decimation

CHAPTER ONE

The boy tried to hurry the goats along, but goats are willful and stubborn. You call, clap, nudge them with your staff. If the goats don't see what's in it for them to move a bit faster, well, why should they care? In that respect they were just like people.
He was eager to see her again, that was the root of his impatience. She would be coming through the village with her uncle tonight. He pictured her warm brown eyes and beautiful teeth, straight and white. She flashed them in a smile that always disappeared too quickly. It spoke of some inner sadness, and it made his heart leap toward her.
The boy looked out over the sea of red sand to the white crowned mountains beyond, faded by the distance. He and the goats were skirting the edge of that vast emptiness. Death waited out there for the ignorant and the careless.
Down the slope a lone goat had wandered from the herd. It was thin and the quality of its fur was wiry and sparse. The rains had been even lighter than usual this season and the herd needed to range further for good pastures, which was another reason he was running late today. The boy scrambled over the rocks after the goat. More delay.
The light didn't come as light, it came as blindness. Too much for the eye to see. It obliterated everything.
At the same time heat ignited his simple cotton clothing in a flash. A scream built inside him, but before it could escape, the entire universe shouted him down. It howled with a mighty roar that deafened him instantly.
The shockwave raced toward him across the desert like some enormous, invisible beast, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it.
He fell into blackness and silence, blown backwards as the concussion struck him. Shotgun sands tore away at his charred fles...

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...e world knew it. No one was going to steal credit from them. They'd thought that part out elegantly too.
Keane pulled up a file titled "Sons of Man" on his phone and opened it. He read aloud as they continued walking up the rise.
"'We are the Sons of Man. Today a voice cries out in the wilderness.' Keane grinned. "Little reference to the John the Baptist and the Gospel of Mark there. Bomb in the desert, voice in the wilderness. Nice." He read on. "'Acts of Islamic terror will hereafter be punished with nuclear decimation.' Well, all right then. That's clear enough."
"Decimation. Wipe 'em all out?" Pasquini asked.
Keane shook his head. "Not exactly, though that's the common usage of the word now. Decimation was if a Roman centurion betrayed Caesar, they executed one out of every ten men in his legion. Latin decimus, one tenth. Anyway the idea is it makes them police