Freeney

by Clay Zimmerman

  The pages flipped open. Within the leaflets it could be seen the individual names of those chosen to be raptured during the end times. They were illuminated with effervescent light from The Book.

  An apparition now projected itself of glowing celestial light, no more than three meters above the floor. It was thought there to be a tear in the very fabric of reality itself. A hovering portal had appeared, accompanied by a supernatural drone like intonation. This star gate, whose resolution was superbly clear and mercurial, was depicting, quite visibly, an aerial view of The Crystal City itself, Capital of Heaven! All bearing witness were enamored by the clarity and allure of the phenomenon they were watching unfold. It was such an unexpected turn of events, Rosicky was forced to rub his eyes in disbelief. The angelic, harmonious tone, much like that of a tuning fork, hung in the air, temporarily cleansing the environment one might perceive, sparkles abounding. Martin mused briefly if he was somehow an unknowing participant in the most intricately planned Mr. Clean commercial of all time.

  Upon closer observation, one could now see more clearly the details of the majestic, hallowed metropolis in all its glory. The portal also seemed to possess a telescopic capability that would even adjust directly for the auspices of the respective viewer. As the zoom effect began to close in little by little, it was noted that the structural composition of Shangri-La was that of a completely translucent, crystalline substance like that of the most remarkable quartz. The inhabitants of these massive high rises were going about their daily routines seemingly unfettered by the inherent lack of privacy. They adorned beautifully and intricately woven robes of various colors and the nature of the crystalline structure also appeared to possess a technological aspect to it as well, which they casually interacted with, displaying images, mural format, of their various loved ones on Earth in real time.

  Now it could be seen that The Great City in the Kingdom of Heaven was dissected by a body of water that was more closer in resemblance to a sea. It, too, was of impeccable clarity, allowing the voyeur to gaze all the way to the depths, miles and miles of the purest water filled with a number of aquatic animals engaged in a perpetual ballet-like stasis. Different crafts, both marine and air, were acting as ferries, shuttling citizens from one side to the other. The picture painted was that of a bustling community, yet infallibly tranquil at once.

  Freeney was licking his chops at the innocence on display before him. Even he, with this visionary level of faith in victory, had not imagined a day in which he would be able to peer into the enemy’s fortress undetected. The irony was quite profound as he was realizing his dream of seeing God’s Kingdom.

  “You see?” Simon leveled an index finger at the reflection of The Crystal City. “Only fools rush in. If we attack now and strike at the heart of the enemy’s staging point, we will catch them unawares. This planet….” Freeney struggled to find the words. “Is a means to an end. Should we successfully conquer it in it’s entirety, there will forever loom the shadow of a great threat to our dominion. But let us push forward, at all costs, right at the belly of the beast and let our oppression be felt where The Believer’s arrogantly enjoy their retirement and we may yet separate the head of the snake from it’s body. We may, in our time, actually bring an end to the conflict and bring about an era of conformity and decisiveness. Let this day forever be known as our Independence Day, just like our forefathers demonstrated for us but a few centuries ago. Let us fight now and forever secure our FREEDOM!!!”

  The crowd combusted into an uproar. They all instantly volunteered to be on the front line, forming a queue at the base of the chancel. Freeney was now hoisting up the goblin like creatures one by one, clutched by the waist as a toddler might be, and loading them into the portal to Heaven head first. As he did so, they unraveled their bat like wings that they might glide and/or parachute, smoothly descending upon The Crystal City from high altitude, the star gate readily absorbing them into the other dimension. Martin and the youngsters watched in horror as the ravenous imps looked to take on a more formidable stature upon touching down onto various high rises, proceeding to wreak havoc and terrorize the wholly unprepared populace. It was a field day for the imps. They moved from dwelling to dwelling, pillaging and plundering, leaving fires and ruination in their wake, virtually unopposed.

  Chapter 21

  “We have to stop them!” Maddy’s eyes bulged with fury.

