by Heath, Joel
but that didn’t mean there was no edible food.
The water and soda might be flat and warm but
still be good. There might be crackers and
assorted junk food loaded with preservatives
which would get them by until they could find a
stock of MRE’s or other food. He realized that if
they actually made it through, he would also have
to keep some seeds ready so they could sustain
themselves over the long haul.
Spencer managed to grab a small amount
of food and water before a loud gunshot ripped
through the air shattering half the windows in the
store.
“Holy crap!” Spencer exclaimed as half
the food and water he gathered clattered to the
ground when he jerked in surprise at the
unexpected noise. Spencer raised his P-90 and
charged out of the store to see what was going
on. A handful of demons had approached from
the west.
“They must have followed us,” Vince
shouted when Spencer emerged from the gas
station.
“Who cares where they came from; we
have to get out of here.” Gretchen interjected. “How much longer until the fuel tank is
full?” Spencer asked.
“It should be full any second!” Vince
replied.
“We can’t wait any longer, we have to
leave now!” Gretchen objected as she repelled a
pair of demons with an M-16 and climbed into
the cab of the Hummer.
Spencer and Vince climbed in and
Gretchen started the engine. Pulling out onto the
street, Gretchen noticed a few hundred demons to
the west so she turned and headed east. They
made it a block and a half before a pile of demon
corpses were found outside a wall, most of the
gates into the fortified citadel were closed and
barricaded but one gate was open. A shape ran
away from the gate towards a building with an
elongated dome serving as its roof.
“Gretchen, stop, there’s something in
there.” Vince urged.
“I saw it.” Gretchen said steering the
Hummer toward the open gate, bouncing past the
curb and turning to allow access to the open gate.
The gate was two full feet too small to allow
passage to the larger vehicle.
“Inside! Let’s go.” Gretchen shouted and
all three survivors exited the Hummer and then
noticed the demons were nowhere to be seen. Gretchen and Spencer lead the way into
the open gate over the corpses of at least a dozen demons, one of which was a type of demon they had not yet seen. It was blacker than black and looked like a flying silver back gorilla. It had a pair of charcoal black wings extending twelve to fifteen feet from the hairy back. His skin was like armor, scales covered his back, neck, arms and most of his chest, the scales were the color of
hematite.
Spencer stopped to look while Vince and
Gretchen rushed through the gate. The demon
seemed to still be alive, but suffering. Spencer
gasped in fright and backed into the enclosure
raising his weapon as the demon slowly got up
and looked at him.
Gretchen and Vince returned to see the
demon try to move past its fallen comrades and
enter the enclosure only to react in pain and
terror like a vampire to sunlight. Finally, the
demon fled on its thick legs and went toward a
large building on the north side of the street and
disappeared around the east side. A wing dragged
behind it as it ran.
“You idiot, you let it get away!” A
woman who stood just under six feet tall was
inside the gate; she wore an olive green tank top
and Levi shorts. She was scowling and holding a
rather large gun.
“I’ve been looking for that thing for three
days!” The woman shouted.
“What the hell was that?” Spencer asked. “That was a Fiend Lord,” The woman
replied.
“A what?” Spencer asked.
“They’re Prince class. These things are
nasty as hell, and damn tricky. Rumor has it if
you kill one you gain some kind of power.” “What kind of power?” Spencer asked. “If I knew I wouldn’t have said some kind
of power, would I?” the woman sarcastically
replied.
“So, what happened here?” Vince asked
pointing at the gate where the demon corpses
were rotting.
“Beats the hell out of me. I’ve been holed
up in this place since they showed up. I came out
a few days ago and found them there,” The
woman explained. “It might be because of the
religious nature of this place.”
“So hallowed ground weakens them?”
Gretchen asked.
“No, it kills them,” The woman replied.
“Well except for the Fiend Lords, come on let’s
get to the shelter.” The woman lead the way to
the south east corner to a building designated
‘south visitors center’ pulling the door open she
lead the way inside and to the east end where a
promenade looked up at the massive multi-spired
building across the courtyard. Patrolling the area
were another half dozen people with guns. “This is our little band of survivors. This
is Halley, Dan, and Jared from Los Angeles,
Brittany and Justin from Las Vegas, you
probably missed them by a couple of days,
Rodney here is from Ogden,” The woman began. “And I’m Jessie; I’ve lived in Salt Lake all my life.” Five of the other six remained at their post,
but the one introduced as Brittany approached. “Where did they come from?” Brittany
asked suspiciously.
“We just got here from the ruins of Las
Vegas.” Spencer said.
“How did you survive?” Brittany
demanded.
