Gunfire tears through the air, the deafening rhythm cracking against the stone walls, sending showers of dust and debris onto the bodies below.

  Blood pumps through John's fingers in time with the fading heartbeat of the man underneath him. Sergeant Orland’s hand palms weakly at John, his mouth moving, but no words make it out as blood fills his throat.

  “Come on, come on,” John grunts, trying to tear through his friend’s plate carrier to apply the chest seal. But it’s too late. Orland’s eyes fade, and his body falls limp.

  “Fuck!” John grabs for his radio, but as soon as the electronic click sounds, his vision goes white.

  A pressure wave crashes into John, picking him off his knees and sending him flying through the air to collide against the stone wall. The concrete shudders, and with a groan the roof collapses, buckling the wall underneath and sending a rain of bricks down onto John's body.

  Blood pumps in his deafened ears, the world moves in a drunken blur, smearing colors across his vision.

  A single shape grabs hold of him, ripping his body out from under the rubble and back into the room he just came from, where several rounds punch through the hallway.

  “Oi! Come on now, don’t make me do all the damn work!” Sergeant Kane shouts over the rattle of fully automatic fire.

  John grunts and tries to pull himself upright, but the world continues to spin around him, sending him staggering off sideways.

  “Get on your fuckin’ feet American!” the Aussie demands, half shoving John inside another room where he struggles to gain his bearings.

  “Tryin’” John grunts, coughing up a lung full of dust to join the blood that drips into his eyes and onto the ground around them.

  “Well, consider trying harder! I thought you marines were meant to be indestructible.” Sergeant Kane cracks a crooked, broken smile as he sends several more rounds in the direction of the incoming fire.

  “You try taking an RPG to the chest and tell me how you handle it.” John coughs a few more times, checking the magazine on his rifle before swapping it with a new one in a single smooth motion.

  “The wall took it for ya’, so don’t try that. Now get your fuckin head on straight and give me a hand would ya?”

  John spits the last of the blood from his mouth and joins the Australian in the next window. Leaning out, he puts two bodies in his sights and pulls the trigger, watching them drop. Shifting position he watches as more rounds ricochet off the wall. Calculating the angle he peaks a corner to fire three more rounds, dropping three more bodies.

  “We are going to be pinned down here! Press north, I'll cover!” John shouts.

  “Moving!” Sergeant Kane responds after dropping two more bodies who peek from the doorway.

  Kane bounds to the next doorway as John puts more rounds on target, stacking bodies high enough to give them a barrier as Kane covers his own approach into the next room.

  “Clear!” they shout in unison, pressing forward to another hallway.

  “Watch it!” John pulls Sergeant Kane back before he steps through the doorway. “Tripwire!” John points out, shouting over the never ending echo of gunfire. “We move around, east door, go!”

  “Right! on you big guy.” The Aussie pats John's shoulder as they stage on the next door.

  Wordlessly, Kane kicks in the door as John pies the corner, entering and clearing the room in a quick burst of automatic fire as if they had been doing this together for a lifetime.

  “Moving!” Sergeant Kane presses on into the next room, clearing it by himself as John takes the adjacent room.

  Two more human sized silhouettes enter his view, and two more trigger squeezes send the jaw and throat of a man into what remains of the other's face. Their bodies crumple, and John lets his weight drop to the ground in sync with the corpses.

  “Fuck you’re quick, how the hell did you know they were baddies?” Kane asks, bending down to get to a knee as well in order to breathe.

  “Everyone else is dead... anyone who isn’t you, is a hostile.” John wheezes, trying to get in breaths as his plate carrier crushes his ribs, feeling a thousand pounds on his shoulders.

  “Guess you’re right. Haven’t heard my boys on coms in a minute now. Yours?”

  John shakes his head “Last one went before the RPG...”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

  “We can cry on each other's shoulders when we get this shit sorted. Right now we need to keep moving.”

  “Right o, all business then. I’m with you, American. Get me through this alive and I'll buy you as many rounds as you can drink.” Kane pats him on the back and then hauls him up by the carry handle on his carrier.

  “You’ll regret that one.” John cracks his neck then cracks a smile, reloads his rifle and brings it to shoulder. “Ready?”

  Kane nods, and they press onward.

