The Creator

by Neil Carstairs

  ‘Yes,’ Delta One said. ‘Five you take the far side of the street; Jo you stay behind me. Watch for threats front and rear.’

  The sound of the church bells froze them to the spot.

  Chapter 16

  I am the Creator. Scieppend.

  I seek light.

  I lived in darkness, imprisoned. Held beneath the earth in a world of everlasting night. I listened to the souls above, living and dying. I waited for weakness and when it came I found a route to the world and through that route I brought death.

  Now freedom is close. The final walls are broken. The structure of my prison brought down so the channel to my world is revealed.

  My final task is to bring down the walls.

  ***

  Ben and Delta Two looked up. The ringing of the bells told them all they needed to know. Two led the way to the tower. He glanced up the circular stone staircase hidden between the outer and inner walls. As they moved the walls seemed to tremble. Fragments of dust pattered down. Ben heard the bells reach a crescendo as the whole building rocked. The fragments grew bigger. Dust became anything up to fist size chunks that shattered on the flagstones.

  Delta Two rushed the staircase as Ben moved back to avoid the falling masonry. The soldier vanished from view as Ben heard a new sound form a background to the bells. He turned back into the church and looked down the nave to the well. Dark shapes climbed out. They looked humanoid. Their limbs were stick thin and their heads looked like the spiky seed casings from chestnut trees. Ben lost count of the number that came into view. Some rushed to the walls of the church and began to attack the stained glass windows. Others climbed the support pillars and attacked the roof. They broke through the wood and lead in seconds. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the church.

  And a dozen demons rushed towards the entrance to the bell tower.

  Ben fired. Two demons died but the others ran on silent feet that brought them within metres of Ben. He flicked the MP5 to full automatic and emptied the magazine into the crowd. Out of the chaotic tumble of ruptured bodies, four came on untouched. Ben retreated until he stood beneath the bell ropes. The creatures had malformed faces. Bulbous eyes that glistened red and sunken noses no more than nasal cavities. Their jaws were full of curved teeth that thrust through cracked lips.

  Ben tried to reload but they were on him too soon. He reversed the gun, holding it by the barrel and swung the stock into the chest of the first demon. Ribs fractured with a sound like breaking twigs and the thing fell away. Ben parried the second back with a quick thrust in the face and then the others were on him. He dropped the MP5 and kicked out. Another demon fell but only for a moment before it rose again. Ben didn’t see it come up. He fell back, carrying the weight of one of the dark-skinned creatures. Then flipped it over his head with a push of his feet.

  Ben rolled left as a foot stamped down where his head had been. He grasped the ankle and pulled the creature down. Its head hit the stone floor with a sickening crack and Ben saw the light in its eyes die. He got no respite. Sharp claws dug into his shoulders and hot breath scorched his neck. The demon pulled him up and Ben stared into a mouth crammed with misshapen teeth. A clawed hand wrapped around Ben’s throat as the other remaining demon tried to rip his head off. Lightning bright flashes of pain ripped through Ben’s skull. He saw patches of darkness and thought he heard angels singing.

  The world exploded. Ben fell as demon blood seared his vision. The two creatures died as Delta Two stepped in close and blew their heads off. He hauled Ben to his feet and propelled him out into the body of the church as he shouted, ‘The place is coming down. I can’t get a shot at the thing in the tower.’

  Huge rents appeared in the roof. Ben knew they couldn’t make it to the doors as slabs of stone fell. He dived left between a row of pews. A suffocating cloud of particles and wood splintered around him. Ben wiped dust from his eyes and spat to clear his mouth. A weight lay across his back but not enough to trap him. He eased back, pushing with his hands to slide free. A section of roof had fallen across the pews and the white oak had held enough to save Ben. As the cloud of masonry dust settled sunlight filled the now exposed nave. Ben looked up. He saw the tower standing tall and the bulky shape of Scieppend as it stalked around the bells.

