Armageddon

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  A warning to be heeded.

  * * *

  Melissa had been happy to see her friends alive: Janice, Kirk, William, Russell, and even Samantha.

  It was one of those moments when everything seemed right with the world. The sun was warm, and a gentle, cooling breeze only added to the perfection.

  No one said a word, so as not to lose the flawless moment.

  Melissa felt an intense connection to her Nephilim friends. She’d always wondered what it would be like to have brothers and sisters, and now, looking around her, she knew. She could burst from the joy.

  “We’re a family!” she blurted out, then panicked. Had she spoiled the moment?

  Everyone simply stared.

  “I love you all,” she tried to explain.

  The words seemed perfect as they left her mouth, but Melissa realized that she had only made things worse.

  As her friends glowered at her, she wanted to defend her statement, to explain that this was what being a family was all about.

  But she didn’t get the opportunity, for the skies grew unusually dark, and the refreshing breeze turned cold and damp.

  Melissa shuddered.

  And it was then that she remembered that they had all died, and had been buried on that very spot.

  That she had left trinkets and keepsakes on their graves from the places she had been while defending the world from encroaching evils.

  She started to cry. It was as though nothing would ever be right again.

  Then the muddy ground beneath her feet started to move, as something forced its way up from below. And it wasn’t just one grave—it was all of them.

  Dirt and rock exploded into the air. Melissa recoiled, peering out from between splayed fingers at the nightmarish figures that surrounded her.

  Everything about them was black, from the glistening armor that covered their bodies to their batlike wings to the aura of foreboding they exuded in waves.

  But the most disturbing aspect of all was that Melissa felt that she knew them, that there was something overwhelmingly familiar about the nightmarish visages that now surrounded her.

  “Who are you?” she frantically asked the black, armored wraiths that had emerged from the hold of the grave.

  And suddenly she knew.

  “We are your family,” they announced as one.

  “And we love you.”

  * * *

  Melissa came awake in the darkness of the fallout shelter, stifling a scream, the stink of overturned dirt heavy in her nostrils.

  She looked around, making sure that the black, armored things weren’t there with her.

  What the hell was that all about? she wondered.

  “You okay, Melissa?” Charlie asked from the shadows. He always seemed to be awake.

  “I’m good,” she said, trying her best not to show the old man how absolutely terrified she was. There were some grunts and sighs as the others stirred in their sleep.

  “Bad dreams,” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” Charlie said. “Not sure I’d know a good dream if it bit me on the ass.”

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw him sitting at the edge of the cot, by his wife’s side, as he always was.

  Melissa pushed herself up and approached him. She was hoping that the longer she was actually awake, the faster this nearly overpowering sense of anxiety would pass.

  But it wouldn’t go away.

  “What was it?” Charlie asked her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The dream, would you tell me what it was?”

  Goose bumps broke out on her flesh, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. “Old friends.” Her eyes darted around the chamber, searching every shadow for . . .

  For what? she wondered. Did she actually expect to see the creatures from her nightmare there in the bomb shelter? That was crazy.

  But if it was so crazy, why did she have the overpowering urge to get the hell out of there?

  She couldn’t help but feel that this was some new Nephilim instinct that was trying to warn her.

  “I keep having a nightmare about Retta getting bit,” Charlie was saying. He looked to his wife, breathing shallowly on the cot.

  “How’s she doing?” Melissa asked, desperate for a distraction. “Did the Advil help?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, taking his wife’s limp hand in his. “I think it did. She seems to be resting more peacefully.”

  “Good.” Melissa studied the older woman, looking for a positive sign that her health was improving, but she saw no change.

  “Your friends,” Charlie began. “Were they . . . were they like you?”

  Melissa nodded.

  “And they died?” Charlie asked incredulously.

  “And they died,” Melissa repeated. “It’s pretty rough out there.”

