“Don’t call me sweetheart, shithead.”
The demons surged across towards them, wailing with blood lust. Richard closed his eyes and buried his face against Carol's. Her breathing was rapid and hot in his ear. They had seconds left.
Less than that.
The demons roared.
Dillon still screamed from somewhere.
And then the demons hit an invisible wall.
Corporal Martin and his soldiers let loose with all they had. The demons danced and reeled, like fish on the line. Heads exploded. Limbs tore away from torsos. “Take that, you monkey shits.”
The demons fell rapidly into a pile. Somewhere beneath them lay David. When Richard saw an argyle sock without a shoe poking out from the bodies, he knew the old chap was gone for good.
Carol shrugged out of Richard’s gasp and spat at the dead demons. “Rot in Hell, you fucks.” Then she turned sombre as she saw the same shoeless sock that Richard had. She put on a taut smile. “David, you saved my silly old behind. I always knew I'd be glad I hired you one day. You took your sweet time.”
Then she turned her head and sobbed into her shirt cuff. Everyone else remained quiet, reflecting on the moment and trying to come back down to earth. The smell of gun smoke made all of them cover their mouths.
The battle had come out of nowhere.
They had won. But they had lost.
When would it end?
The dead demons cartwheeled up as if a grenade had exploded beneath them, corpses flying in a dozen directions. David rose up in what had been the centre of the pile. He looked only at Carol.
“Don’t miss me,” he said in a rasping voice. “Join me!”
Carol stumbled back in fright, but was not quick enough to avoid her old colleague's grip as he reached out and grabbed her around the throat. One-handed, and with sickening ease, he crushed her neck to pulp before she even had time to scream. The old editor's lifeless body slumped to the floor. The back of her skull cracked open on the pavement.
Richard's eyes bulged. He clenched his fists. “Nooooo!”
“It’s not him anymore,” Corporal Martin barked. “Take him out!”
David cackled, arms out to the side like he was being crucified. To complete the picture, he let his chin drop against his chest and closed his eyes.
Corporal Martin and his soldiers unleashed Hell.
In the shape of the cross, David’s corpse danced and jiggled. Blood spurted from a dozen places, but he would not break from that sacred pose. His already-ruined face chipped away piece-by-piece, first his jawbone, disintegrating into mush, then both eyes. Another two-dozen bullets in his torso eventually turned him to mincemeat and dropped him, but he still maintained that position, even as his insides drooled out on the pavement.
Jaw locked, Richard stomped over to his friend's corpse and kicked one of his bleeding arms against his side, breaking that mockery of Jesus on the cross. After a few seconds, he was able to unclench his fists. “How? Who raised him from the dead? I thought…”
More screams.
Dillon and Alice—thought safe behind the line of soldiers—they were not safe.
Skullface yanked the children away from safety and scooped them up. At seven-feet tall, the creature didn’t even struggle as he tucked them under each arm.
Richard shoved the soldiers out of his way and sprinted across the forecourt. Skullface raced away, the children screaming. Richard gave chase, gaining even, but a pair of primate demons leapt into his path. They’d been hiding behind a billboard. He fought to get past, but took a sharp swipe across the thigh, which dropped him to his knee. Corporal Martin appeared and took them both out with the last of the rounds in his magazine, but it was already too late. He offered a hand to Richard, but he refused it, remaining on his knees, watching his son disappear. “Skullface! He has Dillon and Alice. We…”
More demons raced towards the car dealership. Skullface disappeared behind their lines. Impossible to pursue.
More demons came. They came from everywhere.
“Take cover,” Corporal Martin shouted to his men. “Pick your shots, and we might live through this.”
Gunfire, screams, and car alarms filled the air.
Guy Granger
Guy broke from the woods, ran across a cluttered road, and found a gap in a wooden palisade wrapped around a three-story building. Not knowing what lay inside, he threw himself through the opening and waited for the others. A stream of bodies squeezed in after him. Rick came through last. He was sluggish and bent over. Guy pulled him over to one side, so he could shove a spare wooden panel across the gap and complete the barricade.