  A sound rose, a hellish choir singing for release. Ben saw rubble pushed aside as more demons sought release from the well. Ben looked around, trying to find Delta Two in all the mess. He saw the legs first. They stretched out from under a slab of masonry, surrounded by a lake of blood. Delta Two’s MP5 lay discarded nearby. Ben retrieved it and checked the load. He replaced the magazine, took one look at the demons emerging from the now exposed well, and ran for the exit.

  ***

  Natalie saw Connor and Devon as they crossed the field. They seemed to walk as if they were on some Sunday afternoon stroll. She hopped over a three strand barbed wire fence and ran towards them. The ankle length grass and hoof rutted soil proved hard to run on. She stumbled and felt a sharp bolt of pain as her ankle twisted. The ground jumped up to meet her and Natalie’s breath left her body in a single gust as she fell. She lay on her back, staring up at a cloud-flecked sky, as she fought to get air into her lungs.

  ‘Shit.’ She rolled onto her side and pushed herself upright. Connor and Devon were further away. They seemed oblivious to Natalie, their concentration fixed on the church. When Natalie saw what they were looking at, her legs began to shake.

  Most of the church roof had peeled back like the lid on a tin of sardines. Natalie could see beams and supports still in place but even these began to fall as a dark cloud rose into the sky. For a moment Natalie thought it was smoke. Until the mass broke into its individual parts and she saw the vapour for what it was.

  Natalie fired a single shot into the air. Connor and Devon looked back and she waved, hopeful that they would get the message and turn back. It seemed that Devon wanted to. She grabbed Connor but he pulled from her grasp and ran from his mother towards the demonic swarm. Natalie ran too, but her ankle sent bursts of heat up her leg every time she put weight on it. She saw Devon chase after her son. Natalie chased after both of them. She ignored the pain from her leg as the creatures began to land like locusts on the grass. They formed a wall that stopped Connor going any further.

  ***

  Devon reached Connor as the first of the flying things landed on the grass twenty metres in front of them. She didn’t take too close a look, the sound their wings made as they beat upon the air made her shiver. She grabbed a handful of his jacket and said, ‘We’ve got to go back. Natalie’s there and she’s got a gun. She can help us.’

  ‘I can’t go back,’ Connor said. He didn’t look at his mother.

  ‘What?’ Devon’s grip loosened as she took in his words.

  ‘I said I can’t go back. I’m supposed to be here.’

  ‘Connor, you listen to me. Them things are gonna try and eat you. I don’t want you to die, you hear me? You come back now.’

  Connor turned to look at her. His eyes were full of sadness. He reached out with one hand and cupped Devon’s cheek. ‘I can’t go back,’ he said. ‘This is my fate.’

  ‘Fate?’ Devon’s voice didn’t rise above a whisper.

  He nodded. ‘It’s why I was born. I just learned that.’

  Devon’s legs gave way and she sat on the grass, her son above her. ‘No,’ she said.

  Connor looked at the demons. They kept their distance for the moment. Aware that this boy held a difference that they did not understand. He heard Natalie run up, her breath laboured with exhaustion and pain. The young woman positioned herself between Connor and the demons. Connor said to Devon, ‘You can go. Natalie will take care of you.’

  ‘Connor, you’re ten years old. You don’t know what you are saying. Let’s all go. We can find somewhere safer to fight these things.’

  The creatures moved. Some scuttled towards them on short, misshapen limbs. Others rose into the air on their plated wings. Natalie shot
the closest ones on the ground, then looked up and plucked two more from the sky. They fell with a hideous clatter to the turf. The creatures began to circle. They kept their distance at first. Natalie sent short, accurate bursts into their mass and killed them in twos and threes.

  But as they circled the demons came closer and any chance of escape ended.

  ***

  ‘What’s happening in there?’ Jane asked as the first fissures appeared in the building.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Delta Six stared over the lip of the dry stone wall as the church fragmented.

  ‘Are the others still alive?’

  Delta Six fought the desire to say ‘I don’t know’ again and glanced at the young woman next to him. She was pretty, in a pale, skinny kind of way. He knew Jane had the older guy back at the stately home waiting for her and Emily. That meant she was his responsibility. Jane had a few years on Six. He’d celebrated his twenty-second birthday a week before they deployed to Canada for training. Now here he was in some fucked up village full of zombies and monsters.