  They flow through the complex like a well oiled machine. Room by room, stacking the bodies even higher. It felt like this particular terrorist cell had an unlimited supply of bodies for this particular meat grinder and had every intent to see the machine was fed.

  It was unnatural, the amount of people in this complex was beyond anything the intel said. The numbers just didn’t make sense, but that didn’t matter, not right now, right now he needed to survive.

  John's gun runs dry, all of his mag spent as the people keep coming. John resorts to picking up the AK’s left by the mountain of corpses and using those until they reach the basement levels.

  Exchanging the AK’s for his pistol, John and Kane drive their way through the tight corridors below, deaf from the gunfire and on the brink of total exhaustion.

  “How fucking many!” Kane shouts, though his voice sounds like it’s underwater.

  “I got nearly 50 bodies!”

  “I counted 40!”

  “Where the fuck do they keep coming from!”

  “No clue, just kill ‘em!”

  John's back explodes with pain, like a lighting strike that tears through his body down his right leg into the tips of his toes. He tries to scream, but the air is stolen from his lungs as the pain sends stars into his vision.

  Then more gunshots strike concrete as they try and finish John off. He needs to move, he needs to duck but everything inside him has frozen, seized, his muscles and nerves incapable of responding.

  “Fuck!” Kane ducks down and pulls John to the side and into a room, raising his handgun to fire off shots down the hallway until someone screams, gurgles, and then dies.

  John strains his eyes against the explosion of agony running rampant through him. He finally has the breath but the scream comes out as a half gurgle instead.

  “Hold on!” Kane pulls John further inside the room, grabbing a table from the back wall and setting it against the door, followed by a wardrobe and a few chairs to barricade it.

  “My back...” John wheezes, every movement sends another shot of agony through him.

  “You’re fuckin lucky your plates caught that round, you’d have more than a broken back right now.” Kane bends down to look John in the eyes. “Can you move?”

  John wiggles his toes, and much to his relief they work just fine, he tries his knees next, though as they bend he feels a wave of nausea almost send his stomach through his throat.

  “I can manage... barely. I’ve had worse.”

  John looks up to Kane through narrowed eyes, but notices the man isn’t looking at him any more.

  “Give me a hand?” John asks, holding out one arm.

  Kane takes it and helps John up, though the effort alone has him nearly passing out.

  “John, you seeing this?” Kane asks, his eyes set to the wall behind him.

  It takes a great effort to turn around, but when he does he see’s what has Kane's attention.

  There is a spot on the wall, where the wardrobe used to be. Red stains saturate the wall, making a wide circle with lettering inside. A number of curved lines point towards the circles center where even more overlapping circles connect to create a complex bloody work of art.

  “It looks like there is a false door there as well, there is a seam on the wall and the ground has grooves from where it opens,” John grunts.

  “Right, you ain’t worried about the fucking blood sigil on the wall?”

  “So long as it's the terrorists' blood I couldn’t give a damn, we gotta keep going.”

  Kane shakes his head and stays close to John's side as he hobbles forward.

  Each movement feels like it will be the last, but still he presses on.

  John brings his hands to the stone door and presses. It pops out slightly, then swings outwards, revealing a staircase down.

  Moving down the stairs is the next biggest hurdle. Johns spine could shift at any moment, paralyzing him, pinching a nerve, severing his entire spinal cord, but that doesn’t stop him

  He grinds his teeth until he hears a pop, he sucks down breaths to fuel his torn and tired muscles until they reach the bottom, where John presses on another door, opening outward to reveal their destination.

  “Lucky fuckin American... what would you have done if this led us into their den?”

  “Killed ‘em all.” John chuckles and staggers into the dimly lit basement.

  Kane shakes his head. It looks as though he wants to joke more but the scene before him has him too disturbed, hell it has John disturbed too.

  Visible from the door, is what looks almost like a rucksack. A large green metallic barrel secured with heavy carrying straps, attached to a suitcase sized block on the back.

  On the floor surrounding the weapon of mass destruction, is another ring of blood, though this one features a collection of severed heads set on pikes, their gaunt faces locked in a permanent scream.

  The rest of their bodies have been hacked into pieces at the joints, arranged around the circle in such a way that it looks like the six men make a spiral six circles deep.

