“Josh!” My shriek spurns my team into a full-out run towards the screams.
CHAPTER 2
Hallow Walkers
I slide my heat-sensor visor down and turn to watch my team follow suit. The tech gives us improved capability at distinguishing Josh’s unit from the entangled mess they’re in with young, yet fully formed, Hollow Walkers. My vision flares red, following what looks like twenty flapping, spikey, bulbous octopus-like arms wrapped around the bodies of our troops. Though they walk upright on thick legs, they look nothing like the humans they once were, not with their wicked soulless holes for eyes, and mouths grotesquely stretched to hold clunky fangs. Four colossally thick tentacles top off their fiendish look, the stuff of nightmares for children and adults alike. These are the Stage Two bastards, S2s, and the worst of the Queen’s creations.
Hollers and screams signal before bodies are either smashed into the floor like meager flies or tossed against a wall like speeding human racket balls.
“Cap, they’re moving too fast. We can’t get a read on the sons-of-bitches. If we shoot, we’ll hit the other team for sure.”
Cash is right. We can’t shoot, but we can sneak in and utilize hand-to-hand combat while they’re all worked up in their frenzy. The monsters are focused enough on their sick fun that maybe, just maybe, a select few of us can get by and take the Walkers out one-by-one.
Nadine slinks alongside me with razor-sharp twin knives glinting in her hands. She knows me well and is at the ready to slice and dice. Erik mimics Nadine like a reflecting shadow on my other flank; twin swords attached to his back nearly vibrate with anticipation. Their straps flare red in my visor’s sight, revealing a history map, telling tales of Hollow Walker blood he’s accumulated. Turning to look at the other three on my team, I signal for them to watch our backs while shedding my jacket to uncover a leather vest packed with sharply pointed throwing knives, stars, and other assorted wickedly deadly projectiles. Touching a finger to my skin, I prod the nearly invisible protective layer maintaining its hold. The armor, which has the appearance of soft flesh, will feel like hitting a cement wall to these beasts. It’s the only reason our comrades have a chance of surviving the vicious attacks, though they’ve been finding a way around it by tossing the team high and low instead of hitting them dead on. To everyone else, it’s only used in battle, but for me, it’s a requirement at all times. More for the safety of others, than for myself.
Without a moment to lose, Nadine, Erik, and I move like phantoms, silent in the chaos, staying low to the ground in army crawls while working our way towards the mayhem. Addison keeps me up to date through my earpiece from her higher vantage point, while Marcus and Cash stay put as the last resort should we all fail, the nightmarish bomb the twins created ready and waiting in their pack.
Bodies shoot out, back, up, and down all around us, creating a scene of pure pandemonium and violence, precisely what the Fallen thrives upon. Shrieks echo all around the building, rapping against every part of my body. Amid the madness, static hits my ear.
“This is your best break-off point, you are aiming dead center. I see five bogies in all. Damn, and they are all S2s. Make them wish they’d crawled into a hole instead of messing with our team.” Addison’s pep talks always manage to get us psyched about taking some beasties down, and this one’s no different.
Nadine and Erik look my way, give their nod, and then split left and right to work around the back. I remove small needles from my vest, the same ones Nadine and Erik carry. If we hit a Walker limb, the toxin will freeze them just enough to hack off their tentacles. The concoction also silences their voices, keeping them from warning the others, or the Queen. Each form’s four gray, powerful, and weaponized appendages that allow them to roll, flip, charge, and viciously attack. If we remove those brutal things, we will win, at least this round.
Staying low, I flip onto my back, pushing with my feet to slide headfirst with my eyes closed. I use my other senses to sort out what’s happening around me, the visual will only confuse me in the fray. Sounds of slicing and clunking, void of screams, causes me to smile impishly knowing Nadine and Erik are having success. Two needles in hand, I flick them up, and after a slight pause, I follow-up with a succession of deadly throwing stars. Rolling to the left, I open my eyes to see chunks of tentacles fall to my right, along with one of Josh’s soldiers.
