He needed heroes, but until the battle began there was no way of recognising them from the cowards.
“Help me get him up.” Richard looked aside to see Riaz struggling to get Glen up off the floor. It was wrong to leave their colleague there, so the two of them carried him towards the church. “You really think he was attacked by a demon?” asked Riaz, grunting.
“What else could have caused such awful wounds?”
“Many things, but I agree death is coming.”
Richard moaned as he readjusted his grip on Glen. “Can I count on you?”
“I may not believe we have a chance, but I still believe it’s my job to protect these people.”
“Good, because they will be looking to you, Riaz.”
Riaz said nothing. They struggled with Glen and got him to the church. Inside, Reverend Miles helped them take the man into the vestry where they set him down on a bench.
“I will tend to your friend,” said Miles. “If the Adversary is on his way, you both must go. Lead us all to salvation.”
Richard smiled, but did not mock. He liked the vicar, Christian or not. Before he went out to rally the troops, however, Richard went to find his family.
Jen held Dillon against her breast. He was sobbing and trembling. “We just heard,” she said. “Someone ran in screaming that the monsters had come. I didn’t know what to tell him.”
Richard looked at his wife and wished he had eternity to spend with her. He reached out and rubbed Dillon’s shoulder. “You remember what I said, sweetheart. You do whatever your mother tells you, okay? I will do everything I can to keep us all safe, but you need to stay inside.”
“I can’t let you go out there,” said Jen, her eyes wide and full of tears.
“Jen, I wish you could stop me, but this isn’t going to go away. We have people here that know what’s coming. If we run now, we’ll never stop running. Fighting is the only chance we have.”
She nodded, and a tear spilled down her cheek. “Go.”
Richard turned and ran. He exited the church as the first cry of terror rang out.
Fifty people manned the barricade. Aaron stood in the centre, and it was to him—a mere teenager—that Richard ran. “Aaron, what’s happening?”
“They’re here, boss. They’re coming.”
Richard wobbled and almost fell. Now that it was finally happening, all the talk seemed absurd. They had to run. Surely they couldn’t stay.
“I had everyone link arms,” said Aaron. “It was the only way we could all get up here without knocking each other off.”
Richard nodded. “Good thinking, Aaron. Is there room up there for me?”
Aaron reached out his hand. Richard took it. Then he was up on the barricade, staring down the road with everybody else.
Death was indeed coming.
Just like news had promised, the enemy was a legion of burnt men. They shambled up the hill like zombies, their flesh peeling off in bloody scraps and littering the road. Leading the enemy’s charge was a creature so burned that it was more skeleton than human. A foot taller than the other abominations, it cut a slender figure. Only the loosest slivers of muscle and sinew remained on its frame. Atop its shoulders sat a naked skull. The reason Richard knew it was the enemy leader was because it marched ahead of the line, several feet in front of the legion that followed.
“Oh God,” someone cried. “God help me, please!”
Richard saw movement in the corner of his eye. People fell away from the barricade and ran towards the town. They were fleeing before the battle had even begun.
“Stand and fight! We must stand and fight!”
Aaron remained in place beside Richard and yelled to his friends. “Anyone runs, and I will find you and beat the shit out of you. Let’s show these fuckers the real meaning of Hell.”
Richard’s heart lifted at the sound of the teenagers roaring defiantly.
Something sailed through the air, launching from the safe side of the barricade towards the incoming army. It smashed to pieces in the centre of the road and a fireball ignited. A dozen of the tightly-packed enemy went up in flames, their already burned flesh turning from glistening pink to charred black.
Richard looked back and saw one of Aaron’s friends standing with a crate full of liquor bottles at his feet.
Aaron smirked. “You told us to be ready. Plenty of petrol going to waste in all these cars. Seemed a shame to waste it.”
Richard shook his fist. “Good lad.”
Aaron’s friend lit another petrol bomb and launched it. Flames filled the road and took out more of the enemy. The rest of the barricade—those who had not run—followed suit and started lobbing bricks and chunks of concrete. Most did little to halt the progress of the legion.
“They’re not going to stop,” someone shouted. “This is insane.”
More people abandoned the wall. Those remaining spread out, keeping the line as solid as they could. Aaron leapt down too and for a moment it looked like he was going to run, but he only went to help his friend with the petrol bombs. It was the best weapon they had. Together, the two of them launched rapidly, lighting and throwing one after the other. Fire filled the entire road for fifty metres. Diseased bodies combusted. Others marched through the inferno, limbs smouldering. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
Richard understood what Hell must be like.
The enemy leader, Skullface, reached the barricade first, and his proximity caused another rout. Droves of people left the wall, leaving it unmanned in several areas.
Skullface moved right up to the barricade, but did not seek to climb it. He looked down at the ground and growled. The cast iron drainpipes from the church had worked. Demons could not pass iron.
The legion caught up to Skullface and paused at the barricade.
“They can’t pass,” said Richard triumphantly.
