The whole concept was confusing and unclear. This night had been such a surreal experience for her that her brain was beginning to feel like regurgitated Jell-O
When she made it back to the street, the sound of her bootheels clopping against the sidewalk was an antagonizing rhythm that reminded her of how alone she really was. The street was so silent she could hear her own breathing and it suddenly occurred to her she didn’t have a way home.
She knew the phones were down because of the storm, so what the hell was she supposed to do?
Maybe she’d get lucky and find a ride at the gas station, she thought. Either that or she’d have to steal a car…
She almost laughed at the idea. She had no clue how to go about stealing a ride which, until today, was typically thought of as a good thing… But the way the world would soon turn out after her aunt got through with it, the rules regarding social conduct and civil law would be dramatically reprioritized. Survival would soon be the only real rule of man, and everything else would very likely get scattered to the winds.
She wondered how the human race would prevail. How many would survive the wrath of the Demon Bitch-Queen after she’d unlock the gates of perdition and set fire to the hopes of mankind? What the hell was she supposed to do against that, anyway? Was she meant to save people? Build a boat, collect survivors, and sail off to the farthest reaches of the Earth where hopefully the weather was too cold for the comfort-zone of Hell’s natives?
“The comfort-zone of Hell’s natives”? …Seriously?
No… That would be about as likely as her growing feathery wings and giving birth to two eggs over easy…
Newsflash! This just in: Ghouls and demons are afraid of the snow! So, pack up your bags, campers! We’re all moving to Canada, where it’s as cold as shit and the folks are mighty neighborly!
Ugghhh… These were demons we were talking about, not Nazis. A vigilant army of pudgy snowmen and bitter-cold winds wasn’t going to stop these things. Maybe nothing could stop these things. Maybe stopping them wasn’t the answer at all…
She looked around at the quiet little town she’d been too preoccupied before to notice. All the houses were so quaint and peaceful… Then her imagination ran off on its own and she pictured scores of dead-men, like Marty’s brother, tearing through the homes around her and ripping the residents in them to ribbons. She had to look away and close her eyes to shake the images from her mind. The last thing she needed right now was to lose her focus. What she did need was to find her brother. And to do that, she had to get her ass back to L.A.
She was making good time back toward her father’s restaurant. After a brisk walk, it was now only about half a block ahead. She could hardly resist the urge to take another peek inside, just to see if any of what she experienced earlier was real. Strangely enough, a woman was exiting the building just as she approached, her keys in the door while locking up.
“Excuse me?” Alex shouted out from thirty feet away.
The woman, in her forties, bundled up in a knit sweater with her purse tucked under her arm, turned to see who called out. When she saw Alex, a look of disappointment bubbled to the surface.
“Oh…it’s you…”
Alex was confused. She must have been mistaking her for someone else.
“It’s me…?”
The woman shook her head dismissively. “Look, I’m closed. You’ll have to come back some other time to finish your ‘tea’…”
Ooookaaayyy……
“Sorry… I’m a little out of it tonight… Were you the one who served me earlier?”
“Served you? Honey, this isn’t a restaurant. It’s an antique shop.” She saw the confusion in Alex’s eyes and realized she had no idea who she was or what she was talking about. “Wow…you really are out of it, aren’t you.” She shook her head thinking, These damn kids and their designer drugs. She sighed and decided the “lost puppy dog” look in Alex’s eyes was convincing enough to at least fill her in on some of her blanks.
“You came in about an hour ago and sat down at one of my dinning sets. I was in the back cleaning up, and when I walked out, there you were, ‘drinking’ out of an empty teacup. I said it was past midnight and we were closed… You looked at me like I just told you your grandmother had died, then you smiled, got up and left.”
“Oh…” Wow… “right… I was just…taking your dining set out for a test drive… Seeing how it suits me…” That probably wasn’t a very convincing recovery. The lady very likely thought she was utterly nuts. “So…umm…is this place yours?” Maybe a little polite conversation would remedy her predicament. Who knows? Maybe the old bird would give her a lift back into the city…
“Yes.” The woman didn’t seem too eager to make friends. Who could blame her? “Listen, it’s late. I have to get going. I don’t know if you’re sober enough to notice, but there’s something very strange about the storm that just rolled in, and I’m not going to get caught outside in it having a ‘chat’.”
“Yeah, hey, I understand…” Okay, plan B, then. Out with it, already. “…It’s just that…well… I’m kind of stuck out here… Do you think you could give me a ride?”
She frowned, walking passed Alex as she spoke. “Sorry, young lady. But I don’t make a habit of picking up strangers. Especially those on drugs.”
Alex watched her walk by and tried to explain herself:
“No…but I’m not…” The lady didn’t even hesitate in her scuttle. “…on drugs…” She threw her hands up then let them fall with a sigh. “Great. Now what the hell am I gonna do?”
Destiny was a strange thing, and despite how grim her situation seemed, she wasn’t too surprised to see a cab round the corner just when she needed one. It appeared the fates had a ride in store for her regardless of her brief lack of faith in them. She was surprised, however, to see that the cab driver was the same man who’d dropped her off an hour-and-a-half earlier. Odd that he’d still be around… Especially considering the awkward ride up and the strange parting the two shared earlier in the evening.
