He ran across the store, dodging between display racks—and purposely kicking over the Hello Kitty stand that had replaced the Pokemon one that had stood for years—and within seconds he was only feet away from the demon.
It turned and looked at him; hissed with a mangled tongue and blackened lips. The creature was from some fiery hell, but he was going straight back there. He brought the sword down in a diagonal arc. The sudden blur of steel seemed to miss the creature completely, and it continued coming, but then it stopped and seemed confused.
Takao stood still, unafraid.
A slight slithering sound, and then the left half of the demon came away from the right. Both slabs of grotesque flesh slapped on the ground.
The debu got down on his knees and laced his hands together like a Christian prayer. He was crying as he thanked Takao profusely.
Takao batted away the man’s hands. “You shame yourself, debu. Join the fight or die without honour.”
He left the debu on his knees and hurried outside into the shopping mall. The only people remaining were now left with no choice but to fight. The demons had them in their clutches. They kicked and punched, but none were warriors and none were armed. A young woman, with her black hair dyed a Western blonde was swinging an armful of shopping bags at two demons trying to take her down. Her fight was hopeless, but her spirit was bright. Takao ran to her aid.
With the sword trailing behind him like a silver tail, Takao dove over a sushi cart and then swung around a signpost. The demons had just disarmed the young woman of her bags when he appeared behind them. Again, the sacred weapon seemed to dance and shimmer in the air as he drew a dozen invisible shapes. He stepped back a second later and examined his work.
The demons sprayed blood like a pair of geysers as their bodies came apart at the seams. Blood spattered the young woman’s face, but it was still easy to see how beautiful she was. A princess if ever there was one.
Takao grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. “Stick with me and you will be safe.”
She nodded, almost swooned.
He kept her behind him as he did what no one else was willing to: he headed into battle.
Two dozen demons lay directly in his path, some busy with victims, some free and heading right for him. He cut them all apart with ease, the sword becoming more and more a part of his arm. In his mind, he tore down the enemy with the same skills he used in the arcades. His reactions, his skill of seeing an enemy’s moves before he did… It was no different.
A demon leapt at Takao. He ducked and lifted his sword over his head. The demon came back down to earth in two pieces.
The fallen Gundam suit was just up ahead, still lying against the escalators; it made a perfect runway. Takao leapt up onto its giant feet and sprinted up its legs. When he reached the torso, he dove sideways and came down right in front of the gate. Before he landed, he drove his sword directly down into the skull of a demon. It lodged so deeply, he could barely get it back, and was forced to stand on the corpse while he yanked at the hilt.
All around him, demons closed in, but he lopped off their arms and heads before any could get close enough to even breathe on him. Before long he was a king, surrounded by the bodies of his fallen enemies. His princess cowered behind the Gundam statue, but she knew she was safe. Her hero would protect her.
A child’s stuffed toy lay beneath his boot, covered in blood and lacking its owner. It was Cloud Strife, a fluffy Buster sword sewn to the back of his purple suit. Covered in blood, Takao felt the Final Fantasy hero was a kindred spirit. They had both faced hell and survived.
Angry and ready for more, Takao stood before the gate and waited for new foes to come forth. The translucent centre of the gate shimmered and plopped, like an icy ball launched forth from Ryu’s fingertips. Hadoken.
Something else was emerging from the gate.
Takao wiped the blood from his hands onto his shirt. He gripped the sword tightly in front of him, determined never to be parted with it. He was Ronin, a lone Samurai concerned only with protecting the innocent.
What came through the gate was no lowly demon like the ones that lay dismembered at his feet. What came through the gate was a giant, taller even than the fallen Gundam statue. It looked down at Takao with utter hatred and murder in its unholy eyes.
But Takao did not run. “Fighting you will bring out my true strength,” he whispered. Then he narrowed his eyes and ran towards his enemy.
Monty
Mumbai
Being late for work was a paradox in Mumbai—it was at once entirely understandable, yet completely unforgivable. With so many Western firms looking for cheap, unskilled labour, and so many Indians looking for employment, you could be replaced in an afternoon. Yet, trying to get anywhere on the capital’s streets was a nightmare. If it were not the battling traffic—carts, bikes, cars, and rickshaws—it was the cows. One cow could claim an entire road as its own if it wanted. A hundred vehicles would have no choice but to wait while a unconcerned bovine strolled across the main thoroughfare. That was what was happening right now.
Monty didn’t own a car, but even on his bicycle it was slow going. He dodged into gaps wherever possible, but there were a dozen more cyclists doing the same. The drivers of cars hated the cyclists and did whatever they could to nudge out and block them. Mumbai was a city under stress. It wanted so much to be important, but was not yet ready to join the New Yorks and Londons of the world. It needed to learn to cope with being busy.
It didn’t help that one of the strange gates had risen on the edge of town. The Indian government had declared it a holy sight after the Sikh population had claimed it would soon spawn the warriors of their past to help fix the ills of the present. It was currently an encampment of tents, pilgrim buses, and food carts—a festival in earnest.
