Outside Hell

by Milo Spires

  As the soldiers had fled, they’d looked like pigeons that had just heard a cat meowing as it was crawling up to reading itself, before pouncing on them. They’d literally not looked about themselves and just run, leaping through the snowdrifts and charging blinding into the forest to escape.

  Claudius the eight feet tall giant just stood there looking back at them covered in blood, whilst across his bearded face he’d wild confusion etched in its place.

  The monster had thought that they’d just agreed to fight him, not fucking run away like scared school kids after seeing their headmaster approaching with the cane.

  Then with seconds to spare and as the massive rotors above Laouse’s chopper were spinning so fast that there wasn’t any snow left on the ground beneath it, and with blood flicking back off Claudius’ furs from the huge downdraft that they were creating, it was ready for take off. Laouse then leapt across the seats and ripped open the passenger door, screaming over the thunderous roar for him to get inside.

  Claudius who was deeply disappointed in having such a short battle, then harrumphed as he’d swung himself into the brand new cream leather passenger seat covered in their warm and somewhat sticky, crimson blood.

  Still though and with the passenger door wide open as Claudius hadn’t quite figured out the gravity of the situation yet, Laouse then pulled back violently on the control sticks and gave the bird full power for takeoff. The force of the lift threw the priest back in his seat and then after frantically putting on his seat belt, and doing a number of cross signs above his forehead, he’d grabbed his bible and started kissing it whilst saying,

  “Father forgive me for my sins and please, please, please protect me from evil.”

  Claudius neck was jerked back also in the climb, but as he’d looked back at the priest and heard his words, he’d almost pissed himself laughing.

  A second passed and then as a beeping noise suddenly blasted out from the speakers, blackout blinds concealed within the plastic trim around the windows, suddenly slid down and sent the inside of the chopper into partial darkness. Claudius then reached out and getting the point as the sun climbed in the sky, slammed his door shut too.

  The priest’s fear levels being in in the chopper at max power was frightening enough, but coupled with his paranoid views on the world since having a vision and meeting vampires and seeing people killed, made him almost pass out. Then as another second past and the bird suddenly shook violently with heavy machine gun fire, those levels of fear were increased to blackout stage. The priest past out and fell lifelessly forwards against his seat belts.

  Laouse who was still pulling back on the controls and also desperate to escape the gunfire, then swung the bird almost over on its side as they climbed to sixty feet. The huge rotors had screamed intensely from the forces that were threatening to bend them over themselves in the death defying, acrobatic maneuver.

  Glancing down into the center console, the Austrian vampire could see on his screen two dots about a couple of hundred feet out from their position, that were closing in on them fast.

  Only whilst he was looking up from the dense trees beneath them, Dracus who was suddenly aware of their grave situation leant a helping hand. He’d ran back out into the blood stained clearing, and then readied his bow.

  Pulling back on the bowstring so that it was immensely taught and then loading in two cursed arrows, he’d waited a second to let the gathering clouds above him pass across and block out the blindingly bright sunlight and then he’d fired.

  The arrows that were made from snakeskin with their fangs fused to the tip forming their lethal ends, flew up into the air with pin point precision, and then burrowed themselves deep into the oncoming choppers fuselages.

  The two choppers were full of soldiers all dressed in black combat gear and heavily armed with the same MP5 machine guns as their dead buddies that were now partially masked by blood and snow beneath them.

  The cursed arrows as they’d hit their targets had simply punched their way through the heavy German steel, and then locked in tight to the underbody, causing the most devastating of effects.

  The pilots had been sure that they’d take down the new blue and silver Bell passenger chopper that was in front of them, but after firing one round of bullets that weren’t solid but full of the MX1 vampire anesthetic, then as they’d repositioned their sights on the escaping bird, something hit them hard and their controls suddenly went hay wire.

  The dark forces from the cursed arrows had the same harrowing effects as in the choppers, up in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania.

  The first chopper that was no more than a few hundred feet up found that it hadn’t the altitude to save itself. The heavy German chopper then plummeted down with thick black smoke belching out from the dash, and the warning sounds from the electrical power failure screaming at the pilots from all around them. The soldiers in the back who’d known that they’d be doomed if they’d stayed in it, slid the side door back and aware that their chances of survival would be much better if they weren’t engulfed in a huge fireball of aeronautical gasoline, and after watching too many Rambo movies, they’d jumped out.

  The sky when the clouds had parted was somewhat clear, only now it was dotted with the outlines of soldiers, as they’d fallen like rocks without parachutes at ridiculous speeds down into the wintry forest beneath them.

