Babel Prologue

Babel Prologue

Hello, again, readers!

I've been lazy this past month. You see, July was a Camp NaNoWriMo month, which means that I was writing every day non-stop for thirty days. Which is awesome, except the month after, I am about as useful as a worm in a swimming pool.

So anyway, I've already started planning on my November NaNoWriMo novel, and I've made a list of ideas that I can use. I decided to start writing each (as in, the prologues), and choose from.

Oh, and I'll post each prologue to this blog.

I do, also, have many other things coming soon, hopefully within this week or the next, including another video (finally), another GRIM chapter (finally), and another top ten list (whatever).

So this week, the prologue is for a story called "Babel," which is a story set primarily in Center Grove, Indiana (although the prologue is in Washington, D.C.), and follows many characters as they respond differently to the U.S. plunging into total anarchy.

And it occurs in real time.

So, here it is:

B A B E L

Man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

-Oscar Wilde

Prologue

The Washington Monument

12:37 A.M.

            The guard sat atop midnight as if he ruled it.

            The night was halfway over. His travel mug sat between his icy fingers and did nothing to warm them; the coffee had practically frozen over by now.

            He needed a fire. But he didn’t want to admit it.

            The Washington Monument stood tall and magnificent, like Mount Everest, casting not a shadow of darkness but a shadow of time, continuing to remain vigilant as it had for nearly one hundred and thirty years.

            The guard’s name was James. He was six feet precisely in height and boasted a thick, bristled handlebar mustache. He wore simple black slacks and button-down shirt, with a bulletproof vest and reflective covering to state his rank. Pushing back his hairline were a pair of Aviators, which glinted the two red lights that blinked from the capstone of the obelisk.

            His horse, God only knows how many years old, was called Blackwood.

            James twiddled with the reins as he dumped the last droplets of his coffee slowly into the pine needles. He was positioned beneath a few trees just off the white pavement that encircled the monument.

            His watch blinked again, the numbers a sickly green.

12:38 A.M.

            The Lincoln Memorial stood more beautifully due west, beyond the mirror-still Reflecting Pool. Its lights were an off-copper hue. Over there, the tourists gathered. Over there, the guards weren’t alone.

            No one cares about the Washington Monument at midnight. Abe is much more glorious.

            James coughed thrice and wiped the hairs of his moustache.

            A little history for James: he moved to D.C. in the summer of 2012, a little over eighteen months ago. He was not married. He had no children. Only a girlfriend, long-distance, senior year of college. They conversed via Internet video chat, thrice a week, at precisely seven o’ clock P.M.

            Her name was Cassie.

           

12:39 A.M.

            The thin squeak of a rubber glove hit the wind and it caught James’ attention as if someone had fired a gun point-blank next to his ear.

            He looked up and froze as stiff as the water in the Reflecting Pool.

            Perhaps at this moment he was only being paranoid, but he rested his hand on his holster and felt the groove-ridden grip on his USP .45. The black handgun was stained with sweat stains from the firing range.

            He did not call out, because that is not the guard’s job. It was most likely only a tourist.

            He sat for a moment and waited. His shift was to end at two o’ clock, and he was just hoping, through some miracle, that time had flown faster than usual.

            It was then that the smoke began to fill the space around him.

            A thin metal canister soared from within the overcast tree line and rolled along the sod and mulch, stopping at Blackwood’s front left hoof. The steed did not notice.

            James.

            Was terrified.

            The can began to belch smoke and he knew exactly what it was. He tossed the mug aside and took to the reins, kicking Blackwood in the ribs and and launching forward, towards the monument base. The heavy hooves clacked along the granite circle as the two passed through two of the fifty star-spangled banners that hung limp to the poles that held them aloft.

12:40 A.M.

            James and Blackwood were in the open now, but the lights that swaddled them gave them better vision into the dark grove of trees.

            James panted.

            The horse whinnied.

            The guard, fingers beginning to tremble, fumbled for the handgun and unbuckled it from the holster, thrusting it forth and aiming it into the trees.

            Had he accounted for the smoke, he might have been able to see them.

            He gulped and waited. The tendrils and wisps spread to all corners of his peripheral gaze, like darkness when death takes your hand and carries you upward.

            “SHOW YOURSELF!”

12:41 A.M.

            They moved like shadows through the crest of pines.

            No record holds their precise numbers, but it was somewhere, roughly, between ten and fifteen.