Monty was Hindu, so the last thing he believed was that a bunch of old, dead Sikhs were about to visit, but he did think that the gate was from the other world. What Gods would come through it, he did not know. Maybe Shiva, to destroy the world. Looking at the teeming streets and garbage-stuffed gutters, Monty wasn’t so sure that would be a bad idea.
He hated his job selling mobile phone insurance to rich westerners. They were always so rude to him. He was just doing a job, so why did they call him paki and other racist words—just because of his accent? The fact that Pakistan was another country entirely seemed not to bother these people. Of course, some of them were very friendly and would discuss the cricket with him, or tell him what it was like in their town, but most people were angry that he had called them. It was a hard job to do, but even so, he needed the money. That was why it would not do to be late. Without his job at the call centre, he would join the masses of unemployed, and that was no life to live. Many of his friends had joined gangs, and now murdered and robbed people for whatever meagre possessions they had. As much as he hated his job, he would hate having to do that even more.
“Come on!” he shouted at the skinny, brown cow fifteen yards ahead. He was met by frowns from the open car windows on either side of him. He respected cows as much as any Hindu, but sometimes you just have to get a move on.
He edged his bicycle into a gap behind a bus, and then placed his foot up on the curb. The scent of a nearby snack bar made his mouth water. They were mixing up soup and ladling it out with bread to the morning commuters sitting outside. Monty was so certain that his job would be lost by the time he ever got to his building that he almost considered tossing his bike into the gutter and having some of the delicious-smelling broth; but Saira would never forgive him. With the baby on the way, he could not give in to impulse. He would have to take his telling off from his British born boss and beg to keep his job.
There was a lot of angry honking up ahead, but Monty could not see through the fumes enough to peer down the road. So he leant over the curb and caught the attention of a man in a suit. “Hey, my friend. What is happening down the road?”
The man shrugged. He was holding a cu
p of piping coffee and looked like he was ready to take a sip. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
Monty frowned. “Oh, fuck you too, my friend.”
He caught the attention of somebody else, a boy wearing an Indian Cricket Team shirt. “Hello, son, do you know what all the honking is about?”
The boy shrugged as well, but at least he was polite. “I don’t know, sir. I believe it might have something to do with the gate.”
“But the gate is outside the city.”
He nodded. “Yes sir, but something has happened. It opened up and something came through.”
Monty shuddered. “”How do you know that?”
The boy held up his mobile phone. “I get news updates. It said there’s a major incident happening at the Sikh camp right now.”
Monty looked ahead and saw that several cars and bikes were breaking off and trying to turn around. Their radios had obviously informed them of the events up ahead.
The first thing Monty thought was that this might just provide the perfect excuse for his lateness. The second was that he was heading right in the direction of whatever major incident was happening at the edge of the city.
Should he turn back?
What was he heading into?
Before he had chance to decide, there was an explosion in the distance. At almost the exact same time, several helicopters swooped overhead. They looked like they belonged to the Indian Air Force. They were jungle green, and had guns hanging off stubby pairs of wings.
The traffic up ahead snarled up. Cars barged into one another as they tried to turn into side streets or reverse. The bus in front of Monty began to back up.
“Hey, hey, I am here!”
Monty leapt onto the sidewalk, and just managed to drag his bicycle out of the way of the bus’s large back tyres in time to save it from being crushed. The bus rammed into a battered Mercedes and the driver got out to shout about it.
There was a side street a little further ahead, so Monty hopped back up on his bike and pedalled for it. It was perilous riding on the path, but no more so than being amongst the grinding traffic that was continuing to turn on itself. At one point he almost collided with a stack of orange crates outside a grocers, but he skidded his back tyre and managed to miss it.
When he saw the cow up ahead, he shook his head and laughed. The entire road was full of panicking people, but the cow still strolled along as if nothing was happening. Even when the gunfire started.
It wasn’t just the distant machine guns of the helicopters that Monty heard; it was the antique war pistols that often passed hands in the local bars that made noise too. They sounded like fireworks every time one was fired.
Monty took the side street, and was dismayed to find it as chaotic as the main road he was leaving. A police car was parked up on the curb, with a pair of police officers trying to maintain order. Their white-gloved hands were raised in the air, but nobody was listening.
Monty pulled his bike up next to them. “What is going on?”
One of the officers, a Sikh in a turban, gave an answer. “We’re under attack. The Sikh encampment has been attacked by something. The army are moving in. People are being told to evacuate, but there’s no way to get them all out of the city.”
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” Monty agreed. “What are you doing here?”
“Very little. We’re to help redirect traffic to the north of the city, but there’s just no way. You should get out of here, sir. There’s going to be a lot of damage.”
Monty nodded. “Good luck.”
The officer had already turned away to join his partner, who was arguing with the driver of a van. The old man was leaning out of his window and pointing his finger. The officer had lost his cool and was batting the finger out of his face.
