Books

Present Day…

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Bits of chitin splattered him on the face. Organic shrapnel ejected from a suicide bomber’s chest plate. He wiped it away. It was waxy to the touch. After detonation, it had traveled along on the explosion’s shock wave. Then the sonic boom hit. It deafened the crowd. Thunderous bells rang inside their heads, perhaps in C sharp minor. The resounding, opening bass octaves of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Op. 3 No. 2.

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Then came the heavier things. Thrust upward from the initial blast, past their vertex, now hurtling down the right side of parabolic arcs. Onto the bistro table rained rubble –a hunk of fractured cobblestone, the splintered end of a wood beam, stones, pebbles, and dirt.

They sat at their table, the three of them – Barnabas, Ruth and Ophelia – each still holding their utensils, arms raised in crosses to protect their faces.

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Barnabas looked at Ruth, limbs frozen His brain took a moment to process what was happening. With cognition, it directed his heart to furiously pump hemolymph to his appendages. Respiration in overdrive. Deliver more oxygen. Regain motor function. His foreleg thawed then loosened. He touched the side of his head where the debris hit him. Red liquid flowed down his leg and pooled in the pit of his elbow. He gripped the table, stood up, then wobbled on his feet.

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It looked like it was going to rain all day. For that, most patrons mistook the initials blast for thunderstrike.

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A second thunderous boom, this one stronger than the first. It blindsided them.

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This was no faceless act of mother nature they now realized. This was a nefarious act, one by wicked people.  

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That realization brought on pandemonium. People scattered from the center of the square helter-skelter. Some stayed and hid under their tables. Crouching ducks.

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With each strike more debris littered their table. A severed hind leg plopped down onto Barnabas’ dinner plate.

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The blasts kept coming in syncopated succession. It was musical.

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And then a lull.

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With the settling of dust came the lighter floating debris. Ash, burning newspaper, and leaflets. A sea of leaflets now forming, filling the sky like ticker tape. The giant confetti blotted out a sun mostly hidden already behind tumbling cumulonimbus.

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A leaflet shifted left and right and dropped onto their table like a feather from a bird of flight. It read:

 

O’ Brothers in arms,

Hold steadfast,

Fight till the day is done,

Long live the Mantodea,

We shall overcome.

 

Mantodea! These were praying mantis terrorists. And of the worst kind. A fractured cell, broken off from ISNL – the Islamic State of Normantis and the Levanworth. The Mantodea were hyper-radicalized, made ISNL look like a fraternity rather than a terrorist organization.

Barnabas grabbed his daughter and tucked her inside his overcoat. He pulled his wife tightly by the foreleg, positioning her in front of him to sandwich Ophelia. Huddled together, they advanced as quickly as they could without falling over themselves.  Barnabas guided them to the entrance of the restaurant. He pushed at the front door. It budged slightly but held tight. Lowering his shoulder, he battered forward with all his might, to no avail. The door had already been barricaded from the inside.  

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Barnabas pulled his wife and daughter back towards him and turned the corner searching for cover.

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A young cat sat sprawled out, her back arched against the side wall of the restaurant. She held her head in her paws. Between gasps of air, she dribbled blood onto the ground before her. She was badly wounded. The lower half of her jaw dangled awkwardly, connected from just the right hinge. Her spotted snow-white hair had turned gray from dust that had matted into clumps of her coagulated blood. Her tail had been partially blown off, what was left of it looking like the squashed end of a stubbed-out cigar.

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She held her paw out to Barnabas for help. Normally he would, but not now, not when his family was still in peril.

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They continued on frantically.

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Looking up, a man at the corner eyed Barnabas and dropped to his knee, feeding shells into a shotgun. Barnabas cut into the street and sprinted, head down and hunched over with his arms tight to his sides. He ran behind the cover of a line of cars. 

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Advancing down the block, they saw bodies strewn throughout the street, hodgepodge. Most lie prostrate, not moving.

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A body swung from a tree. Impaled at the neck, it still wore a smile on its face. What a way to go, to die happy in this sad, sad world.

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These events couldn’t be real. They were all merely actors in a scene of a post-apocalyptic script.

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They kept running, found an opening between two cars and cut back towards the rear of the restaurant. Dashing across the sidewalk they narrowly escaped the brunt of a buckshot from the corner assassin, a few pellets finding their way into Barnabas’ right foreleg.

Barnabas had Ruth and Ophelia crouch next to a dumpster while he searched for a way in. The kitchen rear door was slightly ajar, propped open by a fire extinguisher. Kitchens ran really hot; the workers must have kept the door open to relieve them from the stagnant heat. Barnabas pulled Ruth and Ophelia in, grabbed the fire extinguisher, then shut the door. He pushed back at it to make sure it was locked.  

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The kitchen was packed, cooks and diners huddled together. Standing room only. They walked past locked doors – the men’s room, women’s room, ‘for employees only’ room. To their left was the main bar. Hordes of patrons had taken cover between the backbar and the serving counter. They lie on the floor stacked on top of each other, three deep. People scrabbled at openings between flesh trying to get to the bottom of the pile.

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Barnabas looked to his right – an empty dining room. Half of the ceiling was caved in with the plastered crown molding still attached. A beam of sunlight came in through the opening in the roof, illuminating an empty table save a small vase with a fake rose.

They took shelter under a dining table. Good for protection from falling debris, not great for line-of-sight projectiles and sniper fire. They lay on their chests as flat as possible to the ground with their hands on their heads.

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Another explosion went off, this one right outside the restaurant. It sent a metal garbage can hurtling through the front door. Glass rained...

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