The Darkness Unleashed

Owen slowly opened one eye. Deciding that he wasn't dead, he tried to sit up. Pulverized concrete and dust left his mouth dry. Slowly, he surveyed his surroundings. Apparently when the Convention Center caved in, he was thrown clear. He couldn't explain why being thrown to the concrete three stories below hadn't killed him. He didn't even appear to be seriously injured. He then remembered what he had been doing when the floor dropped out from beneath him, and looked for his phone. The slim Motorola didn't appear to have fared as well as he had. I lay in two pieces, 10 feet from where he came to. The display was shattered. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity, a breeze cloaking him in the smell of smoke, and death. The phone seemed to be a symbol of everything that had happened that day. Nothing would be the same. He looked toward what remained of the Convention Center. How many people had been in the building? How many now lay entombed in the rubble surrounding him?

He snapped back into the moment, his reverie cut short by the falling temperature. The sun was settling over the Puget Sound, shimmering behind the smoke and dust. Above, a few helicopters buzzed about, lights flickering, as they flew back and forth over the city. As he started to walk, he heard no shouts, no cries for help, no screams of pain. The bodies, and parts of bodies that he saw appeared to be lifeless. It took him nearly an hour to travel two blocks, climbing over the pieces of concrete that used to be fill the skies of the city. In the back of his mind, it seemed that a helicopter was following him, but it was a million miles away from his mental state of mind. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and something very primitive had been let loose from a cage. Thoughts now filled his head that didn't prompt any mental response at all. Bloody images, murderous acts performed with an emotionless, mechanical precision. The kinds of things that would strike terror into the heart of the most committed jihadi, executed with no more feeling than mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash.

After what seemed like hours, he walked onto an undamaged roadway. National Guard vehicles blocked passage through, and a nervous looking sentry, who couldn't have been older than 19 drew his weapon and trained it on the dirt and blood streaked man, who now loped toward him with a look of pure hatred on his face. Owen was so consumed with rage that he did not even notice the spotlight from the helicopter overhead. The soldier, who had enlisted six months before had never seen devastation like what lay before him, and could not fathom how anyone had survived. "Halt!" he shouted. Owen advanced until the rifle poked him in the chest. He looked down, looked up, and batted the rifle away, still oblivious to the spotlight focused on him. His expression softened slightly, as if the feral instinct recently unleashed recognized that the soldier was nothing more than a kid who was out of his depth. Through clenched teeth, Owen growled "Next time you point a weapon at me, you better be ready to use it." He continued walking past the sentry, as another soldier ran up and grabbed him by the arm. "Where did you come from?" he asked. Owen stopped and looked at him for a moment. "I was in the Convention Center. I was thrown clear. Do you have the keys?" as he nodded toward the Humvee. The second soldier was not so easily dismissed. "Is anyone else alive? Did you see any policemen, or firefighters?" Owen sighed. "I didn't see anyone else who appeared to be alive." "What happened?" Owen turned and looked the second soldier in the eyes. "There were buildings exploding, shouts to Allah, more buildings exploding, and then more buildings exploding. Give me the damn keys."
"What? No. You'll have to come talk to the Major, and tell him what you saw and heard." What happened next surprised even Owen. The combination of rage, adrenalin, and irritation coalesced, and in a lightning quick move, Owen grabbed the soldier by the neck, slammed him against the Humvee, and lifted him of the ground. His lips twisting into a sneer, he said "Keys! Now! I'll give you my damn driver's licence, and your Major can send someone to debrief me tomorrow morning. If you send anyone before then, I cannot guarantee their safety." The soldier handed the keys to the man who held him suspended in the air. Owen tossed him to the side, got in, and drove South on a deserted I-5.
**********
Rebecca sat motionless in the chair, where her coworkers had placed her after picking her up off of the sidewalk, where she lay sobbing. Even though the sun was going down, the authorities had order everyone to stay where they were, since no one knew if the attacks were over, if they were attacks. Her coworkers all sat in clusters around the office, watching the video coverage on CNN on their computers. The reporter stated that a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Jihad was taking credit for the destruction in Seattle and threatened to do the same to another city or town in the United States for each day the United States maintained a military presence in the Middle East. Then the image changed, and a man, covered in dirt, debris, and blood was making his way from the Convention Center area to the the south. The officeworkers spoke to each in hushed tones "Who is this guy? Where is he going?" More and more people watched as time passed. The ambient noise in the room faded, until the eerie sounds of the same newscaster's voice echoed from different locations around the room. When the man batted away the first soldier's rifle and headed for the Humvee, the reaction was mixed, but all were amazed. When the man picked the second soldier up and slammed him against the Humveee, a few people uttered "My God, who is this guy?" As the man climbed in the camera zoomed in on his face. Which still was not clear on the computer monitors around the room.

A few minutes passed and the newscaster announced that they had enhanced the zoom shot of the man's face. The picture cut away from the newscaster and a grainy, blurry image of Owen filled the screen. Gasps immediately fell to the floor. Rebecca's friend Amy shouted "Becky! Its Owen! He's alive!"

Rebecca still stared ahead, but said, almost inaudibly "Alive?"
"Yes, Becky! Look!"
The light of hope filled her face, bringing her back from the place between life and death where she had spent the last few hours. She swiveled toward the nearest monitor, where she was greeted with the sight of her husband. Dirty, bloody, disfigured by a look she did not recognize, but it was him. "Alive!!! Alive she said as the tears streamed anew down her smiling face.