Fight

by Doug Burbey

  "No. Fuck, I've told you. It wasn't nuclear, and I don't know what the hell it was. Isn't your job to listen to me and remember that sort of shit?" Declan snapped back.

  I'm so tired of this crap. Why won't they just let me go? I need to go. I need to decide on my own how I get to end all this. Without this nonsense.

  Ignoring the routine outburst from Declan the navy psychiatrist continued. "Well Declan, we've told you already that the destruction to the city, the civilian population, the demon hordes, and the human combatants was nearly absolute. The casualties are estimated at 97%. A miles-long crater is all that remains of the battlefield and Ypsilanti. Well that, and you, Lieutenant Colonel Declan Kenner. You and just a handful more people survived. That must be very hard on you. What do you feel about that?"

  Declan stood up violently and leaned toward the naval officer who quickly shrank back from him. "Feel? Fuck that! It's what I know! We finally beat the damn demons decisively. We kicked their ass, somehow, for once! The question you should be asking, everyone should be asking, is how much longer can we do this? The entire damn world's combat effective forces are now all but non-existent!"

  "Please sit, Declan." The psychiatrist motioned back to the chair behind Declan as he composed himself then continued. "I have been directed by my superiors to tell you a few things and then ask you a single question. Personally, and professionally, I think you should not be told anything else of what has transpired since you've been sent to our care here. I think you're dangerously unstable, as well as suicidal, and should remain secured in a mental health facility until such time as you are fit to stand trial."

  "Go fuck yourself." Declan couldn't think of anything else to say, but he did sit back down in his chair.

  After making a note on his table the psychiatrist closed it and looked directly at Declan. "Lieutenant Colonel Declan Kenner, as of today the worldwide death toll has topped 250 million. If anyone lives in an area hit by a new demon horde then they are just assumed dead. Predictions point to the next portal opening around mid-February, in the Bío Bío Region of Chile. Every nation on Earth with remaining combat forces have started moving them to Chile. From the previous major attack cycles, it is estimated that we have just weeks to get everyone in place there. Right now governments are cooperating to move the civilian populations out and moving troops in. When the portal opens, we'll be ready. The governments are determined to stop the demons in their tracks. Every nation's remaining fighters will deploy to..."

  Declan tilted his head slightly and interrupted the psychiatrist. "Everyone will stand together with everything we have one Earth, one last time? Our final battle then?"

  "Yes, Lieutenant Colonel, that's pretty much the plan as we are told. On the news they are calling it the final stand of humanity. I think it's more symbolic than anything else."

  Declan closed his eyes and sank back into his chair "So what is your question then?"

  "Simply this Lieutenant Colonel Declan Kenner, do you want to go?" The psychiatrist paused and waited as Declan remained quiet. After about thirty seconds without any response from Declan, he continued "Well, I know it's pathetic, but we've been ordered to give all the survivors the option of volunteering to die. Did you have any questions about what you've been asked?"

  "Yeah, where's all my shit and how do I get there?"

  Chapter 17

  February 27, 2016, Bío Bío Region Chile

  Declan stood at the edge of the jungle tree line and raised his binoculars to survey the man-made environmentalist's nightmare in front of him.

  "Damn…."

  For the two days prior to the international task force's arrival in Bío Bío, every bomber a nation could get in the air had been tasked with dropping "daisy cutter" bombs on the jungle. The air forces had worked day and night to do their part before they had to leave. Once the portal opened, and the three-mile interference bubble appeared, the only useful thing an aircraft could do then would be to fall out of the sky onto the horde. The bombs they dropped were designed during America's Vietnam War to clear dense jungle areas and create helicopter landing zones. Since the scientists could only give a guess within three miles of where the portal would open, the bombers cleared six miles of kill zone. The devastated area was now circled by as much heavy weaponry that could be pushed, pulled and dropped into the jungle. It was not much.

  "We just don't have enough left," Declan said to himself more than anyone.

  Sergeant Farzad Jahangir leaned against a nearby tree chain smoking.

  "Enough of what, DK? Is big open field. Looks big enough to me. We'll kill plenty of demons today."

  Declan smiled at the Iranian army sergeant. The sergeant was from the last platoon Iran had left to contribute to the fight. Instead of staying together as a group they had said 'Allah wants them to fight with all brothers, not just with the Muslims so that they can inspire the infidel to victory in a battle against the demons.' The Iranians all thought this was a horribly funny joke. Declan didn't get it. But he liked the sergeant anyway.

