by Roy Bright
As they turn a corner and enter the corridor that leads to the room in which Charlotte woke up, Colonel Taylor’s voice booming out of the intercom causes them to look up at the closest speaker to them.
“All fire-teams muster in hangar Charlie immediately. Air crew and ground support to hangar Echo. Any persons with military training report to corridor Foxtrot-15. All other personnel are to make their way to the bunker. Look out for each other and do not leave anyone behind. I am not about to lose this base to these bastards so move like you got a purpose people.”
“Call him,” Gary says, grabbing her by the shoulders and stopping her.
“No,” she replies, shrugging him off. “I can do this on my own. We can do this Gary, it’ll be fine.”
He examines her face for a moment. “Are you fucking kidding me? Pride, now, at a time like this?”
“He wants me to be able to stand on my own two feet. To be able to take these situations on without him. Why else do you think he gave me the training?”
“Charley! It sounds as though there are hundreds of them and big as well. I don’t care what your pride says, get him down here – now!”
She is about to protest further when the right-hand corridor wall ahead of them explodes and through it crashes a hulking ape-demon. It hits the opposite wall, reducing it to rubble, and grunts to a halt. Turning to face them, it roars and charges.
“Run!” Gary screams, grabbing her right arm and dragging her along with him.
“My swords!” she screams back, “I need my swords!”
“We’ll have to go around. Come on, hurry.”
They speed down the corridor, the demon giving chase, grunting with every powerful slam of its feet on the floor. Its speed is immense and it is closing on them fast.
Gary’s mind flashes back to the night outside the church in Jersey City, when Zenaku’s ape-form chased them down. “I hate these fuckers,” he shouts.
“Left,” Charlotte calls with a quick change of direction, moving as though she were on rails and speeding off down another corridor.
Gary senses the demon is almost upon him, can feel it breathing down his neck. He follows Charlotte, gripping hold of the edge of the wall and using it to pull himself round.
The demon’s size prevents it from turning the corner at the same speed as its prey and it loses its footing, sliding into the edge of the opposite wall with a thunderous crash and shrieking its frustration.
“That door there,” Gary shouts, pointing at a huge entrance straight ahead, set back within a metal bulkhead. “We can get back into the living spaces through there.”
Behind them, the demon shakes its head and scrambles back onto all fours quick to resume its previous speed.
“Shit!” Gary says as they are faced with the door’s locking mechanism, a large stiff lever that requires manipulating and twisting and it takes time – something they are in short supply of. “Help me!” he screams at Charlotte.
She grabs the lever, her face a grimace of determination and she cries out from the effort of pulling it, such is the stiffness of the mechanism.
The demon powers down the corridor and is almost upon them when they manage to free the lever and duck in through the door, slamming it shut behind them and throwing up the lever to seal it, just as the demon smashes into the metal frame.
“Fuck me,” Gary says, breathing hard, then jumps away from the door as the demon slams into it again, doing its very best to burst through. The frame buckles a fraction, causing them to share a look of concern before sprinting away.
***
Isaac holds up his right hand as he peeps around the corridor, examining the one leading away from their accommodation. “Looks clear,” he says, turning back to his sisters, “We need to be as quiet as the grave though. I’m not about to take a chance and assume nothing can hear or see us, especially if people are down there. Understood?”
They nod in unison.
“Good. Okay, follow me. Quietly,” he says, reinforcing the point by placing an index finger to his lips.
All three stand and tiptoe down the corridor, their backs and palms against the wall, edging silently along. On the opposite sides of the wall they hear the terrifying screams of demons and people alike. They know what is happening out there, what the demons are doing to the poor unfortunates as they have seen it on countless occasions. They do their best to shut it out, an internal monologue chattering inside them as though they were connected to a hive mind, telling them not to listen, to just concentrate on moving ahead, that things will be all right.
As they near the end of the corridor, they come to an abrupt halt. Ahead, they hear the familiar click, click, click of claws along the tiled floor and they press themselves up to the wall harder, attempting to make themselves as slim and invisible as possible.
From out of a door leading into the room Charlotte had occupied earlier, creeps a jackal demon, sniffing the air, seeming to be searching for something, or someone. It opens its mouth and slow croaking ripples forth as blood drips to the floor – pat, pat, pat.
Isaac places a hand on Abigail’s shoulder to reassure her, but as ever he feels that she is calm and unaffected. He smiles a little, despite the dire situation they are in.
The demon’s head whips around in their direction, and Isaac stops smiling.
It clicks along the floor as it creeps toward them, once again sniffing the air.
Isaac knows that they are in deep trouble if it can see them, as there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. He pushes the thought from his mind and calms himself, forcing out fear and replacing it with serenity, with love. Love for his sisters, for their protection, and he will not allow any such thoughts to doom them to this terrifying creature.
It is close, almost upon them, a mere three feet away. They smell its breath and feel the heat radiating from its body. They wince at the low growling coming through its razor-sharp teeth.
It stops and sniffs the air once more.
Does it see us? Sarah asks herself. Does it know we are here? Surely not. They have never seen us before.
It looks straight at Abigail, and then moves closer to her.
