A low hum rose from deep within the fortified command structure, like the dead returning from the grave. David shivered at the noise. Industrial fans powered on somewhere below them amongst the pipes and metal. The floor vibrated.
“It’s working,” Armand said. His voice filling with controlled excitement. “Now we can go.”
David lifted a hand. “Not yet, sir. We don’t know what’s down there.”
Armand canted his head like an odd bird. “I thought you said just soldiers, families were down there. They should be dead by now.”
David whisked his hand. A twenty-man team came up next to him dressed in black jumpsuits and armed with black AK-47 rifles. “I’ll go with this team first, Armand. The world cannot afford to lose you if things are not right. I can be replaced.”
Armand pursed his lips. “Take one of my disciples.” He turned back to the three men. “Marcus, step forward and follow President Brown into the fortress.”
“Yes, sir,” Marcus said and pulled the black hood away from his head covered in red hair. His hazel eyes gazed at the closed elevator door.
David snapped his fingers. “Give me two rifles,” he said and turned to Marcus. “Can you shoot?”
“Yes, sir, I can.”
David handed Marcus a rifle. “Once we are clear, Armand. You can enter the fortress. Give me thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes is granted, David. Just don’t get killed.” He lifted a right eyebrow at President Brown. “I can’t afford to lose you either.”
David gave a lazy left hand salute and pressed the elevator button. The door slid open and the group hustled into the large elevator. He swallowed a breath, tasting the stale air. No one opened the elevator for about four days, and a sick funk cloyed against the air and coated his nostrils and throat.
The door closed, draping the group in semi-darkness. The elevator dropped the five stories into the underground fortress. The stench made his stomach queasy, like rotted apples and bananas set out in the sun. Sweat broke out over his forehead and he wondered about his choice to join the team to secure the fortress. The elevator lights flickered and the motor’s hum filled his ears. He wanted to flee the large box. Its steel walls seemed to close in on the team.
David gazed at Marcus who stood just to his right front. The red hair looked dyed, but the features resembled someone he knew, or crossed in the past. The profile bugged him, younger, with harder edges along the chin, and a prominent nose. He shook the thought away and set his mind on what lay beyond the elevator door.
Once the elevator stopped and the doors slid open the team spread out into a hallway once filled with fluorescent lights and people. Now they faced an empty hall. The lights above flickered and lost its luminous glow. The horrible smell, a more concentrated version from what they inhaled in the elevator, assaulted their noses. The fans above did their work within the vents yet the smell refused to disperse into the metal framework.
David held his rifle against his body. The team moved ahead, slow, yet fast at the same time, their weapons up. “Stay with me, Marcus.”
“Yes, sir.”
David gulped down the stale air. The team moved ahead in silence. The hall ended at a t-section. He tried to remember the direction to the command center. “Go left,” he said low in his voice.
The team moved left up the hall. Shadows played against the walls. Fear and the smell combined to create a nasty worm in his stomach. He thought about how many people lived in the underground fortress the day the attacks started, a thousand maybe. The EMP blast shut down all the electronics and hours passed before they pulled up all the vents on the White House front lawn. No air circulated once the event occurred. He doubted anyone survived the many hours without air.
The hall opened up to the kitchen. Through the glass doors and walls and far back beyond the chairs and metal counter a gentle red light glowed. Shadows moved near the stoves located way in the back, yet no noise reached their ears. The team eased ahead, one member slid the glass door open and the others poured into the dining hall.
David followed. A different smell filled his nostrils. “What is that?” His stomach lurched. Bitter bile tickled his tonsils with its sharp tang. He leaned against a table. A strong hand steadied him. He turned to see Marcus at his side.
“Rotting bodies,” Marcus said. “I’ll go with the team.”
David’s face twisted, he forced himself upright. “No, I’ll go also.”
Marcus nodded and followed behind the team who worked their way pass the tables and metal counter and back into the kitchen.