He turned to Rick and assessed him. Not good. “You okay?”
Rick was panting, doubled over, but he waved a hand. “Yeah, sorry. I’m not as fast as I used to be. Must be getting old.”
Yeah, thought Guy, or dying of some weird demonic virus. His biggest concern was not Rick’s health though. “Did any of them see you?”
Rick shook his head, hands on his back as he creaked upright.
“You’re sure?”
“If the demons had seen me, I would know. Don’t ask me how.”
Guy allowed himself to relax. “Okay, good. We’ll lie low here, stay quiet, and set off as soon as the coast is clear.”
“The coast isn’t going to be clear,” said Keith. “It sounded like an entire battalion is coming this way. The shits are everywhere.”
“We’re safe,” said Rick calmly. “Guy is right. We just need to lie low. What is this place anyway?”
They were outside a small, provincial cinema. Its roof timbers lay exposed, and scaffolding scaled the front of the building. The wooden palisade was in place to keep the public away from the building work, and for now, it would keep them hidden. “If we can get inside, we can stay warm and sheltered from the rain.”
Rick nodded. “We'll keep a watch from the top of the scaffolding. There’s a bunch of tarps up there, so staying out of sight shouldn’t be too hard.”
Keith folded his arms as he looked the building up and down. “Wouldn’t be so bad if there was power. We could watch a movie. Doubt there’ll be much to do but twiddle our thumbs. Did anybody bring cards?”
“Staying alive is enough to occupy us for now,” said Rick. “Try not being negative for a change, Keith.”
“We’ll have plenty to do,” added Guy. “If we spend any amount of time here, we will need to make the place defensible. I intend on leaving the first chance I get, but I won’t reach my daughter if I’m dead, so let's be safe. There’s a pile of spare scaffolding poles over there, and more wooden panels. We can build an inner wall and set up a kill zone in the space between. Any demon creeps over the first palisade will find themselves trapped against the inner walls. There’s not enough wood to make an entirely new perimeter, but we can place a new wall between the palisade and the cinema's front entrance.”
Rick sat down on a pile of breeze blocks, still trying to catch his breath. “All sounds good to me, Captain.”
“I am not Captain anymore, so call me Guy.” He walked away, but Skip broke from the crowd and joined him.
“We will find Alice, Guy. I can feel it.”
“I know, Skip, but what then? My son is gone. Alice’s mother is probably gone too. I'm all she has left. How do I go back to being a father after all this? What the Hell do I say to her?”
Skip scratched at his beard. “Words don’t in any way matter. What matters is you’ve travelled halfway around the globe to get to her. She won’t be expecting anything from you, Guy. Just being with her after all this is enough. A girl needs her daddy."
“Really? I wasn't there for her in the past. I spent most of her childhood away on a boat. Kyle is gone, and I’ll never get to make that time up with him. Alice is still alive, but what does she have to live for? All the things I planned on doing…” He sighed. “There’s no more Disneyland, no more school plays or sports days. I missed it all, Skip, and there won’
t ever be a chance to catch up.”
Skip paused for a moment, like he didn’t know what to say, but then the words spilled from him. “The world is what we make it, Captain. Maybe you weren’t there in the past, but the past is over. Memories are just nature’s way of taunting us. Even if the future is difficult, we all find moments to be human. History is full of war and bloodshed, but even in our darkest times we have created art, music, culture. You can’t suppress the human race, and life being difficult is not the same as life being worthless. Find your daughter and keep her alive, and she will flourish, even in darkness. Maybe more so.”
“Damn it, for a grizzled old seadog, you speak a lot of sense. You're right. I can’t change the past, or even the present, but I will make the future my own. How would you feel about being an honorary uncle, Skip?”