  How the hell the insurgents got a hold of a suitcase nuke was beyond him, and why they had surrounded it with the corpses of men was above his pay grade. All he knew was that it was his job to stop them from using it, and they were too deep to call for an exfil.

  “Fuck me...” The Aussie whispers as he checks the chambers of his handgun and tactically acquired AK. “So what, we call this in and fuck off?

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “No air support, this mission is dark. It’s just you and me unless you got any more backup coming.” John fights the pain in his body as he kneels down and examines the nuke.

  “I thought the Americans were the ones with all the backup.” Kane scowls.

  “Normally you’d be right.”

  CRACK CRACK CRACK.

  Two bodies drop at the primary entrance, one falling into the room and the other stumbling backwards holding his chest before Kane can put one between the survivors eyes.

  “You hold 'em off, I'll take care of the bomb.” John calls out, pulling a knife from his shoulder and cutting away at the backpack that surrounds it.

  “You’re going to defuse a fucking nuke?! Are you mad?”

  “Maybe.” John grits his teeth and works his jaw as he removes the gloves from his hands.

  “Fucking Americans! Have you done this before at least? Training?”

  “Believe me Aussie, I've done worse.” John smiles, recalling the hundreds of missions before this one. Sure none of them were nuclear or covered in cult symbols but he wasn’t going to let that fact bother him now.

  John steadies his breathing and narrows his eyes, examining the wiring closely as he peels away at one of the access panels on the side.

  “Worse than defusing a nuke in a fuckin basement?!” Kane is laughing, sweat dripping from his brow.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.” John cracks a smile, and snips a green wire.

  A brilliant flash of light blinds him, making John wince away.

  With a sigh, John clicks down on the metal chain a few more times to ensure the light bulb is working again. The smell of gunpowder and blood giving way to the stale musty scents of the cellar around him

  “That should take care of it for you.” John grunts and steps down off the ladder, pulling out the notebook from his back pocket and crossing Mrs. Gretta’s name off his list.

  His hand still shakes from the memory, the ringing still lingers in his ears, the smells cooked into his sinuses.

  “Thank you John.” Mrs. Gretta smiles and clasps her hands around his, trying her best to slide a few bills into the thankyou.

  “I’m not taking your money,” John insists, bringing his other hand around to reposition hers. In one smooth motion he parts her fingers and closes her hand back around the twenty.

  “I absolutely cannot let you go without something,” Mrs. Gretta scowls that terrifying scowl only old women can manage. The kind of scowl that makes the shadows in the wrinkles even darker than normal.

  “You think you can catch up to me with that hip? I’ll make a break for the door when you turn your back.” John cracks his own then, grunting as the pops nearly give him a head rush.

  “I’ll knock you on your ass.” Mrs. Gretta slaps at his chest, trying her hardest to make the money stay there.

  “Mrs. Gretta, please.” John softens his tone and once more places the money back into her hand. “I need to get out of here actually. If you want to do something for me... then...” John looks around for some excuse, though Mrs. Gretta extends a counter offer before he can find one.

  “Would you take home some bread then? I made sourdough and god knows I'm not going to eat it all,” she huffs, already shuffling towards the stairs to exit the cellar.

  John lets out a long breath and smiles. “Sure, Gretta, I'll take some bread. But you have to let me give you a hand.”

  Mrs. Gretta tries to shoo John away, but he doesn’t let her. Grabbing the older woman gently under the arm, he helps guide her up the stairs and back into the kitchen.

  He knew she didn’t really need the lightbulb changed. She couldn’t take the stairs herself and hadn’t used the space in ages, but John didn’t mind. After all, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

  Bread in hand, John leaves down the steps and offers a wave to the older woman in the window. Before jumping into his car to move on to the next name in the list.

  Barry needed some help with his broken fridge, Orland's widow, Nancy, was having trouble with her car...

  John scowls slightly as he rounds the next corner and continues towards Barry’s place. He could have sworn he saw that car parked outside his house this morning, but he wasn’t paying too much attention then.

  He didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to follow him around, but then again Oasis was filling up with more and more morons so it wasn’t impossible.

  Checking the rearview mirror, John makes a mental note of the black Lincoln Town Car's license plate as he takes a left turn, then a right, then a left again, and a right again.