  Martin was so disgusted with the proceedings, he dropped his head low as he could feel the bile surfacing, jutting into the back of his throat. But he caught himself on the brink of evacuation, luckily it was nothing more than stomach juices, he’d neglected meal time, and thought better of it. It was an unfortunate disposition but he was tough enough to swallow it back down, along with a remarkable grimace. He did not want to portray weakness right now before his, albeit wanting, precious few allies on either side. He knew he would need every bit of their resilience to confront this situation. His whole life had been building towards this. He knew he was going to die today.

  “Hey, Mister. Snap out of it.” Patrick was firmly jostling his shoulder. “Someone’s coming. Down the hallway.”

  Martin was catapulted back to his senses. This was no time for a pity party. Verily, he was given no false warning. Someone or something was approaching from the long corridor very quickly as evidenced by an ever nearing battle cry echoing though out the acoustics of the narthex. There was also a substantial amount of radiance being emitted from that which was closing in on them with great speed.

  Rosicky’s adrenaline finally kicked in, giving his eyes the frantic pace needed to ascertain a quick hiding place for them. Martin did not want to initiate a confrontation without knowing precisely what he was dealing with. Even though it was well concealed and the odds of it’s discovery by Detective Martin Rosicky considerably low, especially given the atmospheric conditions, through some act of sheer serendipity, he could, perhaps given the various vantage points of light created by the flickering candles and also the fast approaching nemesis in the hallway, faintly make out the outline of a rift in the panels adjacent to their position in the narthex. Throwing caution to the wind, he lowered his shoulder and bull charged through the neatly hidden secret door. Expecting more resistance (apparently it wasn’t even locked), he barreled through into the abyss of some nook, the contents of which made for a rough landing. He was sure he’d broken some items in there and possibly shattered some glass too but there was no time to discern the nature of this. Unwilling to acknowledge the pain he was enduring, he hastily picked himself up and ushered the kids into the cavern with him, shutting the door behind them virtually coinciding with the arrival of the ‘whatever it was’.

  They found themselves a tangled heap of limbs and nervous, sweaty panting and at the mercy of a rather limiting set of confines. It was dark and dank and they found themselves feeling around like blind cave salamanders on various objects they’d spilled over onto. Shin and ankle were encountering heavy resistance here. Somehow, the kids managed to find enough room to gain solid footing. Martin had not strayed far from the door where he’d recovered to a crouching position. There was actually a fair bit of chasm between the bottom of the hatch and the flooring and he was dutifully inspecting this, trying to monitor the goings on outside in the church foyer. There was just enough room in this crack for him to peer out with one eye, his face pressed against the ground.

  No sooner had he done this, than the source of the awful noise and increase in lighting was revealed. It was the pin headed, burning man as described previously. This time, his entire body was aflame brilliantly.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

  He had been sustaining an epic battle cry for some time now.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!” Was the decided exclamation as he burst through the sanctuary doors to join his cohorts in their invasion ploy with the help of a generous running start.

  He must’ve been happy as hell because he didn’t seem to have paid any mind to the trio. Ma
rtin felt it safe to now ascertain the nature of his current location.

  “Somebody turn the lights on.” He grunted.

  The kids complied with a synchronized effort, feeling up walls and groping about objects indiscriminately. After a procession of clumsy movements, Patrick was the first to strike gold.

  “Here it is. I found it.”

  It was a pull string light bulb in the center of the modest room. Now having been illuminated, it could be seen to be Pastor Coleman’s antechamber. A small, discreet room next to the sanctuary where he would, on days of observation, change into various robes and also housing a baptismal font for blessing items such as the communion wafers and wine. Along with this revelation came with it the awareness that they were not alone. The introduction of light had disturbed the hibernation sequence of a stowaway imp having entrenched himself on top of a wardrobe closet and wrapped in his wings neatly like some ghoulish burrito. It was already hissing to life with outrage and spread wide it’s wingspan. They hadn’t much time to react before it was already air born and tumbling earthbound in an impending swan dive trajectory towards poor Martin.

