the drone. The hillside to the right of the beachfront facility breathed fire and thick black smoke poured out of a cylindrical cavern, the obvious source of the explosion.

Boothe’s men, the few that remained standing, moved toward the site of destruction as the smoke began to clear. As the earth began to shake, the men, in unison pulled back and at the sight of the first Andro, turned and started to run. Andros moving out onto the beach appeared to discriminate, choosing Boothe’s men over the weaker women and children from the Patch. The men in black were plucked one by one from the beach and tossed over the shoulders of the beasts exiting the tunnel.

Sarah moved to a sitting position, and in attempting to stand, dropped back to her knees. As he walked through the fading black smoke, her husband was flanked by two of the largest beasts she’d ever seen. Standing at least two feet above the man she’d been waiting for, these Andros were different. They were both women and although that would have been enough, they also appeared to be walking with him and not attempting to devour him.

Scanning the beach, Rath had yet to find her, although upon locating and pointing out Emerson Boothe, the two gargantuan Andros appeared incensed. They moved on him without regard for personal safety, and although the self-proclaimed deity fired multiple shots, not one found its intended target.

He was hit hard, taken to the ground, and finally dragged away by the large female Andros. He attempted to use his remaining breath to curse Benjamin Rath, although he was quickly silenced with a crushing blow to his mid-section. Within minutes, Emerson Boothe and his men were made prisoners of the Arkuss, his fate completely resting with the sub-set of Andros that he’d been trying to eliminate for years.

.      .      .

Finally standing, he found her. Sarah began toward him and with each step, the throbbing in her head pushed more blood down her face. He didn’t appear to have fared much better, although he was moving at an increased pace as the two moved in a straight line toward one other.

Pausing to wipe clean her eyes, Sarah was taken from her feet with an elbow to the back of the head. She spun to the right and was knocked back into the sand as he knelt over her with a raised fist. Archer…he had been spared the fate of Boothe’s other men, as he wasn’t initially targeted and was void of the requisite black uniform, although his time had come.

As Archer swung, his balled fist was intercepted along its path by an inversely destructive force. The six-pound lead pipe came through exceptionally quick for being brandished by a man using only his right arm. The sound made by the two colliding was nearly as painful as the decimation of every bone in Archer’s right hand.

Flat on his back and coughing up sand, Archer looked up at Benjamin Rath, unable to fathom the events that lead to their confrontation here on the beach. The blows came in quick succession and although every muscle fiber in his wrecked body screamed for him to stop, the picture of his beautiful wife pushed him on. Bending forward, he used his right hand to clamp down on Archer’s throat and as he struggled, Rath leaned in.

The younger man now motionless and with air rapidly escaping his lungs, Archer’s eyes began to twitch and close. “Let me die,” was all he was able to get out before Rath released his grip and moved to his wife.