  “Tell me about it,” Charlie said. “If I hadn’t remembered this shelter was here from when our kids were in school, we wouldn’t have made it.”

  Melissa thought of her nightmare again, and the awful things that had crawled up from her friends’ graves. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there might be some reality to the dream.

  The panic became overwhelming, and her hands began to shake. Every instinct that she had told her to flee, to run, if she wanted to survive.

  “Maybe you should take a few of those pills yourself,” Charlie then said. “You’re not looking too good.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she reassured the old man. “But I need to leave.”

  A preternatural intuition was telling her that this was exactly what she had to do.

  “You’re leaving?” Charlie asked, raising his voice. “But where are you going? What will we do if more of those things come back?”

  “You’ll be fine. You can’t get more secure than this place.”

  She went to the backpack she’d put together while out exploring around the school, making sure that she had everything she would need.

  “What’s going on?” the security guard, Scott, asked.

  “It’s Melissa,” Charlie answered. “She’s leaving.”

  “What do you mean she’s leaving?”

  Melissa quickly rifled through the contents of her bag. There was a half-drunk bottle of water on the floor nearby and she snatched it up, stowing it in her backpack.

  “Is this true, Melissa?” Scott asked, approaching her.

  She hated her answer, but every fiber of her being told her that this was the way it had to be.

  For their sakes, as well as her own.

  “Yes,” she said firmly, pulling the zipper closed.

  “You can’t leave us,” Doris said, sitting up against the wall, her daughter coming awake in her lap. She had turned up the camping lantern, so the shelter was no longer in shadows.

  “I have to,” Melissa said, not sure how she could explain that if she didn’t get out of there, something would come, and it would kill them all.

  She started toward the door.

  “Please,” the mother pleaded, and Melissa could see that she was crying.

  “Is that how it’s gonna be?” Tyrone asked. She was waiting for him to get involved. “Get us all stoked that we’re gonna make it—that God, or Heaven, or whatever, was looking out for us by sending you—and then drop us cold when things look tight?”

  Melissa didn’t respond. Conversations with Tyrone always ended up in an argument.

  “Thought so,” he said with a sneer. “Always told my mama that all that time in church, prayin’ to God and Heaven and stuff, was all for nothin’.”

  “Listen,” she said, her anger flaring. “I have to go or you’ll all be in danger.”

  “What do you mean?” Doris asked, pulling her child closer.

  “It’s hard for me to explain. The Nephilim—they’re supposed to stop things like what is going on out there.”

  “Good job so far.” Tyrone’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  It took everything that Melissa had not to
summon a sword of fire and separate his obnoxious head from his shoulders.

  “But things have gotten out of control,” she went on. “Powerful, evil forces are keeping the world in darkness. No, we didn’t do too well. But that doesn’t mean we’re finished. There are others like me out there, and we’re going to set things right.”

  Melissa gritted her teeth. Is that even true? Did the others even survive? She had to believe they had, that they were still out there—ready to fight, as she was.

  “I need to find them,” she said. “Together we will save our home—our world—from this terrible fate.”

  “You said that if you stayed, we would all be in danger,” Charlie said.

  “I did.”

  “From what?”

  She envisioned the dark, armored creatures that proclaimed their love for her. “The creatures destroying the world? They know that I’m going to try and stop them with everything I have. And they’ll be looking for me.”

  Melissa slung the backpack over her shoulder. “I can’t put you in danger any more than I already have.”

  She started for the door, but Tyrone blocked her.

  “So you’re really going,” he said, wearing a look of disgust.

  “I really am,” she confirmed. “It’s for our own good.”

  “Says you,” he said, moving out of her path before she could push him out of the way. The look on his face was like a physical blow, but there was nothing more she could do, or say.

  At the door she paused to listen and make sure that some creature wasn’t on the other side, eager to get in.

  She slid back the bolt, then turned toward the others, her hand on the thick metal knob.

  “We’re going to try and make this right again,” she said, before turning her attention only to Tyrone.

