After The Fall: Children Of The Nephilim

by Paul Freeman

  He dropped to his knee as pain washed over him. Tiredness crept into his bones, every muscle ached. Most of all his brain hurt like the devil as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. The vampires were undead, unthinking monsters who craved the blood of humans. They were a catalyst that had begun the apocalypse instilling terror into the hearts of man so that they turned in on themselves. It was not they who destroyed half the world by contaminating the air and water with manmade poison. They were the trigger and they took full advantage, but they were still monsters. But not this one, he thought. This one was very much different.

  “Pastor, are you alright?” Logan went down on one knee and placed a hand on his shoulder. Pastor looked up and stared into the other man’s concerned face and nodded. He looked to where the vampire had disappeared with disbelieving eyes. He took in deep breaths and took Logan’s hand to get back to his feet.

  He heard a rumble then and the tunnel shook. The four men looked at each other then felt a wave of heat as the air suddenly became thinner. “Run!” He wasn’t sure which of them said it but he didn’t wait to figure it out. Within seconds the temperature of the tunnel had shot up, making it difficult to breathe. In the distance he could make out the circle of light up ahead. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a ball of fire racing towards them, burning up all the oxygen as it lunged for the light. The four men dived into the open air jumping to either side of the tunnel opening. Like the long neck and head of a flaming dragon the inferno broke out into the open air before burning itself out just as quickly.

  “What the hell was that?” Jeb panted, lying on his back by the side of the tunnel.

  George lay beside him, his chest heaving up and down. “Might have been a pocket of natural gas ignited by the gunfire.”

  “Yeah, or maybe a stray bullet hit an old fuel tank,” Logan suggested.

  “Oh man,” Jeb said, “I’d be mightily pissed if we just blew up the last remaining tank of gasoline in the world. How many years is it since we ran out?”

  “Don’t stress about it, just be glad we got out,” George said. “And look at it this way, at least there ain’t no feeders left alive in there.”

  “There ain’t no nothin’ left alive in there,” Jeb said.

  Pastor hauled himself to his feet and looked at the scorch marks on the tunnel wall. He reckoned Jeb was right about that anyway. It looked like their work was done.

  “Pastor,” Logan said between deep breaths, “that feeder was talkin’, what the hell… feeder’s don’t talk.”

  “They’re evolving,” George said. “Evolving into the masters of this planet.”

  “Don’t talk shit, George,” Logan said. “Evolution is a gradual process. It would take thousands of years for them to develop coherent speech. That fuckin’ thing was talkin’ about angels and shit.” All three men looked to Pastor for an answer.

  He had none for them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Logan stared into the tunnel, picturing the grizzled face of Isaac. Another death of a friend. Sometimes it was hard to put it to one side.

  “They were good men,” Pastor said, joining him at the entrance and reading his thoughts.

  “Yeah, more good men lose their lives to those monsters.”

  “They knew the risks. We all do when we set forth beyond the walls of Colony. It’s the world we live in now.”

  “Doesn’t make it any easier,” Logan said.

  “I would hope not,” Pastor said, his eyes becoming animated. “The day we stop feeling sorrow for our losses, or empathy with the suffering, is the day we will know we’ve truly lost this battle.”

  “You think we haven’t already?”

  “Hell no! We’re still breathin’ ain’t we? We’ll never let men like Isaac and Ben Crawford give their lives in vain. Their deaths will mean something in the end.”

  “Do you really believe that, Pastor?” Logan turned to face the taller man looking up into his eyes searching for the truth he longed for, for hope and something to believe in.

  “Damn right I do,” Pastor said with feeling.

  Logan almost took a step back from the intense glare of the one-time preacher. His mind stretched back to the previous day and Pastor’s moment of weakness he’d witnessed in the church. The people of Colony, including himself, adored – practically worshipped Pastor, but there wasn’t a man or woman among them who did not feel fear’s icy stab when he leveled his steely gaze on them.

  “What’s it mean, Pastor?” Jeb said, interrupting the moment. “What was that writin’ on the wall?”

  Logan watched as Pastor swung towards Jeb. At first he said nothing, just stared – not so much at Jeb as through him – when he finally spoke it was as if his words required an extra effort to be released, as if the weight of them was too great for the ears of those close enough to hear, or even to be uttered at all.

  “The writin’ was from the Book of Enoch.”

  “Demons?” George wiped the sweat and grime from his brow with his shirt sleeve.

  Pastor looked into the eyes of each man in turn; Logan could tell he was reading each of them and felt uncomfortable being scrutinized, fearing he would be deemed unworthy. But the cold eyes passed over him without scorn. “It’s just a quote from the bible. It don’t mean nothin’.” Pastor sat down on a boulder in the ground behind him. He looked tired – bone-weary. The pallor of his lined face was an ashen hue. He scratched at the iron-gray bristles on his chin.

  “That feeder that spoke: he said they were descendent from angels…”

  “So it’s likely talking’ bullshit,” Pastor said before spitting into the dirt at his feet.

