by Roy Bright
She scrambles over to him and grabs a hold of his extended fingers, pressing her face up against the shutter. “I thought I’d lost you. I have never been so glad to see you in my entire life!”
He laughs a little, moving his face close to the shutters.
“Where’s Sarah?” she says, moving her head back, attempting to scan the dark of the room.
“I’m here,” Sarah says, her face appearing at the side of her brother’s, her fingers poking out from the gaps between the shutters.
Abigail grabs them and holds both of her siblings’ hands through the gap in the metal and they remain that way for a moment, the fierce family bond radiating between them, raising their spirits.
“Where’s Gary?” Isaac asks, looking around outside, taking his fingers back.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “He and Conrad were fighting some big men and he told me to run, so I did, and some demons chased me, but I got away and then a scary kid tried to hurt me but he got eaten, and then they chased me and I had to go back into the shaft and—”
“Okay, little sister, okay. You’re safe now. We’re going to get out of here, going to get everyone out of here,” he motions behind himself, “and we will leave together, as a family.” He tries to look to the sides, to see if there are any switches or buttons to activate the shutters. “Have a look outside, Abigail. Try to find something to open these shutters.”
“I told you, Isaac,” Sarah’s irritated voice says, “It will need a key to work the mechanism.”
“You don’t know that, Sarah,” Isaac says, turning to face her.
“But I do, Isaac. As I told you, I saw it once when Jenny Miller and I went to the mall back home and one of the stores was late opening. This woman put a key in a lock and opened the shutters from there.”
“It might be different here,” he says, in a forceful whisper.
“It won’t be, it’ll be the same, they’re all the same.”
Abigail turns away from her squabbling siblings as a soft light illuminates the hallway, moving toward her. “Someone’s coming,” she says, her attention fixed on the light and not bothering to look around to her brother and sister.
“Hide, hide!” Isaac says. She looks around at him, not sure of what to do.
“Run away, don’t let it see you.”
She is about to move when the light subsides and a voice calls out from a shadowy figure. “Is that you, Abigail? Are you all right child?”
“Who is it?” she says, squinting into the darkness.
“Samael, my dear. It’s Samael.”
She scrambles to her feet and runs to him as his face hones into view, and she wraps herself around his legs, hugging him. She peels away and looks up at him. “Samael, my brother and sister are stuck in that room, please get them out. I think more people are in there also.” She takes his hand and tries to lead him to the shutter but he does not move. She looks back at him. “Please, Samael. Please help them.” She tugs at his hand once more, but still he does not move. She looks up at him again and this time notices that something is different, something is wrong. His face seems drained of color and devoid of emotion. His wings, once brilliant white and glowing, now appear charred and blackened with mottled feathers missing and falling away.
He shakes her hand off and then holds his out. “Give me the Seal, child.”
She stares at him.
“Get away from him, Abigail, there’s something wrong with him,” Isaac says, slamming his hands into the shutters.
“I said give me the Seal,” Samael repeats, his voice monotone and not bothering to look in the direction of the rattling shutter. Abigail shakes her head at him and his face contorts with anger. He grabs the collar of her blouse and pulls it to one side, checking for the pendant that he knows she wears around her neck. It is not there. “Where is it?” he says, his face growing angrier, his voice deeper, guttural. “WHERE THE FUCK IS IT?”
His aggression makes her jump. She holds her hands up and takes a step back.
“Stay away from her,” Isaac says, rattling the shutter once more in anger and frustration.
“I won’t ask you again,” Samael shouts, his eyes narrowing, his face changing shape, growing pointed and demonic. His forehead ripples, splits, and two horns slide out, curling upward. “WHERE IS IT!” he screams again, grabbing hold of Abigail with both hands and lifting her off the floor and up into his eyeline. She disappears for a moment, gone from his vision although he can still feel her in his hands, then she reappears. It happens again and he holds her further out, moving his head back at the same time. “What? What is this?” he asks, his mind confused as her form continues to stutter and strobe in his vision, exasperating him further. “TELL ME WHERE IT IS. TELL ME!” he screams once more.
She gasps and her eyes open wide. She begins to cry. Her mouth remains open, her breathing shallow.
He screams into her face again, and then looks at his hands, no longer humanoid and dark brown in color, changed into demonic weapons. Where his thumbs once were are two razor-sharp claws, and they have pierced her chest.
“Help,” she whimpers.
He roars into her face. His voice no longer Divine, no longer angelic. He looks up and addressing Heaven, shouts, “You throw me out? You cast me down? Then I accept. I would rather rule with the Morning Star than let this planet be ruined any further by the likes of these pathetic creatures.” He lets her go as she continues to flicker in and out of his vision, and she drops to the ground with a thud, her face locked in fear, pain, and confusion.
Sarah screams.
Isaac launches himself at the shutters, punching and kicking them. “You motherfucker. You fucking motherfucker!”
Multitudes of demonic screeches reverberate around the mall, like a pack of wild animals communicating with one another.