  He didn’t have the mental dexterity to assess things, ready his weapon and get off a shot in defense. Only a knee jerk instinct afforded his hands to shoot up and brace for impact.

  SKREEEEEEEEEEEE

  Although these creatures were decidedly modest in size, the element of surprise and the added inertia of gravity was enough to send them both somersaulting onto the floor and subsequently the perimeter of the cozy nook in a convoluted mass of fangs, teeth, claws and fists. Rosicky was sustaining a myriad of scratches and cuts but he was ultimately, most likely due to the disproportionate disparity in weight, able to gain the upper hand. One could see he was angry. He reared back and brought down a blow upon the hapless reptile. This might’ve rendered any normal man unconscious but the imp appeared to have a noteworthy amount of tenacity. The wicked animal actually was able to recover with great agility, squirm it’s way free and leap frog around to Rosicky’s shoulders, wrapping it’s legs around his neck and began raining down talons upon the detective’s scalp. His only defense was to clasp his head with interlocked fingers and hope to absorb the flurry of scales and claws.

  His allies finally entered into the equation with Patrick, having neither the where with all nor time to be picky, conveniently snatching up the nearest object with real heft to it, in this case a large ceramic jug of communion wine, and smashing it down upon the rabid imp from behind with velocity. The dynamic devolved into a blur of scarlet colored velvet, communion wine and ceramic fragments discharging in all directions. Perhaps the imp ambusher had completely discounted the presence of the teenagers because the momentum of the crushing utensil, albeit with a generous accumulation of verve, probably wasn’t enough to subdue the angry varmint on it’s own but it still managed to dislodge the assailant from Rosicky’s back, hurling it to the ground.

  Then an unanticipated effect began to take place. Rosicky was hobbled over, coughing and choking, trying to regain his bearing from the assault but his attacker was experiencing a considerably less enviable set of circumstances. Apparently, an ingredient contained in the ‘Jesus juice’ was eliciting a drastic type of allergic reaction from the creature’s skin. There was an audible hissing noise illustrating this in a most unavoidable way as steam rushed to escape and squeeze through it’s tightly woven scales. The trio watched with astonishment as the imp writhed in pain. The contrast was so dramatic, Patrick was reluctant to rush in and apply any finishing blows for fear of contagion. The beast literally appeared to be melting. It’s flesh seared and popped as though it were bacon frying upon a griddle. The imp was now gurgling and foaming at the mouth, a dazed expression glazed over it’s snake like eyes. It began emitting a series of distressed screams of agony and incredulity. It was as though it were crying out against it’s very flesh, begging it to return to it’s normal state as it was cooking before their very eyes. It was a meltdown of epic proportions. The trio was now forced to shield their eyes and nose from a disconcerting amount of gasses produced by the sizzling effect of the chemical combustion taking place. The imp let out a final guttural protest as it surrendered it’s life to the communion wine. The whole thing didn’t take long for the acid like effect of the wine to consume the majority of the imp’s mass leaving behind a sticky, greasy mess. Not much remained; an amalgam of ooze and maybe some singed bone fragments.

  “Well, that was unexpected.” Came the understated remark from Rosicky as he was recovering from the choking assault. “Hmm, this stuff is pretty good.”

  His attention now turned to the contents of the antechamber. There were four or five jugs of the potentially tide turning ‘Jesus juice’.

  “This could be our ticket out of here.” He observed. “Only problem is: there may be too many of them to splash at. Maybe if we wait until their numbers dwindle down, a few well-placed wine grenades can cripple them and I can finish off what’s left.”

  “But that would mean that so many of them would’ve gotten through to Heaven.” Maddy pointed out, her voice quivering with grief.

  It was an unsatisfying supposition, he was forced to agree. Martin stroked his moustache pensively.