The Cabby rolled down his window and flashed her something of a forced smile. “Need a lift?”
Alex smiled too, but not completely ignorant of the strange feeling that rolled over her when seeing him again. Of course, it could’ve just been the awkwardness that still lingered between them making her feel uneasy… But after a short hesitation, she decided on a course of action.
“…Yeah. Thanks.”
What choice was there? She could walk to the gas station and hope to find a ride or trust this ungainly little man to do his job.
She reached for the handle of the door then slid into the back.
“Great timing.” She closed it behind her then caught the man’s glance in the rearview. “I’m surprised you’re still around.”
He shrugged. “I got as far as the gas station and had a nagging feeling.” He tried another smile on for size. “Thought I’d swing back around to see if you were still here. Wouldn’t wanna strand a nice young lady out here without a ride.”
Alex genuinely felt warmed by his words and allowed her defenses to drop for a moment. Then she caught the glinting bead of sweat that dribbled down the side of his skull just as they began to drive. Something definitely seemed odd…but…she figured it was probably just her wound-up nerves.
“That’s nice. Thank you.” She leaned back in the seat, deciding to put the rest of the night in the hands of providence.
“Headed back to the city?”
“Yeah. Same place you picked me up.”
He nodded. “Can do.”
She smiled softly. “Thanks.”
She leaned her head back and rolled it toward the window to peek across the street at her father’s restaurant as they made a U-turn. She wondered what had really gone on in there, and if the poor lady who owned the place had at any point caught her c
onversing with that empty cup of tea. Gazing into the dirty old windows of the building, she imagined she might see her father poke his head out to give her a smile as she drove off. She caught herself really looking closely, hoping to see…something… But instead of what she wished she’d seen, two yellow eyes beamed back at her from the reflection off the cab’s window, coming from the opposite side of the road. Her head whipped around to look out the other side, trying to catch the demon wolf in its delusive stalking…but of course…it was nowhere to be seen.
Alex gave the block another stern look, then realized she’d been holding her breath. She took in a lungful of air as she gathered her cool and adjusted in her seat. Her deep exhale was a soothing relief. She had to keep reminding herself that she was in control now. Her father said she’d have similar or even equal abilities to her Hell’s-slut of an aunt… She just had to believe it.
But it was hard to stay focused on the future when things in the now were falling apart all around her. When they got back on the freeway, it suddenly became very clear that everything she’d been told would happen was happening. The other side of the highway was packed with the city’s deserters, and a red mist hung heavy in the distance. There was hardly any light coming from the city, but the road was illuminated with the headlights of thousands of slow-moving vehicles.
“…Jesus Christ… What the hell’s going on?” The Cabby was still numb from his earlier run in with Tessura, but coherent enough to understand what he was seeing was definitely out of the ordinary.
Alex suddenly realized it wouldn’t be right for her to let the driver take her back into the city knowing what was waiting for them. She decided to try to give him the option of turning around, but without putting what she knew out in the open.
“I…uh… I don’t think it’s safe…back in the city…” She was just making it up as she went along, trying to warn him without sounding like a complete head-case. “I heard something about an evacuation? You…you don’t have to take me back if you don’t want to…”
“No.” He practically barked at her then tried to play it off like he was totally cool with going against the grain. “I, uh… Actually…I have family back in the city.” He’d feed his so called “family” to the demon who hounded him if it would get him out of the mess he was in. “I’m headed back that way anyway.”
She wished she could tell him more; convince him it wasn’t safe… But he’d probably just think she was crazy if she tried and wouldn’t believe a word of it anyway… So, she just nodded and chose to let fate run its course.
“Well… if you’re going that way anyway…”
He nodded and tried to smile, but it was a pathetic attempt at one. He had absolutely no clue as to what the hell was going on, but figured whatever everyone else was running from couldn’t possibly be as completely fucking terrifying as what he’d seen only an hour before. He’d felt the power behind the eyes of that thing that spared his life and knew for sure it wasn’t something to be trifled with. His only hope for survival was to do what it told him to, so that’s what he was going to do. The rest of the world be damned. He’d willingly trade his stuck-up brat of a cat, the young girl in the back seat, and his own sick mother to never be on the opposing end of those demon eyes again. Dropping this girl off at some cemetery would be a cakewalk. He just hoped that when he’d get there, the demon would take the girl and let him be. If it didn’t…then he’d just given up on the only possibility of him having a shred of decency left in his life for absolutely nothing. If this night was a test of his character, he would’ve scored somewhere in the range of an earthworm and an earwig. …The only hope left for him now was to try to sink to the rank of “cockroach” in time to survive the coming apocalypse.
Bon Apatite!
“What…the…fuck…?” Terry strained to see past the haze of blood-mist that thickened as they neared downtown, trying to decide what it was he was looking at up ahead. “Did you guys just see that?” On the opposite side of the freeway, about a quarter-mile up, headlights of cars jostled and shook erratically.
