At Least He's Not On Fire: A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head

by Philbrook, Chris

  Anton didn't wait for orders to fire. Fuck the cultural exchange. He shouldered his weapon and squeezed the trigger as he'd been trained a hundred times over, and sent three high velocity rounds straight into the upper torso of the creature. His bullets struck true, but did nothing. They impacted the creature and rocked it backwards, but did no more damage than if he'd pushed the thing hard with his finger. Anton's heart dropped to his boots.

  Gunfire erupted outside like an echo from Anton's burst. The first barrage was clearly not from the American M4s. It came from the Indonesian weaponry. The second barrage, only a second later, was easily identified as American. It was return fire. Anton's blood curdled when he heard the throaty roar of The Thing's scream.

  "They're shooting on us! Return-" The Thing went silent. Anton knew he'd been shot, or was dead, but he had a more significant problem inside the temple as the creature leapt from the bone pile, soaring the twenty feet of distance on its infernal wings. It landed far too close to the soldiers and triggered a gut reaction of terror. Anton thumbed his fire selector to full auto and emptied the magazine at the beast. At his six he heard the Warrant Officer do the same.

  The bullets did nothing, save for slow the creature's approach and make it look more terrifying.

  The thing landed beside Anton—just feet away—but he was already diving to create space. A hand with six many-jointed fingers tipped in claws that dripped with black ooze slashed out and tore a graph of lines into the stone. They matched markings on the outside temple wall that Anton thought were decorative carvings. They were signs of struggle. Signs of horror and death. Some of the scratches had looked ancient.

  "Changing mags!" the Warrant Officer hollered as Anton got to his feet. Anton was out as well, and he hollered the same just as the winged creature turned its bloody eyes in the direction of the two A-Team officers. It sprang forward, crossing the distance between as easily as Anton might reach for a salt shaker. The Warrant Officer dropped his weapon's bolt home just as the monster punched a hole straight through his midsection, holdings the remnants of his spine in a triumphant claw. The monster-thing screeched in exultation, picking the soldier up with strength that was beyond superhuman. It tossed the man over its shoulder, discarding him onto the skeleton heap as if he were a bale of hay to be fed to the cattle later. Dried bones broke under his weight as he sagged low into the pile. It turned its ire to the still paralyzed Captain that was frozen against the temple's wall.

  "Motherfucker over here!" Anton screamed, trying to buy a moment for his Captain to get his shit together. The bat-beast turned to Anton and snarled, spitting out some of the black goo that covered its claws. It sizzled and hissed when the substance hit the stone. "Captain! Get your fucking gun in the fight!"

  The Captain's eyes galvanized suddenly, and he lifted his weapon. A moment of error nearly cost them both their lives as the officer squeezed his trigger with the weapon on safe, but a reflexive thumb twitch remedied the issue as the gargoyle lowered its head and charged at Anton. The Captain's weapon barked out a stream of 5.56mm rounds, every third a burning tracer.

  This time, the monster felt the sting. Anton's memory was good, some called it great, but sometimes he wished he could forget how easily he could recall the creature ignoring so many of the bullets in that moment. It was in his mind in slow motion from then 'til death, and he hated it. But he loved how those third, white-hot phosphorous tracer rounds bit into the blackened skin and flesh of the thing that had tried to kill him. Bright red blood spilled out of the punctures in its side as it was riddled with the Captain's rounds.

  The monster collapsed to the floor at Anton's feet, bleeding a sickly red blood that looked far too thick for any heart to pump. It twitched and squealed a wet noise of death. The smell of it got into Anton's nose as the gunfire died down outside. He fought down a gag.

  "Tracers. It couldn't handle the tracers," The Captain said to Anton, now very lucid and back in control.

  "No shit. I wish we'd all loaded them up. I think those fuckers led us here Captain. A sacrifice. I think some of those bodies are Australian 1st Commando. I can't tell, but what the fuck?" Anton was angry as he slapped a fresh mag home.

  "What the fuck is happening outside?" The Captain replied. He thumbed his helmet microphone and started to hail the other men still outside but stopped when something small and metallic rolled across the floor between the two soldiers. "Frag out!" The officer screamed as he dove flat to the floor, facing the wall. Anton put a stone pillar between the grenade and his body just in time as the explosion happened. His ears rang, his mouth tasted metallic and he was enveloped in a cloud of dirt as well as a mental fog. He watched as three more grenades skittered across the floor like strange little grapefruits, straight over the edge of the first step and down into the pile of bones. Anton dove this time, and narrowly avoided being perforated by the metal and bone shrapnel from the repeated grenade detonations. But he survived. And he was ready as the Indonesians came in to finish what the demon had not.

  Three of the eight Asian special operators came in and saw the Captain on the floor, still. They focused on his body a second too long and Anton was able to cut them down with a trio of short bursts from his weapon. The gunfire was deafening in the tiny Candi, as was the smell of demolished bowels, monster gore, and spilled human blood.

  Anton got a grenade free and tossed it out the entrance of the temple after pulling the pin. The Captain rolled over and Anton gave him the thumbs up. The grenade boomed outside, loud but considerably quieter to his ears than the four that had gone off in the temple. As soon as the explosion finished, the two Green Berets assaulted out the door, moving as one.