For the briefest moment, Isaac considers attacking. He considers kicking out at it and tearing into it with his bare hands. But as swift as the thought rose within him, he pushes it down. Something tells him that the beast cannot seem them, that it does not know they are there. He prays that he’s right, that what he feels is correct. So he does nothing, he dare not move.
The demon is now so close to Abigail that all three of them hold their breath, fearful that it will sense or smell them and attack. It moves its horrific snout close to her face and sniffs the air, rotating its head quizzically.
Isaac glances at his sister from out of the corner of his eye. She hasn’t moved and there isn’t an ounce of fear upon her face. She stares back into the creature’s eyes and it is now that he realizes that it cannot see them. Somehow it is sensing their presence, some part of them, perhaps, but it cannot see them.
It moves closer still to her face, its nose almost touching hers, then stops and moves back. Without warning, it speeds off to its right and away from them and as it rounds the corridor that they had come down all three of them breathe a sigh of relief.
Isaac stares into Sarah’s face and they both burst into laughter.
“Oh my word,” Sarah says, breathing out hard and fanning herself, “I thought for sure it could see us.”
“That… was… tense,” Isaac replies, smiling. “But, at least we know our Fisher-shield is still working.”
Sarah pats him on the shoulder and smiles. She drops down to Abigail’s eyeline, who is staring at an item that she holds in her hand, a four-inch diamond-shaped stone carving on the end of a lanyard. Upon its surface are inscribed various symbols and words that none of them understand.
Abigail looks up at her sister and holds the object out to her. “I think it was looking for this.”
***
>
The ape-demon smashes through another corridor wall ahead of Charlotte and Gary, removing any hope of them reaching her accommodation and her swords.
“Aww, give us a fucking break will ya!” Gary screams.
“What now?” she says, looking around.
“Call him.”
“No!” she says, her voice peppered with annoyance, “I can do this.”
She charges at the demon and it does likewise, dropping down onto all fours, bounding toward her. She flicks her hands open, down by her sides, and her Divinity shield crackles into life around her.
Gary stares at her in disbelief, his eyes wide.
She collides with the beast, a powerful and crushing blow that sends it hurtling backward, howling in pain.
“Yeaaahh!” Gary screams, punching the air.
She skids to a halt and stumbles a little, the shield around her spluttering and fizzing then winking out altogether.
Breathless, she bends over, her hands on her knees.
That was hard, it took a lot out of her, and she doesn’t think she can do it again so soon. Damn it, she needs more practice at this.
Ahead of her, the demon thrashes around on the ground struggling to right itself.
Charlotte turns back to Gary, her eyes and face admitting defeat and he feels her pain. In that moment, he understands. Somewhere along the line in the ten years she spent within the alternate reality, she must have felt trapped inside Judas’ shadow, that she would never be able to break free or accomplish what she must do on her own. Now, back in reality, she is aware that to become who she was meant to be, she needs to find the strength and ability to do things by herself, to not have to call upon him at any given moment. He understands, but she has picked one hell of a time to try to prove her point.
“This way,” he shouts with a wave of his arm. “Let’s try for the armory and at least give ourselves a chance at fighting these bastards with something other than harsh language.”
She nods and then glances back at the stunned demon that is now almost back on its feet. She looks past it, at the door leading into the accommodation and groans, angry, then takes a deep breath and sprints toward Gary.
They clear through the door at the end of the corridor and enter the large hall that they had been in earlier, and gasp at the devastation. On one side of the room there’s a large crater with butchered bodies littered all around it. Looking around they realize corpses are strewn around the entire hall. People who had been sitting down to their meal – families – their bodies torn to pieces by demonic entities that had used this area as their entry point.
Tears well up in Charlotte’s eyes as she takes in the carnage before her. “This is where they came in,” she says, her voice sounding broken.
“We cannot stay here,” Gary says, grabbing her arm, “We must leave. Now!”
As they set off toward a door at the far left-hand side of the room they hear snarling and the clashing of teeth.
Charlotte looks over to see a pack of jackal demons gorging upon the body of a woman, her lifeless form jerking up and down as they tear into her skin. Her empty eyes stare into Charlotte and burn the macabre scene deep into her psyche causing anger to swarm through her and she tries to fire up her Divinity once again with a flick of her hands. But she cannot. They spark and fizz, but only a tiny amount of energy arcs between her fingers and it incenses her further.
“Let’s go,” Gary urges, tugging at her arm.
Another sound snaps her attention to the back of the room and she breaks free from his grip and trots toward it, an action that garners more harsh language from Gary. She bends down while moving and spies a young girl creeping her way under the tables, away from the pack of feasting demons. The woman’s daughter, she tells herself and she sprints toward the child, with Gary setting off after her, screaming her name as he does.
The feeding demons’ heads come up in unison. One of them roars, deep and terrifying, and then charges at her. It mounts tables, powering across, sending them toppling and splintering over the floor. It leaps, claws outstretched, mouth wide open, its yellow eyes burning with greed.
Charlotte drops into a slide and skids under the table in front of her, toward the child.