I roll the other way. As slimy, soaked Walker parts squish and slip underneath me, I avoid the onslaught of more monster fragments dropping to the ground along with another freed comrade. Un-holstering their silenced guns, they both proceed to destroy what remains of the creatures—tearing them apart. Pushing off the ground, I flip into a crouch and signal for both of them to fall back; we can’t risk having anyone taken again. Static hits my ears as Addison updates me on Nadine and Erik’s progress and the subsequent release of more of our soldiers. I move around the fallen Walkers, using the power within my eyes to dissolve them into nothingness. Ash and dust floats across the floor, drifting like an eerie snow in the newfound silence. Yet, as in most things, that deadly peace is short-lived.
“Oh shit!”
The timbre of Addison’s voice signals what she’s seeing before a rumble sounds, threatening to tear apart the entire building. As the violent vibration starts, a roar follows. The Queen is here, and she is one pissed-off beast. More soldiers are freed, all but one, so I send Nadine and Erik back, place ear buds in, crank up ‘Teenage Crime’ by Adrian Lux, and walk towards the wicked looking Queen holding Josh securely in her clutches. At the moment, she doesn’t resemble her children, no tentacles or enraged bulging eyes, but her claws and teeth can’t be mistaken, nor my certainty in her ability to change form from human to any nightmare imaginable.
Though she maintains a mortal form, her deathly gray skin gives her away along with the visual of monstrous strength. She smiles wickedly at me with raven hair hanging all around her face, dripping like grisly oil-covered vines. Holding Josh at the neck with her outstretched arm, she laughs at his struggled attempts to find footing with the tips of his boots. He’s well over six feet tall, but this Amazonian looking thing towers over him in both height and bulk. I crack my neck, touch the volume button on my music player, and prepare to take her on with my own vicious smile planted upon my face. The Queen shakes Josh again, thrusting him at me like a rag doll, as her voice still manages to invade my mind over the music rattling my eardrums.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want him, Dark Angel filth. I find the sins in all of you upon this dreadful plane, and his lust is particularity rancid.” She licks her lips, eyes rolling up in tandem with a sigh as if she’s tasting something delicious and repulsive at the same time. “I hope you liked my little present back there, one of your own to set this trap in motion. Sorry we couldn’t make more; my babies were insatiable.”
Fists curl so hard against my sides, my nails digging into my palms, as she continues.
“No one can escape me. I will turn him into my own right in front of you, and then laugh while I watch you break this place apart trying to kill me; but you shall not, not today or any day, because we are the Fallen’s creations, the ones they love.” She pulls Josh towards her, licking along his cheek before forcing her tongue into his mouth despite his struggle. “And what of you, Dark Angel? Neither loved by the Fallen or his almighty sibling. So, here you stay, helping the humans in the worthless fight, for what? For the sake of goodness and love? Things you can’t possibly feel, isn’t that right, Ilese?”
How does she know my name? Knowing someone’s name gives the wielder power. The mole! Damn it. When I get my hands on whomever has changed sides, there won’t be anything left to lead anyone to identify who, or even what they once were.
“You will be a fine prize for the Fallen, one he took part in creating, who chose the wrong path. I’ll bring him your head on a stake, or maybe still breathing, so he may do with you what he pleases, and then, you can still experience the extent of his ghastly pain.”
A shiver rakes through her body while her eyes glint maliciously. “Oh yes, that sounds more like it. Now, watch me feed on the mind of this poor soul while I turn him into one of my delightful children. What do you call them again? I do so love their frightening nicknames. Ah, yes! Hollow Walkers. It has such a boogeyman flair to it. Naming them just so freezes many a victim in place, making them so easy to catch. Maybe you are working for us after all!”
Her sinister laugh seeps that irregular coldness into my blood and bones once again, and I grow tired of her shit. Cranking the volume up to the highest level it can go, I drown her out and manage to meet Josh’s eyes. He mouths, “Kill me,” but I won’t. Not just yet. He’s still himself, and I can stop her before she takes Josh from us. He’s too damn important—to the team.
Kicking away her children’s many disembodied parts, I reach behind me to withdraw my twin guns. “Time to join your babies, your highness. Pathetic mutant squids, they were. Now, they’re nothing but slime and mush. So sorry. Wait. No, I’m not.” I said, over the intensity of the song’s rhythmic beats.
