Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 46

Forty-five minutes later John reached the outskirts of Marksburgh. The field was on the other side of town on the main road, and John slowed the car to a crawl as he drove through a carbon copy of Portsmouth. Marksburgh had the same empty, derelict feel, only more desolate; a vile-smelling mist hung heavy in the air that filtered out the sunshine. Shops were closed and cars sat abandoned on the road, some with only tattered fragments of glass left in the windshields, others just burned out husks. Discordant sirens rang out through the city, filling the air with a cacophony of car and security alarms that wailed like banshees in a graveyard. It looked like a war zone, smelled like one, too; smoke billowed from unchecked fires that burned throughout the city, adding to the haze of despair. Even the wind was still... nothing moved here.

John maneuvered the car through a maze of wreckage and then slammed on the brakes. A lone, blood-soaked work boot lay in the middle of the road like a monument, a token of the suffering headed for the world. John couldn't bear driving over it and swerved the car around, craning his neck to watch the boot as he passed by. There were sporadic patches and pools of blood all over the streets and sidewalks. It was another massacre.

The road wound through a small neighborhood and John watched for signs of life in the darkened homes. Was anyone left? There were dying brown lawns, children's toys abandoned mid-play in the yards, and houses with a few days worth of newspapers piled on the walkways. In one of the homes a curtain parted in a window and John's heart leapt in his chest; the face of a woman, more of a young girl actually, peered out fearfully at the car, and then the curtain slammed closed quickly, hiding her away from the living once again. At least she was still alive.

These poor people.

John wondered how many were left hiding away in their homes, praying for an end to the madness. He hoped that more people survived, made it out of town before it was too late, but he knew in his gut that the chances were slim. This all had happened so fast.

Everyone in the car was silently watching the devastation unfurl as they drove deeper into Marksburgh. Rattle ate cold ravioli out of the can, and Minerva leaned against the window, gripping her pendant tightly to her chest as the car crept along. Roddy chain-smoked, angrily stubbing out one used up filter and quickly lighting another as he rocked in his seat. He couldn't take the silence any more.

"How can this be happening? How come no one else in the country knows about all this?" Roddy shouted. "Since 9/11 you can't fart without the government knowing about it! Where's the news coverage? Where's the army?"

"We're it," Rattle said from the back seat.

"But how come no one else knows what's going on?"

John shrugged. "I don't know...it's like this place has dropped off the radar. With everything else going on in the world -- Iraq, Syria, Russia, the bullshit in Washington D.C., our little corner doesn't matter. We don't have any military bases, no shipping hub, no airport, just two small towns that have gone quiet." An explosion in the distance rattled the windows of the car. Everyone jumped, and John reached for a cigarette.

"If we lose...." He let his words dangle in the air as he held up the glowing tip of the car's button lighter to the end of his cigarette with a scowl.

"Yeah, then the whole world will be aware," Roddy finished for him.

"We can't lose," Rattle said forcefully. "We just can't let this happen anywhere else."

There was a sign up ahead: Marksburgh Mound Archeological Site -- Exit two miles, and John stopped the car in its shadow.

"You guys ready?" he asked.