  “We need a delivery method. Something…”

  The trio fell silent with deep thought. It was an anxious, final jeopardy style interlude. Every increment of time passing, as Madison had keenly identified, meant more troops infiltrated into the heart of The Crystal City, bypassing the security measures and reveling in a free for all, Golden Corral style, ‘all you can eat buffet’ of mindless self-indulgence as it were.

  “Wait, I’ve got it!” Patrick sprung to life with a brilliant epiphany. “Hold on.”

  “Wait, don’t go!”

  Martin desperately tried to stop the boy from bursting out of the antechamber trap door and back into the church lobby but the young man was on a mission he was clearly devoted to. He disappeared into the grimy environment, leaving his comrades to wallow in the suspense. They hadn’t been particularly moved to blindly follow him into the unknown, especially with all those hostiles lurking about and Rosicky, although he was tempted to, didn’t see the upside of potentially sacrificing the unit behind the ill-advised whims of a teenage boy, no less.

  Although it may have felt like eons, Patrick didn’t keep them waiting long. He returned back to their cubby hole with arms full of…….arms. Only, more appropriate weaponry for children it seemed.

  “I forgot all about these.” He confessed.

  Pastor Coleman had a small stockpile he’d confiscated and stored there in his office closet, Patrick recalled, subsequently following a church pot luck in which it was deemed by Mrs. Simpson that the squirt guns too closely resembled the actual gun violence all too prevalent in the modern news cycle. The general consensus among the presiding adult supervision was in agreement of this assessment and Patrick had silently lamented this but never forgotten their location, where they had stayed for lack of impetus for the greater part of three months.

  Now the Super Soaker 250’s, virtually brand new, glistened and gleamed in all their splendor, seemed more like a master stroke if only Coleman were endowed with such clairvoyance but none the less, here they were and boy, did they look good!

  Patrick had made studious choices from the selection at hand. The 90’s relics had come fully equipped with camel back style reservoir drums allowing for considerable ammunition holds. Along with the modest, plastic bubbles contained upon the sizable assault rifle squirt guns, each unit might be able to hold roughly a gallon and a half! There were two squirt gun assault rifles Patrick had procured but not knowing their efficacy for anything other than the imp nemesis’ they prepared to face, Rosicky thought it best to outfit the kids with these. They would probably know how to operate them better anyway and he simply felt more comfortable with the stopping power of the trusty 9mm in his possession, though with no more than one or two clips at his disposal. A coordina
ted strike would be pivotal to their success.

  Morale had been given a dramatic boost. There was even a hint of a smile in their eyes as they took turns pouring the ceramic jugs of communion wine into their respective auxiliary drums of the Super Soaker 250’s and proceeding to strap them on and test the contraptions. With a fair amount of pumping the squirt guns, as is necessary to generate the pressure needed to propel the fluid magazines they were privy to, it was deemed their range to be not all that bad. It was a firm stream, Martin estimated to be able to consistently reach a distance of 10 yrds with a measurable degree of accuracy. Things were looking up for the battle tested, rag tag unit of volunteers.

  Rosicky readied his troops: “OK, so the main thing we have here is the element of surprise. Once we leave out from this closet, there’s no turning back. You guys, I want you to flank me on either side. Wait for my command to open fire, we may need to conserve ammo.”

  He tried not to view them as minors in this instance. They were his best bet and actually well qualified, all things considered. He whispered a tiny prayer to himself and closed his eyes for a solemn moment, asking God for strength for what he was about to do.

  Dr. Kovac paced back and forth methodically. He’d developed a syncopation to the rhythm of his steps, hands clasped behind him like a Carpathian count, to match the progression of the cuckoo clock and the ever unquenchable ‘drinking bird’.

  Tick – Step – Drop

  Tock – Step – Drip

  It was as an unwavering perpetual motion machine.

  “What is the location of the detective at this present time?” Came the transmission.

  “They’ve reached the target destination. Everything is going according to plan.” Dr. Kovac answered so calmly and in an uneventful tonality as he winced slightly, staring out, blankly, into the courtyard of the sanitarium facility.