Something Terrible

by Wrath James White

  Chavez looked at him with eyes full of terror. He didn’t need to answer. We all knew.

  I whipped the car onto the sidewalk and pushed the speedometer up to one hundred. I was determined to ram through anything that stepped in front of us. The car was parallel to where the beasts and the other cars had converged in the street and for a moment it looked like we would sail right past when two of the larger demons turned to cut us off. I pushed the car up to one hundred twenty miles per hour, its maximum speed, trying to beat them to the corner, but at that speed I knew the vehicle would roll if I tried to make the turn. I would have to slow down and when I did they would get us.

  Chavez, as if reading my mind, pointed his Glock at the two approaching demons and fired. I couldn’t see if he hit them or not or what damage he’d done if any. I was occupied with trying to make sure I didn’t wreck the car and kill us or leave the car crippled and us a helpless meal for the monsters. I breathed a sigh of relief when we sailed past the demons easily. Chavez had slowed them down just enough. I stomped down on the breaks and spun the steering wheel to the right. The car went up on two wheels and I said a prayer, hoping that it wouldn’t roll. I stopped breathing until the wheels finally touched asphalt again and we made the turn in a cloud of burning rubber.

  Chavez may have slowed the things down, but he hadn’t stopped them and they were right behind us as we sped down the street. Our luck held and another vehicle, a big red Ram truck, came rocketing out of a side street with three of the little demon babies clinging to its windshield and barreled into the two monsters that were chasing us, driving them into a row of parked vehicles on the other side of the street. I kept my foot firmly planted on the accelerator, figuring they would shake off the blow and be after us again. I was surprised when I looked back and saw that one of them was struggling, severely injured, stuck between the mangled truck and a minivan that had been parked on the street. The creature appeared to be in its death throes, blood squirted from its wounds and its arms flailed wildly at first and then began to slow as it lost more blood. The other one was limping. One of its legs apparently shattered. It may take a hell of a lot to damage them, but just like the babies, they could be wounded and even killed. That was good to know.

  I turned back to focus on the road as one of the babies that had been clinging to the driver’s windshield, the only one still alive, crawled its way into the front seat and began to feast on the unconscious driver. The baby was quickly joined by the large demon with the limp. There was movement in the back of the truck and that’s when I realized that the driver had his entire family in there. They were all being butchered and there was nothing I could do. I was considering turning the car around to try to help when Chavez, sensing my thoughts, put a hand on my forearm to get my attention and then slowly shook his head.

  “They’re dead, Spenser, and we will be too if we go back there. The Gun Shop is right on your left on the next block. Let’s get there and get ourselves armed.”

  I nodded and tried my best to avoid looking in the rearview mirror again.

  The Gun Shop was like a mini-supermarket filled with rifles and pistols. When I spotted it I slowed the car, but Chavez shook his head.

  “Do you think the door is open? Have you got a fucking key? Ram this thing right through the front of the damn place! Get us inside. Now!”

  I turned the car toward the front of the building and stomped down on the gas once again. The vehicle rocketed across the street through the parking lot, over the walkway and through the front window, taking out the security gate and setting off the burglar alarm. The airbags exploded, knocking the wind out of me and blinding me for a few panicky seconds during which I was certain we would be attacked. When it finally deflated I took a few rapid breaths to calm myself.

  The siren blared and a silent alarm sent a signal to a private security firm who called a phone that rang somewhere in the back of the store. Soon they would be calling what was left of the police. I doubted they would get much of a response.

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and checked myself for cuts and bruises. I was fine. My next thought, even before checking on Chavez and Daryl, was about the car. I hoped it hadn’t sustained too much damage from the impact because even fully armed I had no desire to face these things on foot. The windshield was completely shattered and the front of the car was smashed inward and steaming. I wasn’t a mechanic, but I was pretty sure the radiator was a loss. I didn’t know how far the vehicle could get us with a busted radiator, but the engine was still running so I took that as a good sign. I reached for the keys and was about to turn the car off, then I thought better of it. I wasn’t sure whether or not it would start again and if those things attacked us and we had to make a quick getaway, I wanted the engine running.

  Chavez groaned beside me. He was a few inches shorter than me and the airbag had caught him right in the face, bloodying his nose. Otherwise he looked okay. I looked over my shoulder and Daryl was already opening his door and stepping out. He didn’t even look rattled. He stumbled over to the rack of rifles behind the counter and tried to yank down an H&K USC .45 caliber semi-automatic rifle. The rifles were all locked up with a thick chain, but Daryl continued to yank on it as if he thought he would somehow find the strength to snap steel links.

  Chavez stepped out of the car, wiping his bleeding nose with his shirt sleeve. He pulled his gun and walked over to the rifle rack. The detective placed the barrel of his pistol against the chain and fired, snapping it in two, allowing Daryl to claim his H&K. Then he proceeded to pull down two Mossberg 12 gauge shotguns and two Colt M-16 9mm assault rifles. He smashed the display case with the butt of his pistol and replaced his Glock .9mm with a Desert Eagle .50 cal. He tossed me a shopping bag and pointed me to the shelves behind the display case closest to me.

