“Oh really,” Dagon said, bemused.
“Is he naked?” Samson asked.
Distracted, Remy looked over to the big man. “What?”
“Is the guy doing all the talking naked?”
“Yeah,” Remy said, “but I don’t think now’s the time to. .”
“Can never take somebody who’s naked seriously,” Samson grumbled with a shake of his head, before issuing his command.
“Take ’em down!” Samson screamed, and his children, as well as Delilah’s soulless soldiers, opened fire.
Startled by the sudden violence, Remy ducked down, staring ahead to see the extent of the damage. The air was filled with the billowing smoke of the weapons’ discharge, but as it began to clear, he was met with the most disturbing of sights.
Those who had been attacking were down, their bodies bloodied by gunfire, but the god. .
The god was untouched.
“How’d we do?” Samson asked.
“Not too bad, unless we were trying to take out Dagon.”
“Ah shit,” the strongman said, kicking the dirt. “Why can’t anything be easy?”
Dagon first looked to the left, then to the right, studying the corpses of his acolytes.
His body seemed to glow all the brighter as he started to walk toward them. He walked about three feet before coming to a stop. The god then seemed to survey his surroundings, studying the dark earth now void of vegetation.
Some of Delilah’s followers had started to shoot again, but the bullets had zero effect, and the ancient deity seemed not to notice.
“Give me the bad news,” Samson requested.
“I really don’t know,” Remy said.
The god knelt upon one knee and brought one of his large hands forward, pushing his fingers down into the dirt.
“He’s touching the dirt,” Remy reported.
“What’s he doing that for?” Samson asked.
Remy remained silent, continuing to watch as a flash of divine energy was emitted from the god’s hand, the entire ground suddenly illuminated in a white-hot flash.
“Answer me, Remy. What’s going on?” Samson demanded to know.
Remy wasn’t sure how to answer, but the first of the screams to pierce the night was enough to tell them all that it wasn’t good.
Remy looked toward the sound to see a group of Delilah’s soldiers spinning around, searching for something, their guns at the ready. One of the men was suddenly gone, yanked down beneath the ground before he could cry out. It was repeated again, and again, one soldier after the next being pulled down beneath the ground by something unseen.
Dagon had risen to his full height, staring out across the empty field. The ground around him began to bubble and churn as if it were liquid.
And one after another, corpses in various stages of disrepair began to emerge, pulling themselves up out of the earth.
“I’m not going to ask you again, Chandler,” Samson said. He began to lumber toward the sounds of the sickly moans as the dead crawled up from the dirt.
“It’s times like these you should be glad you can’t see,” Remy said, pulling the Colt 45 from the holster beneath his arm and chambering a round into the weapon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The first question that popped into Remy’s head as he watched with abject fascination as the corpses shambled toward them was why there were so many bodies buried beneath a cornfield.
They were surrounded by the reanimated dead; even Dagon’s followers, just cut down in the hail of bullets, were struggling to their feet to stand with their leader.
Samson sniffed the air as he turned in a circle.
“Dead guys, right?” he asked Remy.
“Lots of them.”
“Wonder if they’re fast or slow,” the strongman asked, just before the corpses attacked.
The reanimated screamed their rage as they charged, a wave of rotted flesh and anger coming at them from all sides.
“Fast,” Remy said, firing into the first of the moving corpses to reach him. He looked to be a slightly overweight teen, dressed in a ripped T-shirt and baggy jeans. His throat had been torn out, but it didn’t appear he had been dead all that long.
The Colt fired an enhanced bullet into the dead kid’s face, stopping him almost immediately in his tracks. Punching through the thick skull, the bullet lodged in the decaying brain, working its magick on the unnatural power that made the body mobile. But it was only the first.
The dead were like a swarm of ants, rushing at them even through a hail of gunfire.
“Form a circle!” Samson bellowed over the roars and moans of the reanimated. His kids obeyed to the best of their ability, shooting off their pistols and rifles in an attempt to reach their siblings and father.
Some made it; others. .
Delilah’s people were less inclined to listen, choosing instead to hold their ground.
Remy saw they weren’t doing all that well; every corpse to fall was quickly replaced by three or four others. He did the best he could, firing his enhanced weaponry and taking down their attackers one at a time.
But it wasn’t enough.
“Any tricks up your sleeves would be greatly appreciated,” Samson said as the corpse of a legless woman scrambled between them, biting into the thigh of the big man with jagged yellow teeth.
Samson bellowed, reaching down to tear the woman from her hold. He broke the corpse, snapping and folding it as if getting ready to throw a cardboard box in the trash.
“Holy Hand Grenade, a one-time divine-intervention phone call,” he said, tossing aside the pulverized body. “Anything, anything at all.”
Remy glanced over to see Dagon standing there, his arms spread to the Heavens, a divine power crackling from his hands.
This was the power that Delilah had been seeking; the power of creation, the power of life over death.
