by Michael Todd
Juntto pushed the stack back and stared at it as it teetered back and forth on the desk. He put his arm up as it crashed down on him like a wave. There was a constant sound of typing echoing around the room, and a typewriter now sat in front of him on the desk. He went to press a key, but his fingers were too large, and he couldn’t get himself to shrink no matter how hard he tried.
Between the fluttering of papers and the click of keys he could hear Katie’s and Pandora’s voices somewhere in the background,. They were shouting, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their voices faded in and out as if they were being pushed and pulled inside his paperwork hell.
Another wave of papers flooded down on him, and he pushed back with all his might. His chair finally rolled back, but only for a couple of feet before slamming into something. Juntto turned quickly, his eyes growing wider by the second. In front of him was a filing cabinet, and it kept growing taller and taller.
He put his hands over his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t deserve this. It is not my turn to do the paperwork. We had a deal. I have been good. I played by the rules.”
He opened his eyes and looked down, finding himself shin-high in paper. He stood up as the papers got higher and higher, quickly reaching his waist. In his hand was another pen, something he didn’t even remember picking up. He screamed, throwing the pen into the continually growing piles of paper. They reached his chest, then his neck, and he had to keep his head tilted back to keep it above the paper.
Juntto clenched his eyes shut, hearing gunshots ringing out.
BANG! BANG! BANG! The gunshots were loud, ringing bells in Juntto’s mind. He gasped and opened his eyes, trying to find out where they came from. “Don’t shoot me, I’ll do it. I’ll do the paperwork.”
He shook his large head and blinked, snapping out of his nightmare. It had all seemed so real to him, but at the same time, now that he was out, he knew it had just been a dream. It was the strangest thing he had ever experienced, and his heart was beating so fast he could hear it in his ears. Then again, it could have been the gunshots going off near his ears.
“Juntto. You’re okay,” Sofia’s voice said softly from his right.
Suddenly, Juntto’s vision cleared and he could feel the scratchy sand beneath him. He looked at her and then around the courtyard. Standing nearby with worried looks on their faces were his friends. Brock nodded at him, and Eddie held his gun closely, almost hugging it. Turner let out a deep breath, putting his hand to his chest. Standing above him was Calvin, his gun smoking in his left hand and his eyes glistening red.
Calvin reached down, and Juntto took his hand. He shrank his body to make it easier to stand up, and when he straightened, he was eye to eye with Calvin. “Thank you. Gunshots whipped me out of that terrible nightmare. What kind of monster is this? It should be put down immediately.”
Calvin chuckled. “That’s the plan, buddy.”
Katie nodded to Calvin. “Here’s your chance.”
Calvin put his hand in the air to hold the others back. Sofia ran up beside him, and they each raised the guns they were gripping tightly. They put their arms out and fired at the same time, riddling Kabbus with bullets up and down his body. One of them caught his tentacle, and he whipped it down to his face. Sofia snarled. “Got you, you sonofabitch.”
The Leviathan seemed to study the hole in his tentacle and the orange blood dripping out. He looked back at the team, and for the first time, he opened his mouth wide. The sound that came out was from another world. The pitch was high and sharp, fading in and out as if it were vibrating. Everyone covered their ears and watched as Kabbus took off, slithering as fast as his tentacles could carry him in the other direction.
Eddie lifted his eyebrows. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you they are too fat to haul ass. That dude might give himself a stroke, though. I can’t imagine his cholesterol is very good.”
Katie glanced at Eddie and laughed. “Well, if there is cholesterol and fat in fear, then he will definitely be going on the Keto Diet sometime soon. No carbs for him.”
Eddie snickered, giving Katie a high five before they turned back to Calvin. “Come on, let’s get to the armory. We can regroup there and see who we can help inside. There are a lot of messed up and scared people on this base.”
Brock sighed. “I don’t blame them. This is definitely not in the Army training manual.”
Turner shook his head as he followed them toward the armory. “The real shit never is, brother. It just never is.”