  “And I want you to put that bad attitude you’re carrying to good use and keep these people safe,” she told him.

  She could see that Tyrone was going to give her more lip, but then his expression changed as he looked into her eyes.

  He must’ve seen something there, maybe the fires of Heaven that burned at the core of her being. Something that told him he’d be better off doing what she asked.

  For the first time since she’d met him, Tyrone was speechless, and remained that way as she walked out the door, closing it firmly behind her.

  * * *

  Gabriel frowned. He could sense something different—unpredictable—about Dusty now.

  It was raining again, and he and Dusty had sought shelter in the Stanleys’ old playroom.

  Dusty was up and about now, no longer affected by fever. In fact, he appeared healthier than Gabriel had ever seen him.

  As he paced about the room, the expressions on his face changed, reacting to something that Gabriel—even though he truly tried—could not see.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Gabriel asked the young man.

  Dusty had stopped, facing an area of mold-covered paneling, tilting his head from one side to the other. “I’m . . . I’m fine,” he replied.

  And it dawned on Gabriel that Dusty could understand him.

  “You can understand me,” Gabriel spoke in his canine tongue of growls and whines.

  Momentarily distracted from his study of the wall, Dusty turned his attention to the dog. “Why yes,” he answered, a large smile spreading across his face. “I guess I can.”

  Then he stared off into space again.

  “What do you see?” Gabriel asked, slowly approaching his friend.

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” Dusty said. “Before, with the Instrument, I was perpetually bombarded with sounds and visions of the horrible things that were happening, or would happen in the future. It was more than I could process. My brain couldn’t handle all that information at once.”

  “And now?” Gabriel asked.

  “Now, I can still see it all, but it’s not so overwhelming. . . .”

  Dusty looked down at Gabriel. A thick, milky film covered the young man’s eyes, and the Labrador wondered how he could see anything.

  “I understand that there are many potential outcomes.”

  Gabriel listened patiently, not really following.

  “I see all the possibilities.” He paused. “There are so many choices . . . so many futures.”

  Gabriel sat down, as if obeying a command for a very special treat. “You can see the future? Do we win?” he yipped excitedly.

  Dusty spun to face another part of the room.

  “It’s not clear,” he said. “Some decisions lead to victory, while others . . .”

  Gabriel watched Dusty’s expression turn to one of supreme grimness.

  “What can we do?” the dog asked.

  “As I am now the sword, we have an advantage,” Dusty said, almost dreamily. “Many decisions can lead us to victory, but there are no guarantees of success.”

  “We have to try,” Gabriel said.

  “Absolutely,” Dusty agreed.

  Gabriel leaped to his feet, ready for action. “What do we do first?” he barked excitedly.

  “Influence,” Dusty said. “We must look at the situation like a game of strategy, and move the pieces accordingly.” He looked down at the eager Labrador. “You are going to take us to where we need to be.”

  “Okay,” Gabriel answered, tail wagging. “Where is that?”

  “I’ll show you.” Dusty brought his finger down toward Gabriel’s face. “This might hurt.”

  Gabriel tensed, his eyes riveted on the young man’s pointing finger. A dark piece of metal, a sliver of the sword, broke through the skin at the tip of Dusty’s finger.

  Before the Labrador could ask what was happening, the splinter shot into the flesh of his nose. Gabriel yelped, recoiling. It did hurt, quite a lot actually. The dog pawed at his nose, his dark-brown eyes watering. The pain began to rapidly diminish.

  “What did you do?” Gabriel whined, in between violent sneezes.

  Dusty stared at him with large, glazed-over eyes.

  “I know where we need to go,” he said. “And now you do too.”

  At first, Gabriel didn’t understand, but then suddenly it was like he was seeing flashes of memories. Only these memories had yet to occur. At first he was afraid, the new responsibility looming large before him, but he quickly convinced himself that this was what he—they—were supposed to do.