Tara and Jimmy both dragged themselves away from their menacing thoughts to lend him an extra pair of eyes. They trained their sights on the commotion that forced Terry to barge in on their gloom.
“What the hell’s goin’ on up there?” Jimmy leaned forward from the back, poking his head between the driver and passenger seats.
They all looked on as fifty or more vehicles abruptly hit the gas and sped away from each other, crashing into the median and other cars around them.
“Looks like somethin’s got ’em all spooked…” Terry peered sharply into the havoc of scurrying lights to uncover some level of detail through haunting red mists. “…Holy shit!”
A car near the median somehow flipped over the center divider and tumbled on its side. It rolled several times, as if the victim of a demolition ball, and settled in the middle of the westbound freeway.
“What the fuck just happened?!” Jimmy’s voice strained with panic, unable to make sense of the turmoil.
Another car buried in the bunch suddenly flipped up trunk-first, landing upside-down on the Altima in front of it while others were pushed sideways across the breadth of the road. All three were fixed on this upheaval they couldn’t make heads or tails of, cautiously reducing speed while closing in. Horns blared in panic, glass shattered, and the sounds of the cars’ metal frames crashing into one another were the first real details they could gather from a distance.
Distracted by the mayhem, Tara barely glimpsed the mob of men rushing from the right side of the road, speckling their path with streaking bodies disrupting the fog and heading directly into the traffic beside them—
“Look out!” She screamed at the silhouette of a soldier jumping onto the freeway and Terry turned his head just in time to watch a dirtied, military uniform collide with the front of their truck.
Tara cringed at the sound and Terry stomped on the brakes, catapulting Jimmy forward sending his head smashing into the center console.
“Fuck!” Terry had tried turning the truck out of the soldier’s path but reacted too slow. The body burst into chunks of reddish muck with its pieces splattered against the windshield and stuck between the grill. “What the fuck was—?!!” Before he could spew his surprise, dozens more blitzing dead-men crossed the interstate in front of them, charging into the panicking mass of cars to their left.
The three of them watched helplessly as these creatures resembling men poured onto the street, splashing into the crowd. They flipped cars end-over-end with deranged strength and tore doors and roofs from frames. The victims of the raid barely had time to scream before they were made into mulch to feed the swarming militia.
For a moment, they just gaped in shock, paralyzed by the insanity of what they saw, until Tara realized a red-eyed soldier had stopped short of the others and turned to meet her gaze. He gave her an evil, bloodied sneer that coaxed an outstretched hand of hers to grab at Terry’s shoulder. “Go! Go! Go! Get us the hell out of here!!”
He turned his head from the carnage toward her shouting and didn’t need to think twice before hammering his foot on the gas. Jimmy had just pulled himself up from where he’d crashed and was hurled into the backseat by their acceleration for his troubles. Terry pulled right hard, avoiding the soldier in front of him, captured in the sights of his hideous eyes, and swerved just enough to clip the dead-man’s reaching arm. The soldier spun from the weight of the SUV against his limb and when he regained his footing, stood squarely in the middle of the road, avidly glaring at the cowardly caboose of the fleeing caravan.
Jimmy was beginning to escape his grogginess from the blow to his head as they sped away. “What…what the fuck just happened?”
Terry’s foot never felt so heavy, laying all his weight into the pedal, driving frantically forward but focused on the threat behind. Jimmy noticed him beaming into the rearvi
ew, so he glanced back at what his friend was so closely keeping an eye on and caught the lour of the enemy’s glowing irises, the soldier indulging in the glaze of fear coating his stare.
“Jesus… What the…?”
The dead infantryman took off running toward the escaping trio from half a block away, and after a few seconds, appeared to be gaining…
“No fuckin’ way…” Jimmy couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked to the front of the car at the speedometer that just hit 40 mph. “Fuck man, step on it! That thing’s still comin’!”
He looked back again at the now only hundred-feet-away, sprinting villain, clearing thirty feet or more with every inhuman lunge. The speedometer read 50, then 60, then 70…and the soldier leapt through the air with supernatural brawn to close the gap between them until his outstretched hand came so close that Jimmy could see the caked blood underneath his blackened nails. His clawing fist grazed the steel bumper but couldn’t quite latch on. He hit the ground and tumbled a dozen times over until fading into the vortex of swirling fog behind them.
“Okay…” Jimmy tried pulling himself together and being rational about what he just witnessed. It was no easy task considering the proposed dynamics of the dilemma were so blatantly absurd. “…That shit…was not normal.”
Tara’s palms pressed against her forehead, eyes closed, while Terry continued examining the street behind him.
“He’s gone,” he offered – an optimistic assessment sent her way to be sure she knew they were safe for the time being.
Jimmy straightened back out and sunk exhausted into the cushion. He let loose a heavy breath to calm his nerves, distraughtly staring out at nothing. “I…I think I mighta just shit myself…” No one was really paying attention to him. They were both still trying to settle back down to Earth after being shot into orbit with adrenaline. “…Don’t worry…it was only a squirt…”
Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell Page 26
