Street Fighting Man

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.

A Guy Named Hank

When the first bombs hit Chi-Town, Father Hank was out by his tool shed gardening. His tomatoes were looking sickly and it bothered him, he had been hoping to have some fresh ones in a month or two to use for his church's annual cookout. He made a tsking noise and removed the worst looking ones from the vines in the feeble hope that it would keep whatever disease had grasped that particular bit of vegetation from affecting the others. He was so focused on the plants that he didn't hear the sound at first, and when it did finally register it took him a moment to understand its meaning, it had been nearly a quarter of a decade since he'd last heard it in person. He dove for cover, banging a knee badly as he hurled himself bodily into the sturdy concrete toolshed.

It was the sound of dropping bombs that he'd heard and they had been far too close for comfort, but in his time of service he'd never known a comfortable distance involved with bombing. Even at the distance he was from ground zero, the noise of the blast was deafening and the shockwave that followed sent the doors of the shed swinging violently.

When the blast had died down and Father Hank's knee had stopped throbbing enough that he felt he could put weight on it, the priest rose to his feet and stepped out of the shed. As he'd expected the windows of his house and his neighbor's had been blown out by the blast. To the east, uncomfortably near his church, there was a cloud of smoke rising into the air. He could see other plumes of smoke and fire rising into the air but the one closest to his home and his church was his primary concern. He sighed in resignation, righted his glasses upon his face, and sent up a prayer to the Lord. Someone, whether it was the chinks or the krauts didn't matter, but someone had bombed his beloved country and that didn't sit well with Father Hank.

In his youth, he'd been Hank Mardukus (sometimes with a "Joban" thrown in the middle or used as a nickname) enlisting at the age of eighteen and full of zeal and ready to die with a gun in his hands for his God and his country. A humble man would say he'd been skilled at his duty, an arrogant man might say he was a soldier born and bred. Father Hank just said he'd been put in a kill or be killed situation and was lucky enough to have come out on top, although whenever he said lucky there was a bleak look in his eyes the no one from his flock could really understand. He'd served for twenty years, and in that time he'd gained a certain amount of attention from his superiors and he'd been put into something called an "unconventional warfare unit." It was the "unconventional warfare" that had given him that bleak look buried deep in his brown eyes, and the intermittent nightmares.

When his twenty years of service were up, he was a changed man. His zeal and devotion had been tempered in the crucible of war and he had been forced to do things by his sense of duty to his country that didn't sit with with his sense of duty to his God, and he felt torn apart by his devotion to both. He had come from a line of men given to the service of either God or country, his father had served in the military and his uncle had been a priest and their family tree was dotted with dozens of such pairs of strange fruit. His uncle had also been his priest and he had sought succor from the man, and had been advised that perhaps he could atone for his sins by taking up the cross and serving God in an official capacity just as he had done so for his country. So it was that at the age of thirty-eight Hank Mardukus enrolled in a seminary school.

Hank jolted out of his memories and found himself in his basement before a locked cabinet. Like a dazed sleepwalker he vaguely recalled entering his home and cleaning his hands and face in the bathroom before putting on his black clothes and white collar and venturing to the basement, at every turn finding the shattered remnants of his windows beneath his feet. He looked to his wrist and found his rosary there and felt his breast pocket, his hand meeting the reassuring presence of the Bible he'd carried with him for twenty years from front to front. He unlocked the cabinet and the light of the bare dangling bulb above his head fell on two gun cases, a cleaning kit, and several boxes of ammunition.

He opened the first gun case and removed his Colt M1911, frowning as he hefted its familiar weight. It had been his sidearm in war for the last quarter of his term of service and he regularly took it to the range and was meticulous about its maintenance. Rummaging around in the cabinet he found and strapped on his old "widow-maker" holster and after loading the Colt and checking the action he placed it in the holster on his hip. He was overly aware of, and somewhat discomforted by the fact that the handgun felt reassuring against his hip.

In the other case was his M1 Garand, not his old M1903 Springfield from his time in the military. By the time he'd been done with it, that weapon had been too abused and jury rigged to be safely stored by a civilian or used at a range. Some if his old friends that had stayed with the military had given him the Garand as a memento when it had come into production and been taken up by the US as the iconic rifle of her infantry forces. He loaded the Garand and slipped the shoulder strap up his arm to sit on his left shoulder.

He looked around the basement and his eyes fell upon an old leather satchel, dusty and dirty from being left down in his basement for too long. His clothes didn't have much room for spare ammunition so he loaded the satchel with what he had in his cabinet, the cleaning kit too, and took his rifle off his shoulder and put the satchel in its place. With the rifle in his left hand and resting on his shoulder, Father Hank walked upstairs to his kitchen.

He set the rifle and satchel on his kitchen table and reached a long arm up above the cupboards and felt around, his fingers finally settling on a dusty crumpled pack of stale Marlboros and a dented Zippo lighter, which he shook next to his ear to ensure it was filled with fluid. He placed them both in the front pocket of his trousers and restored the satchel to its place across his back and the rifle to his hand.

Father Hank was a reluctant killer, but he had a feeling someone would be wandering the streets intending to do ill to his flock, and every flock of stupid sheep must have a shepherd and sheepdog guarding it. Most priests saw themselves as a shepherd, Father Hank saw himself as the sheepdog. Despite the possible ramifications of his actions, he would savage any wolf he found among his flock whether it was clothed in the fur of a chink, a kraut, or a common thug from the outfits.

He was resolved to head to his church, rifle in hand and cigarette dangling from his lips. Stupid sheep had a tendency to congregate together waiting for the shepherd to help them, rather than charge the wolf en mass, so Father Hank would go to his house of worship and hope the sheep had the sense to come to him. His flock was devout, and he had a strong suspicion that bombs dropping out of the sky would be the sort of thing that sent them to their basements or their church seeking explanations and succor from their God and his representative.

He muttered, "Men did this, but God'll be taking the blame for it I'm guessing," under his breath.

He moved out to his front stoop, leaning his rifle against the iron railings and lit a cigarette. He could already hear sirens and loudspeakers spouting the propaganda of Pelley and his Silver Shirts. He spat on the ground at the thought of Pelley sitting in the White House safe and snug as a bug in a rug while his neighbors were hiding in their basements with their confused and crying families. Some of his neighbors were out on their lawns and in the street now, and he was drawing a few stares, but a priest with a gun was a rare sight. He clamped his cigarette between his lips and reclaimed his rifle before moving down the steps and beginning his trek on foot to his church.

The volume on a nearby Silver Legion loudspeaker increased to a roaring drone and a snarling frown split Father Hank's lips as he said, "Nazis, I hate those guys."