  “I see!” the dog barked.

  “Now we can begin,” Dusty said, reaching down to place his hand atop Gabriel’s blocky head.

  And Gabriel saw as clearly as if he were gazing out a window.

  Without wasting another moment, in a rush of air and the crackle of divine fire, they were off on a path to shape the future.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was getting dark inside the log cabin, and Cameron lit one of the lanterns so that he might see better what his father had left for him.

  Most of the box’s contents appeared to be old parchment paper. Cameron carefully removed the stacks of documents. They had an odd, waxy feel and gave off an earthy aroma. He scanned the ancient writing, somehow knowing that it was an angelic language and that he would be able to translate. The ink had a reddish tint, a result of the passing years, he imagined. But Cameron was focused on the books at the bottom of the box. He was almost afraid to touch them—certain that they were full of secrets, but not sure if he was ready to know them.

  There were no titles on the covers, and finally, he picked up a volume and started to flip through it. They appeared to be journals.

  Then came another painful flash of memory. He glimpsed an image of his father, bent over at the table, writing feverishly in a book.

  One of these books.

  Cameron stared at it for a long time before opening to a particular section and starting to read. Passage after passage, he read of his father’s experiences, his voice in Cameron’s head as if he were reading to his son.

  His father wrote of his time on earth, cut off from Heaven
and his Almighty God, but he also wrote of other things.

  He wrote of the Architects.

  WHO COULD EVEN DREAM OF STOPPING THE ARCHITECTS? I’VE CONSIDERED SEEKING OUT MY OTHER WAYWARD BROTHERS OF HEAVEN, BUT I KNOW THAT THEY WOULD NOT CARE—MANY FEELING DISDAIN FOR EARTH’S NATIVE LIFE THAT THE ALMIGHTY DEEMED SO SPECIAL.

  THE ARCHITECTS’ PLANS, FROM WHAT I’VE SURMISED, GO AGAINST EVERYTHING THE LORD GOD WANTS FOR THIS WORLD. IF ONLY I MIGHT REACH HIM, LET HIM KNOW OF THEIR TREACHERY.

  BUT THE LORD OF LORDS WON’T LISTEN TO ONE SUCH AS ME, ONE WHO FEARED THE OUTCOME OF THE GREAT WAR IN HEAVEN AND FLED IN COWARDICE TO LIVE AMONG HUMANITY.

  Cameron flipped the pages of the journal until another passage caught his attention.

  THE NEPHILIM—THE SPAWN OF HUMAN AND ANGEL—WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THEY’D BE THE CORNERSTONE OF THE ARCHITECTS’ PLANS?

  YET IT DOES MAKE SENSE. THEY MELD TWO OF GOD’S MOST FAVORED CREATIONS, CREATURES OF BOTH HEAVEN AND EARTH. IF THE ARCHITECTS’ PLANS CARRY THROUGH, THESE BEINGS WILL INHERIT THE EARTH.

  “The Nephilim will inherit the earth,” Cameron repeated aloud, his mind racing. Here was potentially the opportunity that they’d been waiting for. He needed to get this information to Aaron and the others, especially if there was a chance that the secrets found inside this box might help them in stopping—

  Cameron caught movement outside his window. There had been deer, and the occasional raccoon in the yard, but this seemed bigger.

  Always cautious, Cameron called forth a sword as he got up from the table and moved toward the door.

  It was freezing outside, his warm breath clouding as he stood on the porch, eyes scanning the woods.

  He did not expect to see a naked child.

  Over by the pile of unchopped wood, a child no older than five or six cowered, his pale, naked flesh nearly glowing in the night.

  “Hello?” Cameron called out as he approached the trembling youth. Not wanting to scare the little boy, Cameron sent his weapon away. “Hey there,” he said, coming to stand no farther than six feet from the shivering child.

  The child lifted his gaze, his face covered in dirt and what appeared to be dried blood.