Chapter 38 #3
Meanwhile, Dante reached the border, and his heart sunk into his cold, cold body.
Great tanks were crawling out from Babylon, and a dozen silver bird drones swept in between the low stars above.
“Stop,” he whispered in vain. Then, Dante hurried to one of the tanks breaching this side of the river, raising his hands wildly, pleading for them to stop.
The military were coming from multiple bridges, impossible to stop.
“Wait!” But the tank wouldn’t stop. ‘It’s too late,’ he thought desperately.
‘It’s too late.’ They were going to bomb Tadeo to death, and they wouldn't care if their informant was having regrets. Perhaps, they had even anticipated it. What could he do, then? Dante bit his lip, and he stumbled backward, and he heard as a few civilians nearby made noises of surprise. How to make the invading army hesitate? ‘Make them think I was wrong, that they’re about to make a mistake.’ His heart beat on his tongue, so fast and heavy that he wanted to, almost tried, to take it between his teeth and crush.
Soon, he turned on his heel, then he began to run again, headed for the weapons that Joana had mentioned earlier.
At the same time, Tadeo was headed to the ruins of his home with Joana on his back as crowds swarmed to see him, not unlike when he’d arrived on horseback from Hell.
Some shouted for food, for water, for more healing.
If he could speak, he’d tell them to please be patient.
Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but why had the criminals suddenly tried to hurt Joana?
It was the end of the world. Surely they didn’t believe that there was still profit to be made in extortion or trafficking or in anything at all.
But then, Joana gasped and said, “Tadeo!” And the anti-Christ stumbled to a stop, trying to avoid trampling over the humans only to trip over his own tangle of legs.
Tadeo crashed onto the ground but managed to turn his head toward whatever Joana must’ve seen.
Silver birds, hissing through the air, and down the first boom of an airstrike somewhere, and then the particular creaks of a tank turning.
Panicked, Tadeo’s pupils thinned, serpentine.
Reaching the home of the anti-Christ first, Dante jumped past a remnant of the fencing, rushing past some of Tadeo’s family lingering in the area, ignoring their questions.
The high noises of the drones above answered for them, and the soldier simply shoved aside Tadeo’s cousin, saying, “Run! Hide!” Staggering, he reached a wall, saw a blanket obscuring a lump on the ground that he quickly went for, panting and panting, face hot with exertion.
Tugging the covering away, he saw three rifles, one revolver, and hidden beneath, a proper machine gun.
Next, he searched for the ammo. Tadeo’s grandfather had come up behind him, trying to demand what was happening, but Dante told him to stay back.
Coldly, Tadeo realized the army was approaching his home, and he shrugged off Joana, too quick, making her skid against the ground, scraping her arms as she yelped.
But he took off, heading for where much of his family must be.
He moved so fast now that the crowd couldn’t follow and they, too, had just noticed the army, the silver birds.
When another strike hit a building some streets away, the people screamed and began hurrying in the opposite direction that the anti-Christ headed.
He sprinted, and when he saw Dante outside the home, hauling a large firearm in both hands, Tadeo initially breathed a sigh in relief.
‘Dante, you’re safe.’ But then the soldier lifted the gun, pointed it squarely at Tadeo’s many-mouthed, many-eyed head. And he pulled the trigger.
Shot after shot — ta, ta, ta, ta, ta — a barrage of bullets tore through Tadeo.
He took them each but not without a piercing, stabbing pain for each one of them.
And blindly, he stumbled, fell, growled on instinct.
But — ‘Dante? Dante, what are you doing?’ All the inside of him burned.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ A whine, like a dog, spilled out from Tadeo.
But he’d never known he could even make such a pathetic noise, not in this body.
‘Dante,’ he thought. ‘Dante?’ His thousand eyes itched, and he recovered slowly, lifted his bulleted head.
As the wounds throbbed and stitched together to close, he saw the soldier running at him, shouting back at a tank that’d just turned a corner, saying something had gone wrong, he was wrong.The tank obediently slowed its crawl as Dante stood before it, and he looked perfectly in place there.
‘You were nothing more than a soldier all along.’
“Get out of here, Tadeo!” one of Tadeo’s cousins shouted. “Run!”
“Dante,” Tadeo rasped out through his frontmost mouth, but it was so gurgled that he was sure the other hadn’t understood.
All Dante did was suddenly jog closer, lift the firearm, then whip Tadeo’s monstrous head with it.
It hadn’t been strong enough to actually throw the anti-Christ’s face to any side, but it nonetheless stunned Tadeo another few seconds, made him lower himself a little as he inched backward with such a tearing, ripping sensation of confusion and hurt inside him that he thought he was going to burst open.
‘Stop,’ he wanted to say, feeling Dante set a foot on him, then lift himself, as if climbing up Tadeo.
‘I trusted you.’ He had trusted his mouth, his hands.
His smile, his words. Frantically, Tadeo began to growl, throwing his body around to knock Dante off of him.
‘I loved you because I trusted you. You used me. You rotten fucking son of a bitch.’
“I’m sorry,” Dante whispered; another three, four tanks were creeping closer. “I’m sorry.”
Tadeo hesitated, confused, breaths erratic even as he continued to thrash how a wild horse would.
“Throw me. High. In the air,” the soldier added shakily. “Please. Tadeo.”
Without thinking, Tadeo grappled Dante with a hand at the end of a wing, then he tossed Dante up high between the fallen stars, and he jumped after him.
Dante flailed for a few seconds up until he reached the highest point; he took his gun tight again; he pointed it at the beastly anti-Christ below.
‘I still trust you.’ Tadeo saw the flickers over his friend’s face of terror.
‘I think I still do.’ Tadeo waited for the bullets to hit him once more.
‘I trust you.’ Dante’s aim shifted, pointed at the tanks that were crammed at one end of the road, and then a little higher, right at a low-hanging star. He shot again.
A fire erupted, enormous, impossibly bright — like that in the beginning of time.
Flames engulfed each of the tanks and any of the people in proximity.
Half of Tadeo’s family — grandfather, cousins, an aunt — standing nearby.
The other half were thrown across the street, the boom louder than their second-long shrieks.
And the swelling sphere of flame grew and grew.
Dante fell toward it, and he looked frightened, then surprised.
Lastly, he seemed relieved. The burst star took him, then spat him out, burnt up. Charred remains, then ash.