by Mark Tufo
Bailey was breathing heavy. “I do not like being shot at.”
“No one does. Give me your weapon,” I told the guard. He looked to Bailey before she nodded her assent.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Payback. Step aside,” I told them all as I got ready to open the door. As soon as it was ajar enough, I placed the side of my rifle up against the doorjamb and started unloading my magazine. It felt more like bowling with bullets as I just sent lead down the alley, hoping to hit as many “pins” as possible. Blindly shooting rounds was not my favorite way to deal with the enemy, but in this case, it was effective. The ones who had not been hit and screaming for help were now in full-on retreat.
“That’ll give them something to think about,” I said as I handed the guard back his rifle, one magazine full of spent rounds lighter.
“They will not try that again,” the guard said.
“Oh, I doubt that. They’ll at least get some steel to deflect bullets and whatever else they can think of, to make it a living hell down there. Bailey, you’re going to want to heavily defend this doorway. They’ve found a way in and won’t soon forget it.”
“We’re already stretched thin.”
“I know that, and you know that. Let’s hope they don’t know that.”
“Damn you, Merrings.” She started to make her plans while I went to find Azile. She was still in the council room along with Lana and Gount. They were alone and suspiciously stopped talking when I entered.
“It’s shit like that that will make a man paranoid.”
“We were discussing what we would be willing to do should the need to surrender be forced upon us,” Gount said. He looked like he’d aged twenty years in the last few days.
“Have you guys not been listening to what I’ve been saying? We cannot surrender. Jangrut, at the very least, will not allow it. There will be nothing left of Talboton or its inhabitants. It will be wiped clean from the landscape much like Atlantis to become more myth than any actual reality, although there was that one time with Trip and Jack. Forget I said anything.”
Lana and Gount might not know what exactly Atlantis was, but you didn’t really need to know to get the gist of my words. If Gount, the town leader, was already feeling like throwing in the towel, what would the rest of the community feel like? I couldn’t necessarily fault these people; they weren’t used to this kind of sustained stress. Defending the town previously, had probably mostly consisted of aggressive coyotes trying to get to livestock or maybe the occasional pushy traveling salesman. War was a whole other thing altogether. Watching a friend get killed could sap the will from a seasoned veteran and these people were about as green as Kermit the Frog.
“I suggest you all get to safer places. They’ll attack soon.”
“My father wouldn’t dare,” Lana interjected.
“Well, we’ll know soon enough who’s in charge I suppose.” I walked Azile outside. She was leaning on me heavily. I’d like to think part of it was her showing affection, but it was more of me propping her up rather than anything else.
“Can you please help me get to the parapet?”
“Why don’t you go lie down instead? You feel light as a feather. What the hell did you do in your room?” I asked, referring to her black candle spell making session.
“I’ll be fine.”
I stayed up with her on that wall, not because I didn’t have a hundred other things I figured needed doing, but I was afraid that, if a stiff breeze came along, she might need someone to anchor her down and keep her from flight.
“I can sense the tension within you. You should go.” She had pulled her cloak tight around her throat as if she were trying to keep an ill wind away.
“I’ll leave when you do.”
“What is happening in the tunnel?”
“For now, they have discovered they very much don’t like being shot. Jangrut will figure that problem out soon enough and then I guess we’ll have enemies at both gates.”
“I, like you, mistakenly thought Talboton could not be beaten.”
“Why is everyone already giving up? Maybe you should just start blasting people with fireballs from your hands.”
“You mean like Mario?” She smiled.
She was talking about one of my favorite video games of all time, Super Mario, and a fireball power-up he could attain if he ate a fire plant. My son and I would play it for hours. I got that heavy feeling in my chest as the past gripped my heart and gave it a cold twist of fate. I pushed the melancholy as far back as I could.
“Yeah, like Mario,” I answered sadly.
“If only I could. My powers are based much more in the realm of protection and healing.”
“The Red Witch is a doctor and social worker. Who would have thought that?”
“Killing is easy, you should know that.”
I think I may have recoiled.
“I’m…I’m sorry. I did not mean it like that. You should go. I promise I’m going back in soon. I just want to get some fresh air, and you should be there when they make another assault on the tunnel. Just don’t go getting in the middle of it.”
“Alright, I promise I won’t do anything untold if you promise you’re going in soon.”
She looked straight into my eyes and lied just like I had done to her. In fairness, neither of us had known at that exact moment we were being anything but up front. Rapidly unfolding events, as always, would dictate necessary actions to deal with them. I kissed her tenderly on the lips, realizing that, for once, she felt colder than me. Who would have thought when dealing with the Lord of Lies and Keeper of the Flame of Hatred that one could have heat taken from them? Makes sense, though, nothing much more desolate than a wintry soul.
I was down and halfway to my destination when I turned around to look. I could barely make out Azile’s form, her back was to me and her head was tilted up. Perhaps she was hoping to feel the warming rays of a sun that was no longer shining. I needed to be more careful. It was my actions that had brought her to that place within herself. The events of the night would prove my mother right when she used to say, “In one ear and out the other, as if there is no brain inside that thick head of yours to interpret the message.” This was usually punctuated with her tapping the side of my head after I’d done something else that defied logical explanation.