  Life couldn’t get much weirder. All he had to do was survive this shit and keep mother and daughter alive at the same time.

  The roof of the church opened with a thunderous crack that made Six duck down behind the wall and pull Jane with him. ‘We need to find somewhere with more cover,’ he said. ‘We’ll use one of these cottages so we can keep watch on the church.’

  ‘Are they empty?’ Jane asked. ‘We almost died because of Margery. I don’t want that to happen again.’

  ‘I can clear the rooms,’ Six said with confidence. ‘I’ve got flash-bangs and buckets of ammo. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jane turned to tell Emily they were moving out when the first of the light spheres appeared over the road. It grew in a heartbeat to three metres in diameter and pulsed for a moment like a disco ball. Men erupted from within. They stumbled onto the tarmac road and blinked in the glare of sunlight. They all wore the same clothing; forest green combat gear and heavy black boots. Their dark hair and olive coloured skin seemed to absorb all light. The guns they carried, Kalashnikov rifles with curved magazines, swept round in search of targets.

  Delta Six shot them down like they were in a fairground game. All four collapsed in bloody heaps. Six reached out to Jane but his hand closed on empty space. She’d gone, moving away in a frantic chase as Emily sprinted into the churchyard.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ Delta Six shouted as he followed Jane. More spheres appeared, disgorging armed men in a rapid tumult of bodies. Delta Six shot at the nearest ones until he ducked into the church grounds. He saw Emily run like the wind across the graveyard with her mother in pursuit. He knew he wouldn’t catch up with them. He slid to a halt and took cover behind a weather-worn gravestone. Two dozen gunmen milled in the road as if they waited for some command. Six rested the barrel of his MP5 across the gravestone and sighted on the nearest clutch. He took five down. He moved across the graveyard to take cover behind a monument. The bad guys focussed on him and rushed forwards.

  Six let them come over the boundary before he fired again, pinning four more to the dry stone wall. He ran again, finally taking incoming fire as the gunmen woke up. All he had to do was fire and move.

  And pray that Jane and Emily were safe.

  ***

  Delta One shoved Kramer into a clump of rhododendron as the resurrected jihadists popped into view ahead of them. As she fought the suffocating aroma of the shrub Kramer heard the rapid fire of a sub-machine gun and the return rip of AK47s. Delta One and Five knelt nearby, taking a moment to observe and understand the situation ahead. Kramer kicked the stems of the bush away from her feet and joined the two soldiers.

  She saw the church on its low rise of ground surrounded by the sentinel-like forms of gravestones and monuments. The building had half collapsed. Most of the roof was gone, sections of wall and stained glass windows were missing. She could see men running through the graveyard. They were shooting at someone who fired back with careful bursts of an MP5.

  ‘It’s Six,’ Delta One said.

  ‘About to get well and truly fucked if we don’t do something,’ Five added.

  Delta One pointed behind them. The cottage they were next to had a single storey extension with a flat roof. One said, ‘Get up there and put in some suppressing fire. Jo, you go with him and act as spotter.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Kramer asked as Five moved to the structure. He used a water butt as a step up and within a moment lay in position with his rifle already trained onto the jihadists.

  ‘I’ll find a way to link up with Six. The two of us should be able to hold off the gunmen, and with you and Five on this side we’ll chop them to pieces.’

  Delta One hopped the garden wall and ran across the road. Kramer watched him for a moment before she too used the butt to reach the roof. She settled next to Delta Five as he put the first shots into the resurrected gunmen. Kramer’s MP5 had an optical sight mounted upon it and she scanned the churchyard. Delta Six retreated, using what cover he could find to play a deadly game of tag with the jihadists. She spotted two gunmen tracking along the boundary wall as they tried to outflank Six. ‘Two men, ten o’clock, next to the wall,’ she said.

  Five swung his rifle to her directions. ‘I see them.’

  ‘One Five Zero metres,’ Kramer said.