  By the time he returns to the road he was originally on, he confirms its presence behind him still.

  Whoever this was, didn’t seem to bother hiding the fact. Either they had a death wish, or really were just that stupid.

  Anticipating the former, John pulls the firearm from his glovebox and stuffs it into the space between the driver seat and center console.

  The car follows him all the way to Barry's house. John then stuffs the handgun into his waistband and tries his best to ignore it for now. He knew his reputation around here preceded him, and maybe once whoever they were realized who they were following they would fuck off without a fight. John was still hung over after all and he didn’t particularly feel up to a gunfight so early in the morning.

  “Hey John! Thanks for stopping by.” Barry greets him at the door, the skinny twenty something all smiles.

  “No problem... Hey, think you can do me a favor and keep an eye on the car while I work on your fridge? Some jack-off has been on my ass all day. You see him do something you let me know.” John pats Barry on the shoulder and heads into the kitchen.

  “Uh... yea, sure John, of course. It’s the least I could do...”

  The fridge doesn’t take particularly long, and Barry informs him that the car hasn’t moved since it arrived.

  “Got it, thanks Barry.” John pats him on the back as he leaves, continuing his route to help out Nancy.

  He stays a little longer than normal, making sure the woman is taken care of, her kids fed, and healthy.

  “You need anything, you let me know, alright?” John tells her as he heads back out to the car.

  “I know John, you always take such good care of us.” She smiles, and bounces the two year old in her arms to try and get him to smile too. “If you need anything...” she offers, but john holds up a hand.

  “No, no, don’t worry about it. This is the least I owe Orland.”

  The two year old waves a frantic goodbye as John gets into the car and heads towards Saddle Shoes Diner, all the while keeping an eye on the black Lincoln that follows him still.

  John recalls someone much smarter than him saying something to the effect of, ‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,’ but John is having a hell of a time explaining this as stupidity.

  Everyone in Oasis knows John about as well as they know the gang leaders and cartel heads. No one would dare make a play against him, especially anyone local. It could be outsiders, but he doubts that too. If some outsider hot shots wanted to try and make a name for themselves in this city by causing a problem for John, he’d have a hundred different bodies coming to inform him in an attempt to get on his good side.

  No, who ever this is, isn’t stupid, but they sure as fuck weren’t smart either.

  John pulls into the cracked and pothole filled parking lot of Saddle Shoes Diner, taking his unassigned assigned spot near the door, watching as a few middle aged men in gang colors spot his car and make an effort to get out of there before he enters the front door.

  The place was a relic of his youth, though saying that out loud would get a good handful of laughs given he was only 34. But still, there was something about that black and white checkered floor, the red leather benches and spotted white diner tables that really brought him back.

  The paint had long since faded, the facade cracking and falling apart at the seams. Much like the rest of the city that surrounds this slice of nostalgia. Much like the diner Oasis wasn’t always like this, but unlike the diner it was much harder to see any evidence of that now. Trash piles so high in the alleyways that first floor windows are blocked almost entirely. Homeless sift through clogged gutters for anything edible, avoiding the pimps and cartel enforcers who barter with the daughters of drug addicts who sold their children for the next hit of whatever Solomon’s or Mendez’s people cooked up in their labs this month.

  The whole place is ripe with the smell of refuse and rot, though the scents that rise from the diner helped alleviate that at least a little.

  The door chimes as John enters, and the waitress behind the counter—Shelby, today—offers a familiar wave.

  Taking his unassigned assigned seat against the back wall, facing the door, John pulls out his notebook and flips to tomorrow's plans, going over the addresses and names and planning out the route before a cup of coffee and a newspaper is brought to him.

  “Cream and sugar today?” Shelby asks with a teasing look in her eye.

  “Hmmm... you know what, let's do three cream three sugar.”

  Her mouth falls open and she takes a single step backwards, nearly dropping the pot in the process.

  “Actually, on second thought, let’s keep it black,” John muses, flipping the page in his newspaper.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack!” Shelby gasps.

  John snorts and flips to the next page, tapping on the article about their little slice of paradise.

  “You seen this one yet?” John asks.

  “The national guard coming in to clear this place out? Yea, I heard... think they will really do it?”

  “I think there have been enough issues with the place to warrant it.”