With her eyes on mine, the Queen doesn’t see Addison take a shot from the ceiling rafter. The bullet hits the bitch, squarely in the wrist, shattering the skin and bones, causing her to screech out in pain as she can’t help but release Josh and lose her entire hand in the process—both falling violently to the floor. With the Queen now distracted, and incredibly pissed off, I rush towards her, shooting her rapidly, though she manages to dodge each bullet at unbelievably high speeds. To the human eye she’d just be a blur of movement, but not to me. I catch every shift in her momentum, and change in direction.
Slipping one of my weapons into its holster, I slide a needle in between my fingers while speaking to Addison, just as she changes her location before assaulting the Queen once again. Her rapid-fire forces the Queen to the right, and I dip low, slowly creeping behind her, using a hollow pipe to shoot the needle straight into the back of her neck. I resist a fist pump at my luck in hitting my mark, but my glee is cut short when she turns snatching the needle and holding it up where I can see all of the contents remaining. Damn it! The tech was supposed to penetrate her skin as easily as her babies.
“Unlike you human’s slow adaption to the slightest of changes in this world, I can adjust in mere seconds. You shouldn’t leave your toys lying around, Ilese. You make it too easy for me to destroy you.”
Her body charges at me soundlessly, though her massive body should pound the floor like a thunderous elephant. Her litheness is akin to my own; the familiarity causes me to shiver at the thought of our similar linage. I am not like her, not in the slightest. She’s a murderer, a destroyer of lives, of worlds—evil. I work for the good, for the light, I am nothing like her, nothing.
“Keep telling yourself that, sister, but we are more alike than even you know.”
I dodge her attack, flipping my body to the right just before she reaches me, and then twisting my body allowing me to throw my tiny, sharp knives at her, this time hitting her in the ankles and calves. She goes down to her knees, the poisoned points work quickly, seeping hope into my being that I may now have somewhat of an upper hand. Curses invade my thoughts while my device changes songs. Chris Cornell’s raw, yet angelic, voice takes over, and I manage to shut her out again. ‘Like a Stone’ is strangely eerie in its sadness, yet it gives me strength and focus.
She’s down, and now, she’s mine. I stride behind the Queen. She’s spitting and crawling on her arms, trying to make a change into something else, some other form, but she can’t heal fast enough to manage. Our pharmacological team has really outdone themselves this time. Pulling a thin, metal cable from my vest pocket, I quickly dive at the Queen’s back, pushing the wire across the back of her neck, and under her arms before yanking back and up, trapping the woman’s powerful upper body.
I hold tight to her while she lashes around. I just need a little time to allow the metal to break her skin, and seep the toxin into her system. In a matter of seconds, she goes limp. Pushing her face down, I secure the line behind her, moving then to strap her ankles together as well, not wanting to risk her system flushing out the drugs before I can finish her for good.
After flipping her over, I straddle the Queen, staring into her vengeful eyes as they swirl with clouds of bright red, resembling an albino rodent’s beady bulging eyes, yet aglow and more sinister and threatening. “Any last words, Queen of the Damned? Your children are all dead, and now, you will join them.”
Her laughter grows deep in her chest, a rumbling thunder trying to break free. “All of my children? You must be joking, child. This is just one of my many nests I have bred all along your deserts, and I am not the only one. You can never defeat us, for my sisters and I are too strong, and we are too many for you to find us all. You may take me today, but one of them will avenge me, and that gives me such joy even in the wake of my death.”
Hate pours out of my eyes as my vibrant rings of blue bore into her, causing her red cloudy orbs to crackle like lightning. The red storm soon turns to pools of viscous black that begins to slowly leak from her eyes like falling slick oil tears. Her body trembles slightly, the poison must be waning, but it’s too late for her now. The lines of black streak down her cheeks, running into her ears, and the corners of her mouth, causing her to choke when they also leak into the cracks between her lips. Her coughs become words, and I lean in trying to make out the sounds, but it’s useless. Turning down the volume, I allow her to easily enter my mind once more.