Hey, I’m sorry, but if a supermarket forgets to lock its doors after hours, then the contents within are fair game. The assistant manager decided to not press charges, considering it was he who forgot to lock the door. He was just happy that he had received the call and not his boss. At first, they were going to make me pay the twenty-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents for the boxes of Devil Dogs I’d motored through, but when I turned my pockets inside out to reveal I had a whopping five bucks on me, the assistant manager let it completely go. He, however, did not let me take the four other boxes I had in my hands. What can I say? I had the munchies. The cops had driven me home to make sure I didn’t get in any more trouble.
“Thanks, Pete,” I had told the cop as he opened the door. I knew most of the town cops on a first name basis, something I shouldn’t have been too proud of.
“Gonna have to let your mother know about this one, Mike.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve already let you off a half dozen times…plus, she’s looking through the window. She’s never going to believe you if you tell her that I just gave you a lift.”
“Not cool, Pete.”
“Wipe the damn filling from your face. You look like you shoved your face in a cake.”
My mother was furious, and that was when she gave me the good old smacking upside the head. I had deserved it. I was fifteen, stoned out of my gourd, and had been happily eating snack cakes on the floor of the local supermarket when the cops had found me. In hindsight, I should have maybe just grabbed a dozen boxes and left, but the odds were good that I would have left a trail of wrappers all the way to my house. I mis
sed Devil Dogs, I missed Pete, hell, I missed my mother, and we really hadn’t even gotten along all that well. By the time my nostalgic thoughts were over, I found myself back at the door to the tunnel.
“Anything new?”
“We’ve heard noise, but Bailey told us not to open the door until either you or she returned.”
“What’s your name?”
“Moland.”
“Like Poland with an M?”
He just looked at me.
“You in charge of these men?”
He nodded. There were an even dozen—about all Bailey could afford to spare with the conflict about to begin anew.
“Alright, Moland, have one of your men take this torch out of here. I need to see what our party crashers are up to. Make sure he shuts the door up top as well. There may not be much light, but any down here will stick out.”
He did as I asked. I waited a couple of seconds, part of that spent thinking on how quickly I had gone back on the words I’d just told Azile. I rationalized by saying it was something that needed to be done, and that I would not jeopardize another’s life when I could just as easily do it myself. I could only hope she put more stock in her words than I had mine.
I opened the door and quickly got low to the floor. Superfluous words, where else was I going to get low to? Amazing the random junk that can go through your mind when you are in a dangerous situation. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. For a second it looked like an eclipse of the sun, well, if the moon was square and the sun was no brighter than a couple of torches. Other than that, it was just like a solar eclipse. They had an effective bullet shield and they were coming as quickly as they could. The steel had to be pretty heavy, and they’d only be able to get a couple of men to hold it up due to the hallway size constrictions.
I started moving forward slowly. Even as I did so, I kept telling myself how not brilliant this was. I got close enough to hear them talking. I was convinced I could hear Jangrut encouraging his men forward. I wondered, as well, if Saltinda and the others knew he’d found this access. Could be Jangrut was hording the secret so that, when he got the cache of weapons, he would keep them for himself. Sure would make taking over the world easier if he had all the guns to himself. I could hear the general cursing and bitching, like all military men throughout time, as they muscled that steel forward. I would do my best to end their suffering.
I moved as stealthily as possible, the light from their torches not illuminating more than three feet in front of the barricade, and most of that was the ceiling. They would never see me coming. The moving wall was nearly five and a half feet tall, and I could just make out the eyes of one of the carriers as I got close. They grew wide like he’d seen a ghost at the foot of his bed as he awoke from a particularly disturbing dream.
I was worse, because I didn’t portend to coming events. I was the end.
The explosions of the rounds in the confines of the corridor were deafening. I lit up from the strobe-like effects of my shots being fired. I did not see Jangrut as I advanced and placed the barrel of the rifle nearly on top of the makeshift wall. It had a small base that prevented it from toppling over even after I had killed both of the men who had been hefting it.
What I could tell as my bullets sliced through the enemy was that there were a hundred or more men shoved in that hallway. This was Jangrut’s gambit; he was bringing his whole army down here. I realized just how precarious my position was. I was past the halfway mark in the tunnel. I was about to be out of rounds, and I could not expect fire support from behind as they’d just as likely hit me—if not from a direct hit then a ricochet off the steel. I was going to have to make a run for it and hope that Jangrut’s men didn’t recover quick enough to figure out what was going on and send their own bullets down range. If I’d really contemplated this, I would have brought more magazines; but I’ve already shown my disregard for traditional ways of thought.
I can’t explain why I did what I did. Anger played a role, I’m sure. Death wish or suicidal tendencies I’m sure had a part to play as well. Wanting to send a message that we would never cede, yeah, that had a walk-on role, too. When my bolt stuck open to signify I’d expended my last round, I didn’t turn and run like a sane person should have, nope, not me.