He patted Guy on the shoulder. “I’d say poor Alice has things bad enough.”
The two men re-joined the others, smiles on their faces. Rick and Keith were working with the soldiers and sailors to hastily erect scaffolding poles against the palisade to reinforce it. They already had an L-shape in place and were propping up a panel of wood against it. Guy knew his sailors weren’t the best field engineers, but Wickstaff’s infantry seemed rather handy at the task. Rick, himself, was digging a hole for the next length of scaffolding to sink down into. Sweat beaded from his forehead and each movement seemed to make him shudder, but he was still on his feet. The man did not quit.
Guy reached out and took the shovel from Rick's hands. “You look like you need to rest.”
“I’m fine. I should help.”
“You’re too important to get injured. Just take a rest. What happened to you anyway? What made you... like this?”
Rick gave up the facade and handed over the shovel. He leaned back against a cement mixer with obvious relief. “I got infected by an angel is the best way I can put it. I died, but a fallen angel called Daniel brought me back. I came back wrong.”
“Brought you back? Why? The angels want us dead.”
“Not all of them.” Rick motioned to the floor, signalling that he would sit down, and he did. Guy nodded and crouched to stay on his level. “I don’t know for sure, but I think there’s some kind of war going on behind the scenes. Whoever runs things in Hell has led some sort of uprising that has brought all the demons here. Not all the beings in Hell are onboard though.”
Guy sighed. “Seems like enough are.”
Rick folded his arms against his tummy as if in pain. “I suppose the notion of escaping Hell is too good to refuse. Anyway, there’s a minority sympathetic to us worthless humans, it seems. Daniel was one of them. He brought me back from the dead, but to do so he had to transfer some of himself to me. He died helping me, but his time was limited, anyway. The human body he possessed was too weak to contain him. It was breaking down. That’s what’s happening to my body now. Whatever power I have inside me is too much. I’m dying.”
“How long do you have?”
“I don’t know. As much as Daniel’s power is killing me, it’s also keeping me alive. It’s getting stronger as I’m getting weaker.”
“Stronger how?”
“The last few days, I’ve been able to sense the demons like a radar. I almost know what they're thinking. That’s how I know we're safe right now. You already know I can close gates from a distance, but I can also wipe out a group of demons if they get close enough, although it wipes me out, big time.”
“Does using your powers make you worse?”
Rick swallowed and stared off into space. “I… don’t know. I think I’m dying either way. All I can do is try to do as much good as I can before that happens.”
Guy’s calves ached from squatting, so he copied Rick and sat right in the dirt. “That’s a large burden, Rick. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was dead, and now I have some extra time. Most people don’t get that. Just get me to that gate, Captain.”
Guy thought about Alice, but he knew this mission of Rick’s was equally important. “I’ll get you there, Rick. I promise.”
Keith stormed over to them then, kicking up dust in his wake. “Hey, you two! Sorry to break up your chitchat, but you think you could lend the rest of us a hand?”
“Coming right over,” said Guy. He raised an eyebrow at Rick. “Is your brother always so...”
Rick nodded. “Yeah, always!”
Richard Honeywell
The last demon bled out at dawn. Now, morning sunlight illuminated a grisly tapestry across the forecourt. The rain had finally taken a break. Bleeding, grey corpses—both human and demon—littered the pavement. Corporal Martin's soldiers had held their own, but the demons had been too many. Each time a man had stopped to reload, a foul creature had pounced and tore off their screaming faces. By the time Corporal Martin expelled his final round into a demon’s neck, twelve dead men joined the four-dozen demon corpses. Tired and injured, the survivors had collapsed where they'd stood, and remained there overnight.
Richard, too, was exhausted; for he had fought the demons with everything he had as well. With just a blade, he had gutted two demons, before snatching the rifle from a soldier dead to a throat slash. Then he had taken out three more.
