by A. P. Fuchs
“The time has come, finally come,” the devil said. “This is the gateway to our freedom and absolute power. It should have been mine since the beginning and now, because of your loyalty, it will be at last. Enter through the gate and we will be as we should have been: omnipresent over the race of men, the cherished people of the One we fight. In a moment, you will all be transformed and will hover over the Earth to capture it as we had before in Eden, and which we lost at Calvary. No longer will we be denied our claim to what is rightfully ours. We were all there on that day we were sent here. Now today will be a new day where we shall decide our destiny, even more so, the destiny of His inheritance.”
Vingros heard the hum as the portal was activated. He glanced over his shoulder and watched as Bethrez took a step back and admired his handiwork. The outer edges of the portal glowed a ghostly red, the crimson light growing brighter the closer it got to the center of the portal itself. Inside, brilliant orange and yellow spider webs of crackling light burst forth, highlighting the smoky vortex they would soon all enter.
Lucifer raised his hands even higher and the host before him raised theirs. “Today we show Heaven how powerful we really are. Come now, my followers, and continue with me as you did at the first. Let us prove our exile was not in vain, and let’s once and for all conquer the Earth in the name of all spirits, in the name of utter power, in the name of Hell!”
The demons roared and all spread their bat-like wings as they rose off the rocky ground and flew toward the portal. Vingros came by Bethrez’s side and nudged him away as the demon seemed too lost in his achievement to acknowledge the swarm of his brethren flying toward him. Bethrez’s request to enter first was denied. Time for testing was over, he was told. It was time for action.
Crowd upon crowd of the demons entered the portal, disappearing into the vortex.
“They will enter,” Bethrez said, “and as they rise to the heights of the heavens, they will transform into death-giving water and fall upon the inhabitants of the Earth. Many will succumb quickly. Others, over time. Those who have died before will rise and become one with us. Once complete, a reminder will remain over the Earth of our presence in the form of gray clouds, brown sky. No longer will the colors of creation remain and no longer the memory of the One who made it.”
“Will you enter as well?” Vingros asked. “It will be a chance to aid in the greatest cause since Time began.”
“I have aided. This is my creation, my method. It might not be my power that runs it, but it is mine.”
“And never forget that it is my power that operates it,” Lucifer said, coming up beside him.
“Of course not, Master, of course not.”
The three watched as legions of demons transferred from the realm of Hell into the realm of the Earth.
It was beautiful.
It was glorious.
“Yes,” Lucifer said, “finally. Glory.”
* * * *
13
Rock Bottom Heartache
No matter how many times Joe wiped the blood from his face with his sleeves, he couldn’t stop his eyes from watering, their instinctive ability to flush out debris constantly on the go.
He checked his arms and hands, pulled out the bits of glass from his skin. Most of the cuts were superficial, but there was one chunk of glass that got into his forearm pretty deep and he had to wipe his fingers of the other hand several times against his pants because the blood made the glass so slippery. He yanked it out, a high spurt of blood following right after. It kept gushing so he stuck his fingers in the hole in his shirt around the wound, stretched the fabric until it tore, then ripped off the lower part of his sleeve. He wound it around and just above the wound like a tourniquet, hoping it’d be enough to stop the blood flow until he could properly clean it.
Joe got to his feet, his hands and wrists aching anew. The window sill and the wall beneath it looked like they belonged in a slaughter house rather than in an apartment, smeared blood streaking from the sill almost all the way down to the floor. Steps slow, Joe looked over the bedroom and was relieved to see no signs of looting. The bed wasn’t made, but that was as far as it went in terms of mess.
Maybe she had locked up before leaving and anyone who came didn’t want to fuss with the door and went after easier targets? he thought.
The room’s walls were bare, the bed a queen, covered in a white quilt with matching sheets, the pillowcase white with a plethora of mini pink roses on it. Beside it was a playpen. The dresser was a light gray with a mirror attachment on top, enough to see oneself from the waist up. Despite all the rot and decay outside, the room actually smelled nice, but didn’t carry the Strawberry-Vanilla smell April had, not that he expected the scent to linger an entire year. Still, to breathe in that soothing scent after so long . . .
There was a bookshelf with some James Patterson and Danielle Steel. Actually, Joe noticed, the entire shelf was full of bestsellers, every name recognizable. Were readers really that susceptible to sticking with brand name authors and ignoring everything else, missing out on so much quality literature by those whose names didn’t end with “King,” or “Grisham,” or “Rowling”?
Doesn’t matter. The book industry is as dead in this place as the undead roaming outside. He suppressed his old self once more and went out into the hallway. At the other end was the kitchen and front room. Behind him was the bathroom. He went in it and looked beneath the sink for a towel, ignoring the mirror above it, not wanting to analyze the grisly visage he caught a glimpse of in the mirror in the bedroom. Taking a towel, he covered his face and patted away the blood, doing the same over his body through his shirt. He double upped the towel and pressed it to his forearm. As he went down the hallway, he picked a few more bits of glass out of his skin and emerged in the front room.