If you’re going to do something fucking nuts, I say you go all in! Feet first, googly-eyed, and drooling.
I dropped the rifle and grabbed the small hand-axe I had strapped to my leg. For those who lived, I would give them images that they would tell around campfires for generations to come, probably to scare their kids. Although how you were going to get your unruly child to go to sleep after telling him a monster was coming to get him seemed kind of contrary to the original design. What do I know? I’d once taken my kids out for sundaes because Tracy was away and it was my responsibility to get them dinner.
The first fucker’s face that saw me coming over the metal plating lost his shit. Not literally, thankfully, just figuratively. I’ve got to imagine I looked like some demon possessed, eyes bulging from my head, tongue hanging out of an open mouth, and a glistening axe swinging towards his face. His hand had not even come halfway up to deflect before I cleaved half his face off. The scream cut through the quiet, my victim’s, or mine…both maybe.
The Cajunites had stopped their retreat when they realized the shooting stopped. They were in the process of regrouping when I descended upon them like an uncaged demon. I hacked, bit, kicked and slashed anyone who got in my way. They fought back at first, but in the tight quarters, the advantage was mine. They had to be careful of the man next to them, I had no such safety limitations. My axe bit deeply into necks, chests, and heads, cracking skulls like eggshells.
Men lay at my feet, dead and dying, twitching violently from wounds they would never recover from. I stepped on them or over, always advancing. The men immediately in front of me were panicking, trying to get away as the men behind them were pressing forward hoping to attack. I cared little as I severed spines and shattered ribcages. I gripped one of the men from the scruff of his neck, bringing him in close, I ripped out the skin from the back of his neck and plunged my canines deep, drinking my fill before tossing his emptying husk a few feet ahead of me onto some unsuspecting attackers.
War cries had turned into screams of terror as more and more of the combatants realized what was going on. I was a vampire possessed, tearing into anything before me. I had an army in retreat, the chokepoint on the other end inhibiting their escape. Pleas of mercy fell upon deaf ears, as there was no forgiveness to be found in this hellish underworld. My boots were slogging through an inch of blood and bile, causing ripples in the pooling liquid as I moved forward, ever forward.
I would stoop down to strike at those unfortunate ones who had been injured in their escape attempt as a horror-filled horde had pushed over and stepped on those unable to move fast enough. A broken bone or a turned ankle here meant certain death. I hacked through outstretched hands and turned away heads. It was not my job to administer forgiveness. I would let whatever higher entity they chose decide on that particular area. My arena was meting out an unyielding and heavy-handed justice.
Discarded torches began to catch bodies on fire, choking the passageway in the smoke of burning carcasses. I was twenty feet from the entrance when the last of the Cajunites, save one, found their way to safety. Jangrut was staring wide-eyed at me as I let a savage yell erupt from my being. He did some sort of sign on his chest that looked like a bastardized Holy Trinity.
“I am Michael Talbot, death embraces me as one of its own!” I screamed. Jangrut took one last look and swiftly left. I thought about pursuit, but I was spent.
“Michael, Michael!” I heard drifting up from behind me. I turned to the direction of the sound as it tried to bring me back from whatever black place I had found. Bailey and three others had got past the steel barricade and were now looking at the carnage I had laid out for them. One man quickly placed his head over the steel an
d began to heave.
“Michael? Are you injured?” Bailey was approaching, albeit slowly and cautiously. Moans escaped those few who had not yet discovered they were dead and were merely waiting to be collected. Bailey came closer. Words eluded her as she looked down and then to me.
My chest was heaving, my arms down by my side, my hand axe hanging low. Blood cascaded off of me. I could not have swam in a pool of the life-fluid and been any more saturated with it than I was now.
“Michael, come with me, we must leave this place. It reeks of evil.”
“The evil is me. I fear it will follow wherever I go.”
She had stopped coming forward. My teeth had not yet retracted, my pupils dilated. I could sense the heat of her blood coursing through her neck. It would be so easy…I took a step toward her. She held her ground.
“Michael, do not come closer.”
I had a sly grin on my face that showed the whiteness of my teeth, which must have been quite a sight compared to the red I was bathed in. I took another step. She did not hesitate as she brought her rifle up. I could not slake the desire to kill, to feed, to rend; it burned like a wildfire within me. I knew who Bailey was and what she meant to me, but that was overshadowed by my uncaring of those very facts.
“I will shoot you.” The rifle now buttressed up to her shoulder. She would do it, even if the barrel was shaking.
“Please, God, help me,” broke out from some isolated area within me.
“Mike?” This query came from behind me and the passageway that the Cajunites had used.
I turned to look, a light somehow brighter than the sun washing over me. It should have seared the flesh from my body, melting my muscles into pools of sludge. Instead, it was colder than the hand of death, something I’d felt brush past me on numerous occasions. I had the sensation of falling, but not to the floor. This was for countless miles, into an abyss that had no bottom, no sides, no top. Air flowed around and past me as I kept descending. You’ve done it now, Mike. Hell awaits, I thought just as a darker blackness enfolded me.