David continued on. The team stopped, their weapons lifted, some made noises in their throats as if they forced themselves not to retch. He caught up with them, his eyes on the red glow against the white tiled walls leading into the cooking area.
David worked his way between the soldiers and entered the stuffy outer room to the larger storage area. Sweat speckled the tiles on the walls. A weak flame on the floor cast an amber glow against their faces. Bodies lined the floor in neat rows. Some absent arms, legs, feet and a few appeared to have been gnawed on. Their dead flesh torn away in small pieces or chunks. Detached body parts lay in a confused jumble within a metal industrial sink. His stomach knotted and ached, his eyes watered.
“David,” a raspy voice called from the storage room washed in shadows and red light from several small fires inside. “David, you came to save us.”
David shifted his glassy eyes to the storage room soaked in gloom. A large group in the hundreds rose from the floor like the dead. They shuffled towards the doorway. A chill ran through him.
Their emaciated bodies leaned against walls, tables and each other. Their soiled clothes and filthy uniforms sagged against their bodies. Cold air blew out from the room and what came with it clogged David’s throat. Several foul human odors mashed together. Unwashed bodies, human excrement, rancid meat, it all rolled out the storage room like a gas attack.
David placed a hand to his mouth, his world tilted. “No,” he said.
“David, help us.” A thin man with matted hair moved stiff legged from the doorway towards the soldiers. “The air feels so good. Did you turn it on? You are here to save us aren’t you?”
David stared at the dead bloated bodies on the floor. “Did you eat them?”
The thin man with hollow cheeks and large black eyes fell to his knees. “The food turned bad after the power went out. They died from natural causes so we tried to eat them.” He stretched his bony hands towards David. “Please don’t judge us, David. We were starving.”
“Don’t say my name,” David said and backed himself through the soldiers. “Don’t say my name.”
“Sir,” a soldier said. “What do you want us to do with them?”
David drew in a full foul breath. He fought against the reek. “Do you accept Satan as your true leader from here to eternity? If so, fall to your knees.”
The thin man on his knees forced himself to stand. “David,” he said. “What happened up there?”
David twisted his face and leaned towards the man’s emaciated head. “Satan happened. Do you accept him?”
The man’s huge eyes, weakened from starvation, strengthened for just a moment. “No.”
David peered passed the man’s reddish-yellow face. “What about you in there? Do you accept Satan?”
“No,” the voices lifted in an uneven chorus.
David’s stomach heaved. Whatever effort he used to keep his stomach under control failed. He turned away and vomited. His knees weakened, and he retched again, his stomach tightened and ached from the hard spasms.
Tears came from David’s eyes. Tears not for the humans who crowded in the room, but tears from the horrors he faced. The occupants turned to cannibalism to survive the past few days. The stench made him want to turn and run back up to the White House and breathe the cool smoke laced air.
“Kill them,” David said. Low moans and feeble screams rose from the group. They scrambled
further back into the massive storage room like weakened rats. “Just kill them now.”
The team leader lifted his hand. They fired into the crowd, the screams turned into animal shrieks. Several hundred people tried to flee further into the storage room. A team member tossed a grenade inside the room and the others followed.
David stumbled away. Grenade blasts drove into his head, seeming to rock his soul with each explosion. He needed to escape but refused to abandon his responsibilities. He wanted to fly up from the world and leave its madness far behind. The dark world he lived in harbored a side he did not care for, a side Armand must have shielded himself against to keep his sanity.
The team stuffed themselves into the doorway, their faces tight as they worked their weapons. Empty magazines fell to the floor, brass sang an unmusical jingle along the linoleum. The team reloaded and reloaded again, their hands flicking out to toss round black balls into the crowd. White and red light flashed against the walls, blasts shook the area. The screams began to die off.