This wasn’t the living room he remembered when he went and found April the day of the Rain. Not that he trusted his memory to capture every vivid detail as everything happened so fast, but the brown microfiber couch and chair seemed out of character for her, same with the large plasma TV mounted on the wall. Joe looked over the walls and saw pictures.
None of them had April. They showed a black family: two young parents and a cute little girl with tightly-wound braided pigtails.
This was the wrong suite.
No, can’t be, he thought. He revisited his trek up the stairs in his head, the walk down the hallway, the ransacked suite at the end, the windows. “This is the right one. Has to be.”
Joe went to the door, unlocked it and checked the hallway. He had climbed into the right suite. This was the right floor.
He was in the right place.
And April was not here. Was never here.
The harsh realization that she might never have existed in this reality made him tremble inside and sent his heart rate through the roof.
He went searching for a phonebook, found it.
“Maybe . . . no, wait, I don’t know her last name, she never gave it. I never asked,” he said. Didn’t think hanging around with her would be so brief. Thought there was time for that kind of thing. “So much for that idea.”
How different is this place? Would the timeline change at that point in the past at the bank, or is something else happening or happened that I don’t know about?
April.
With a growl, Joe threw the phonebook across the room. Its thick, heavy spine hit the wall, cracking the drywall. He didn’t care.
“What a waste of time,” he said. “Shoot!”
His eyes watered up, this time not from the blood.
* * * *
Joe left April’s apartment, spirit broken. Not only was she not here, he now had to make his trek back to Tracy and face her wrath.
Maybe I shouldn’t even bother, he thought. She’s probably better off without me anyway. He sniffled. As if that’s true. You need her as much as she needs you to survive. He chose to stop thinking about her for the time being and instead wracked his brain, trying
to think of any other possible way to track down April. Without phones or Internet, he was pretty much out of options as to a starting point.
“You got to let this go, man,” he said. “It’s going to kill you in the end.” You’re already dead inside so what does it matter? But he knew that wasn’t true. Not anymore. Someone else had begun to wake him—the real him—and she was no doubt fuming mad over him leaving. “Don’t turn her into a substitute for April. You’d be the opposite of what you were supposed to be if you do that.”
Still clutching the towel to his forearm and dabbing his cuts whenever too much blood leaked out, Joe continued down the street, heading back the way he came. With every step came a fresh curse against himself on how stupid he was for being so hung up on April, so much so he was willing to potentially sacrifice others for his own peace of mind and heart.
You’ve lost so much. April, my family, myself, Des . . . Billie’s out there somewhere. August, too. Oh man, almost forgot about them. Hope they’re alive. Now you risk losing Tracy, too. Maybe loss was his lot in life? He was still kicking despite the intense moments of despair when he wanted to just kill himself and finally be at peace. Now, he wasn’t so sure peace would even be possible if he did kill himself. After meeting the angel and seeing those demonic creatures, he knew there was a life beyond this one. He only hoped over there the dead hadn’t taken over. As if they’re worse than the demons you saw.
Joe avoided the undead when he saw them, stopping to hide when needed, getting in behind or under things when required as well. It was a long walk back to Tracy, however, long enough for him to think of a good excuse for leaving other than, “Oh, I had to go look up this girl I knew, the one I told you about. Had to make sure she was . . . dead . . . before I could try and get on with my life.” Pathetic.
Joe got himself onto Main and made his way toward the dust in the distance. He double checked his knives to make sure they were still weaved into his belt and were in position for easy access if he needed them. “Not if I need them, but when.”
And he was right, because a whole pack of zombies emerged from a side street and were headed his way.
* * * *
Welcome to my pity party, Tracy thought. All the emotions she’d kept suppressed over the year since the dead rose started to come out right after she climbed out of the dumpster. It was like her whole body decided to release the madness and turmoil within . . . and drag her down in the process.
The safe house was beneath the Millennium Library. The enormous building had gone down when one of the giants fell into it yet the main floor remained mostly intact. The debris and structure that fell on top of it ended up covering the main floor in a semi dome, concealing it from the outside. During some of the scouting missions, members of the Hub had discovered what happened and suggested it be a backup location should something happen to the main one. Over the course of several months, when people could be spared, crews went over with materials, slowly wedged supports and beams in there along with other construction supplies and, following a similar construction of the Hub, eventually created a substructure out of the library’s first floor beneath the demolished building. Soon survival supplies were moved in along with defense equipment and general items for human needs that were rounded up after much scavenging.
Like the Hub, there was a special locking system in place to get in. It was different than the Hub’s and Tracy verified she had her “key.” She did: a mini screwdriver.
What if Joe returns to the house early and I’m not there? She stopped walking. Maybe I should go back? No, I’m furious at him and I’m going to stay furious until he hears about it.
She didn’t want to give him a second thought, wanted to focus on the task at hand, but she couldn’t help but let her mind drift over to being concerned about his safety.
“Don’t go down that path,” she told herself slowly, and she dismissed the notion that she already had. “Enough. Stay focused.”
