The Lost Canaries

Chapter 12: Gladiator

CHAPTER TWELVE – JAMES

GLADIATOR

I emerge, a bird of peace caked with blood, into a world of fire and ash. My vision is foggy; I cannot tell what is the swirling sky above me or the burning ground beneath me. The stench of crisped flesh chokes the autumn air. The taste of metal holds my tongue captive. Faint shouts, as if trying to warn me through glass, mix with the splitting ringing in my ear. Pressed to the grass, I manage to turn my head, and my eyes find what used to be the stage. The children are gone, incinerated on sight into hunks of unrecognizable flesh. The caskets have been blown to bits. A black hole of charred grass marks where the bomb went off.

All around the stadium, refugees scurry out of the stands or just watch the scene below in horror. Medics are carting injured government and military officials away down the tunnels. Molten rubble and severed limbs litter the grass under clouds of noxious smoke. The banners of Denbright and the Chief Panel of Advisors have fallen from the Colosseum rafters. The director and her cabinet are being rushed by guards down one of the exit tunnels.

Bradley returns to consciousness on the ground in front of me. Mariah stands alert to my right as I struggle to rise from the grass. Woody lies face down a few feet away, unconscious. Medics converge on Woody's unresponsive body and lift him onto a gurney. When did the medics arrive? How long was I knocked out?

Amid the chaos, three construction workers engage in a shootout with security guards near the bomb site. The guards are hiding behind upturned chairs and chunks of rubble as they return fire. But the construction workers' bullets pierce the bodies of the guards, and they crumple to the ground. The three workers break for an exit tunnel leading under the bleachers and slip away into the stream of refugees escaping the stadium. In all the pandemonium, no one has noticed the culprits escaping the scene of their crime.

Mariah and I share a look and whiz to the rubble. We snatch the fallen security guards' guns and dart after the construction workers. "You saw them fixing the beams under the stage before the memorial started?" Mariah says through heavy breaths. I nod and peep over at the crater consuming the stage, my restless mind going blank with shock.

Mariah launches herself into the panicked stampede barreling down the tunnel, and I follow her. Limbs strike my torso. Feet nearly trip me every few steps. The air itself grows stale in the tunnel as the horde of refugees' shouts reach a fever pitch. I spot the three construction workers ahead in the shifting sea of bodies. More refugees pack in behind me. The workers are forced down a right-hand tunnel by the mob. Mariah and I leap out of the stampede into the side passage after them.

The trio is racing down the adjacent stone tunnel. Torches hung in brackets border the dark corridors of the Colosseum catacombs, and soon the culprits' bodies become obscured by shadows. Suddenly, a beam of purple Excalibur light fires down the dark tunnel. Mariah and I leap out of the way just in time. Somehow we keep moving. I aim a bullet down the chamber. The shell ricochets off the stone. Mariah fires again. But the construction workers' footsteps keep growing further and further away.

Screams and footsteps echo from the stands above. The smell of burnt flesh still lingers around my nose. Another Excalibur shot from the workers. Mariah and I hit the floor and return fire. A body smacks the stone about twenty yards ahead. I spot a dead worker as we race past then shift my eyes set on the remaining two culprits. The catacomb tunnels seem to be turning slightly right, rounding toward the other side of the Colosseum.

Up ahead, one of the workers knocks a torch out of its bracket, and fire spreads across the floor. Mariah and I leap over the flames. Another Excalibur beam, this one inches from my right arm. I fire more rounds into the dark. Smoke cooks my lungs as fire floods the hallway. My throat burns. My eyes water. I nearly smack Mariah in the face with my gun. A construction worker launches another shot. Somehow I press my body against the side of the passage to avoid certain death. Then, through the haze of smoke, I spot a hand reaching for another torch to knock off. I send a bullet right into his flesh and hear his body hit the chamber floor. The light of the fire illuminates the catacombs just enough for Mariah to send a second bullet into his chest. I click another shot down the hall. Another thud. When we reach the construction workers, they are both keeling over in agony, their cries reverberating down the chamber quickly being consumed by an inferno.