The demon misses her and crashes into tables to her left, spilling out of control toward the wall, entangled within them.
Behind, the door explodes as the ape-demon bursts through, announcing its dominance over the jackal demons as it stalks into the room.
Charlotte grabs hold of the child and scrambles them both to their feet.
Already at the door, holding it open, having checked his run and deviated his course when he realized Charlotte’s intentions, Gary screams at them, “Come on, quickly,” and they struggle toward him.
The other feeding demons join in and give chase, snarling, cackling, screaming and the room feels like a ghost ride in Hell.
Gary slams the door shut as she races through, the child now hoisted in Charlotte’s arms, gripping the woman tight as she screams, her face a mask of panic and tears.
They hear the demons tearing the room to pieces and a huge pounding, booming noise as the ape creature bounds across the floor, followed by an enormous thud as it slams into the wall.
Gary breathes a sigh of relief as he moves off, thankful that for once the wall has held and not allowed the beasts to come spilling through. He points ahead. “That door leads outside, I’m sure of it.”
They make for the door at the end of the corridor, praying with everything they hold dear to them that it isn’t locked.
“Yes,” he exclaims as he pulls it open.
She looks at him and smiles, her relief evident.
He heaves it open and they step through.
The door has led them to the east ramp, a large concrete holding area for the base’s aircraft and the scene that greets them stuns them into silence. Demons swarm over the entire area, ranging in size from the Taken and jackal types to that of the larger lava-spewing variety. People are running everywhere, hunted, attacked, savaged. The demons have set about destroying the aircraft lined up on the runway, either unaware or uncaring that they are unable to be piloted.
“Fuck me,” Charlotte says with a hefty sigh.
Gary has nothing to say in return. Neither chastisement nor plan.
Behind them, they hear the wall give way, knowing that the demons are streaking their way down the corridor. They set off at speed toward a large refueling truck parked in front of one of the hangars. They clear about 15 feet before the ape crashes through the wall behind with so much force that it stumbles to the ground, the jackal pack following it through and sprinting toward them.
The young girl points as she peers over Charlotte’s shoulder. “They’re coming!” she screams.
The three of them reach the truck, breathless. Charlotte puts the child down, turning around and standing in front of her, fists raised in defiance. They are out of time – there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. The demons will tear them to pieces and she knows it. She raises her head to the heavens and screams, “Judas!”
“About goddamn time,” Gary says, glancing at her and then adopting the same stance.
They expect the jackals to tear into them, forcing them to punch and kick their way through them, but it does not happen. They slow to a trot and then slink into a low stalking posture, ambling their way toward them, the lead creature cackling as it approaches.
“At last, Jew whore, we have you.” It lifts its head and bursts into manic laughter.
Behind them, the ape has gotten back to its feet and is charging at them.
A long, forked tongue slips out of the lead jackal’s mouth and it licks its lips, and then its snout. “There is no capture command this time, bitch. There is only death. You. Are. Fucked.”
She is about to respond, when an ear-splitting sonic boom erupts from the sky and a gigantic fireball screams toward them at a speed unlike anything she has seen. Time appears to slow as she ret
urns her attention back to the demons, the ape creature almost upon them, its muscular arms smashing craters in the ground, its head bobbing up and down, jagged teeth bared. She smiles and whispers, “No. You are.”
Thirty-Four
Judas slams into the ape-demon, exploding it into black liquid and sending lumpy body parts everywhere. Streaming out of the carnage with a potent mixture of a father’s protective instinct and Heaven-bent fury, he attacks the jackals before any of them have a chance to react, slamming them into the ground, annihilating them one after another. One panics and tries to run, but he grabs it and hurls it at the far wall of the hangar with such force that it disintegrates on impact, leaving a dirty stain. His eyes blaze as he turns to Charlotte and screams, “Move!”
She jolts into life, grabbing the child, rushing after him. Above, seven more sonic booms explode in the clear blue sky and white-hot fireballs stream their way toward Earth. Charlotte glances at them while running and smiles. She knows what lives and breathes within those holy conflagrations, what it means for the demons on the ground – retribution and death.
Running ahead, Judas destroys anything that dares challenge them with one swing of his enormous sword. Gary and Charlotte look on with an equal mix of confusion and awe at the unfamiliar weapon as it destroys everything it hits. They have never seen Judas wield such power, such force, nor have they seen demons splatter into bloody and butchered carcasses rather than bursting into dust.
He bloody well did it, she thinks to herself, the sword, he controls it. Although she finds it strange and terrifying, an excitement courses through her as she feels that something new unites and emboldens them, a new power, and she is eager to probe him about it. First, escape.
On the east ramp, the fireballs hit the ground and out of them the Hellwatch erupt, setting about the enemy in a beautiful tour-de-force of sword and war-hammer that leaves nothing standing in their wake. Although the demons outnumber the Archangels in vast quantities, they are unable to match their skill and they know it, retreating, scattering like rats as the battle overwhelms them. The larger demons stand their ground, defiant and unyielding, but it proves pointless as even they are no match for the angel’s fighting skills, honed over countless millennia, and soon they too divide and fall.