Monty got back on his pedals and continued down the sidewalk. He was heading towards the outskirts of the city now, and after a few hundred metres the pavement deteriorated into stony dirt. He changed gear and ignored the mild burning in his calves. The gunfire continued in the distance, and the only traffic he saw was heading away. Something bad was happening, and he had to get away too. He needed to get home to Saira. She and the baby could not be left in danger.
He intended to get on the next street heading north, as currently he was heading east, towards the Sikh encampment. The feeling that something was going to jump out at him at any moment made his tummy froth. But nothing did jump out.
The eateries and snack bars disappeared as he passed into an industrial section of the city. There were employees milling outside the various units, too nervous of losing their jobs to leave, but also too unnerved to concentrate on their tasks. The explosion had halted the city, but the gunfire was what truly frightened everyone. Mumbai might not be pretty, but it was peaceful compared to other cities in this part of the world. He wondered if the ISA had attacked, sick of India’s constant fraternisation with the West and opposition to Pakistan. The thought made him feel sick. He did not want his son or daughter growing up in a climate of fear.
He kept on peddling, trying to find a street to take him north. He finally found one a hundred metres ahead, just past a lumberyard. His feet bore down on the pedals and he picked up speed.
The blow to his face came from nowhere and tossed him straight off his bike. He hit the dirt hard and clutched at his face. His vision swam with stars and he felt blood coming from his nose. He moaned, rolled back and forth, then yelped as unkind hands dragged him to his feet.
“What happened? I can’t see. My nose is broken.”
“And so will be your knees if you don’t hand over everything you have.”
Monty pulled his hands away from his face and saw the blurry images of several men. He was surrounded. “W-who are you?”
“You want to die, man? You give us what you got. This isn’t your part of town, and you made a big mistake coming here.”
Monty looked down at his shirt and trousers, and then up at the topless men that stood before him. He moaned. “You’re Dawar boys?”
“I won’t tell you again, man. Give us your wallet and your watch.”
Monty reached for his watch. The Dawar boys were a local gang, responsible for much of the low-level drug dealing in the area. They hung around the factories, selling to the underclasses. He had never encountered them face-to-face before. He handed over his watch, not even caring about it. “There’s been an attack,” he said. “I’m just trying to get out of the city.”
“Good idea, man. You can leave, just not with your wallet.”
“You are seriously robbing me?”
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like we all need to flee the city and instead you are wasting time trying to take what little I have.”
The lead thug pulled a knife out of his waistband and thrust it under Monty’s chin. “One more word, fucker. Your wallet or you die.”
Monty sighed. He was not carrying much more than two thousand rupees, so he wasn’t going to risk his life for it. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet.
He was just about to hand it over when something leapt out from a gap between a textiles warehouse and a storage unit.
“What the fuck is that?” one of the thugs shouted.
Monty’s jaw fell open. His hand froze in mid air, still clutching his wallet, but nobody was interested in his money any more. There was a monster coming towards them.
The creature was hunched over like an ape, but had long talons like an eagle. There was no doubting its ferocity, as it sliced open a textile worker as she tried to get out of its way.
“It came out the gate,” Monty shouted. “I told you the city was under attack. We need to flee.”
The leader of the gang looked at him. “Yeah, you warned us. We need to get out of here”
Monty nodded. “Yes.”
“Buy us a head start, will you?”
Monty was confused, but before he asked a question, he felt a sharp agony in his stomach
. He looked down and saw that the thug had buried his knife up to the handle in his guts.
The thugs took off while Monty fell into the road, clutching his stomach and trying to take a breath through the burning agony in his torso. The blood covered his hands in seconds, and his legs shook as if they were hollow.
The creature saw Monty lying on the ground and seemed to smile. He crouched down and came towards him slowly, as if it were enjoying the sight of his fear and suffering.
“P-please?” said Monty, but he knew it would do no good. He hoped this monster would never meet Saira and their unborn child, but he knew it was going to have him for sure. If there were any justice it would catch up to those thugs who stabbed him as well. They deserved the worst kind of hell for what they had done.
As Monty bled on the ground, he noticed something at the end of the road. It was the skinny, brown cow, strolling along without a care in the world.
Monty laughed.
Nancy Granger
Durham, Maine
“Clark, I’m going out of my mind. I can’t leave here. What if they call? We need to stay by the phone.”
“Nancy, we have to get out of here. They’re evacuating the entire area. Brunswick is gone. We’re going to be next.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Nancy, there is an army of monsters coming this way. I understand you want to wait and speak to Kyle and Alice, but you won’t be able to if you’re dead. We have to head for the evacuation centres. They say the south coast is safer.”
Nancy put her face in her hands and tried not to cry. Everything that Clark was saying was true, but she felt wrong in leaving. Guy had told her to stay put, but that was when he had thought it was safe. With Brunswick in flames, Durham would be next. Most of the neighbours had already packed up their things and left. The Goldmans next door had piled half their belongings onto the roof rack of their Escalade before speeding off down the street.
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 30