The Flame Still Burns

This was the part of being a so-called hero that Freedom liked the least.

The crowd of Mt. Pleasant residents all crowded around him, thanking him and questioning him. He would never understand the mob mentality, no matter how hard he tried. He just tried to weather the attention, even though he would rather just disappear.

But when you’re surrounded by a crowd of innocent locals, there truly was no escape. Freedom sighed and continued to take his new fans’ adulation, in all its varied forms.

The hooded citizens of Tudor clapped for the mysterious man. All Annabelle knew was that something in his voice, some creeping sound in the inflection of his words, sent a shiver down her spine. Something about him wasn’t quite right; something unnatural.

Nevertheless, she continued to listen to his speech.

“Gentlemen of Tudor, I think you are aware of the many problems facing not only your fair city, but every single man, woman and child in this country.” Annabelle watched him move his vision across the crowd, drawing in each and every man present with only the intensity visible in his eyes.

“Your country has betrayed you. It sells your jobs to foreign companies in order to save money. It gives your children’s chances at a higher education to blacks and Mexicans, while forcing your families farther and farther in to poverty by not subsidizing your family farms.

“It must stop, my friends. We must all become brothers in arms, prepared to rise up and take our country back from those who would warp it to their own heathen image. And we must do it now!”

The townspeople clapped for their orator. Annabelle’s flesh goose bumped in her hiding place on the loft. This man’s message was profoundly disturbing , but every one of his words seemed to pull his audience further and further in. Were the mayor and the citizens of Tudor really planning an all out revolt?

The auction house echoed as one of the large garage doors on the far wall slammed up and open. A massive figure stood alone in the moonlight, a large package of some kind slung over his broad shoulders. She quickly realized it wasn’t a package at all, but a body of a man. The carrier dwarfed his catch; even from across the room, Annabelle could tell he couldn’t be an inch under six and a half feet. He slung the limp body off his shoulder and on to the floor.

Annabelle gasped as she recognized the limp body. Richie!

“I found this one skulking about behind the building,” the big guy explained.

The speechmaker scratched his chin as he looked down at the new arrival. “Good work, Liberator,” he said. Annabelle began to panic. What would they do to Richie?

“Please don’t hurt him!” One of the hooded townsmen rushed forward. He pulled his hood from his head as he rushed to his son’s side. Horace Williams immediately checked Richie’s pulse and cradled him in his arms. “He’s my son! Don’t hurt him!”

The speechmaker walked to Horace’s side and rested one hand on the mayor’s shoulder. “Mr. Williams, you have put me in quite the quagmire, I must say. On one hand, I understand the love we all have for our sons and daughters, our family. But on the other hand, we must face the facts that sometimes our own family members, our own children, can turn against us, even become what we fight. Just look at your son, Mr. Williams. Can you believe he would ever be one of us? Or do you see the truth, that he has become corrupted by the blacks and the gays, until he’s turned in to this worthless sack of used up flesh before us.” He signaled to one of his guards. “I think you know what you must do for the good of us all, Mr. Williams.”

The guard walked to his leader and yanked a small handgun from a holster on the back of his belt. The speechmaker took the weapon and held it out to the mayor. “Take it, Mr. Williams, and finish the job set before you.”

He wouldn’t, Annabelle thought. Not his own son.

Horace Williams took the pistol. Annabelle prayed to every god she could think of. Anything but this, she begged.

Richie stirred and his eyes opened to the face of his father. Horace Williams cocked the pistol.

“Dad, what’s going on-”

The gunshot cut the question off. The crowd became deathly quiet as the shot echoed through the auction house. Annabelle clutched her hands over her mouth to stifle the moan.

After what seemed like hours but was closer to forty minutes, Freedom found himself being pulled from the crowd by the two police officer he’d jumped over to reach the building.

The heftier of the pair, a sallow, balding man took the lead over his scrawny young partner. “I’m Jake Bodensteiner, the town’s police chief, and this is Deputy Blake. I don’t know what you were trying to do in there, pal, but this ain’t Federation. We don’t need any of you damned metas getting up in our business.”

Why was this always the reaction he received? “In case you haven’t noticed, Chief Whatever, I just saved two damn lives while your plump butt was standing around.”

The chief’s face turned bright red, as he fought to suppress his anger. Freedom smirked; sometimes it paid to know which buttons to push.

“You better watch it, mister,” the chief yelled. “I’ll run your fruity ass in to jail if you ain’t careful.”

