When Father Hank came upon his church he was filled with righteous wrath. He saw bits and pieces of his congregation, those that lived nearby, milling about in the parking lot huddling together with one or two heads bowed in prayer. They were not alone though. The bombs going off had shattered many of the windows in the church but there were young men standing in the street doing what they could to shatter the rest with large pieces of gravel and debris, laughing as they did so.
The ten minute walk to his church had been full of sirens and Silver Legion propaganda and Father Hank had had his fill of petty offences by stupid men. He put a knee to the ground, the Garand's butt to his shoulder, and his cheek to the cold metal of the weapon.
"Put those rocks down or by the limitless depths of God's love, I'll bring his wrath right down upon your little heads."
There were six young men, no older than seventeen or eighteen at the most and they were startled, even more so when they turned to find a priest staring down the iron sights of rifle at them. Father Hank gave them one second to take the sight in before speaking again.
"Rocks. You'll be putting them down. Now."
Father Hank was a preacher and had belched a bit of brimstone from his pulpit in his time. He had a voice that hit like thunder and eyes that froze fools in their tracks. The rocks dropped to the road and Father Hank flicked the barrel of the rifle to his left, taking the hint the youths took off at a jog to the left and Hank rose with a groan from his crouch. He looked down his nose at the safety on the rifle, making sure his shaky fingers hadn't accidentally disengaged it.
Those near the church had seen what had happened and they waited expectantly for him as he approached the parking lot. He looked them over and was somewhat relieved by what he saw. Everyone looked to be alive and well, if a bit disheveled and confused, which was to be expected. He smiled at them, hoping to reassure them and that was when the second round of bombs came roaring down out of the sky like the wrath of God he had threatened the youths with.
He was closer this time and had no cover, he fell to his knees and curled up as best he could with his hands over his head. The noise was just as deafening as he remembered it, the wind whipped up by the nearby explosion bit and cut at his exposed skin. He could hear people yelling and screaming nearby and he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it and concentrate on weathering the storm of heat and smoke and debris.
Whoever was doing the bombing wasn't carpet bombing the city, there would have been more chaos and destruction. Someone was bombing specific targets and trying to minimize property damage or civilian casualties while still taking out what they wanted. The closest thing to a target he could think of nearby was a hospital to the east. That didn't make a lot of sense though, there were police stations and Silver Legion outposts, government buildings, newspapers, etc all over the city certainly worth more attention than a second rate hospital near a residential area.
The blast died down enough that Father Hank could rise up off of his bleeding knees and look around, his head rang and if felt like there was thick cotton in his ears. There was still dust in the air and a cloud of smoke hanging in the sky, but the wind and flying debris had calmed down enough that it was safe to look around. He approached the two dozen members of his congregation and they began crying and yelling and asking questions, some were injured he noticed, he couldn't understand a word any of them said.
Maybe he was yelling, maybe whispering, he couldn't tell but he spoke anyway, "By God you'll all be quiet or you can all go home. We've injured out here, form a line and those able to do so will assist the injured till we can all get inside and take cover in the basement."
He didn't wait for arguments or to see if they listened, just moved through the crowd steely eyed and intent on unlocking the side entrance to the church. Once the door was open he motioned everyone inside and attempted to turn on lights, having no luck. Holding a hand up for his followers to stay still he moved further in to the darkened interior, looking for a small maintenance closet. Once he found it he found the flashlights he had been looking for and returned to the crowd.
"Shut that door if you would. We've already seen the caliber of folks out on this fine day an we'll have no need of them in God's house. Form a line, hold the hand of the person in front of you and someone find me a roll of tape."
Father Hank proceeded to hand out three of his four flashlights, taping the last light to the barrel of his gun when he was able. As they moved through the church he saw that handing out the flashlights had been preemptive. Most of the east end of the building had been torn apart by the blast and was lit by the dim light filtering through the clouds of smoke overhead, muffled mutters and mumbles from his congregation told him their disappointment.
"The son of God was born between a cow and horse on a heap of hay, if our place of worship is to bear such a striking resemblance to that holy place, well, I'll be calling myself the luckier for it and you'd be doing well to feel the same."
The grumbles and mumbles fell silent and they continued through the corpse of their house of worship, finally reaching the big metal doors of the basement, which were ajar. There was a quiet click in the near silence of the broken church as Father Hank took off the safety of the rifle and used the toe of a shoe to fully open the doors.
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