As with most of the towns Mark visited, everybody who listened to him looked confused. And while some murmurs were coming from the crowd gathering behind the two sentries, it was the heavyset guard with his rifle still up and aimed at no one in particular who spoke up.
“You trying to tell me that you people are the ones who caused all of this?” the sentry asked.
It was rare for Mark to come across somebody who put two and two together so quickly. And he noticed that the fat man’s question sparked worry in the townspeople.
“We are the ones who took the first steps,” Mark said. “We are the ones who were strong enough to take hold of an opportunity. All we want for the people in this country is a new start.”
“My mother died because of you assholes,” a voice shouted from the back. “She couldn’t get her insulin because all the refrigerators were turned off.”
The crowd started to turn against Mark and his men, and he noticed that a few more townspeople with weapons made their way toward the front.
“We are The New Order,” Mark shouted, realizing that these people would choose the hard path. “And we are here to bring you the only opportunity you’ll ever need.” He flashed the patch on his shoulder so people could see. “Join our movement, and you will be given priority in the new world we build together.”
“And if we refuse?” the heavyset guard asked.
Mark sighed, and again he heard his brother’s voice echo in the back of his mind. “Then we will kill you and take what resources you have in the town in the name of our cause. The choice is yours.”
It was quiet for a moment after that, as it usually was. People never believed it was the end, even when you told them it was coming. Mark had always blamed humanity’s eternal optimism. It seemed that no matter what we faced as a species, we always believed that we could overcome the impossible.
But there would be no impossible feats today.
“From what I can see, we have you outnumbered,” the heavyset man said, and to his credit, he didn’t sound scared, but the skinny sentry stationed next to him was shaking enough for the both of them. “So why don’t you turn your merry little band of men around and get out of here before we do some damage to your ‘new order.’”
All Mark had to do was give the signal and the two units stationed on either side of the town would attack, killing more people in the first few minutes than was necessary to bring the conflict to a swift and abrupt end. It was how it always went every time they took a town. They had never come up against an adversary that they couldn’t defeat, and Mark knew this place would be no different.
“Is there no one who will stand with us?” Mark asked.
Most people just stared blankly ahead, everyone too scared to think for themselves, but he saw a few people defiantly shake their heads. He respected those individuals. At least they knew what they wanted and were brave enough to make their stand. He hoped that made a difference when they died.
Mark raised his hand, and in the two seconds that followed, the town’s armed gunmen were dropping like flies as gunfire erupted from the woods.
Because the gunfire was coming from all directions, the townspeople scattered in random directions. Their aimless retreat provided ample opportunities for Mark’s men to shoot and kill.
Because of the distraction from both sides of the town, the sentries were overwhelmed as Mark advanced. The heavyset man only fired once before he took a bullet to the head. The skinny one dropped his weapon and held up his hands in the air, but one of Mark’s fighters stuck a knife in the skinny man’s belly and gutted him in the street.
But Mark did not engage in any fighting. He normally would have been in the mix with the rest of his men, but he remained frozen in the same spot from where he had given his initial signal to attack. The violence that he witnessed seemed more gruesome as he watched from the outside.
There was something euphoric about fighting whenever you were in the middle of it. There really wasn’t anything like killing a man, watching the life drain from him. And all the times that Mark had fought in these skirmishes with his men, he now wondered if he had the same smile that so many of his men were wearing as they fought and killed.
After less than ten minutes, anybody who wasn’t dead had already thrown down their weapons and surrendered. The scout who had reported to Mark about the town returned with a bloodstained uniform.
“The town is secure, sir,” the scout said.
Mark nodded and then followed the scout into the streets, passing the motionless bodies on the pavement. The town was silent now save for the crying, which always sounded much louder after the gunfire had subsided.
“Those men lined up on their knees are what’s left of their leadership group,” the scout said. “They said they are willing to make a deal now.” The scout laughed, and Mark nodded in response. “We kept them alive just so you could string them along.”
Mark winced. He had developed a reputation for being ruthless in his interrogations of survivors. He had gotten so good at it and done it for so long that he couldn’t remember a time before he did such terrible things. He was unsure of when he had crossed that line, but it was buried beneath all of the dead bodies he had left behind in his wake.
Mark approached the first man on his knees who had his head down. He wasn’t
