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Page 34.
25. Attack
 Jared and Stella made their way along deserted, shadowy city streets. On either side loomed the decorative house fronts with shuttered windows. Ivy and gargoyles, baby angels and ancient forest gods with pointy beards—all of humankind’s venerable mythology crawled on the walls here amid purplish-ashen shadows seeping across age-darkened stucco surfaces.
One moment, there was only the crowded sky full of lights.
Then, out of nowhere, came black ships: First, darting, thrusting beams from nothing; then exploding or crippled vehicles sinking to earth on flames slow as crumpling, listless flames; then the coal-black, space-colored ships flitting distance-silent like shadows obscuring the stars.
Finally, only silence.
The ships were gone.
In the heavens the moving lights ran running amuck, scattered fireflies in voiceless panic.
In the City was distant, mute burning.
Who could ever have imagined the City of the Universe so crippled, now dying?
It was something Jared only half-perceived, and only half understood. It was a thing of the eyes only, until the wind brought scorch smells to his nose, diluted by distance.
Wind keened around sharp corners, stirred up by the turbulence of distant burning.
Particles flew erratically in warm, chaotic breezes.
Jared led Stella along these familiar streets, which now looked almost foreign, if not alien.
They walked on broad, proud Olympic Avenue.
The crowds now were panicky, not festive. Vanished forever were Father Mercury and his halcyon nymphs. This mass of bodies surged in anger and fear about the air raid, about their growing hunger, the lack of drinking water, the breakdown of society. They shouted, waved fists, overturned ground cars, smashed windows, fought among each other, killed anyone who looked different. They behaved as their kind had in every society since humans had first walked upright.
Jared quickly led Stella along. She had her face veiled so the mob could not see she was different. In a moment, the ignorant fools might blame her, turn on her, kill her as a scapegoat to take out their frenzy before moving on to other victims, other destruction.
Three exceedingly tall monks from alien Aleazar stood at crowd’s edge, their slender wine-red robes blowing in the wind. They took no notice of him. They watched the sky, blank-eyed, sharp-browed, swaying slightly with the rhythm of their vagaries.
“Wipe out the rebels,” a fresh sign read, plastered on the wall. “Support your government.”
One group tore the sign down. Another group tried to rescue the sign.
Then the various factions began slugging and stabbing each other.
With Stella in tow, Jared got past these mob scenes, through quiet streets, and made his way to an unexpected place.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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