by Michael Todd
The newscaster looked up at the screen and shook her head in disbelief. “Are angels real? And is one flying around New York City? We’ll have the latest after this break.”
George wiped the sweat from his head with the back of his arm. His white short-sleeved dress shirt was almost soaked through, even though he’d had all the windows down and a small fan clipped to the oh shit handle above his head.
He squinted intermittently at the map on his lap as he drove down the highway. His passenger footwell was littered with empty coffee cups and food wrappers, and the five or six air freshener trees hanging from his rearview window did little to mask the sour tang of his perspiration. He paid attention to the map just a moment too long and swerved into the other lane, nearly hitting a semi coming from the opposite direction.
He banged his hand on the steering wheel repeatedly to emphasize his cursing. “Of course they’ve gotta live all the way out in Buttfuck, Nowhere. Of course they give the shitty call to me. I fucking hate my life. Fuck it—I hate people, too.”
After another twenty minutes of driving and cursing, he finally found the turnoff to the base. He pulled onto the sandy road and drove slowly down, peering nervously at the signs posted by the turning. Turn Back. Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight. Danger: Explosives, Remain On The Road.
“Friendly folks—great.” He chuckled to himself as he drove past the signs. He didn’t give a shit what the signs promised. He was an IRS agent, after all, and according to his boss, nothing scared the IRS.
He didn’t actually believe that. Many things scared George, but when it came to rich assholes who didn’t give their fair share to the government, he was all go and no worries. Whoever this woman was, the higher-ups had gone to a lot of trouble. Usually, people like her would just be sent a letter in the mail, but he’d been put on special assignment to deliver the information to her in person.
As he drove, he looked at the desert to his right and left. The mountains in the distance had specks of green, which he was happy to see. He double-checked his gas gauge to make sure that he wasn’t so low that he wouldn’t make it back out. He shuddered, picturing himself being found dead by the signs because he’d run out of gas. There was no way his pasty, overweight body could handle the desert sun for more than a few hours at most—if he were being generous.
He drove along the winding road toward whatever was waiting for him over the horizon. He expected anything: a mansion, a compound. Maybe even an office complex.
However, what he hadn’t expected was a gate with armed military personnel stationed out front.
George almost turned around, thinking he had definitely made a wrong turn. He flipped the front cover of the file open to check exactly who the papers were for. There wasn’t too much information on the woman, but she was definitely part of something much larger than just skimping on her taxes. He took a deep breath and rolled to a stop in front of the gate.
A soldier walked out, his rifle cradled loosely in his arms.
The soldier held up a hand to indicate George should stay where he was. “Didn’t you see the signs? This is a restricted facility, sir. I advise you to turn around.” The other soldiers had their weapons trained on the car.
George gulped and pulled out his ID. “Internal Revenue Service. I’m here to speak with the person in charge.”
“May I ask what this is regarding?”
“I’m sorry, this is federal business. I can only speak to...” He flipped the file open again. “Katie Maddison, or whoever is in charge of her affairs at the time of my arrival.”
The soldier looked at him with irritation and held out a hand for George’s badge. George complied, and the soldier went inside the guard shack to confirm his identity with the IRS. George faced forward. He couldn’t see much of anything except for a few concrete buildings in the distance and wasn’t sure where to go once he’d been cleared. He didn’t sweat it, though. Judging by the hard faces of the guards, they weren’t going to give him a chance to get lost.
The guard nodded and hung up the phone, then came back and handed George his badge and pointed to a nearby Humvee. “Follow your escort to that building. If you knock, someone will help you.”
George did his best to level out the naturally snarky tone in his voice. “Thank you.”
The soldier narrowed his eyes. “And remember, don’t go wandering.”
2
Brock ducked the demon claw coming at his head. He grabbed the demon’s arm on the downswing and punched his tactical knife into its gut. The beast pulled back as the pain of the special metal hit, but Brock reaffirmed his grip on the demon and jerked his knife across its torso, spilling globs of intestine and stinking black ichor over his hands. Brock head-butted the demon in disgust, and it slid off his tac-knife and crumpled. It threw its head back and screeched, and its eyes flashed momentarily red before it turned to dust.
Whooo!
A little anticlimactic, I thought, Brock told his demon. He flicked the goo off his hands and wiped his knife across his pants before putting it back into his sheath.
And still the demons kept coming.
His team switched it up, half covering while the other half reloaded. They were fatigued, having been up to their eyeballs in demons for more hours than Brock cared to think about. He’d made each round count. He scanned the area around them, his rifle bobbing as he took out three demons surging toward them one at a time. He had to conserve his ammo, at least until they got back to the safe point to restock.
“These bastards are coming on strong,” one of his teammates yelled.
Brock took out another demon. “That’s what they do! Just don’t let your guard down. I know the captain always says we can sleep when we’re dead, but today is not that day.”
“You got that right, brother,” the soldier replied.