Samael chuckles and points a clawed finger at Isaac. “I… see… you. And now, so do they.” He looks down at the shivering child as she gasps for air and he snarls as he is now almost blind to her. Just as she slips out of his vision, he spies that her blouse has risen above her waist and tied around it is the Seal, hidden from sight. “Ahh, there you are,” he says, reaching down and snatching it from around her, jerking her up a little in the process just as she disappears, invisible as his demonic transformation is now complete.
Sarah screams again. She cries out for help, desperate to get out of the room, to get to her little sister.
Isaac rages against the shutter, pulling and pushing at it, his face blood-red with rage. The others locked in the room join in, attempting to pull the barricade down with their bare hands.
Samael roars with laughter. “There is no escape, there is no more time. No one will save you now.”
Behind Samael, a portal bursts open forcing all within the room to shield their eyes, and from out of it rockets Michael. With vocalized rage, he punches Samael hard in the face, launching him 30 feet down the corridor.
Raphael sprints past Michael toward Samael who skids to a halt and scrambles to his clawed feet. Raphael screams and raises his sword, ready to split Samael’s head in two, but it is too late.
A fiery portal opens up beneath Samael’s feet, much to his own surprise, and he drops through like a stone. It closes the instant his head disappears through it.
Raphael’s sword slams down but connects with concrete and he rages at losing the traitor.
From either side of the corridor, demons advance on their position, scurrying across the floor, walls, and ceiling, screaming and screeching toward them.
Raguel, who came out of the portal after Raphael, grabs the shutter. “Stand back,” he says, pulling at it as though it meant nothing to him, ripping the entire barrier down and tossing it at a rampaging horde of demons closing in from his right.
It crunches into a mass of them, slowing them down.
“What’s the plan Michael?” Raphael shouts. “We fighting or what?”
“No,” Michael yells, bending down and s
cooping Abigail up into his arms. “We get these people out of here first.”
Isaac rushes to him, grabbing Abigail’s face, and screaming her name.
Michael pushes him back into the room. “We don’t have time for this, we have to go.” He thrusts his arm out and at the back of the room a fresh portal bursts open.
The screams and slavering of the impending demons terrifies the people within the room, and as they back away from Michael, he shouts orders at them, “Go, get into the portal. Now!”
They hesitate for a moment.
Raguel spreads his wings out in front of them. “Move it! Go!”
They scream, turn, and then flee into the portal, disappearing from sight one by one.
Sarah rushes to Michael, joining Isaac in his frantic pleas for her sister’s safety.
“Just go,” he yells at them, “We need to get her out of here.”
“Is she dead?” she screams, through her tears. “Oh my God, she’s dead.”
“No, but you will be if we don’t move now. GO!” Michael says, pushing into them both with his shoulder, his wings extended, bundling them through the portal just as the first of the demons spill into the room.
Raphael goes into overdrive, cutting them down with his sword, slicing anything that gets close to him, and he is joined a second later by Raguel. The pair of archangels defend the retreat until everyone has disappeared and then they propel themselves backward with a waft of their wings and into the portal. It slams shut the very second Raphael’s feet clear the opening.
Forty-Nine
“Fuck!” Gary says, sliding to the ground behind the barricade where he and Conrad are hunkered down.
“We no go that way?” Conrad says, removing the magazine from one of the automatic rifles, liberated from a patrol of cannibals. He checks it to see how much ammunition it holds and, satisfied, reinserts it into the weapon and cocks it to chamber a round.
Gary does the same and then wipes his brow. “Well, the good news is that the guards that were at the end of the hall are no longer there. The bad news is a pack of demons has replaced them. Given the sparse amount of ammo we have just taken from those fuckers there, it won’t be enough for an engagement.”
“Hmm,” Conrad says, peering over the barricade. “I have never seen such demons before.”
“I have,” Gary says, joining him. “They are hunter packs. They specialize in seeking out and herding specific prey into the paths of bigger demons. They will be the sheep dogs for the ones we encountered upstairs.”
“Difficult to kill?”
Gary studies him for a moment. The man really is something else. He can see that he is weighing up his options and one of those is a serious consideration of whether or not to engage the pack. But Gary knows better. He knows how fierce an opponent this particular species is. He shakes his head. “I can see what you’re thinking, but you need to reconsider. These things are lightning fast and as fearless as a honey badger. One of them we could probably take. Two? Well that’s a problem. Five? It’s not even a fight, Conrad – it’s a massacre.”
“Okay,” he says, returning to his cover position, his back against the boards. He looks around and nods. “I hear you. But we need escape and there is only two ways we can go. Back there, where we have just come from, or down there where they are. I wish to be here no longer, so am prepared for fight.”
“What about Abigail? We need to find Abigail, Isaac, and Sarah,” Gary says, ducking back down and rejoining him behind the safety of the barrier.
Conrad sighs. “I no wish to leave children in this place. We shall do all we can to find them, but we must consider our combat effectiveness the longer this situation continues. Cannibals have heavy presence, and now demons swarm. We have one weapon each only, and limited ammunition. Odds not stack up in our favor Gary.”