  “Start filling it with ammo. We need nine millimeter ammo full-metal jacket, some Black Talons if you can find them, and some Glasers. Get me some fifty caliber ammo too and some forty-five caliber as well. Fill a couple of bags. This is going to be a long night.”

  I got busy loading the bags and Chavez and Daryl started loading the shotguns and looking for larger magazines for the semi-automatics. Even with the guns I had very little confidence that any of us would survive the night.

  We got all the guns loaded and were just about to climb back into the car when the babies came. There were six in all and behind them was one of the men in the black robes, only at this distance it was clear that the thing was nothing close to human even before it opened its long flaps of black skin and attacked. It looked like we were about to find out if we had wasted our time breaking into the store. We lifted our weapons and unloaded on them as the demons scrambled through the shattered storefront window.

  The babies were torn to shreds. A rain of bullets poured through them, punching fist-sized exit wounds in their young flesh. They were ripped open like pinatas, organs spilling out onto the hard vinyl floor. The thing with the black wings was not as easily dispatched. It continued coming forward as we pumped it with shotgun shells and Chavez raked it with 9mm bullets.

  “The damn thing won’t die!”

  “Aim for its face!” I yelled as the thing closed in on me.

  It was almost on top of me when Chavez and Daryl blew its skull open and it came crashing down on the hood of the car.

  “Okay, so what the fuck do we do now?”

  “I think we need to get out of town. Whatever is going on seems to be happening all over the city.”

  We walked cautiously around the dead demon thing and climbed back into the car. Chavez put it in reverse and we backed out of the store.

  “You think we have enough ammo?”

  Our guns were empty, but we still had shopping bags full of bullets.

  “I don’t want to fight any more of these things. We just need to get the hell out of town. Then we can get the National Guard or somebody in here to get rid of the rest of these fucking monsters,” Chavez answered.

  �
��Chavez! Chavez, are you there?” It was Detective Link and he sounded excited.

  Chavez grabbed the radio from the dashboard.

  “Link? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, and I got something you should see. Can you make it back over here?”

  Chavez snorted.

  “You do know what’s going on over here right?”

  “It’s happening all over the city. I just had to shoot my way out of a suspect’s house. We got a call on the radio from someone who said they were about to be eaten by demons. But you need to hear what else he had to say. He’s still alive, for now, but I don’t think he’s going to last much longer. Those things were tearing into him when we got here. We lost a few of our men too. I think this is the guy responsible for all of this.”

  “Do you think he knows how to stop it?”

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t able to stop them from damn near killing him. I don’t know what he can tell us.”

  “Where are you? We’ll get there.”

  “How the hell are we supposed to get over there?” I asked. “What happened to getting out of town?”

  “If we can stop these things then we have to, man. They killed my fuckin’ wife!” Daryl yelled. “Fuck that! I’m stayin’ and fightin’! I’ma kill all these mutherfuckers!”

  “We’re all going. Unless someone wants to get out and walk?” Chavez said.

  I kept quiet and began loading one of the shotguns. The matter had been decided.

  “I’m still up at Sunrise Mountain, on Falling Sparrow and Desert Inn. You’ll see my car when you turn the corner. We’ve got half the precinct over here,” Detective Link said.

  “In case you guys haven’t figured it out yet, you have to shoot for their heads. We lost an entire SWAT team over here,” Chavez offered.

  “Yeah, we figured it out. See you soon. Good luck.”

  Chapter 8

  The ride back to Sunrise Mountain was littered with the dead and dying. The bodies of demons lay strewn about the streets amid piles of human remains. The entire city was becoming one big graveyard.

  We turned on Desert Inn road and Chavez stepped down hard on the breaks.

  “What the fuck?”

  What looked like a group of gang members were walking down the middle of the road followed by three of the large creatures. The main thug, a tall light-skinned black man with a shoulder-width afro, pointed at our car and the creatures charged.

  Chavez threw the car in reverse as we began firing our weapons at the creatures in a panic. Daryl was firing the H&K in rapid bursts and one of the creatures went down, its head torn nearly from its shoulders. One of the other creatures had nearly overtaken the car when I hit it with three quick shots from the Mossberg, removing the upper part of its skull and sending its brain flopping out onto the asphalt. Daryl and I concentrated our fire on the remaining creature. A bullet whizzed by my head. The gangbangers were firing at us.

  Chavez pulled out the Desert Eagle and returned fire as he continued to pilot the car in reverse. The guy with the afro went down hard with two in his chest and the guy immediately behind him took one in the gut and screamed. The other three thugs quickly scattered.

  I ran out of ammo and ducked back into the car to reload. Chavez and Daryl finished off the last demon-thing before I managed to load the first round. Its skull came apart under the assault and it collapsed in a lifeless heap.

  Chavez stopped the car and we all sat there, breathing hard, totally freaked-the-fuck-out.

  “What the hell is going on? Gangbangers teamed up with demons? What tha fuck?”

  Daryl was freaking out.

  “How do you know they were gangbangers?” Chavez asked.

  “They took a fuckin’ shot at us! They were controlling those things!”

  Daryl was practically screaming. I was too terrified to speak.