The team advanced toward the front lines, passing the wounded soldiers they came across back to the medics. The fighting raged around the corpses, but those didn’t deter them. They had to hold the demons back until the heavy artillery arrived. Brock stepped over a pile of dust, grimacing at the tattooed arm on the ground next to it. The bastard had partially eaten a United States Marine before it had gone down.
Brock caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and whipped around with his rifle raised, pausing just long enough ensure he had the head shot. However, before he could pull the trigger, another demon plowed into his side. Brock growled as the demon pierced his back with its talons. He shook off the pain, along with the demon.
I’ve got this. Just keep fighting!
What, you’re actually helping?
Just fight!
His pain ebbed almost immediately as his demon worked to heal him from the inside. He flipped to his feet, and as he aimed the rifle between the demon’s eyes, the beast grabbed the barrel and tried to pull it away. Brock grinned ferally and shook his head. “Nuh-uh, asshole.” He twisted the rifle out of the demon’s grip and jammed the stock right in its snarling blood-covered mouth.
The demon’s head flew back, spraying blood and giving Brock enough room to flip the gun around and pull the trigger. The bullet blew half the demon’s neck away, and a swift boot to its sternum sent the bastard flying back ten feet.
Brock put another bullet in its head for good measure. The demon who had originally charged him had been stopped by one of his teammates. Brock looked over just as his buddy decapitated it with his knife. The demon’s head flopped and it fell to the ground with a gurgle, drowning in its own blood.
They fought back-to-back, their efforts creating a billowing cloud of demon dust around them. Brock looked at his teammate as he wiped the grit from his forehead. They nodded at each other and continued to advance, rifles at the ready. Up ahead were larger demons. None matched the three monstrosities who had attacked Times Square, but they definitely wouldn’t be easy to take down.
Brock was ready for it. An unexpected serenity settled over him, as though something had switch
ed in his mind after watching the blood of his brothers seep into the dirt.
He narrowed his eyes at the demons ahead. His teammates lined up beside him, and he looked down the line to make sure that they were all still there. They had been lucky so far; their team was still intact.
The other teams hadn’t been so charmed.
The team was about to roll in with all guns blazing when they heard a loud high-pitched whistle from the sidelines.
“GRENADES!”
The panicked shout had the Damned soldiers scrabbling for their gas masks. These were no regular grenades. The smoke they released was imbued with micro-fragments of the special metal, which infiltrated the demons’ lungs and rendered them helpless—the lower level ones, at least.
The higher-level demons were less susceptible, but the grenades still gave the soldiers an opportunity to take them down before they could do any more damage. After that, it was on the teams to mop up the demons left gasping on the ground.
His entire line dashed for cover as one smoke grenade after another flew over their heads to hit the ground by the demons. They burst wide open, disgorging their shimmering white smoke. Brock crouched behind the rocks and waited nervously with his team for it to clear. While the smoke was excellent for disarming demons, it completely obscured the soldiers’ vision until it dissipated.
The men stood after the smoke thinned a little and squinted through their goggles, their rifles at the ready. For several moments the field was eerily still, the only sounds coming from the remaining demons laboring to breathe.
Brock never liked it when it was this calm. It was too much like being on stage in the gaping chasm that stretched between finishing a new song and the fans’ reaction. He still hadn’t fully wrapped his head around how he had gone from his sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll dream existence to living a real-life horror movie. Moments like this just expounded the dissonance between his past and present.
Just then two demons leapt through the fog and landed with a thud at the end of the line. Before the guys could move, they attacked and ripped two of the team’s gas masks off. The men began to choke and cough and one demon moved closer, cackling as the soldier’s eyes turned red and he clawed at his throat and chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and he began to shake uncontrollably, but his hands flew up and busted the leering demon in the face with his rifle before he fell to the ground and continued to convulse in the dirt.
The demon backed up, shaking its head, then looked down at the soldier and let out a deafening screech. As it moved to grab the soldier from the ground, the whole team raised their rifles.
However, theirs weren’t the shots that took the bastards down. Unexpected rapid fire came from their right and the demons were riddled with bullets. The two huge demons’ bodies danced under the force of the multiple impacts that hit them before they burst into dust.
The bullets raked another demon but missed all the vital spots. Brock sighed, aimed it at the demon’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the beast right between the eyes, and was followed up by a hail of headshots from the rest of the guys. The demon’s head erupted into a fine mist and it fell backward, bursting into dust before it hit the ground.
They ran over to the guys on the ground and pulled their masks back over their faces. Brock knelt next to one of them and grabbed his hand, letting him squeeze it as hard as he needed to. He couldn’t imagine the agony the guy was feeling, but the good news was that the smoke probably wouldn’t kill him. As the medics ran out onto the field carrying stretchers, the guy reached up and pulled his gas mask to the side.
“No, man you need that. It’s all right. They’re gonna fix you up,” Brock whispered, trying to replace the mask.
His teammate grabbed his arm and pulled him close to his face, choking through his words. “Give ‘em fucking hell for me.”
Brock’s eyes glowed brightly, and he smiled. “You fucking know it.”