This was the power that had to be shut off if they were going to survive this, but was that possible?
Remy knew this power; he had felt it exude from That which was his Creator. This was the power that had made the universe. . the power that had made him. . the power that had made them all.
It made him feel sick to see it being used in such a tawdry fashion. And he didn’t want to even think about how this creature had acquired it.
More and more of Remy’s comrades were falling, and as they fell and were torn apart by the vicious dead, they too rose to join the legions of the reanimated against their brethren. The dead were relentless in their attack.
Remy ejected an empty clip from his Colt, quickly snapping in the next in one fluid movement. He took down an old woman in a flowered nightgown, her white hair already speckled with blood and brains, even before two of the special bullets were unloaded into what remained of her face.
Their own number had dwindled by half, most of Delilah’s followers having already been taken to join the ranks of their attackers.
Automatic gunfire blared like staccato blasts of thunder as those who had managed to hold their own continued their struggle. Samson, his clothes torn and bloody, continuously lashed out, powerful blows falling upon the dead with the force to pulverize.
And still they kept coming.
Remy knew what he had to do, and though it was excruciating to admit, little else would suffice.
Reaching down beneath his human façade, he found the power of Heaven waiting, and he extended his hand.
I have need of you, Remy called, urging the power to come forth. And as it surged upward, his body flushing with the power of God, he felt it recede as quickly as it had arrived.
Remy was shaken, his body filled with the agony of his true nature repressed. He looked toward the ancient god whose gaze had fallen directly upon him.
“I know what you are,” the deity roared inside Remy’s head. “And you are not wanted here, warrior of Heaven.”
By now the dead were at him, so close, and so many, that his weapon could do little. The dead had hi
m, dragging him down to the ground, the sickening stench of blood and decay flooding his nostrils enough to suffocate him. .
As the dead made great efforts to make him one of their own.
Delilah held the metal bowl against herself, moving the electric mixer around through the golden cake batter until all lumps had disappeared.
Satisfied, she turned the mixer off, ejecting the beaters onto a waiting paper towel from which she picked up one of them, hungrily licking the batter from the blades.
Perfect, she thought, enjoying the taste of the cake batter she had made from scratch. She spooned the thick contents of the bowl into the cake pan. Completely content in her actions—indeed, in her life—Delilah hummed a song, the name of which she did not know.
Right then she experienced a moment of perfect bliss. She couldn’t imagine life being any better.
Smoothing out the batter with a spatula, she opened the preheated oven and slid the cake inside to bake. Setting the timer, she prepared to clean up, and then get the dining room decorated for the party.
It was her youngest’s birthday. David was going to be six years old. He would be starting school this year, and she experienced a pang of sadness, which quickly went away when she felt the stirring of life in her protruding belly.
Five months pregnant, she thought with a smile as she laid her hands upon the material of her flowered maternity dress. She and her husband had assumed they were done with babies.
This thought made her laugh as she strolled from the kitchen toward the dining room. She could hear the kids going wild outside with their father, and she strolled over to the sliding glass door to see what they were all up to.
It was warm outside, and the kids were enjoying the pool, as well as squirt guns and the hose.
There were children everywhere she looked, and for a moment, she fought to catch her breath.
How many children do I have?
The thought was totally bizarre, and she had no idea where it came from. She had as many children as she had, and that was that.
A water balloon struck the glass door, exploding in wetness, and she instinctively screamed aloud, jumping back.
Her husband, Sam, was looking at her through the door, a huge smile upon his rugged face. Looking at him standing there, wearing only his shorts, his muscular body exposed, she could understand completely why they had as many children as they did.
She slid the door open a crack to speak to him.
“It’s a good thing for you I’m pregnant,” she said, shaking her fist.
He pretended to cower in fear, just as six of her children, three boys and three girls, between the ages of eight and twelve, attacked him with their own water artillery.
She laughed uproariously as she watched them chase her husband around the yard, shrieking at the top of their lungs, as he narrowly evaded being hit by the water-filled balloons.
Perfect, she said to herself, again thinking of her life and how absolutely rewarding and wonderful it all was. She couldn’t imagine it being any better.
Delilah sensed she wasn’t alone in the dining room, and she turned from the view of her family to see a little girl, no older than six, sitting on the floor beside her dining room table. The child rocked from side to side, staring ahead at something Delilah was not privy to see.
“Who are you, darling?” she asked, cautiously moving closer, not wanting to scare the little girl. “Are you here to play with the kids?” she asked.
The girl must’ve been one of her kids’ friends, but she didn’t recognize her from the neighborhood. The child said nothing, continuing to rock back and forth and to stare intensely ahead.
“Hey, are you all right?” Delilah asked her. “Do you. . do you want me to call your mommy?”
The girl suddenly sat up bolt straight, her eyes widening as if she were seeing something terrible.
“My mommy’s hurt,” she said, her voice rising to the level of a scream.