            One of them, their self-proclaimed leader, was perched within one of the trees, the tallest in the grove, and he used the lightning-green lenses of his night vision goggles to observe James, trembling, atop Blackwood.

            He did not speak. He merely mimicked the call of a Northern Cardinal.

            With the signal sounding through the blackness, some ten men materialized from the earth, or so it seemed, and crept towards the cloud of smoke with as much haste as would allow them without snapping a twig.

            In their hands were long, slender black rifles.

            And on their backs were simple packs of similar colors.

           

12:42 A.M.

            Blackwood reared his head and whimpered.

            “Shhh, hush, now is NOT the time,” hissed James, taking turns with his palms to remove the sweat from their skin.

            A little more history for James: he had never shot a man, nor fought an enemy.

            He did not hear it, but behind him, another can unleashed a cloud into the air.

            By this point, he knew that he was in danger and that Northern Cardinals generally didn’t make it past the White House without being shot by the roof snipers, so he yanked his phone from his belt and began to dial the Pentagon.

            Then came the fire.

            Torches, all around the great American obelisk, appeared and illuminated the masked faces of the hellions who stalked James. Arms lobbed the torches into the night sky and each hit one of the flags or the grass, erupting in more flames.

            James dropped the phone with a clatter when he watched the star spangled banner billow in a ball of hellfire to the marble earth.

           

12:43 A.M.

            He tried to pick it up, shaking off the shock, but it sparked and fizzled to its death underneath the blazing flag.

            He was alone until someone came to his aid.

            The fire burned brighter and began to spread upwards, lapping up at Blackwood’s hooves and clasping onto James’ boot. He jammed his heels into the ribcage of the dark mare and flipped his Aviators onto his face, dimming the blazing lights around him. The horse surged forth and burst through the flames in a gallant leap.

            They made it past.

            James held his weapon outwards, not daring to turn back and see the burning monument. It was time to become the predator and hunt his prey.

            “DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND STAND DOWN!” he hollered through the roar of the blaze. He could not see any of them, no matter how bright the area had become. He fired two shots into the air as a warning.

            Because a handgun can take down fifteen rifles.

           

12:44 A.M.

            A shot rang out and blood spurted from James’ calf. He wailed in pain and dropped his gun, which Blackwood kicked away as he burst forwards again and sent the guard tumbling off the saddle.

            James lay in the smoldering dirt and clutched at his leg, cringing from heat and the silver shell that was stuck within his muscle. He could see them now; they came from the trees and, like shadows on the wind, slithered forward and ignored him.

            They knew he was of no use to the U.S. anymore.

            These men were humans in physicality, but not in their psychology. They were feral, they were brutal, and they were animals.

            They were still the predators.

            The men passed him and closed in on the great ball of fire that surrounded the monument spire, feeding the flames with gasoline and more torches.

            James stopped cringing when he heard the hacking of a chopper.

12:45 A.M.

            The black craft, sleek and strong, hovered into the light, shooting down a spotlight that made the men scatter like cockroaches. James waved his hand and tried to clamber into the spotlight as it scurried from place to place.

            Maybe, just maybe, the reflective vest would save him.

            The men around him headed for the trees, but not before removing their packs. They hurled the black lumps into the blaze and the bombs exploded, shattering the base of the monument and raising it to the ground.

            James could not move. He was losing blood.

            “HELP! OVER HERE!” he screamed to the chopper, as the vehicle hovered just out of the explosion’s reach. The bricks and chunks of stone that began to land around him were like a violent hospice: he had mere minutes to live before he was crushed.

            James watched as Blackwood rode, screeching, into the trees, his tail aglow with red fire.

            He cried as one of the men, wearing an identical reflective vest, was lifted, mistakenly, into the chopper.

            “NO!” he wailed as the wicked man was helped into the copter.

            An imposter.

           

12:46 A.M.

            The helicopter exploded, the flames erupting from the cockpit like blood from a gash.

            The shards of glass flew down, towards James, piercing his flesh and nearly slaughtering him.

            He played dead, because he was going to be needed alive.

            Beyond the Reflecting Pool, the people outside Lincoln Memorial were assaulted as well, in an explosion from within the steps that obliterated the pillars and collapsed the roof perfectly on top of everyone inside.

            Honest Abe, however, stood standing.

           

12:47 A.M.

            The capital shook with cackling of the flames.

Stay tuned!

c. Taylor Ward 2013. All rights reserved.