  Logan heard the dismissive words Pastor spat out, but he also saw how his eyes wandered to the tunnel. He didn’t know too much about demons or the bible but Logan could see the community’s leader’s mind was ticking over, following a train of thought as unerring as those tracks disappearing into the darkness.

  “But the feeder, he was sayin’ that they’re all the offspring of angels,” Jeb persisted. “What sort of bullcrap is that?” he added before flinging his worn and stained baseball cap on the ground.

  “Likely as not it is bullcrap,” Pastor said softly. “Now listen to me, all of you, when we get back I don’t want no one speakin’ about this… leastways not until I’ve figured some things out. No point upsettin’ people and scarin’ ’em.”

  Logan looked up at the blue sky, tufts of cotton floated serenely in the azure ocean. He imagined what a clear night sky would look like with a million and more pinpricks in an inky blanket, their starry light bursting through the darkness. “There’s as many angels in Heaven as there are stars in the sky,” he said. All eyes turned towards him, their scrutiny making him feel uncomfortable. “So what now, Pastor?” Logan asked, he was becoming anxious about the sun beginning its downward journey in the western sky. “Sun’ll be down soon. We’ll not make it back to Colony before dark.”

  “I reckon you’re right, Logan. Might be best if we set up camp here. You guys gather some firewood and I’ll see if I can’t find us somethin’ to eat.”

  “Here? Are you serious?” George gasped.

  “Well. I reckon none o’ the feeders would have survived the explosion in the tunnel, and it’s unlikely there’d be a second clan in the area – especially with this one bein’ so big. So, I think I’d rather take my chances here than gettin’ caught out in the open countryside after dark. Here we got a defensible location and somewhere to build a nice big fire. Out there in the wide open spaces, in the dark… if there were feeders in the area, and there likely as not are a few lone wanderers, we’d be sittin’ ducks for ‘em.”

  Sometime later, as the sun was sinking low in the horizon and leeching the light from the sky, Logan dropped another armful of wood beside the fire Jeb had coaxed to life in the middle of the building – what had once been a busy suburban railway station, now just a falling-down relic from the past. Pastor emerged from the fadi
ng twilight with a string of rabbits dangling from his hand.

  “Dinner,” he said, dropping the kills by the fire. George scooped up the dead animals and quickly began skinning and gutting them.

  Despite Pastor’s earlier words, Logan could not manage to quell the knot of uneasiness twisting in his stomach. Being outside the walls of Colony at night made him apprehensive as the fear of the dark played on his imagination. “You sure this is safe?” he asked yet again.

  “Nowhere is safe anymore,” Pastor answered.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” George said, skewering the first rabbit.

  “We’ll be fine,” Pastor said more sympathetically, “I have a nose for when feeders are about and I don’t reckon we’ll be bothered tonight. We’ll take turns keepin’ watch just to be on the safe side, but I’m sure we’ve nothin’ to fear tonight. At sunup we’ll head back to Colony, job done. Y’all’ll be heroes.” He smiled then, transforming his grizzled face into something even more sinister by the firelight.

  Logan nodded, nevertheless his eyes slid out the paneless windows, his mind giving shape to the lurkers in the night. His thoughts went back to a time just after the Fall, when the world was descending into chaos. Some extremist group of terrorists – he couldn’t even remember which side they were on had taken advantage of the confusion and fear everywhere and had detonated a nuclear bomb taking out a medium-sized city and most of the inhabitants. Reports had been sketchy with the news media already sending out conflicting reports of what was happening around the world and many news stations going offline. He’d held up in a barn one night feeling the weight of despair enveloping him. He had his pistol in his hand and he just stared at it for hours, trying to summon the courage to turn the barrel towards his head, but he hadn’t the balls to do it. He turned the gun in the right direction alright but his fingers refused to pull the trigger. How easier that would have been. It would have saved him a lot of pain over the subsequent years. Those damned terrorists, he thought and almost laughed out loud, even as the world was turning to hell they were focused on raining down destruction for some cause no one gave a damn about. What a waste of time… and lives. He’d heard a lot of rumors over the following years of other attacks, including some by foreign powers trying to use the situation to claim dominance and gain power. It all only added to the ultimate handover of the planet to the creatures of the night.

  After they’d eaten, Pastor volunteered to take first watch. It wasn’t long before Jeb and George were rolled up and snoring in the orange glow of the fire. Pastor took up a position just inside the doorway, partially concealed in shadow. He crept over to sit beside the one-time preacher.

  “I wanted to speak to you, Pastor,” he said, his voice breaking as he spoke in hushed tones, all the while glancing over at the sleeping forms of the other two men.

  “Sure, Logan, what’s on your mind?”

  Logan paused and swallowed hard as he slid down the wall to sit beside Pastor. “I saw you…”

  “Saw me?”

  “In the church, yesterday. Look, we all got our demons and the Lord knows there’s enough of ’em to go round, so I ain’t judgin’ you or no one else for that matter.” Pastor said nothing, his face unreadable. “All of us deal with… stuff in our own way. Hell I’ve punched more walls in frustration and screamed my lungs out into thin air more times than I care to remember. I guess I’m just tryin’ to say that there ain’t no need for you to be punishin’ yourself and bearin’ all the guilt on your own soul. There’s plenty of us to share that burden.”