“Oh, honey,” Delilah said, grabbing hold of the back of one of the dining room chairs as she lowered herself down to the child’s level. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be with her belly growing so. .
Delilah looked down to see her stomach strangely flat.
That’s odd, she thought, staring down at where the bulge of life used to be. To look at it this way, it almost looks as though I’m not pregnant anymore.
“She’s hurt,” the child was screaming now, climbing to her feet. “My daddy hurt my mommy!”
Delilah reached out to the child, wanting to take her into her arms and comfort her. She wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right.
Perfect.
But something told her that this wasn’t the case, that things were far from perfect. There was a nearly deafening rumble from outside, and Delilah turned to glance toward the sliding glass door. If there was a storm coming, she wanted her family to come inside.
She wanted them there with her.
But it had grown dark as night out where the sun had once been shining on a—dare she think it—perfect day.
“Sam,” she said, calling out her husband’s name. “Kids!”
Standing at the glass door, she peered out into the darkness. No longer could she see her children playing, or her husband, or even her yard, for that matter.
There was only darkness.
Delilah turned from the glass door to speak to the mysterious child. Somehow she knew this little girl would know what had happened.
“Where are they?” Delilah asked, suddenly on the verge of hysteria. “Where is my family?”
“Gone,” the little girl said with a stamp of her foot. “All gone.”
And the world. . Delilah’s world. . wasn’t so perfect anymore.
Mathias twitched uncontrollably and moaned as he thrust, climaxing for the fourth time since he and the woman he loved had awakened aroused, hungry for love.
He slumped atop her supple form, jamming his panting face against her neck as she squirmed beneath him.
“Is that all you have?” Delilah asked in a panting whisper, her hand already on the way down between their legs to arouse him to prominence again.
He kissed her neck, his tongue sneaking out to lick at the saltiness of her sweating flesh.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said with a lascivious chuckle. She responded in kind, working her magic yet again on what he believed, up until a few moments ago, to be a tired and withered member.
Delilah rolled him onto his back as she squirmed out from beneath his weight.
“It appears you still have some life left in you,” she said, working his growing stiffness with a voracious smile.
Mathias smiled in return, filled to bursting with his love and passion for this woman who had become his life.
Fully erect now, she climbed astride him, lowering herself down onto his swollen manhood.
“So we’d better take advantage,” she said, beginning to move slowly up and down, riding him. “For who knows how much longer we actually have?”
He surrendered to her passions, closing his eyes and immersing himself in the unbelievable pleasure of her. She was everything to him, and he couldn’t imagine a world in which she wasn’t his—body and soul.
Entering a kind of fugue state, he lay there listening to the moans of her pleasure, adding his own sounds of bliss to their symphony of passion as they both grew closer to yet another climax.
But suddenly Delilah stopped her rhythmic pounding and was speaking to someone.
“Hello there,” his love said.
His eyes snapped open as she disengaged herself from their lovemaking, crawling off him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking to see that his woman was staring across the room.
There was a little girl sitting upon the floor.
Mathias crawled to the foot of the bed to join his love, who now covered her glorious nakedness with a sheet. He wasn’t sure why, but seeing this child filled him with a sense of overwhelmi
ng dread.
“Who could she be?” Delilah asked.
And Mathias just stared at the silent little girl, who rocked to her own inaudible rhythm; suddenly he knew exactly who she was.
She was the end of it all.
The water was glorious.
The sun was slowly fading, reflecting off the ocean and giving it a strange, coppery hue.
Almost like. .
Deryn didn’t even want to go there; thoughts like that didn’t belong in her head. She had to stay positive, if not for herself, for Zoe.
The smiling child, water wings inflated upon her arms, and a life jacket securely fastened about her neck and waist, was slowly dog paddling toward her with the help of her husband.
Things are good now, she thought as she watched the two loves of her life approach.
It had been a trial, with Zoe being sick and all, but since Boston, things seemed to be moving in a positive direction.
Deryn held out her hands to the paddling child.
“Come on, big girl, you can do it.”
She loved how Carl, her great protector from harm, doted on the little girl. It wasn’t too long ago that she had been afraid they wouldn’t make it as a couple; that his joblessness and Zoe’s illness would just be too much for them.
But she had faith; faith in her child, and faith in angels.
The thought threw her. She’d never been a religious person, so didn’t really understand where the sudden belief in winged servants of God even came from, but if it was this belief that helped to make their life better, then she guessed she was more religious than she’d thought.
The sun was pretty much gone now, a sleepy eye peering over the gulf horizon. There was no doubting what the water resembled now, and she swam around in a circle to greet her child and husband—to dispel the nasty thought.
But they were gone.
How is this possible? she wondered, treading water. They were here just a moment ago.
“Carl?” she called out, looking all around. “Zoe?”
The water seemed to have grown heavier, thicker, and a strong smell—the stink of metal—assailed her senses.
She knew the smell, and what it was trying to tell her.
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