“Look,” Freedom said. “I don’t have time for this. I hadn’t planned on stopping for more than a few hours in this town, so if you’d just leave me alone, I’ll get out of your hair, or at least what little of it there is.” Freedom turned, ready to walk away.

“Wait,” the second officer, Blake, said. Freedom looked over the speaker. Despite his size, Freedom felt there was something different about Blake. He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew he liked it. Blake put a hand on Freedom’s shoulder and turned him back around with surprising strength.

“Jeannie wants to meet the man who saved her baby,” he explained. “She’s having a hard time holding on, and something seems to be holding up the Life Flight. She wants to see you before she goes.”

Freedom nodded. The last thing he could do was deny a dying woman’s request. “Lead the way, officer.”

Annabelle pulled herself back in to the loft. She wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging them tight. They killed Richie! They’d killed him! What would they do if they found her?

From below, she could hear the voice of the speechmaker rise up over the steadily rising murmur of the Tudor citizenry present.

“This is a tragedy,” he said. “Yes, a terrible, terrible tragedy. But we all must remember that it isn’t our fault. It’s the government’s fault, the government and its heather masters, the so-called special interest groups. We must fight the socialist, ungodly swine; we must show them all we have our own special interest: the welfare of our jobs, our families, ourselves. They don’t give a damn about us now, but we will teach them. We’ll teach them the same way our forefathers taught the British. Are you all prepared to fight the good fight?”

The auction house echoed with the victory cry. Annabelle couldn’t believe the insanity she was witnessing below.

“Now go forth, citizens of Tudor, for you are the New Minutemen, ready to rise up when the call arrives. And the call comes soon. The battle comes in a matter of weeks. Ready yourself for liberty, for one nation under one God!”

The townsmen’s voices rose up in a great cheer once again, and their celebration echoed through the auction house.

Argus smiled as the people of this tiny little shithole cheered around him. Another successful speech, as always. Another faction of his army now stood ready to fight. They fought for justice, but more importantly, they fought for him. In less than fourteen days, most of the Midwest would be his, and by the time anyone who could stop it realized what had occurred, they would be no hope of defeating him.

Victory would be his.

Jeannie Cruz looked far worse than she’d appeared through the smoke and haze of the burning building Freedom had pulled her from. The searing heat had burned much of her body, and every breath escaped with a wheeze. The smoke in her lungs was slowly but surely cutting the oxygen from her body, despite a respirator and IV feed. If the chopper from Cedar Rapids didn’t arrive soon, she would surely be dead.

Blake walked to her side. “Jeannie, I brought him. The guy that rescued you and Jaime.”

Slowly, Jeanie turned her head towards Freedom. She smiled past the aerator on her mouth. “Thank you, sir” she rasped.

“Call me Freedom,” he said, before realizing just how corny that sounded. “It’s sort of my job; no thanks are necessary.”

“I hoped you’d say something like that,” she said. “Cause I’m going to need to your help, as I’m not long for this world.”

“ I hoped you’d say something like that,” she said. “Cause I’m going to need to your help, as I’m not long for this world.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” Blake broke in to say. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Don’t lie to me now, Blake. No one’s coming to help me and we both know it. Jaime needs to be protected . That’s what’s most important.”

She turned her attention back to Freedom. “I need you to help my family, Freedom.” She tried to smile at his name, but it only brought about a row of deep coughs. She took a few moments to catch her breath. “I have another daughter who just turned eighteen, and her life may be in danger. She’s lived with her father and his wife for most of her life. Her name’s Annabelle. Annabelle Montalvo. She needs to be protected, and she needs to know about her little brother.”

Freedom leaned in closer to Jeannie and took her hand. “I’ll do whatever I can, ma’am. Where can I find her?”

“She lives in a small town just south of Des Moines. Tudor, it’s called. But you got to be careful. Bad things’re going down. Evil things that someone will do anything to protect. Even burn down a hotel full of strangers. Something big’s coming. Something bad.”

Blake took Jeannie’s other hand and squeezed it tight. “Hush now, Jeannie. I’ll make sure Jaime is taken care of. You just rest now and save your strength for the chopper.”

Freedom stepped away from Jeannie and Blake, leaving them to have a last few minutes between them to say goodbye. He wished there was something he could say, something he could do, but his powers weren’t even enough in moments like this.“

Blake sobbed loudly and slumped over Jeannie’s still form. She was gone, Freedom knew. Dead because a medical vehicle called long ago had never arrived. A death that, like the blaze, quickly was becoming more than just a simple accident.

Jeannie Cruz was murdered, just as those who had died in the hotel fire were, and Freedom wouldn’t stop to he found out why.