  The remaining five Indonesian turncoats were dead in the span of three heartbeats. Two had been flanking the doorway and were caught unaware by the grenade coming out of the temple's entrance. They got bellies full of grenade shards, and the other three traitors had hit the ground to avoid being ripped to shreds. The Captain and Anton were able to put several rounds into their backs before they got to their feet, ending the human treachery. The two surviving operators began to search for their fallen comrades. Perhaps they could be saved.

  As they found one dead body after another spirits sagged. The young Michigan soldier could taste his anger, boiling and acidic in his mouth and throat. He wanted more vengeance against the people who'd led his friends to their death. He wanted to kill another monster. After checking another of his friend's throats for a pulse and finding none, Anton called out, "Parker is down Captain."

  As he finished announcing the death of another friend, the sound of breaking stone broke the stale, hot afternoon silence. The two men turned from their places on the slope of the depression and looked at the tall structure. It wobbled, faltering slightly, as if the root of the building had been shaken.

  Intelligence analysts later came to the conclusion that the ancient structure had been weakened by the claws and spittle of the demon, and the repeated grenade explosions. Anton didn’t think that was all correct. It was too scientific. He thought it was the worm.

  As fast as the strike of a viper, an enormous mouth blasted up through the dense jungle earth at the base of the temple, swallowing the structure whole and sprouting into the air like a plateau being born. The armor-encrusted worm creature was enormous, gargantuan and alien by any measure, and it was able to writhe straight up into the heights of the trees as the lump of the temple slid down its gullet. The two soldiers ran. There was no fighting a creature that large with the weapons they had. It would need airstrikes, and maybe a priest. Definitely a priest.

  The worm swayed its building-thick body back and forth like a swollen tendril of evil, smashing down the trees around the temple, flattening anything that it came into contact with. It wriggled and ruptured the earth, causing destruction on a bomb like scale. Anton had run with all the might his heat depleted body could muster, and he was still almost crushed by falling and flung trees. His Captain narrowly escaped as well, bo
th men cut and punctured by shards of wood. The two men converged hundreds of meters later as the worm retreated down into the gaping hole it had created under the temple. The ground shuddered.

  "What the fuck was that?" Anton had asked, hands on knees, bile in his throat.

  "One of those worm things from the temple carvings. Sweet Jesus. We need to get word to…" The Captain's voice trailed off, and he looked to the hole in the ground. It was easy to see the site of the former temple. The worm had cleared the entire hillside. Anton turned and watched as a black tide of winged monsters vomited forth, streaming into the sky like the a fecal burst of the most evil beast imaginable. Hundreds, then thousands, then more came out. A flowing nightmare spread out into the sky. The men ran again.

  It took mere hours for the second hole to open up that day, that time in China. The Chinese weren't prepared, and thousands died by the hour. The third hole appeared in Africa, near the coast in Liberia. The entire nation was wiped off the Earth by sundown, leaving no more than bloody streaks on the ground behind. More holes appeared in South America, then Louisiana and Florida, then Spain and Russia. By week's end there were nearly three dozen of the holes. Hell Holes the media called them. The name stuck.

  It took that much time and more for people to realize the greatest weapon against the creatures was fire. That was why the tracer rounds worked so well. White phosphorous burns awfully hot, and works immediately on the winged ones. They were easy, the fliers. They weren't smart, feral and bloodthirsty to a fault, and even though there had been tens of millions of them, they were fragile. Glass cannons. Small arms tracer fire or a flaming arrow proved to be enough to take them down. A few well timed thermite grenades could take out a worm, but you needed to get real close for that to work. Regular bombs were hit or miss literally. Sometimes you could drop napalm on the massive creatures, when they weren’t swimming through the cities, toppling buildings from underneath, killing men and women by the thousand. Nowhere was safe.

  Against all odds the humans were winning. Surviving. Coming even against the things from below. Some of the holes had been plugged. Nukes dropped down them, and the tops sealed with mountains of blessed concrete. Turns out having a priest nearby wasn’t the worst idea. There was some hope returning. Just a little, but it was something.

  Anton's Captain was gone. He'd met his end when a flock of the gargoyles attacked their refuge in the outskirts of Brisbane. Through a wall of gunfire in the sky the Captain had been carried up into the clouds and torn in half. His guts had fallen like a knot of bloody string.

  Even still, his friends all dead, Anton kept in the fight. He sat in the back of a Blackhawk chopper as it circled a run down neighborhood of Sydney. Beautiful Sydney, ruined by the demons. One of the giant worms was below, a small one by all accounts, only a hundred feet or so long, slithering its massive girth down a neighborhood street, smashing down house after house, trying to find the soft, juicy human morsels inside.

  Anton had a team of men with him, and the plan was the same as it always was; to put down near the worm, and kill it before it ran the entire neighborhood into the ground. Some of his men were experienced, with grim faces set to the task they might not return from. Others not as much, their faces shaking, their hands trembling, words of regret held in their mouths behind shut teeth. It didn't matter now. All they needed was the will to fight against the forces of Hell.