  Seconds later as the pilots had realized that trying to save the bird was futile, and as they’d nose dived and then seen that the snow covered pine trees were rushing up towards them, they’d let go of their control sticks and with deep terror flowing through them, held their hands out in front of their faces screaming.

  The explosion that the chopper had made as it had torn headfirst down through the pine trees, and then smashed through the meter deep snow into the rock hard ground beneath, was terrific. The flames that resulted from its recently filled gas tanks exploding were unbelievable, and the force as it was spent through the trees even knocked Dracus over, and he was eighty feet away from the crash site.

  Then the second chopper that was higher up and that was also hit with a cursed arrow, experienced similar electrical problems too. The pilot’s found themselves consumed with the noxious black fumes that were pouring back at them from the dash but somehow still managed to get the bird of steel to avoid a nose dive but unfortunately through the violently shaking control sticks, it went into a wild spin. The old German chopper with its massive four rotor heads swung around and around and seemed to even pick up speed as it then savagely tail ended itself into the pine trees. The rotors as they’d hit the frozen solid tree trunks exploded into savage pieces that hurtled through the forest like massive broadswords from godly giants in another realm. The sound was unbelievable as the trees with deep gashes were then left shaking wildly, sending mountains of snow falling from their evergreen leaves.

  Only one of the soldiers that had jumped from the first chopper was partially alive, and all the others were torn to pieces by the branches as they’d fallen headfirst through the forest. The soldier’s shoulder was heavily smashed as he’d crashed downwards through the branches, and then a meter before the ground a thicker one that was pointing upwards, diagonally impaled him.

  The two inch thick branch had gone through his hip with blood spurting out the wound in both directions, that resulted in a death rattle looming in the shallow distance, and evergreen bushy leaves sticking out the back of his kidneys.

  Chapter 32 – The Old Boy

  Raffious was extremely wild with fury and spittle coming from his mouth, as he’d appeared on the other side of the woods outside Adolf’s hanger in Hungary. In his mind he was sure that he’d finally found the little bastard, with the funny block shaped moustache that had escaped his mind spell back in WW2.

  Ever since he’d sent him into that damn mountain for a meeting at the end of WW2 the mind signal that he’d been controlling him with had been lost. Then even though he’d watched for weeks using his third eye
spell that had taken up precious time of his, Adolf hadn’t appeared outside the mountain for the mind signal to reconnect with him. Raffious had thought at the time that it was very strange, and wondered if maybe the person that he’d sent him in there to see had had an argument with him or something, and then killed the little bastard.

  He did always wonder afterwards though whether that strange square lump of lead that had looked like a room, and that the German soldiers had driven out of the site on the back of a tank, had anything to do with his disappearance?

  Anyway as the ex truth messenger stood there on the furthest side of the pine forest over to the far East of the German base, due to what he’d seen of recent, he’d wondered if Adolf was inside the huge rock door that he could see some ways off in the distance.

  He was paranoid too and every second whilst looking at the hanger, he was also looking around behind him to see if the angels were about to grab him. Then the old boy took a second to breath in the arctic air, and with it he’d reflected upon how he’d persuaded himself to leave the sanctity of his far away world. The very reason that he was standing there in the freezing cold foreboding forest, risking being caught by the angels and then as a result being dragged kicking and screaming before god.

  After the shack business, and as he’d been watching Sorchek’s vampire killing Regina with his third eye spell, Raffious had been absolutely ecstatic. Only moments later when the rotting timber shed had been raided by the soldiers, and then his third eye spell had floated out into the blizzard to watch the soldiers leaving with their drugged vampire cargo in bikinis, the old boy had seen something. The choppers that they were boarding half masked in shadows in the deep snow were the same as he’d seen in the past, he’d even recognized the four-rotor head assembly on them too. He’d remembered when he was controlling Adolph with his mind spell, that he’d seen the same hunks of steel with their military camouflage in various places throughout Europe. Curiosity had suddenly the got the better of him and then with it, he’d wondered how the soldiers in full black combat gear with ski masks had come by them.

  At the time being literally decades since the war had ended, Raffious’ initial gut feeling had been that they were bought up by a group of mercenaries, or paid for by some rich politician or banker. He’d truly believed that there was nothing more sinister to it at all, only being his usual paranoid self; he’d commanded his third eye spell to follow the chopper as they were leaving.