  Delta Five’s first shot went through the spine of the lead gunman. His buddy stopped and stared down in shock. Five made the slightest of adjustments before the next round lifted the second guy’s head from his shoulders. ‘Bingo,’ Delta Five said.

  ‘The others are spreading out. Free fire.’

  ‘Just the way I like it,’ Delta Five said with a smile.

  The gunmen sheltered from Delta Six behind gravestones. That left their backs exposed to Five’s sniping. He picked them off with rapid shots, his main aim to take them out of the firefight. Any kill shot was a bonus. As he fired, Kramer let her gaze rove over the church. Flying things emerged through the rent in the roof. They rose in a swarm before sweeping in low arcs towards the farmland next to the church.

  Kramer saw where they were heading and Five lifted his head up from the ‘scope of his rifle when he heard her curse. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  She pointed across him. ‘Out in that field. It’s Connor and his mother.’

  ‘What the hell are they doing there?’ Five shifted. He tried to work out distance and angles to see if he could give covering fire.

  ‘And Natalie,’ Kramer said as she saw the young spy join mother and son.

  ‘This is a clusterfuck,’ Delta Five said.

  Kramer half agreed with him. ‘Keep support on Delta Six,’ she said. ‘Natalie can protect them.’

  Delta Five returned to shooting jihadists as more light spheres spilled gunmen out like futuristic birthing pods. Kramer felt impotent. Delta Five could nail the resurrected all day long and they would keep appearing. The source of their problem lay in the church. When she looked she saw it now. A huge black shape that dominated the top of the bell tower and morphed into something that resembled a giant arachnid. ‘New target,’ she said. ‘Top of church tower. Kill it.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Delta Five said as he saw the monstrous shape in close up.

  His first round made a pin prick impression on the armoured hide of the creature. He fired again and then again. ‘It’s no good,’ he said.

  ‘Keep hitting it,’ Kramer told him.

  Movement drew her eyes, a man ran from the church covered in dust and blood. She saw him through the sights on her sub-machine gun and her heart lurched when she recognised him. ‘It’s Scarrett,’ she said.

  Five took a look. ‘I can’t help everybody,’ he said.

  ‘Stay with Six.’ Kramer rose to her knees. ‘I’ll go down.’

  She slid from the roof, skipped off the water butt and hurdled the garden wall. The road ran in a slight left-hand curve as the village houses ended and the church grounds began. Bodi
es littered the scene. The incessant gunfire from the graveyard seemed to grow in ferocity as she sprinted towards the battleground. Scarrett stopped and Kramer wondered what the hell he was doing. He walked to stand beside the wall dividing graveyard from the field.

  A ball of light flashed brighter than the sun and Kramer saw a new danger emerge.

  ***

  Natalie swivelled as the spiral of demons came closer and closer. Connor stood behind her with Devon still on her knees at his side. Natalie had already emptied three magazines into the dense mass of bodies. The grass field now resembled some hellish charnel house. But with each one she killed two seemed to take its place and the noise of their wings and their screams filled her with dread. The constant movement left her head in a spin. She could no longer separate individuals from the crowd. She saw wings, claws and eyes and nothing else.

  One creature swept in and Natalie gunned it down only for a second to come from her left. She knew their strategy in an instant. Some collective hive mind worked within the swarm and now sacrificed the few for the victory of the many. She fired, turned, fired and turned. Her ankle weakened. Her gun emptied.

  Natalie jumped forward as she ducked beneath talons that threatened her face. She stabbed up with the barrel of her MP5 into the soft underbelly of the demon and tore a long wound that leaked blood and entrails onto her head. As the creature died, its wing clipped Natalie’s shoulder and she fell. Two winged demons struck out at her. Natalie screamed as claws snagged her leg and pulled her across the blood-oaked turf. She flung the MP5 into the demon’s face and for a moment its grip loosened. Natalie tugged her leg free and rolled clear as tears filled her eyes. The world seemed to quiver and the swarm rose. It gave Natalie a brief glimpse of daylight. She crawled towards Connor as the ground beneath her bucked and an unseen force tore the turf apart. Natalie stared at the field as soil and grass began to sink.