  And fire. They needed lots and lots of fire.

  Tesser: A Dragon Among Us

  A Reemergence Novel

  Quite the mouthful that title is, eh? But it deserves it, I feel. Tesser was the third major literary undertaking I embarked on. It's a departure from the darkness that's occupied so much of the two projects that predate it, and it is a big step in a new direction for me.

  It was a good idea. It IS a good idea.

  It was a pleasure to write, and I really feel like it's the best thing I've written. As I write this Tesser is about to be released into the world, so we'll see if this hope turns into sales reality. I'd like to believe it'll catch fire, and sell madly well (or at least as well as AUD does) so I can keep doing this whole 'career as a writer' thing.

  But we'll see. Hopefully this taste of his world will entice you to pick up the entire book and discover just what is happening in the world Tesser now calls home.

  The book's idea came from my time growing up, similarly to the AUD storyline. One of my besties, Alan MacRaffen, was a fellow dungeon master, and he ran a game for me where I was able to play a dragon that woke up in modern day New York City. We were only able to play a few times, and the campaign was lost to growing up. This book was my opportunity to write the ending to the story he and I started together. Alan if you read this, I hope I did you proud. I know some (read: most) of the details of our campaign have been changed to suit my plan, but I hope you find this story entertaining.

  Tesser is the story of an ancient and benevolent dragon that wakes up deep beneath Boston. He's been asleep for millennia, and has no recollection as to why when he opens his eyes. Very quickly he uses his magic to shift forms to observe on humanity, and what he sees disturbs and angers him. Technology is everywhere, magic is fading faster than the sun at sunset, and perhaps worst of all... he realizes that one of the other dragons is missing.

  That wouldn't be that big of a deal, except…

  Well, you should just read the story. Here's a taste of the beginning of Tesser: A Dragon Among Us.

  Enjoy.

  Prologue:

  The Dream

  I am flying.

  I have done this before, many times, and it is joyous.

  I feel the gusts buffet my body left and right, up and down. Though the wind is reckless, it isn’t violent. I feel the energy of the air lift me higher and higher, through the cool mist of a thick cloud that clings to my face and invigorates me. It is much like the first inhalation of the ocean's air after a long journey to the coast.

  Far below me, I see green grass, lush treetops, and grey pebbles poking through the skin of the world. There is a single brown line of disturbed earth winding forward that I know to be a human road. I have flown over it many times before, and I have walked it as well. It is familiar to me, but I cannot quite place where it has come from or where it is leading.

  It doesn't matter. I have eyes that see, ears that hear, and a nose that smells. In time, I will discover everything. When I flex my wings and dip below the clouds like a descending sparrow, I can see that miles ahead the road rises on a hillock and ends at a tall wooden gate. Fortified wooden walls spread in both directions. At the center, a majestic castle made of stone and timber sits in stark contrast with the surrounding hovels of mud.

  I think it is my castle, but I don't live there. It is mine in the same way that a King owns a dog. Or a Queen owns a King.

  My dream is almost over. I feel it like a blue dawn rising on the edge of a long night. It has been a good dream for the most part, though in life, no matter how much the sun shines, storms always appear now and again. It is natural, unstoppable; it is the way of the world. It is the way of my kind.

  I sense that I have been dreaming this dream a very long time. More than a night, or a week, or even a year. Centuries have passed, maybe a millennia since I last lay open eyes on the waking world. The castle I am soaring towards in my dream is certainly gone, buried underneath centuries of revolution and crumbled empires.

  These thoughts do not cause me alarm. Nor do I fear what the world will be like when I open my eyes soon.

  I am beyond mortal fears.

  Those that wear two skins are but a nuisance to me.

  My skin breaks the teeth of those that drink blood and stalk the night.

  Were it not for the teachings and lineage of my kind, the magi would be ordinary, not the wielders of primordial might that they are.

  Goblins, monsters, and fae are my kind and they pay me the respect that is my due.

  I am the bringer of death from high above.

&n
bsp; I am the giver and shaper of life in so many forms.

  I am the bringer of light that illuminates all darkness.

  I am the stone that cannot be broken and the blade that cannot dull.

  I am the legend your grandfathers were told by their grandfathers.

  My footsteps shake the ground like the war march of a hundred legions.

  My heart beats as the thunder shakes the sky.

  If this body does not suit me, I will change it and become whatever will thrive in the soil of the times in which I awake.

  I am Tesser, and I am a Dragon.

  And as I arc my wings once more to soar above the clouds, my mind elevates me away from my slumber; my fear finally makes itself known. A question, a single nagging lost memory, occurs to me.

  Why did I allow myself to be pacified in sleep for so long?

  Long slumbers are not my way.

  Acquiescing is not my way.

  I think I'll find out why I have slept so long now that this dream, this long, long dream, is over. And those that have seen to my sleep had best have had good reason for my time lost.

  Because I am Tesser, and I am Dragon.

  Chapter One

  Abraham "Abe" Fellows

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Is that a car?

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Nah, it sounds too electric.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  God, I hate technology.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Ha! “God,” that's a good one. I don't think Mr. Doyle would approve of me referring to God.