David squatted into a corner and threw his hands up to his ears and shut his eyes tight and opened his mouth in a silent scream. He wanted to shut out the noise, the screams, and the entire world. His head swooned and shifted, the floor seemed to tilt and he fell into glorious darkness. He wanted to escape the death, the madness. His mind stumbled into a world darker than the one he found himself in.
34
Maria stood on the Rio Grande shoreline gazing into the dark river flowing by. Dead fish floated down the river like victims thrown in after an ethnic cleansing. The constant cloud cover killed off the river’s plant life and insects. The fish starved. Thousands of bloated fish washed ashore and the stink became a nuisance to everyone within the camp.
Maria ignored the stench. She smelled too much human death already and considered the fumes from dead fish a blessing. Besides, she lost the man she fell in love with. Joan warned her not to give her heart to a mortal. She didn’t expect Jason to die away from her. She wanted him to grow old in her arms and pass into Heaven in peace, not violence.
The Guardians behind her began to pack the camp and move upwind from the fish stink. Their voices held in hushed tones so not to disturb her or the other two angels. Joan left for Heaven hours ago in anger.
Jason’s death stunned her. She didn’t think things could get any worse after the nuclear blast in Houston. But they did. Reality sank its teeth into her, and even though Jason’s soul slipped into Heaven’s gates he would never remember her. If she did happen to meet him in Heaven he would just smile at her, a dumb cow smile, and drift off along the golden bricks within the city.
She couldn’t understand why God left the war to them. He could break the siege at any time, yet He decided to let Joan and her angels figure it out. To her, the war crashed into a brick wall. After their loss in France it all became mangled metal. She found the pieces difficult to put together. The wrong side made incredible gains and she realized why she found war so difficult to understand.
Maria spread her wings and took off into the slate skies above her head. Its grayness made her heart ache. Emptiness worked its way into her soul. She flew into the cloud cover as if she dove into gray foam within a polluted ocean. She inhaled the air tinted with acrid smoke and burnt flesh. In the east Houston burned with nuclear fires and she knew death prevailed within the once beautiful city. Jason sacrificed himself to save a billion others. She wondered if the world cared at all.
The angel avoided Houston and swept north and then east. She lowered herself from the clouds. The world sped beneath her, washed out like the work towel her father used to clean his hands. The small towns remained safe, armed citizen patrolled the streets and countryside, some built perimeters made from trucks and buses, their streets lit through generators.
Heavy woods appeared before her, thick and gray, the world lay on its deathbed without the sun. The heavy cloud cover acted like a poison, sapping life from the earth in small increments and soon the entire planet would wither and die. Didn’t the humans who caused the horrific acts see Satan’s intention? The dark prince did not want life. He wanted death for all. He wanted their souls dancing in pain for all eternity. A soul no longer needed food or drink to stay alive. It either enjoyed Heaven’s bliss or suffered in Hell’s fires.
She wondered if Armand saw this and if he did, would he even care. The mortal lived for Satan just as the Pope lived for God. Armand must have known Satan could have cared less for his soul. To him the Satanist would become like the other sufferers, their doom sealed in hate, fire, and brimstone.
Maria swept pass the woods and over Virginia. She spotted the Pentagon ten miles out and skimmed the trees until she reached the battered building. She landed near its pointed tip and eased her way through walls and emerged within its dark innards. She faced a hall littered with bodies and turned off her smell senses just to manage the carnage laid out before her.
She walked the gloomy halls like a poltergeist. A few voices filtered throughout the building. Armed guards strolled around in silence, some smoked. Their cigarette cherries resembling demon eyes. Fear and uncertainty soaked them all. If they knew what Satan planned to do with their souls would they still nurse their violent ways?
Maria turned a corner and stopped. Bodies jammed the hall before her, and amongst the ruined dead flesh lay Jason. His body sat propped up against the hallway wall, his head canted down as if in sleep and the tears welled up in her eyes. He deserved better than this. Fresh anger swept through her again. She wanted to destroy them all, yet her vengeful act would cause others to suffer.