The fighting had taken less than an hour, but it had taken a week's worth of strength from everyone involved. Now, beneath the warm sun, Richard looked off into the distance, wondering where the Hell his son was. Skullface had taken Dillon, but why? Was the suffering already wrought on Richard’s family not enough?
What did Skullface want with children? Why not just kill them?
The possible answers were too painful.
Whatever the reason, taking Dillon was the biggest mistake of Skullface's existence. Richard would find him and rip the grotesque abomination apart. But first, he had to put his affairs in order. He went to where Carol had fallen and stayed throughout the cold night, the rain hammering at her lifeless body. Her expression now was peaceful, and her sodden hair made it look like she just got out of the shower. Richard lifted her easily, so much of her blood having leaked out and formed a crust on the floor. “You had a good inning, love, but we’ll take it from here.”
When Corporal Martin saw Richard carrying Carol across the forecourt, he frowned. “Where are you taking her?”
“Some place she’d like to be.”
Corporal Martin seemed to understand and showed Richard so by giving a respectful nod before turning and walking away. Richard continued into the showroom, ignoring the beastly Mustang. The GT’s driver door still hung ajar, which made placing Carol inside easy. Richard positioned her upright and held her in place with the bright-red seatbelt. Death had stiffened the old girl's limbs, but he could still position both her hands on the soft leather steering wheel before closing the door. “Drive safe, Carol.”
Back outside, the remaining men and woman gathered. There were less than twenty of them now. “We’re out of ammo,” said Corporal Martin. “We’re fucked. Totally fucked!”
Richard shoved the soldier, shocking him. “We’re alive, you fool. Maybe we’ll be dead tomorrow, but right now we're alive. Let's use that time to make as many of those bastards pay as we can. We lost a dozen good men and women last night, but not before we took fifty of the enemy. Next time, we'll take a hundred.”
“What’s the point, Richard? They outnumber us by thousands. We have no chance. Fighting them is suicide.”
“You said we’re fucked. It’s not suicide if we’re already dead. I’m going to find that bastard who took my son and destroy him. I will do it for Carol and David, and everybody else. That thing killed my wife, and it still isn’t satisfied.”
Corporal Martin swallowed, and he even looked worried. “Calm down, Richard. We have no ammunition, or any idea where that thing took Dillon and Alice. Let’s just bide our time a little and regroup.”
Richard shook his head. “You really think I can do that? My son is out there. I get that you want to stay and lick your wounds,
but I’m going.” He raised his voice as he moved out into the open. “Do you all hear me? I am sick and tired of hiding, waiting to be attacked. How long did we cower at the newspaper office? What good did it do? If we act like frightened cattle, then it's just a matter of time until we're slaughtered. But I won’t go out afraid and hiding. I will go seek the bastards out and make them pay. I am a father whose son was taken by a monster. What can I do, but try to find him? The question is, what will you people do with your last days? Are you going to lie down and die while the monsters who took your families—your children—inherit everything we built together? Or are you going to take as many of those bastards down with you as you can?”
One soldier present cheered, and his reaction pushed the group to do the same. Heads nodded and muttered curses flew. Somehow, despite all the misery and loss, people were no longer afraid of the demons.
They were angry. Enough was enough.
Corporal Martin chuckled. Richard frowned. “What’s funny?”
“I was wondering when you’d step up and lead people.”
“You’re in charge, Corporal. I just want revenge.”
“A corporal is not a commander. We take orders from Sergeants. I believe that was your rank in the police force?”
“I don’t want command. There’s nothing to command.”
Corporal Martin shook his head and kept that annoying grin on his face. “Then you shouldn’t give rousing speeches. That’s the thing about strays—you offer your hand once and they follow you forever. These people belong to you now. Good luck, Richard. I’ll be right beside you.”
Richard studied the group of survivors, horrified to see their attention had somehow shifted from the corporal to him. Fine, if they wanted him to tell them what to do, no problem. They would all be dead before the day was through.
Not before I find Dillon though.
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 73