He looks at him with a grim determination. “I am not leaving those kids.”
Conrad stares back at him for a few seconds, sniffs, and screws up his mouth. “Make shots count.”
The corner of Gary’s mouth twitches, threatening to spread into a smile. He nods.
“Ready?” Conrad says, without looking at him.
“Ready,” he replies, taking a deep breath.
They stand, snapping their weapons up to their cheek and advance down the corridor. They move swiftly, professional, their rifles methodically scanning the terrain ahead of them, synced to their line of sight. Ahead, where the pack of demons were a few moments ago, is now clear, devoid of any activity.
Conrad hugs the left wall, raises his left hand, and indicates for Gary to move to the opposite wall.
He complies without hesitation, his steps short and fast, his elbows tucked hard into his body, keeping himself as narrow as possible.
They weave through obstacles without making a sound, each footstep placed with great care as giving away any element of surprise is a luxury they cannot afford.
Conrad is the first to reach the cross section between corridors and holds up his left fist.
Gary halts, half-hunkering down.
He peaks around his corner. Pack hunters. Lots of them. He looks at Gary, places his index finger across his lips, and points to them.
Gary nods and edges forward, glancing around his corner to check the situation in that direction. He gestures with his head and gives the ‘okay’ sign with his hand.
Conrad nods and then points to a floor plan across from them. He points back down his corridor and then whispers to Gary, “But we really need to go this way.”
Gary shrugs and whispers back. “What choice do we have? Look. There’s loads of them. Let’s try to circle back round from this direction.”
Conrad nods and then backs away from his cover, edging toward Gary’s side. He keeps his weapon trained down the corridor on the pack congregated at the end of it, their attention focused on something to their right. He comes to a halt as a bright light illuminates the corridor that the pack is facing and they bolt away. He glances back at Gary, frowns, and shrugs.
Gary raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. Move, let’s go,” he says, advancing on him.
Conrad nods and hastens off down the corridor, changing over to the right side, his shoulder scraping against the wall. Upon reaching the end, he repeats the same process as before and his eyes widen as he peeks around.
In the distance, he sees one of the Angels pick up Abigail from the ground and walk into a store to his right, ushering Isaac ahead of him. Two others form a protective barrier and back in behind him. From both ends of the corridor, demons gallop toward the retreating angels and children, their ferocious slavering and grunting able to be heard even from where Conrad crouches. And as the demons close in the position, a broad beam of light bursts out from the store, and then it is gone, as quick as it came.
He turns to Gary. “We must go. Now!” He sets off across the gap, heading toward the front of the building.
Gary follows without question, moving across the intersection as fast and unseen as he can. “What was that?” he says, while continuing to follow Conrad closely.
“Was angels. Have saved children,” he says, his attention and weapon fixed on their direction of travel.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sure. Seen with own eyes. Angel had little one in arms. Could see brother, and sister was there also, I think.”
“But did you see the older sister, for sure?”
“No. But I assume.”
“Were they safe? Did they look all right?”
Conrad needs Gary to be calm, needs him to be focused in order for them to get out of this situation unscathed. He cannot tell him that Abigail looked in serious trouble, that her brother was frantic in trying to comfort her as they moved back into the room. His decision is therefore borne out of self-preservation rather than protecting Gary’s feelings.
“All were safe. No harm. Angels have them now, is good.”
“Okay
,” Gary replies, with a hefty sigh of relief. “Then let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“Solid copy, my friend. Solid copy.”
“Okay, so which way now?”
“Sign say this way, then maybe another 200 yards and right. Then about 500 more across main plaza to doors. Then, we go.”
“Right,” Gary says, tucking in close behind and following him, his weapon pointed to the floor at a 45-degree angle.
They keep their profiles as small as possible, moving down the darkened corridor, hugging the right hand wall, the volume of debris increasing as they near the intended right turning that will take them to the entrance. Around them, wrecked and pillaged stores create an eerie backdrop as small amounts of emergency lighting cast disturbing shadows against the walls.
Within his mind, Gary is despondent at the insanity that he sees. He wonders how things had gotten so bad so quickly, that such a large group of like-minded people could become capable of this. Over the last two years he has seen the horrors that people can inflict upon one another, the depraved levels to which they could sink, but never on such a scale as this by so many, capable of butchering other human beings for food with little or no thought. Is this something these people have always been capable of? Or have they found themselves in a space between Lucifer’s control and their own minds, a half-breed Taken, where their own will remains but is driven by an innate desire to behave in the way they do? He shakes it from his mind. Now is not the time to dwell on such things. They need to get out, in one piece, and then rendezvous with the others and try to salvage any sort of plan from this madness; to find somewhere that they can set up base and wait it out while Judas and Charlotte sort this mess out once and for all. He comes to an abrupt halt, brought on by Conrad’s raised left fist as they reach the end of the corridor with a landing ahead and a non-functioning escalator that leads down to the mall’s huge round entrance hall. The big man’s hand then straightens out and points to his left and Gary focuses his attention on the indicated area.
