Out of Exodia by Debra Chapoton

from heaven . I
have the answer, but I doubt myself. Harmon’s elbow wakens
me.
    “ Malcolm, where’s the
box?”
    “ Got some kids guarding it
near the fifth spring. Right outside this store. I’ll get
it.”
    “ Josh, I’m grateful for
your support. You and your friends have been trained in Suppression
fighting, right?”
    “ Not by choice. Battista’s
generals used to grab kids off the streets and use us as opponents.
Knocked us up pretty bad so we had to learn by default.”
    I remember that. When I was a child I
used to watch the soldiers train. Blue on Blue, Blue on Red. Later
I trained against older Reds. I thought they were
volunteers.
    “ Here it is.” Malcolm sets
the box on the nearest chair. “Hummin’ like a charm.”
    I catch a funny look in Malcolm’s eye.
“What is it?”
    “ Well, they’re gathering
out there in the open part. Sayin’ things like they wished they’d
died in Exodia, that they’re starvin’ here.”
    Why is this my job? I barely get that
thought out when the hum becomes clear words to me. It’s God’s
voice; I know what we have to do.
    “ Take the box back to the
common area. Let’s go. I’ve got some good news for
everyone.”
    We emerge from the store to find a
crowd lining the first and second story concourse. The stairways
are packed. The buzz of the crowd far outweighs the hum of
Malcolm’s box, but when they see us, people hush
themselves.
    I climb up one of the narrower metal
stairs, the one the older folks claim used to move up on its own.
I’m afraid I’m going to stutter, but I speak anyway.
    “ You’re hungry. I know.
Tomorrow morning there will be bread outside. Bread from heaven.
Ronel has airplanes. He knows where we are. He’ll drop meat for us
in the evening. And bread in the morning.”
    They erupt in so much noise that I
don’t even try to tell them the rest. They’ve grumbled and God has
heard them. That’s enough for now. Let them feast and forget about
the cave-dwellers.
    * * *
    For six days the Reds gathered food
that landed neatly in the weedy expanse around the mall. Bread fell
in the morning before amber rays overlaid the gray. In the evening
after the sun set, but before darkness returned, packages of
irradiated meat landed with rhythmic thumps. What they didn’t eat
rotted overnight, but the mornings always brought fresh treasure.
When Bram told them there would be no planes on Saturday and to
gather twice as much to hold over, some of the Reds refused to
believe that Friday’s rations would not go stale and wormy as the
other days’ had. When no planes came those people begged or traded
with their neighbors for their saved pieces of bread and
meat.
    The cave-dwellers didn’t return. Bram
and his advisers, now including his brother, Josh, Herb, Eugene,
Korzon, Teague, and five others, decided it was safe to move on.
Malcolm brought his box to Bram for a final listen and everyone
packed up their possessions, adding pilfered items from the mall
that might be useful. Bram’s assurances that food would continue to
be dropped were only believed because Malcolm pointed out how
easily visible the electronic cloud would be for a plane to
spot.
    “ Have every family ready to
leave at first light,” Bram ordered. This time the nodding heads
gave him a bit more hope that they’d comply.

 

 
     
    Chapter 6 The Rod of War
     
    From the ninth page of the
second Ledger:
    The table set before them
became a snare, retribution, and a trap.
    The eyes of their enemies
were darkened so they could see no more and their backs were bent
forever.
     
    DAWN HAS PASSED and we’re still a
sluggish mob struggling to get underway. It’s mid-morning and only
half the Reds have moved out, their carts and sleds a little fuller
with the crazy prizes they’ve pillaged from this lodge—store signs,
hangers, cupboard drawers.
    I hear Mira ask her suitor, Josh, why
people are taking such useless souvenirs.
    “ Useless?” Josh says.
“Hardly. That small