Skullface looked up at Richard and glared. Then he snatched out at a burnt man and seized it by the throat. The demon squirmed and fought, but was powerless as the taller monster tossed him at the barricade. It hit the iron drainpipe and exploded, sending chunks of meat everywhere. The concussive force threw a handful of people off the wall.
The iron drainpipe rolled away from the barricade.
Skullface leapt up and grabbed a brave young woman who had stood her ground. She froze as the creature towered over her but did not scream. It grabbed her by her brown hair and tossed her over his shoulder like a shopping bag. She flew twenty feet through the air and landed on her back in the middle of the road. An almighty wheeze escaped her impacted lungs. The enemy ripped her apart. The burnt creatures surrounded her and tore off her legs and arms, before shoving their skinless fingers into her torso until nothing remained but human mash.
Skullface grabbed a piece of the barricade and tossed it aside, exposing a gap for its comrades to infiltrate, then he hopped down on the other side and set upon anyone unlucky enough to be within reach. Two seconds was all it took to pull a screaming man’s head from his shoulders.
The battle was lost. They never even had a chance.
“Fall back!” Richard shouted. “Fall back to the church.”
Even as he said it, he hated himself. His family was at the church.
But he couldn’t let everyone stand and die.
The barricade dissolved as bodies bled from it. People scattered and raced for the church—although many kept on running long after they had passed it. Richard stopped to get Aaron. The lad was still lighting petrol bombs and tossing them. Tears and snot covered his face. “Aaron, we have to go.”
“No, we have to stop them.”
“We can’t do it here. Come on.”
Aaron’s hands shook as he struggled to light another fuse. Richard grabbed the lad’s hands and looked him in the eye. “I need you alive!”
Aaron nodded and allowed Richard to drag him away. Behind them, burned bodies clambered over the barricade. Their hungry moans echoed off the shop windows on either s
ide of the road.
They found Riaz outside the church trying his best to organise the crowd of screaming terrified people. “Grab whatever you can. Stay together. Shoulder to shoulder. Help your neighbour.”
Richard skidded on his heels trying to brake from his full on sprint. His colleague had to steady him.
“Still think this is the smart thing to do?” Riaz asked.
“What choice do we have? Are Jen and Dillon—”
“Still inside the church.”
“Then I want to make sure the enemy stays on the outside.”
“Oh my God!” somebody screamed. The crowd began to split apart.
“Stay together!” Riaz shouted at them again.
Nearby, Aaron’s friends appeared around him. Each brandished knives—something Richard would have pulled them for once—just days ago, everything had been different.
He realised he brandished no weapon of his own, so he moved over to a public bin and wrestled off the top. The plastic lid would make a basic riot shield. He pulled the telescopic baton from his belt and whipped it open.
The enemy came.
People screamed louder, but this time nobody ran. What remained were the people who understood that there was nowhere to run. This was a problem they could not escape.
Skullface was nowhere in sight, and only burnt men attacked the church. An old man swung an axe at the first ones and scored an immediate kill, but his weapon lodged in its skull and left him defenceless. The next monster fell upon him easily. The old man’s wife bellowed in anger and poked holes in the creature’s back with a pair of scissors. The demon went down, but so did the old woman when the next demon grabbed her.
People were dying.
But at least they were taking the enemy down with them.
Richard rallied Aaron and his friends to a charge, and together they threw themselves at the enemy. Richard swung his baton over and over again until his shoulder went numb. The burnt men came apart like roasted chickens, their flesh barely clinging to the bone. They were easy to destroy, but their numbers were endless.
Aaron buried his knife in the eye socket of a creature that came at him from the side. As the thing died, it twisted and fell away, taking the knife with it. Aaron fought the next attacker with his bare hands, tossing it over his leg in a basic judo throw. Then he produced another blade from the back of his jeans and buried it in the thing’s skull. He gave Richard a cheeky wink and got back to fighting.
Richard glanced back towards the church, trying to imagine what Jen and Dillon were doing inside—how scared they must be. It filled him with bone-shaking dread that the enemy moved so close to his family, but his spirit lifted because a crowd of people stood armed and ready. Richard and Aaron’s display of courage had given hope to those watching, and Riaz rallied even further back. They were gaining a foothold.
In front of Richard, Aaron’s group were joined by others—the front line swelling. They hacked and slashed at the burnt men, opening up their sinewy necks and disembowelling them.
Their confidence grew.
They were doing it.
They were standing their ground.
They could win this!
Then Richard heard the screams from inside the church. Suddenly, he realised that everything might already be lost.
As much as Richard had a duty to protect the people outside the church, his duty as a father and husband came first. He prayed the screams coming from inside were just fear, but the closer he got the more he became certain that something bad was going on inside God’s house.
Riaz tried to grab Richard as he raced past, but Richard dodged him. “I have to check on Jen and Dillon,” he cried out. “Keep fighting. I’ll be back.”
The sight of him running could shake the confidence of those still fighting, but he had no control over his body. His legs carried him into the church on their own volition. He flew through the heavy oak door and scanned left to right, taking in everything but seeing nothing. It was chaos. People clambered over wooden pews and barged Richard aside to escape. He let them go, not interested in their fear, only in Jen and Dillon.