  “So what will happen to us?” Shelby regains her composure and uses the brief moment of conversation to make some notes of her own.

  “Well, I'm guessing they will tell people to evacuate, start marching 'em. If whoever is in charge is smart, they will set up some camps along the outskirts of the city to take in people who don’t have cars... and then after they will probably start going door to door.”

  “Jesus...” Shelby shakes her head. “You think you’ll go when they come around to kick us out?”

  “Not sure.” John sips his coffee and sets the paper down, his eyes drifting towards the black Lincoln, parked outside across the street.

  “I mean hell, I don’t know where I’d go. This is the only home I've ever known. Can’t say I like it much but still, home is home ain’t it?” Shelby asks casually as she wipes down a stray stain on johns table.

  John nods his head, his eyes not leaving the car.

  “John?”

  “Hey, I think I'll actually hold off on my usual....” John puts a few bills on the table and grabs the diner napkin from the table.

  “Uh, yea, sure thing John. is everything alright?”

  “It will be in a second.” John takes the heavy cloth napkin and wraps it around his fist as he heads for the door.

  “Oh shit, Mel, can you lock the door just in case?” Shelby calls to another employee behind the counter.

  John walks down the steps of the diner, and doesn’t break stride as he b-lines it for the black Lincoln.

  “Careful John!” Mel calls out as she locks the door.

  The Lincoln's engine starts as John gets within a few feet, but he doesn’t give them any time to get away.

  John punches through the car's window, shattering the glass with a POP, the napkin ensuring nothing cuts him too deep. he can hear someone curse inside, but he doesn’t wait to hear what else they have to say.

  Dropping the napkin, John grabs the passenger by the shirt and drags them out of the window with a jerk of his arm, slamming them onto the ground with a heavy thud.

  The engine revs on the Lincoln, but the driver stops as John lunges through the window and slams their head into the steering wheel once, twice, three times until their nose pops and sends blood flowing out over the black leather interior.

  The man on the ground outside grunts, sucking in air as he arches his back, trying to wriggle away. Bending down, John grabs the man and hoists him over his shoulder, before opening the passenger side door and throwing him in the back seat.

  John makes his way over to the driver side next, opening up the driver side door, and unbuckling the man who is still reeling from his broken nose.

  “Come on.” John hoists the man up and out of the drivers chair, and then throws him into the back seats as well.

  Just as John closes the door, red and blue lights flash from behind the Lincoln town car.

  John presses his lips into a thin line and rests his back against the Lincoln, watching as an officer gets out of their squad car to approach him.

  “Afternoon, John.” The officer tips his hat.

  “Afternoon, Rich.”

  The officer looks at the car, to the men writhing in the back seat, to the blood coating Johns arms from the mans bloody nose, and then to the windows of the diner, where Shelby and Mel watch.

  “Listen... I gotta bring you in,” Rich laments.

  John blinks slowly. “What?”

  “Yeah... call came down from the top, and I got mouths to feed so... you mind making this easy on me?”

  John spares a look inside the Lincoln, watching the men inside groan.

  “A little busy right now.”

  “I know, hey trust me I know how this looks, but a call is a call alright? Help me out? Make it easy?”

  “And if I don't?” John tests, shifting his weight slightly, watching as Richard steps back a pace.

  “I'd really prefer it if you did... You kick my ass and then the whole force has to make a scene about getting you in... and I really don’t want you to miss out on the barbeque next weekend.”

  Across the street, a gunshot goes off and a scream echoes out from an alleyway. John dramatically shifts his head to look down the street the noise came from, before returning his cold gaze back to Rich.

  The officer doesn’t move, and instead just frowns with a look of utter defeat and regret with his hands on his belt.

  “This got called in from the top?” John asks, putting his hands behind his back and turning to Richard.

  “Yeah... it did.”

  “Who made it?”

  “Dunno, some suits. Really I am sorry about this.” Rich lets the cuffs sit loose around John's wrist as he is brought back to the squad car after his firearm is taken from him.

  “Your places AC still up and running?” John asks as he is set into the passenger seat of the car.

  “Yeah, no it’s been great. I really appreciate it... and uh, no hard feelings, right John?”

  “To be determined.” John sits back in the chair, and watches as Rich starts to sweat.

  “Shit...”