The night became brighter and brighter and Goat looked up, truly expecting to see angels with fiery swords. Believing it in that moment.
A second sun rose above the horizon.
And a third.
Goat said, “Oh my God,” again. It meant something entirely different now.
This was not the rising of the sun any more than it was the shield of God’s protection to keep harm from His children.
They were fireballs rising from over the darkened hills.
“What—?” Goat asked the fire and the night and, perhaps, God.
His answer came in the form of a streak of light that arced across the sky and vanished behind the hill. Another ball of fire rose up, veined with red and black, expanding as it fought its way upward against the rain. Goat turned, following the backtrail of the streak and saw something massive and powerful tearing through the sky.
“God,” he said once more.
But it wasn’t what he meant.
The A-10 Thunderbolt II screamed through the storm above him. Others flew in a wide formation and they, too, spoke in voices of fire and thunder.
Goat’s brain, concussed and confused, now understood the difference between heaven come to earth and hell on earth.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Patrick Freivald slowed his bike, suddenly unsure of how badly he needed to get to Starbucks and get out of the rain.
The sky was filled with dozens of helicopters. Their searchlights cut back and forth to illuminate something on the far side of the hill three hundred yards ahead; and all around the helicopters there were smaller flashes as the beams struck illusionary sparks from the falling rain.
As he slowed and the roar of his motorcycle eased down, he could hear sounds from up ahead. The heavy beat of rotors, the blare of horns. And something else, something staccato and deep. For a moment Patrick through it was the base rhythm of some techno music played at incredible volume, or a drum solo by someone gone totally apeshit.
It was neither, and as he slowed to a stop, he heard it much more clearly; and it was at that moment that he realized the flickering lights in the sky were not searchlights reflecting on raindrops.
They were muzzle flashes.
Above him there was a sharp hiss, loud as a fire hose, and something streaked over the tops of the cars toward the hill a few thousand yards away. It left a trail of smoke that was quickly torn apart by the rain. Then the whole night turned to day as an immense cloud of yellow and orange light rose up over the hill. The deep-chested boom of an explosion rolled along the blacktop, rocking the cars and knocking Patrick to the side. He nearly crashed his bike but pushed his weight against it and fought it back upright; and he did that without thought because his mind was numb from what he was seeing.
A fireball rose into the air, defying the rains to extinguish it.
Patrick said, “Oh my—”
But the rest was struck from his mouth as a second explosion sent a competing fireball up into the night. And a third.
A fourth.
Soon all of the helicopters were firing missiles and rockets. And guns.
People began getting out of their cars. Despite the rain, despite the insanity of all of this. Patrick could hear them yelling. And screaming.
There was movement near the top of the hill and for a moment it looked like roaches boiling out of a sewer drain, but then he realized it was people—hundreds of people—their clothes dark and shiny with water, running from the helicopter attack. Running along the road, moving between the cars, climbing over them, and …
And …
Patrick stared, not sure of what he was seeing. He raised his visor and peered through the slanting rain. Some of the people seemed to be fighting with each other. Wrestling, falling to the ground, bending each other backward over the hoods of cars.