She pulled the bodies off him and scooped Jason’s corpse into her arms. His head remained down, with chin against his left collarbone, his body stiff with rigor mortis lurched her stomach. He died alone and the thought infused her with more rage.
Maria leaped up, spread her wings, and covered Jason in their downy feathers. She plowed through the ceiling and out into the chilled air. The angel flew from the battered Pentagon and headed for a tree line. Her eyes swept over the land and a spark appeared not too far away. She picked up Patricia’s soul tucked away in the safe house.
The angel flew towards the small building with Jason in her arms. His body loosened and slumped against her shoulder. She sped from the Pentagon and towards the cabin thirty miles away.
Maria landed in the woods to face the building. The door cracked open and Patricia stepped out, her eyes wide and lips pressed firm.
Patricia nodded at Maria. “If you’re here to kill me then do it.”
Maria shook her head. “I’m not angry at you, Patricia. Jason did what he thought was right. No one is to blame for this, not you or Joan.”
Patricia’s eyes fluttered, her chest rose and fell. “He fought hard, Maria. He told me to leave.”
“I know. But he deserves a proper rest, a warrior’s send off.”
“I think there are shovels in the back.”
Maria managed a rueful smile. “We make a pyre and burn the body.”
Patricia gazed at Maria a few seconds. “Tell me how.”
“I’ll clean his body and you gather dry wood. I’ll make the pyre.”
“Ok,” Patricia said. She emptied the weapons and ammo from the cabin and stowed them nearby. After, she entered the woods to collect thick branches for the pyre.
Maria carried Jason’s body inside. She found the back room and laid him out on the bed and striped him bare. His bullet wounds glared out at her like sinister eyes, red and puckered. With steady fingers she touched all fourteen bullet holes, some scattered on his chest, a few others on his abdomen. She left the room and returned with a wet cloth and a bottle filled with virgin olive oil.
The angel cleaned the dried blood from his body with the wet cloth. She then used the olive oil, rubbing him down from head to toe and wrapped his body tight in a blanket. She kissed his forehead and lifted him up from the bed and walked outside the cabin. She laid Jason onto the ground as gentle as she could.
Patricia stacked several large branches on the ground behind the cabin. Maria gathered the branches and placed them onto the cabin roof like a small bed. Maria crisscrossed the wood to support the soldier’s body. She returned to Jason, hefted him up and leaped upon the cabin roof and laid him down upon the pyre.
She stood above him, gazing at the prone body wrapped in the brown blanket. Her great white wings spread out from behind her back. “God in Heaven grant me the strength so I can take vengeance upon my enemies. Grant me the power to smite them, so your hand can cast them into the fires of Hell for all eternity, Amen,” she said.
Maria picked up a large branch, touched one end with a finger and caused a blue flame to sputter up. “Rest in peace, Jason Aries and may the angels in Heaven accept you.” She dropped the branch and jumped from the roof.
The flames went up fast, catching the other branches in its red fingers. The fire leaped around the blanket, blackening the fibers until smoke billowed into the air. The fire crackled and popped and consumed Jason’s body with its great heat.
Patricia stood next to Maria. The two watched the flames render Jason’s body to ashes, tears slid down their cheeks as the cabin caught and burned. A cough lifted behind them and they turned.
Several people stood in silence. A man stepped forward and knelt before Maria.
Maria stared at him and the large group who stood in the tree line. They all held rifles in their hands, no one bore the triple sixes on their foreheads. “How can I help you?”
The man looked up. “We want to fight.”
Maria stepped forward, the flames rose higher and brighter behind her. “Then fight,” she said.
The man rose to his feet and gave the angel a slight bow. He returned to the group and they vanished back into the woods.
“Patricia, go with them,” Maria said. “…And fight.”
“Consider it done.”
Angels of War Battle of Archangels (Book 3) (Angels of War Trilogy) Page 14