The city looked different because of all the damage and chaos, but if she had her bearings right—and she rarely didn’t—the safe house should be a couple of streets over. No problem, but only if she could avoid detection of the zombies milling around not far in front of her.
* * * *
14
The Cottage
The meal had been amazing. Billie could still taste it on her lips after the big man—whose name turned out to be Sven, his brother Bastian—made her a German breakfast of a few sausage links, bread rolls and artificial egg whites. He had even made her coffee!
Despite being in a strange place, she could go for another nap after such a great meal.
The men sat with her at the table, Sven at the head of it, Bastian across from her. No one spoke and she was beginning to understand that these two boys only spoke when they had something to say and didn’t just talk for the sake of talking to fill the silence like her and most of her friends used to.
Taking a sip of coffee, she loved how rich and flavorful it was, unlike back home where all she knew was instant coffee from a jar.
Sven would look at her, then look away, wait a few minutes then do it again. It got to the point where Billie blurted, “What?”
Sven averted his gaze, clearly embarrassed. She knew he thought she was pretty, but come on, it was starting to get creepy. Besides, he looked to be at least ten years older than her. Not that she was paying attention to that.
“Sorry for my brother,” Bastian said. “We’ve had a bit of a hard time here, like you.”
“Oh, I’m not from here,” Billie said.
“We know.”
“Huh?”
“You talk funny.”
“I talk funny, right,” she said with a grin.
“But listen, yah? We have something for you. You see, we know of why you’re here.”
Her heart stopped. Did she just hear him right? “Um, you do?”
A knock came from behind the door off the kitchen. A second later, a woman emerged, with black hair sharply cropped at the chin, pale skin, and very simple features. She seemed Russian or French, but when she spoke and greeted Sven and Bastian, she had a strictly British accent. Billie thought the plain gray dress the woman wore and the white sneakers, though an odd combination, was actually kind of cool.
The woman closed the door behind her, but before it shut all the way, Billie caught a glimpse into the room beyond, which looked way too big for such a small cottage. The intriguing part was the row of computer monitors and panels of switches and lights. Had she not known any better, she’d believe she was in a different room of a spaceship, one made to look like a cozy home on Earth to help her feel at ease.
That’s not what’s happening, is it? An alien invasion on top of a zombie apocalypse?
The woman didn’t sit down, but instead walked up to her. She held out her hand for a handshake. “My name is Isabel.”
She took the woman’s hand. “Billie.”
To Bastian, the woman said, “Is she ready?”
“No. Not yet. We haven’t had chance to talk. You were supposed to wait until we get you.”
Back to Billie, Isabel said, “Well, doesn’t matter. She’s here now.”
Billie stood and waved her hands in front of her. “Wait, wait, wait . . . who are you and what do mean by ‘expecting me’?”
“This is Bastian, Isabel and I’m Sven,” the man said.
“I meant who are you guys specifically and how do you know me?”
“The man in white said you would come,” Isabel said. “He said you were to show us where to go.”
Billie remembered Nathaniel’s new mission for her was one of recruitment as well as recovery. He had said, “It’s time to rally our forces as the Earth has almost completely fallen to Evil. Little time is left. I want you to gather those to join us at the Last Battle as they have tools that will help us.” She just didn’t know that those “tools” and people would be somewhere overseas.
“You must also find the Divine
Fragments,” he’d said and handed her the bracelet. “When the stone is white, wait.”
When she asked fragments of what, she had already been dropped off on the hill outside.
“Come,” Isabel said and led Billie to the room at the back, where Sven opened the door for them.
Billie had been mistaken about the size of the room. It did fit with the overall size of the cottage as through the crack in the door what she had seen were actually a series of large mirrors that sat at an angle, reflecting the goings on at the level below. It was there at the bottom of a very narrow, winding staircase the computer monitors and panels were, along with an expanse of cubicles along the sides of the wall, the area down the middle loaded with long tables covered in scraps of metal, rubber tubing, lengths of two-by-fours, tools, welding equipment and some items she didn’t recognize, but looked to be some sort of series of vats with a greenish bubbling liquid inside.
“This is special place,” Sven said, coming up beside her.
“Amazing,” Billie said. She hadn’t seen this much tech since her last trip to Best Buy over a year ago. And even then, Best Buy only had modern items, not ones that looked like a cross of Star Trek meets Steampunk. “What is this place?”
“Special,” Sven said again.
“Don’t mind him, okay,” Bastian said, “he just nervous.”
Normally she would find a guy who was into her getting all goofy around her as annoying, but Sven was big, handsome, strong and . . . big. She could get into that.
“All we know is you were to come here and take us somewhere else,” Isabel said. “That’s all the old man in the white coat told me when he rescued me several months back. He mentioned this place, but I didn’t arrive here until later. At first, I didn’t believe him of course, just some old coot with a story, but after he dematerialized into thin air, I thought maybe there was something to his statement, then when the boys saw you, a girl matching the description he gave me, we had to get you in here safe before assessing our next move.”