Katie got out of the cab outside the real estate office and adjusted her oversized sunglasses. Lifting her arm caused her hair to ripple down her back, and several men stopped to stare as her tailored charcoal suit moved with her to accentuate her curves.
Pandora was gleeful. Ooh, the sexy businesswoman look is getting us all the right kind of attention. It’s the stilettos…I know it.
Hmmm, maybe. It’s about time I felt comfortable wearing heels.
Yeah, well, it shows.
The corner of Katie’s cherry-lipsticked mouth twitched. She pulled a twenty from her purse and tipped the cabbie, then dropped the card he offered into her clutch and sashayed toward the office.
Pandora wolf-whistled. Hot-daaayum! How is the sidewalk not melting beneath your feet? I mean, seriously—you look like you walked off both the cover of Playboy and Forbes at the same fucking time. Pornstars wish they had your hot-as-fuckness.
I doubt that. Katie scoffed.
Please! Don’t you know that was exactly what those guys were thinking? Bending you over the corporate desk and letting you have it before a meeting? They will have happy wives and happy lives tonight, with you on their minds.
I’m not sure whether to be flattered or grossed out about that.
I would take it as a compliment. You are every man’s fantasy, and underneath it all, you are a badass bitch. Sugar-coated steel, baby. If those dudes knew what you can do, they would have shot their loads right there on the street. Sticky pants for the rest of the day.
Katie grimaced. Gross, and uncomfortable for them.
It’s all part of being America’s baddest bitch.
What happened to America’s sweetheart?
Pandora sniffed. She got eaten by the demons. Dumbass couldn’t run without tripping over her own feet. I’ve seen American horror movies. Bitches always be panicking and tripping over nothing, then they lie there clutching their ankle while the killer might as well be walking backward, he’s going so slowly. Next thing you know he’s nailed her to a tree or some shit like that. It makes me want to borrow your eyes so I can roll them.
Katie rolled for the both of them. Yeah, we tend to have a cliché image of women in horror.
You, my dear, break that mold one hundred percent.
Katie stood in front of the doors of the real estate office and took a deep breath. All right, let’s get this over with. I’ve got a mother to shock the hell out of, and then I have to get back here. Shit just keeps getting worse in this city, thanks to the demons. I’m glad I decided against a condo in Times Square, I know that much.
Amen, sister.
When Katie walked through the door, Iris, her agent, was waiting for her with a big smile on her face. She hurried over and gave Katie a hug, which Katie returned a bit stiffly.
“You’re here!” Iris pulled back and giggled. “The client’s attorney is representing them, and they are all ready for you. Are you excited?”
“Super,” Katie replied, faking her jubilance. “I do have to catch a flight after this, though.”
Iris smiled again. “Not a problem. We have everything set up. Just follow me back to the conference room, and we will get all settled in. Can my secretary get you a coffee?”
Katie smiled. “That would be fabulous. Light cream, extra sugar, please.”
Iris nodded to the secretary and motioned excitedly for Katie to follow her. The agent led Katie down the hall to a large glass-walled conference room. Huge windows let in light, although the view was less than picturesque. Katie sat down in one of the chairs and crossed her legs, noticing the middle-aged attorney in his designer suit glance over them before greeting her with a smile.
He offered her his hand. “Good to meet you, Ms. Maddison. Robert Forester. I’ll be handling the closing today.”
Katie smiled and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
The secretary came in with two cups of coffee and set them down in front of the attorney and Katie. Two other women walked into the room, a young one dressed similarly to Katie but without all the c
urves, and the other the same age as Robert.
“These are my associates, and they will be assisting with the signing.”
“Sorry we’re late,” the older woman apologized. “We had to cut around Times Square. Everything is still blocked off.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess out there,” the younger one added. “I’m just glad they are getting things taken care of. Sadly, this city is all too used to tragedies like that.”
“It shouldn’t be.” Robert shook his head. “It’s a damn shame.”
He pulled out a thick file of papers and turned one copy toward Katie. “I will read from this one, and then you will sign both of them. You’ll get a copy, and the mortgage company for the client will get one.”
Katie nodded her head and listened to him drone through line after line of legal jargon. She understood it, but it was the last thing she wanted to have to focus on at that moment.
She took a deep breath and calmed her brain, remembering that a year ago something so normal—so everyday—would have been impossible for her. She needed to take it in stride. She couldn’t think about demons all day long, or at least not every second of the day. When they reached a breaking point, Iris left for a few minutes and returned with a catered lunch, which she set up on the table.
She clicked on the television and smiled. “I have another client to talk with, but I should be done when you are.”
“Not a problem.” Katie returned the smile. “Mr. Forester seems to have everything under control.”
The real estate agent left the room, and Katie stared up at a replay from Times Square. She turned away quickly, hoping that nobody in the room caught on to the similarity between her and the woman on the screen.
The middle-aged attorney shook her head, taking a sip of her iced tea. “I still can’t believe what I’m watching. It looks like a scene out of a movie of some kind. Demons terrorizing Earth; just eating people in broad daylight. Those people were lucky that mercenary showed up when she did. She’s the real hero of the day.”