  Nothing like the end of all mankind to make waring nations drop all their bullshit petty nonsense. Too bad everybody dies today.

  "Naw, the killing field is big enough. What I meant Farzad, was that we just don't have enough firepower here to stop a full-sized horde. We can't mass our forces and hit it head on because we don't know exactly where the portal will open at, or the direction the horde will go in. We have maybe two divisions of soldiers ringing the jungle here, but we are one line deep. When the horde pushes fast, and they will, they will hit a point on the line crushing it and we will die in the jungle. They will just mop us up with their lower ring demons before the harvesters even get out of the portals. After that, well… our cities will fall one by one."

  "You, Declan Kenner, will see how a real Persian fights. You will be inspired." Farzad chuckled weakly at the joke again. "But, yes, I too know this. We don't have enough. But I will inspire you to the very end, my friend."

  A bottle of beer was pushed into Declan's hands by Captain Joshua Ocampo of the Filipino Rangers as he joined the conversation. "We are here because we must show Hell, and God, that humans fought to the very end. If nothing else, maybe the demons will remember us in their history books or something." Ocampo was a vicious jungle fighter that had spent nearly as much time-fighting demons in South East Asia as Declan had in America. He was quick to smile, but Declan could see him struggling with self-control sometimes. All of them seemed to have that same internal fight going on. Rage bubbled deep in each of them, but they tamped it down now, waiting to unleash it on the demons.

  Declan guzzled the lukewarm beer with a grimace. Then reached into his rucksack and pulled out a bottle. 'Drink it up' seemed to be the attitude of every solder from the dozens of nations assembled today.

  Drink and fight like there's no tomorrow. Because there won't be.

  He took a sip of the eighteen-year-old Glenlivet then handed it over to Ocampo.

  "Drink this instead, Josh."

  The Filipino captain sniffed the bottle then took a slow sip. "Salamat! That's good DK. Too good to waste."

  He handed the bottle back to Declan.

  "Too good to not drink now. No need to hold anything back anymore." He replied.

  "So, Farzad." Captain Ocampo tossed a bottle of water to the Iranian. "Did you fight with any of the guys you came with? I heard you got tied up in Jerusalem when it fell. Any other friends of yours here, fight with you there?"

  "A few, but not many." Farzad closed his eyes. "My friend, I fought with there, is not here today with us."

  "Ah, yes." Ocampo raised his beer bottle. "Well then as the American soldiers say, 'To absent friends'."

  Ocampo and Declan both took a pull from their bottles as Farzad sipped his water then began to speak slowly. "I thought of Lieutenant Uri Levy as a boy when I first saw him. He was small. He wore glasses, talked about history and video games. He was Israeli Defense Forces and my enemy, but when hell opens… W
ell, we fought together. My parents would never have approved of this, but we all must fight the demons. He was… a kind and honorable man. Not a boy at all. I will die here with honor today, instead of him, because Uri refused to let the demons have me when I had fallen. No… not a boy. He fought fiercely as the most noble soldier of God. I hope that today, when all is finally done, that Allah will allow me to… see my friend once more."

  Declan reached over and touched the sergeant's shoulder. "Soon Farzad. You will see your friend again. And maybe I'll see mine." A memory of Shane whispered through his mind and he pushed it away.

  The alarm klaxon sounded loudly across the jungle.

  Declan's stomach turned to acid as he immediately dropped into the fighting position that he, Farzad and Joshua had prepared at the edge of the jungle.

  They had dug it wide and deep.

  Deep enough to be a fitting grave for all of us today.

  Declan glanced up and down the line watching the teams to their left and right saying their final goodbyes as everyone settled into their positions behind their heavy machine guns and anti-tank weapons.

  Joshua tried to say something, but Farzad was praying and Declan ignored everything around him as he racked the charging handles of his duel mounted M2 heavy barreled machine guns back twice.

  I fucked up the last important chance to say goodbye I was given. Now, it's time to just kill and die. I hope it's a good death. Please, just give me a good death even though it's more than I'm owed.

  The clearing was quiet as the last fighters for humanity readied to meet their deaths while making the demons pay as much as they could before the Earth was lost on its final day.

