Desolation

Ralf was just as perplexed. Not a single car or truck started since this thing everyone had been calling the Event hit. Something to do with their electronic ignition system, but then here was this tank. It looked ancient; perhaps the reason for its functionality, and it looked familiar. “It’s the tank from the Old West Museum, where they compared Civil War weapons to World War II weapons.” Ralf attempted to figure this out aloud. “And what the hell is that mounted to the outside of the tank? It looks like an old wire lathe.” He answered himself. And then knelt with Edgar on the wall, partially protected, frozen by no less shock than if ET had come down and demanded entry.

The clatter of the tank’s tracks on the asphalt pavement rattled the earth beneath their walkway, an approaching tremor announcing its intent to unleash a violence against which they had no defense. A squeak-squeak-squeak from the wheels accompanied the clap-clap-clap of the track. The roar from the tank’s thunderous engines echoed off the clapboard facades of the turn-of-the-century homes that lined what had always been a quiet residential street.

“Go-go-go!” Ralf bellowed to the three men and one woman on the wall with him. “Head into town and we’ll make a stand there.”

~~~

Frank could see the sheriff and his people climbing down the wall, as if they were already surrendering. He looked past the gate and down the street and found the reason for their panic.

“It’s a damned Sherman tank.”

“Th-that’s not all, look at the northern gate now.” Jeff stared, mesmerized, not really hearing what Frank said.

“What is this, the World War II museum of old weapons? That’s a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun… I sure hope that antique doesn’t work, or we’re in a world of trouble,” Frank grumbled.

A horse-drawn carriage turned around, its driver coaxing the draft horse back, so that the machine gun was pointed at the wall. An operator sat behind the Browning, ready to rain terror on their town.

Frank decided the operator would be the first person he took out. He chambered a round in his 7mm hunting rifle, placed the cross hairs on the man’s chest, and waited. He had agreed to the sheriff’s orders earlier to not fire first. Yet, he feared by the time he could fire, the conflict would be over.

~~~

Carrington called his device Zeus, not because of any godly aspirations, but because the Zeus of mythology was known for brandishing lightning bolts and, if his calculations were correct, so would his device. He examined the floor-to-ceiling containers housing the same metal plates Melanie was using on the streets, sandwiched between sheets of glass for insulators and encased in these massive housings. Six separate units made up Zeus’ bank of capacitors. Large cables ran from each capacitor through a rough three-foot hole bored into the bricks in the western wall across to the railroad tracks, which supplied them with a so-far unlimited supply of electrical energy, as long as the CMEs continued. There were six more just like them at the corner of Grand and 3rd, forming the power storage for the Executioner project Melanie had been leading. He ascended the stairs, following the tangle of massive cables—the diameter of each roughly the size of his fist—leading up to the roof. Stepping up onto the flat rooftop, he continued along the path of cables, making sure there were no kinks that would cause interruptions of the electrical current.

“Hello Doc,” said Fred Fisher, who’d been a physics professor at the university before the event and was now the lead on the Zeus project.

“Fred”—Carrington wasted no time—“you know what’s going on?”

“Sure, just look over the wall. There must be a couple dozen of them on the other side. I assume you want to get this baby humming?”

“Correct. You finish what I asked?” Carrington examined their weapon. It looked sort of like a giant cannon from a 1950s sci-fi B-movie. It was just over five feet long, with a giant parabolic metal dish midway, focusing the energy to its point. The cannon was fixed on a large swiveling base and a vertical swivel that someone from town constructed for them. It was like an oversized paparazzi’s tripod, allowing the user to move it up-and-down or side-to-side with ease toward its intended target.

The theory was quite simple. Why not use the induced current that is everywhere, but especially around the train tracks? Store the current in a large enough capacitor and then flip a switch to discharge it, directing it through and out the cannon, hopefully focused enough that it would fly toward its intended target. Knowing that the electrical current, like lightning, would try to find a natural ground, they had the community set up the metal plates along the street. When enough enemies were on the metal track, they would flip the switch and aim this toward them. The Executioner was similar, only its capacitor bank was directly connected to the plates, between them and the single rail spur.