  “Well thanks, Logan, I’ll bear that in mind,” Pastor said softly, his face still an unreadable mask.

  “One other thing – I was wonderin’ if you wouldn’t consider openin’ up the church again. I know you got your issues with… religion now but faith for some folks is a crutch they can’t go without.”

  Pastor raised his eyebrows then. His icy glare made Logan want to look away, but he didn’t.

  “People think I’ve lost faith,” he said then, his voice barely above a whisper, “well that ain’t so. Fact is I don’t reckon I can be given my time and devotion to a god who betrays his followers and leads his flock into the den of the wolf…”

  “But isn’t that the point of faith,” Logan interrupted, “who are we to judge the Lord and his reasons for doin’ things? Anyway I’m not tryin’ to get into a theological debate, I just think it would help folks who are havin’ a hard enough time as it is, to give them somethin’ to believe in.”

  Pastor nodded slowly. “I’ll think on it, Logan.”

  “That’s all I ask,” Logan said and pushed himself back to his feet.

  As he walked back to the fire Pastor called after him, “Logan, you’re a better shepherd than I am.”

  Logan smiled, feeling a small glow of warmth at Pastor’s praise, even if he knew it wasn’t true. He was too weak to be a real leader – leastways as far as he was concerned.

  *

  He watched Logan walk back to the warm embrace of the blazing fire – protection against the horrors that haunt the night. Why was it he felt more comfortable in the shadows? He meant what he said, Logan was a far better leader of the community than he would ever be. Yet the survivors who called Colony their home looked to him for guidance and leadership. The weight of responsibility was a heavy burden to bear. His eyes drifted upwards as he pondered Logan’s request. Perhaps he was being unfair to deny the population of Colony the right to worship as they saw fit. People thought he’d lost his faith, that he was no longer a believer in God; it was much worse than that, he’d lost respect for Him. Of course he knew he had no right to judge the Almighty and His reasons for the actions He took. But damn it, did he want to put his faith in such a cruel deity. Yes, the Lord was all powerful. Yes, it was not for any mortal sinner to judge Him. But, he could not get past the sense of betrayal he felt.

  He dropped his gaze to the fire. Dark shapes twisted within the blaze as tongues of yellow flame wrapped around the shifting images. The hypnotic draw sucked him in as he could feel the heat on his face. The fire crackled and hissed and in an instant he was transported into a raging inferno that whipped fiery flails singeing his flesh. Agony speared through him as blisters appeared and burst in an explosion of pain. At the heart of his suffering was a black beast with flames for eyes and a dark gaping maw waiting to ingest all life.

  “Back, foul demon! You will not have this soul. Not yet anyway,” he said through gritted teeth. He held up his hands and watched as his fingertips sprouted flames from the end. The beast made a choking sound he realized was laughter.

  Behind the demon a forest of arms clawed at the air while faces attached to those arms screamed in eternal agony. Pastor squeezed his eyes shut, unable to witness the suffering of the damned, unwilling to bear the guilt and shame of so many lost souls. With his eyes closed he could hear the cries of the suffering all the louder. He realized many of them were calling him, reaching out to him with their emotions and pain. It was like slabs of concrete bearing down on him. His eyes snapped open and he could pick out individual faces. The first ones he recognized were friends and family, people who’d lost the struggle for life during the Fall. As he looked closer he began to make out other souls, recognizing the faces of men he had killed in his own fight for survival. There were feeders there too, only they no longer bore the grotesque masks of vampires, but the faces of the people they were before they were turned. So many…

  Tears streamed down his cheeks and evaporated into steam from the heat of the flames. And then his anger grew. In his hand he bore a flaming white sword. He attacked the demon batting away its attempts to assault him with fireballs and flaming spears. With a single sweep he struck its head from its body. He turned towards the congealed flesh of the damned as they writhed in agony, their torsos and legs fused together. He hacked at them, bringing a blade of righteousness into the fiery pits of Hell. He was filled with fury. With his mighty sword he would strike down the enemies of G
od, the enemies of man. The feeder had called him a son of Adam – he was more than that, he was a son of Moses and Joshua. He would tear down these unholy walls of agony and suffering. He would wield the sword of light and bring sunshine into a world of darkness.

  And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

  “Pastor – Pastor.” He opened his eyes and Jeb stood over him. “You didn’t have to sit watch all night.” He looked outside. Light was spilling into the sky. His throat was parched and his eyes felt as if they were lined with grit. No words came to him so he simply nodded and dragged himself up.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The bell continued to resonate around the compound as Amy ran out into the street, aware of Penny at her shoulder. People were running wildly as the men and some of the women of Colony ran for their weapons and to take up positions on the wall. The rest of the women gathered up children who’d been playing in the dusty street, ushering them indoors. A man Amy recognized as Tim Williams who was ringing the bell shouted down to two men to shut the main gate. She could feel nervous energy coursing through her as panicked residents ran past her.

  She started to run but a hand grabbed her arm pulling her back, “Where are you going, honey?” Penny asked.

  “My pa has a spare rifle back at the house,” she answered.