  The picture that he’d seen as the third eye spell was beaming the images back to him in the sanctity of his far away world were difficult to read. The spell had desperately tried to keep up with the chopper through the blizzard, but then as the steel bird had veered off and started chasing Sorchek on his snowmobile down into the valley, the picture was almost impossible to see. The image was all over the place with lines appearing everywhere like trying to see after sticking you head out of a Boeing 747 window at five hundred miles per hour. Then after the chopper had followed the vampire over the edge of the precipice into the wall of sleet and ice, his screen on his third eye spell had gone black and he’d lost the damn image. This had made Raffious furious, and then in response to it he’d leapt up in his white robes and sandals from the rock that he’d been sitting on, and then with the rage consuming him he’d screamed, whilst casting all manner of spells about him and sending them high up into the sky above his little scrawny head, as if it was Guy Forks night and he was laying on a spectacular fireworks party. Then after rewinding time a few minutes with another spell that the angels had bestowed upon him in his former job as a truth messenger, and then after making his third eye spell from outside the shack follow the second chopper instead, he’d much less trouble following it. The spell had managed to keep up with the chopper and he was able to see it when it had come down to land in the military installation in Hungary.

  Raffious had seen from his screen in his other world a clear picture as the old German military chopper had then swooped down to within ten feet of the icy tarmac beneath it, and the huge rotors had made a deafening roar. The bird had hovered till the soldiers beneath using a forklift truck had quickly unhooked the cage full of vampires, and then rushed their catch inside behind the huge rock sliding door. Only Raffious had been shocked by another sight too. He’d seen the soldiers that he’d thought were mercenaries leap out of the chopper from ten feet, whilst carrying heavy guns and back packs, as if they’d just stepped of a street curb or something. They hadn’t even flinched from the massive drop like they were iron men, and then ran at unbelievable speeds across the tarmac, disappearing inside the rock entrance too. All the time Raffious had been confused though; he couldn’t get out of his mind the unknown reasons as to why there were so many old German vehicles parked there too.

  That was when he’d first thought about paying the hanger a personal visit and risking leaving the sanctity of his far away world, and also the chance that the angels might catch him too.

  Then reflecting back upon what he’d just seen, Raffious knew that iron men wouldn’t have been able to make the ten feet leap out of a chopper either, and in response to it the old boy in his far away world had mused over his thoughts whilst scratching his wiry beard, before realizing that the soldiers couldn’t be human and had to be something else. Then in response to everything else that he’d just seen too, the hundreds of other soldiers in their traditional WW2 uniforms and the tanks, the armored personnel vehicles and other stuff, his deep curiosity to know more had suddenly got the better of him. Only then as he was watching from his third eye spell and suddenly recognized the face of Heinrich Himler from forty years before, Adolf’s second in command come storming out of the hangers entrance in his polished boots whilst screaming orders, it had made Raffious feel like he’d just leapt back in time again to WW2. Heinrich had looked exactly the same as he’d done nearly forty years before and hadn’t aged in the slightest; he’d actually stood with a far straighter back than he’d done in those days, and looked like he was charged with an unnatural energy too.

  Raffious had then spun around in his other world and whilst holding his knee length white beard to stop it drooping down onto the sizzling ground beneath himself, he’d considered if he should actually go to the hanger in person after all. He’d reasoned why should he risk himself, and if he did then it could result in bad things happening to him. Then as his fury had climbed within him, suddenly another idea had popped into his head. He didn’t need to go to the military base and fear being caught by the angels, all he had to do was send a life-sized clone of himself there instead, only he was also aware that by using a clone, it wasn’t that much different than him watching from his third eye spell. OK he’d be able to feel what the clone was feeling and then with it he’d be virtually there himself, but inside his mind he was also aware too that it just wasn’t the same. Clones were good but to be there in person was much better. If he went there in person he’d be unrestricted in his abilities to cast magic, and could see everything as it unfurled before him, whereas with clones he’d remembered from the past that sometimes he’d missed things until it was too late.

  Then as a second had past deliberating over if he really should go or use the clone, with magic sizzling around his finger tips just waiting to be cast; he’d screamed out, “No, fuck the angels, I will go there myself.”

  Only in his mind and probably because he’d just said the word ‘angels,’ he’d suddenly experienced the graphic, and also intensely horrible image of himself being suspended with his arms and legs out at all angles before God, and it’d freaked him out.

  Raffious was feeling trapped in his world where he’d really known that he should be relaxing and enjoying himself in, free from the worry of being caught and cast out from existence by God for his crimes against humanity, only the fact that he wasn’t allowed back to earth, then in turn ruined the sanctity of his far away world and pissed him off. He’d felt like a child having been told that he wasn’t allowed to do something, and in his m
ind no one would tell him that he couldn’t do something.