Black Cloud: Season One, Episode Five of The Sunset Chronicles by Paul Stephenson

Author:Paul Stephenson [Stephenson, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hollow Stone Press
Published: 2021-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Gunfire crackled across the dormitory under the sound of Mercy’s screams, shattering the windows. The children’s screams joined with Mercy’s, diving for the floor. Judd crawled behind a bed, peering underneath to see what was going on. Across the room, shielded from the guns by a flimsy wire bed frame, the children huddled into a ball of hospital gowns and tiny limbs, weeping in a clump of terror. The soldiers opened fire as a warning shot, and sunk to their knees to establish a line against the terrified children. Between them, Lan and the two other teeps stood firm.

Lan raised her hands and pointed them toward the soldiers. They slid across the floor, back toward the door.

Mercy’s screams did not diminish. She stood on the bed; hands balled up into fists. Her wail was a siren, rebounding off the walls.

A soldier made to ready a weapon against her, not the machine gun of his compatriots, but what looked like a cannon. A rubber bullet gun.

‘No!’ Judd shouted.

Lan turned her attention to the soldier, lifting her hand up. The soldier fired, shooting high and wide over the small girl.

Immediately, Mercy stopped screaming, her attention going to her attacker. She didn’t raise her hands as Judd had seen other teeps do. Her power seemed all in her eyes.

The soldier’s hands, shaking, turned the gun round, loading another rubber round into the chamber as he went. Panic crossed his face. He grimaced and screamed as he tried to stop.

The barrel moved in front of his face.

‘Mercy, stop,’ Lan shouted, but the girl ignored him.

The soldier fired, the rubber round connecting with his face in a sickening crunch of bones and brains, the latter splattering over the wall behind him. His body slumped backward, dead.

The soldier next to him scrambled away, covered in gore, dropping his weapon. The other soldiers held firm, a line of black, their guns raised in unison.

Mercy turned her attention to them. Weapons vibrated in their hands. One soldier dropped his gun, scrambling back on all fours. She made to get out of the room, but Mercy slammed the doors shut.

‘Fire at will,’ a soldier shouted, voice trembling with panic. But no bullets came.

Barrels turned in shaking hands. One soldier sobbed, begging. Others stared forward, trying to reclaim their brains, trying to stop it.

‘Mercy, please, don’t do this,’ Judd said. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘Judd,’ Lan said, struggling with her own gift against Mercy’s, trying to pull the weapons away to no avail. ‘Do it.’

Judd took a breath, the light growing within him. It no longer scared him, no longer took him over, so he let it swell.

‘Quickly,’ Lan shouted. Judd looked over the glow emanating from his chest. The gun barrels were almost level with the soldier’s faces, sweat pouring off them, grimaces worn on each one as they fought the little girl in their heads.

Judd took a deep breath and directed the wave of light to Mercy. She crumpled, falling sideways off the bed like a rag doll.

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