“You are my sister, too, you know that, right? That’s why you can never be with anyone. You know what you will create, the monstrosity that will come from your body joining with another. Just as I, when I make my creations with the venom pulsing in my cells. It only takes a mere kiss, or during those times when I allow them to think they are in love, penetrating this shell before they morph into those of destructive chaos, your Hollow Walkers.” I shift uncomfortably atop her, my neck subtly twitching at her words. “That’s why your Divine made you emotionless and broken, so you won’t want to find out what you are truly capable of, what our shared father made us. But one day, one day, you will want to, won’t you? Our father’s gifts will rear their head inside of you, and when that happens, you will not be able to resist. These humans aren’t your family; no, they are frightened of you. Frightened of your very blood, sweat, and tears touching them. You may help them, but they will never stop being afraid of…”
Rage sparks my eyes to a more intense glow, and I bring myself nearly nose to nose with the fallen Queen. “Shut up! I want them afraid of me, did you ever think of that? I’m not here to make friends or act on foolish love or lust; I’m here to stop you and the Fallen. Now, play your part and die already!”
And just like that, the ink-like lines become poison, oozing trails breaking her skin apart as the rest of her body collapses, before turning into ash. I rise with unrelenting sweat dripping down my face. Reaching to wipe it away, an escaped drop tracks from my eye. I swipe it away angrily, ignoring the thoughts from which the stray tear has stemmed.
“Thank you, Ilese.” When I turn around, Josh is shakily rising to his feet. I reach down to help him up, before comprehending the impact of the tear in my protective suit, the one leaking glowing bluish-black blood.
“Your suit, is it still intact?” I spit out the panicked words, vigorously pressing at his skin with my protected hand. Yet, the check along his arm is in vain, as I find his gear has fallen.
Both of us watch as my blood drips along his skin before pooling into a vicious wound of broken flesh. Josh glances at me with wide eyes, and I swallow hard fearing what may happen next. With Josh’s eyes trained on mine, I watch as a glowing blue circle surrounds his green irises, and a shocked inhale lifts his chest in a tremendous arch. Knowing I need to call for help, I reach for my radio button, but a warm hand grabs mine, stilling it with its soft heat.
Is this what actual touch feels like? Not my own touch, but someone el
se’s? With his other hand, Josh presses his pointer finger to his lips. Lying may condemn the two of us, but so may telling the truth. I may be respected, but I’m also feared. We’d both be placed in solitary, or worse. Yet, all of these fears wash away when I drop my sight to where his hand holds mine, raising my head again, I know, before actually seeing it, that Josh is smiling at me. It’s like a slow-motion dream, and before I can stop myself—I am smiling back.
CHAPTER 3
Touch
Opting to eat my meal alone in my room isn’t enough of a rarity to capture anyone’s attention. Thankfully, neither did the show Josh’s eyes put on; glowing only in my presence, ceasing before anyone reached our position. After feigning a bathroom break, I was able to clean and patch my wound quickly before replacing my busted suit. Josh and I didn’t speak much on the way back, aside from input here and there about who could be the mole in our crew. Though we don’t all get along every second at base camp, I thought everyone was trustworthy. Just goes to show how devilish the Fallen can be, even I didn’t catch the rat before the trap was set. Now, half of our special ops team has been lost.
Scooping up more beans on my tortilla, I adjust the next song on my docking station and lean my head back against the wall. I never eat in my bed, crumbs are inevitable, but my emotional baggage drives me not to care in the least. Here I am, allowing my mind to flit here and there about trusting my crew, and I’m the liar. Well, so is Josh, but we’re no better now, are we? I need to talk to our Commander, but what will she do? My thoughts lead me back to the visual of Josh in a cage, being poked and prodded to test what he’s become, and how he can serve us better; or, does he need to be destroyed. What have I done? How can I be certain he’s safe, because I’m supposedly safe to be around? Obviously not, yet Commander Gage signed off on the suit I wore. She knew ninety-nine-point-nine-percent of anything still poses a risk. Maybe she’ll understand, or maybe she’ll see me for the danger I truly am and send me away.
The Aching Darkness_A Dark Fantasy Anthology Page 2