  Chapter 18

  Waiting for the end, February 27, 2016

  Declan could feel the pounding of his blood and the sweat rolling across his face as he gripped the handles of his machine guns. He shifted his aim slightly to adjust to the actual point where the portal had just begun to slowly take shape. Everyone circling the sunken clearing had been given fields of fire designed to maximize the killing potential of their respective weapons systems that they were operating. The demon horde would be shredded as it emerged.

  But not for long. As soon as we start having weapons failures, people start having to pause to reload, or we run out of ammunition the horde will reinforce itself, focus in one direction and move as a sprinting singular mass of death.

  Declan lightly stroked the leaf spring triggers of his machine gun.

  I give us four minutes before the horde makes it to the jungle tree line and we are finished with this shit for good. Finally. I'm just so damn tired…

  Declan's thought was interrupted as the portal grew then oddly stopped growing when it was only five meters in diameter.

  That's way too small for a horde emergence point. What is this?

  Everyone that Declan could see around him readied to fire on the command klaxon signal, but nothing emerged. For three minutes, Declan wasn't even sure if he was breathing or not. He watched the too small portal and ran his thumbs over his weapons triggers. It was like being frozen in time with only the feeling of sweat dripping off your face to remind you that you were even alive.

  Declan spotted a form emerging from the portal. It was a single demon, a massive 13-foot-tall bipedal horde leader with hardened overlapping scales and spikes engraved in glowing demonic runes. The klaxon command to fire had not sounded yet as Declan assumed the decision was made not to use a few thousand rounds on a single demon.

  Raising his binoculars to get a better look, Declan saw the demon walk forward from the portal, but just a few steps. It turned its insectoid mutated head and seemed to be taking a count of the humans arrayed around him in the jungle.

  Joshua broke the silence. "What is it doing DK? I've never seen a demon just stand there. And this portal, it is not big like a horde portal. Something is not right."

  Declan continued watching the strange actions of the singular horde leader through his binoculars. "Oh, no shit Josh. Something is definitely wrong here. I think…"

  He paused as he watched the demon leader hold up its glowing sword with two claws, snapped it violently in half, and dropped it onto the ground. Then the demon turned around and walked back into the portal leaving the now broken sword behind in the dirt of the human realm.

  "What in the name of the most holy Allah was that?" Farzad asked to no one in particular.

  Declan had no answer he just stared at the portal that hung in the middle of the clearing. Not growing, not closing either. It just hung there in the torn-up mass of the crushed jungle, pulsing slowly, surrounded by the very last of the Earth's warriors that had all come to die in battle.

  The voice of the Fae adviser to the Congolese General in command of the human forces came over the klaxon speakers and echoed shockingly loud through the clearing. "Soldiers of the human realm. Your war is over. The demons have now signaled that you are no longer worth expending their resources on and have enacted a truce. They will now negotiate terms with your human representative. You can all go home now. It is done."

  Declan could barely register the meaning of what he had just seen and heard. He fell back against the dirt wall of his fighting position that was supposed to be his own grave today. His entire body now felt as if it was just a battered and exhausted shell.

  Tears began to roll down Declan's face slowly as he drew his sidearm, barely aware of his arm even moving and raised it towards his own temple.

  It is done. I… can now be done.

  Declan felt the Iranian sergeant reach over and gently place his hand over Declan's pistol and slowly removed it from Declan's grip. "No. Too many friends have died. So, so many. Today, they will have to wait for us on the other side my friend. Today, they will wait longer for us to join them. They understand. Someday, I pray, you will too."

  Authors Note:

  Doug and I hope you enjoyed this peek into the hell the Blood War was for the survivors.

  Blood War: Power – is Shane Gris hunt for the power to make his desires come true, regardless of the cost.

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  Mel Todd and Doug Burbey

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Doug Burbey is constantly preparing to: repel the zombie hordes, defend America from all enemies foreign and domestic (particularly the Hipsters and Fashionistas), brew beer & defeat the Rebel Alliance. Doug grew up in Asia as a military brat, went to college in MI becoming a Detroit Lions fan in the Barry Sanders era, then served in numerous positions and wars around the world with the Army before retiring.

  Mel Todd has three cats, none of which can turn into a form with opposable thumbs, which is good. If they could do that, they wouldn’t need her anymore. While writing and starting her empire, she decided creating her own worlds was less work than ruling this one.