“With guns, big ones,” Vince replied
offering a glance to Spencer.
“Well we’ve introduced ourselves, who
are you?” Jessie requested.
“I’m Spencer from Newark; this is
Gretchen from Belfast, and Vince from…”
Spencer paused; he had no idea.
“Eugene,” Vince replied.
“How long have you been here?”
Gretchen asked.
“I was here when a gate from Hell opened
up at the city capital building,” Jessie explained. Spencer paused, lost in thought. “I want
to get a look at it,” Spencer said as he headed out
the same door they entered from, trying to find a
tall enough building to offer a decent vantage
point. There was a building almost thirty floors
tall to the east, by this time Vince had caught up
with Spencer.
“What are you thinking?” Vince asked. “We’ll need the sniper rifles we got in
Vegas,” Spencer said, briefly hinting at his plan.
Spencer sped across the open courtyard to the north entrance that opened to North Temple Street. Spencer poked his head out over the rotting demon cadavers to see if the street was clear. There was no movement on the street, only
a faint roar in the distance.
Spencer leapt over the bodies and ran the
&nb
sp; short distance to the Hummer to collect the pair
of rifles and ammunition.
Spencer thought the way was clear, and
what happened next he never expected. And it
lasted for less then twenty seconds.
“Spencer, behind you!” Vince shouted. Spencer wheeled around to see the Fiend
Lord staring him in the eye at a distance of less
than ten feet and quickly closing. Spencer
dropped the munitions and reached for the sword
he had claimed from the fight on the tower and
swung, missing the Fiend Lord by a great margin.
The massive demon grabbed Spencer by the neck
and lifted him high before grabbing Spencer’s
free arm and beginning to pull.
The Fiend Lord released his grip on
Spencer’s neck when the sharp point of the
queen’s sword pierced the lord’s shoulder
between two scales. Spencer retracted the sword
and swung down hard on the only thing
connecting him to the Fiend Lord. The arm was
not severed, but it was badly wounded, the
wound stopped at the scales on his arm. The
Fiend Lord threw Spencer aside causing the
sword to clatter to the ground. The huge demon turned and fled across the street, around the
southeast corner of the building and disappeared. Vince ran to Spencer. “Are you alright?”
Vince asked.
“I think so.” Spencer responded. “We should let Jessie know where this
thing is hiding,” Vince admonished.
Spencer still wanted to get a look at the
portal.
“You go,” Spencer said trying to catch his
breath and then pointed at the building to the
east. “I’ll be on top of that building.”
“You’re going alone? That’s crazy.”
Vince chided.
“Then come with me.,” Spencer said,
strapping the sword and scabbard to his back. “Fine,” Vince agreed. “I must be out of
my mind.”
Spencer bent over and grabbed the 50
caliber sniper rifles and the ammunition before
Vince headed back into the courtyard to reach the
building by a safer route. But Spencer just stood
there. There was something about the building
across the street. It almost exuded evil, corrupted
by the demons of hell. He had one of those
feelings again.
Vince returned to call for Spencer.
“Spencer,” Vince called, “Are you coming?” “Yeah,” Spencer said still studying the
building to the north. “I’m coming.”
Spencer and Vince headed through the
courtyard and emerged just over three hundred feet from the huge building. Reaching the front door, Spencer pulled it open and Vince followed
Spencer in.
“The power is down here, like
everywhere, so we’ll have to take the stairs.”
Vince surmised.
“Here,” Spencer said pointing at a door
marked emergency stairs. Spencer pulled the
door open and they began climbing.
The twenty eight floors went by one at a
time until the door in front of them read roof.
Vince and Spencer glanced at each other before
they each raised a foot and kicked the door open
to a vista overlooking Salt Lake City. Spencer
and Vince moved to the northwest corner of the
roof, set up their sniper rifles, and looked to see
what they could see.
Spencer first saw a dark purplish black
vortex, sitting in the middle of the capital
building’s courtyard. Surrounding the vortex
there were a dozen or so demons, and a single
queen.
“What do you think?” Vince asked. Tension filled the air as Spencer started to
pull back on the trigger, but stopped before the
bullet exited the chamber.
The portal began to ungulate, and a figure
approached, it was a man he looked attractive
and charming. He turned to the queen, they were
talking. The queen walked away and the man
turned and for a brief second his gaze met
Spencer’s. The man smiled.
“Who, or what is that?” Vince asked
turning to Spencer, “Do you think he…” “I think he did.” Spencer confirmed. Spencer stepped away from the scope. “Where the hell is the Fiend Lord?” “Wait. Do you remember which way he
ran?” Vince asked.