“Jen! Dillon! Where are you?”
“Richard, help!”
Richard spotted his wife at the back of the church behind the altar. It was from that area that people seemed to flee. He did the opposite and raced towards it. What he saw confused him.
“Glen? What are you…?”
Glen was back on his feet, but in no way recovered from his wounds. In fact, his guts hung out the bottom of his shirt. Like the belly of a fish, he was pasty and pale. Reverend Miles cowered up against the chairs of the choir pit as the bleeding officer stalked towards him.
Jen waved her arms at Richard. “Help him!”
Did she mean Glen or Miles?
Richard decided it didn’t matter and flung himself forwards. The first thing he thought when he grabbed Glen around the arms was: So cold. His colleague was the same temperature as the icy church. He was also strong, and when he threw back an elbow, he caught Richard right in the jaw. It dazzled his senses and sent him staggering backwards. His vision tilted, and he fell onto his backside.
Glen then turned back to Miles, grabbing the frightened holy man around the throat and dragging him away from the chairs. “Please,” Miles begged. “You are injured, my son. You need to rest.”
“There are no sons left in this world, preacher, only insect carcasses. The Red Lord will claim you all, and you will serve him with backs broken and eyes gouged. Your whimpers will stretch through eternity, and your Father will cower and hide.”
Miles lifted his chin defiantly. “The Father watches over us all. He does not hide.”
Glen snorted with laughter. He snapped Miles’s neck with one hand and let the vicar’s body slump to the floor of his church.
Richard choked on his own words. “G-Glen, w-what have you done?”
Glen glowered at him and all became clear: this was no longer Glen. His eyes were black cauldrons of hate, and several of his teeth had fallen out.
Richard shuffled backwards, trying to get up without turning his back. “You’re one of them.”
Glen snorted with more laughter. “You are a worm.”
Richard clambered up to his feet in time to dodge Glen’s attempts to grab him. He stumbled over to his wife and pulled her away. “Where’s Dillon?”
“In the vestry.”
“Then let’s get him.”
They leapt down the steps before the altar and jinked into a small anti-chamber at the side of the church. Glen was right on their heels, but Richard had to know his son was okay.
Shirley sat up against the wall clutching her chest. She was dead.
Heart attack?
Dillon was cowering beneath an oak desk. When he spotted Richard his teary eyes sparkled with relief. “Dad!”
“It’s okay, son. It’s—”
Glen bundled into the back of him and sent him sprawling into Jen. She tumbled awkwardly with a pained screech. Seeing his wife hurt made Richard see red, and he spun on Glen with his telescopic baton held high above his head. The blow caught Glen’s shoulder hard enough to push him back.
“Who are you?” Richard demanded.
“I am death,” was all Glen said before launching himself at Richard.
This time Richard made firm contact with Glen’s skull, the baton striking so hard that one of his eyeballs bulged from its socket. Glen slumped to his knees. Like an executioner, Richard brought the baton down again, aiming for the back of the neck.
The blow turned Glen off like a light, and he fell onto his face without a single sound or movement. Richard stood there for a moment, heaving like a rabid beast. His humanity came back to him a moment later, just when he feared it was gone forever, and he spun around to embrace his family.
Jen groped her ankle and hissed through her teeth. “I think… I think it’s just sprained. I’ll be okay.”
“Dad?” Dillon came out from beneath the
table. “Mrs Shirley…”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He gave Dillon the biggest hug ever and didn’t want to let go, but they had to get out of there. No telling what was happening outside.
Jen limped along with his help as they exited the anti-chamber. The church had emptied, and Richard looked back sadly as they left Miles’s body lying on the floor. The vicar had brought them all together and housed them. Without the man’s hospitality, they might be dead.
Outside, Hell had not retreated. Fire still raged in the road and had started to lick at the barricade. People screamed everywhere. Bodies littered the pavement—human and otherwise.
Demon fought man and the fight was bloody. They spilled so much human blood that the floor was slick with it. So much chaos.
Richard trod on something that might have been a length of intestine. “We need to get out of here.”
Jen shook her head, horrified by what she was seeing. “No, we have to help. That monster took Glen’s body and killed Miles. We need to stay and fight these things, Richard.”
“But Dillon?”
Dillon had his head buried in his mother’s shoulder. With Jen’s ankle, they would struggle to escape even if they tried. Their only hope might be to win this fight.
But it was impossible.
Ahead, Riaz came briefly into view. His shirt was torn open, and his baton dripped with blood. He was an animal, teeth bared as he cleaved open skulls with wild abandon. Yet it was hard to spot anybody else because burnt monsters filled every inch of Richard’s vision. He shook his head. “I can’t let us do this. We’re leaving. We’ll find a car and get somewhere. Soon there won’t be anybody left.”
Jen seemed to battle internally, her eyes red and brimming. “Okay, you’re right. We have to get Dillon to safety.”
Richard nodded, glad to have the decision made. “Come on, we’ll head around the back of the post office. There’ll be plenty of cars parked behind it. We’ll think about how to get one started when we get there.”
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 50