  “That sounds like something a bit deeper than your average drug-dealin’, gun-tottin’, scumbags doesn’t it?” Chavez said sarcastically.

  He was right. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “Let’s go see your friend, Detective Link. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”

  Chavez nodded his head, turned around and headed back up the road, weaving in between the bodies of the fallen demons. I looked at the bullet hole in the window. It was mere inches from where my head had been. For the fifth or sixth time that evening I had almost been killed.

  We made it to Falling Sparrow Lane just as the sun began to rise. The entire block was cordoned off by a dozen police vehicles and several dozen officers. Two ambulances sat on the sidewalk with three overworked EMTs rushing around, tending to wounded officers and civilians.

  “This looks like a fucking warzone.”

  “That’s exactly what it is. We’re at war here,” Daryl said. He had gone all solemn and serious again.

  Chavez flashed his badge and one of the officers ushered us through the barricade and up to the house where Detective Link waited along with a fourth EMT who was covered in blood.

  “Chavez, get your ass over here. He’s lost a lot of blood and I don’t think he’s going to make it much longer.”

  “Who?”

  “He said his name is Martin James. He says he created these things.”

  “What?” Chavez said.

  “He said what?” I asked.

  “He has a whole laboratory set up in his basement. He’s some kind of rich trust-fund kid or something. There must be a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment in there, maybe more.”

  “But why? Was this some kind of experiment gone wrong?”

  Detective Link shook his head.

  “He did it on purpose and he said it was more than just science. He said he used some kind of black magic.”

  “Why? Why would he create those things?”

  “Let’s go ask him.”

  Detective Link led us into the house, down into the basement where a man lay on a gurney wrapped in bandages. His arms and legs had been amputated. He was little more than a torso. I was pretty sure he hadn’t always looked like that. The demons, his creations, had done this to him.

  “Martin James?” Chavez asked the man.

  “He’s on a lot of drugs. I don’t know if he’ll wake up again,” the EMT said.

  “Then fucking give him something to wake him up!” Link barked.

  The EMT reached into his medical bag and came out with a syringe.

  “It’s adrenalin. It’ll wake him up.”

  He swabbed the man’s neck with iodine and injected the adrenalin into the largest vein he could find.

  “That ought to do it.”

  “Martin? Martin James?” Chavez asked. He reached down and slapped the man lightly on both cheeks to wake him up.

  “Who is it? Let me sleep.”

  “Fuck no, motherfucker! You ain’t sleepin’! Wake your ass up!” Daryl shouted and that seemed to clear the cobwebs from the man’s head.

  “Who are you?”

  “We’re the police. Now, what the fuck did you do?”

  He turned to look at Daryl.

  “I did it for us, bro. I did it for all of us.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, you fuckin’ piece of shit. You killed my wife!”

  Daryl lunged at him and Detective Link and I had to hold him back to keep him from ripping Martin James’s heart out with his bare hands.

  “I did it for us, man! This was my way of ending it once and for all. No more racism. No more hatred. Just one master race.”

  “Them? Them! That’s your fucking master race!”

  “It got out of control.”

  “Damn right it did, motherfucker!” Daryl was still struggling to get at the man, but his efforts were weakening. “I watched that thing you created . . . You created! I watched it tear its way out of my wife. I watched her bleed to death. And then I had to kill it. He had to kill it!” Daryl pointed at me and I felt an irrational pang of guilt.

  “Tell us how to stop them,�
� Chavez said. “You’ve got to end this.”

  “I-I don’t know how.”

  “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know how? You created these things. You must know how to destroy them.”

  “I-I didn’t design them to be stopped. I designed them to breed and kill. To keep going until they were the only things left, the dominant life forms. A new race of humanity.”

  “Those-those aren’t human. That’s not us.”

  “No more war. No more hate. No more us against them. One race.” Martin smiled, then slipped peacefully into a coma.

  We all stood there, staring at Martin James as if we were expecting him to say something more, to give us some answer that would save us. He said nothing.

  “So, what does this have to do with the feds?” Chavez asked.

  The answer came to me immediately. It was obvious. They knew.

  “What do you think you would do if you were the government and you found out that someone was creating demons in his basement?”

  Chavez nodded.

  “I’d find the people involved, shut them down, and then I’d militarize the entire operation. I’d turn the fucking things into weapons.”

  “Yeah.” Detective Link nodded his head. Chavez was right.

  “That’s not gonna happen now though. Not with him dead.”

  “Nope,” Chavez said, still staring at Martin’s corpse, a look of grim resignation on his face.

  “So then what will they do?” I asked for no particular reason. This answer too, was obvious.

  “A military strike. A cleansing. Hopefully they’ll get all of those things. Kill them all before they can spread. If not, if any of those demons get out . . . ”

  “Then Martin’s dream comes true,” Daryl said.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. No one answered. When the shooting began outside, I barely had the energy to grab my shotgun. I was spent, defeated. The screams were horrible, but I was already getting used to them. The sun was almost fully risen and with it came a new dawn. The dawn of a new race. A new master race. No more war. No more hatred. No more division. I saw it in Daryl’s eyes before he ran up the stairs to join the fight. He understood why Martin had done it.