Vince pointed the sniper rifle towards the
building across the street which was twenty-eight
floor down and saw debris littering the ground
and a great gaping hole in the east side of the
building.
Spencer lowered his sniper rifle and
walked toward the door. “I think it’s time we
reported to Jessie.”
Spencer headed through the door to the
stairwell and led the way down the stairs to the
open plaza at the base of the building. From there
it was a short walk to Jessie’s survivor camp in
the south visitor center.
“What did you find?” Jessie asked as
Spencer and Vince walked back in.
“There is a queen at the capitol building
to the north, and your Fiend Lord is across the
street.” Spencer revealed.
“He’s across the street?” Jessie asked.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.” Spencer replied. Jessie nodded before heading to a
neighboring room and soon emerged with a
heavy duty assault rifle.
“Then we’re going after him.” Jessie
declared.
“Are you insane?” Dan shouted, “We
don’t even know if we can kill it.”
“The queens can be killed; I don’t see
why a Fiend Lord can’t be,” Gretchen retorted. “I know they can but it’s damn hard to
do,” Dan retorted.
“Then you can stay here. I’ll bring his
head back,” Jessie remarked as she headed for
the door. She stopped at the door and turned back
to her band of survivors. “Who’s with me?” “Jessie,” Vince began, “these things are
more active and more of a threat during the night,
which is what? Less than two hours away? We
should wait for morning to attack.”
“He might be right.” Halley chimed in. Spencer could see that Jessie didn’t want
to leave until the Fiend Lord was dead.
“If he’s trying to kill you, then you can
bet he’ll still be here in the morning.” Spencer
offered.
“Fine, but I’m leaving at first light,
whoever wants to join me, be at the north gate by
eight in the morning.” Jessie ordered before
pointing Spencer, Vince and Gretchen to a small
corner.
“Rest here tonight,” Jessie said before
heading for her corner.
Night soon fell and the night was filled
with the horrible sounds of demonic screams, as
through Hell itself was replacing Earth in an epic struggle. When Spencer fell asleep all he could see was Salt Lake City, the skies were overcast and blocked out any surrounding countryside. But then, the clouds opened and a terrible beam reached out from the skies and stuck the ground. When the dust settled the city was gone, nothing
remained.
Spen
cer woke up in a cold sweat. What
had he seen, was it just a dream? Spencer looked
out the window towards the north and found the
sun was coming up, Spencer guessed that it was
around six thirty so he got up and armed himself.
The fight loomed ahead.
Spencer met with Jessie just outside. The
rain had stopped in the night leaving the ground
damp.
“Are you ready to fight?” Jessie asked. “I just hope it’s not only the two of us.”
Spencer confessed.
Over the next hour members of the group
stepped up and volunteered. Gretchen was about
to volunteer when Spencer stepped closer. “Gretchen, I want you to stay here.”
Spencer plead, his heart was beginning to pound,
he put as much emphasis as he could into his
words.
“Why, Are you planning on ditching me
again?” Gretchen shot back.
Spencer grimaced at the disturbing
memory and the pain he suffered outside
Albuquerque. “I…” Spencer stopped himself, he
was at a loss. “I ran like a coward. But I would have wanted you to do the same thing in my
place,” Spencer said.
“You didn’t have to hear your father
being torn apart!” Gretchen shouted.
“No,” Spencer agreed. “I didn’t.” Spencer
defended, “I was forced to believe that somebody
else that I care about was dead,” Spencer started
to explain before pausing.
“But had I stayed I would have been killed and I
wouldn’t be able to tell you…” Spencer stopped
again, choked up by guilt and regret. Slowly
something bubbled to the surface. “I want you to
be here, if…” Spencer wanted to come back to
Gretchen. “…when I come back.” Spencer
begged.
He disappeared before he saw the smile on Gretchen’s face, a smile that disguised the subtly of her confusion. Her heart began to race as she watched Spencer walk away. An uneasy feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong settled in her stomach, a feeling that the man she had barely decided to give her heart to might not come back.
Chapter 4 – The Counter Attack…
Spencer, Vince, Jessie, Dan, Justin, Jared and Rodney stood in front of the large building that looked more and more like a ziggurat to them as they had approached. Down the middle of the building’s face was a channel where water once flowed from the roof to the ground. The building was clean and immaculate, a testament to its once sacred nature. There were a series of stairs that switched back up the face of the building like a trail into the mountains.
Out of the corner of his eye Spencer saw a shape move from its hiding place behind the southeast corner of the building. Turning, Spencer saw nothing, it was gone.