The armory was jam-packed with people. The machines had all been turned off, and the boxes had been shoved to the back to make more room. Joshua, his girls, and a large number of affected soldiers were taking refuge on the main floor. Those who hadn’t been affected attempted to see to the others, doing everything they could to calm them down. Gasps, cries, and sounds of general discomfort permeated the building. It looked like an infirmary in a war zone, only the injuries weren’t easy to see, having left no outward wounds or blood.
Joshua stood near the entry as the others came in, wiping his forehead. Katie put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Joshua smiled. “Yeah. I haven’t been affected yet. Maybe the weird are immune.”
Katie laughed. “I don’t know. We’re all pretty weird.”
Joshua looked around. “We’re doing our best to calm people down, but some are still going in and out of their nightmares. Others are so affected that they can’t seem to snap out of them in between. All we can do is keep them comfortable and safe from hurting themselves or others by accident. We just weren’t equipped for something like this. How do you treat a wound you can’t see?”
Katie let out a deep breath. “I think our angel powers can help with that.”
Pandora pulled herself out of Katie and grabbed Joshua’s arm, trying not to fall. She squeezed his arm and smirked. “Been putting in some time at the gym, there? Nice job, dude. Nice job.”
Katie tapped Pandora on the shoulder. “I hate to interrupt your game, but can we maybe calm all these people down?”
Pandora rolled her eyes and turned to Katie. “Of course. By all means.”
They took each other’s hands and built the energy up in their chests, then pushed it down and out their palms, letting a wave of light wash over the soldiers and girls. Slowly the ones still stuck began to come out of it, and the others could feel calm rush over their fears. The armory began to quiet down, and Joshua started handing out orders to the girls to help those who had physical injuries.
Wanda, the soldier with a thing for Joshua, walked up to Katie and Pandora. “We don’t know how to fight this thing. It feeds on our fear. We watched so many soldiers out there just get run over by the Leviathan, leaving cold gray corpses. We don’t know. We just don’t know how to handle this.”
Katie nodded at her sympathetically. “I understand. Even for us, we are struggling with how to get close to him. He didn’t like the bullets, but I don’t know if they did any real harm.”
Pandora turned to Calvin and Sofia. “Hey, you two baby makers. How did you guys fight it off?”
Calvin looked at Sofia and stepped forward. “We didn’t. It’s just…we’re going to have a child we love. Because of that, family and friends, we honestly have nothing but hope in our hearts. Demons are coming to Earth and there’s a walking nightmare outside my door, but I’m going to raise my child to have hope. Never-ending hope.”
Sofia walked over and put her arm around Calvin. “It’s really no different than surviving the world in all its chaos even before the demons. You have to hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that things will change, and hope you can show them the beauty between the ugly.”
Pandora made a gagging sound. “That is the most made-for-tv bullshit I have ever heard. Did someone pay you to say that to fuck with me?”
Juntto stood up and put out his hand. She could see the tears in his eyes. “No, they are right. They are exactly right.”
&nbs
p; Pandora groaned. “Okay, here we go. Now Frosty is in on this too. Am I having a nightmare? Katie, pinch me.”
Katie gave her a blank look and slugged her as hard as she could. Pandora winced and rubbed her arm. “Okay, unfortunately not dreaming.”
Juntto came toward them, looking at his hands as he walked. “Of course. That makes so much sense. How could I have not thought of it before now? Ugh.”
Katie wrinkled her nose. “So, he doesn’t like hope, or does it kill him? What are we talking about here?”
Calvin glanced at Juntto. “I think it might work as a defense mechanism.”
Juntto pointed at Calvin, nodding. “That’s right. Kind of like that. Kind of a shield or brick wall in your mind.”
Eddie chuckled, rapping Tucker’s head. “Then you should be good to go, because it’s nothing but fucking rocks up there.”
Tucker snarled, pushing him to the side. Juntto was caught in his thought, not hearing what they were bickering about. He stepped over to Katie. “Let me explain this to you. I used to be a conqueror. I used to take what I wanted, kill who I wanted, pillage anything I wanted. I was the king in my own head, and there was no conscience involved. Then, when I went into my freeze-sleep in your homemade freezer…”
Wanda raised an eyebrow. “His what?”
Katie shook her head. “Just go with it. It’s a very long story. Best freezer you could ever have, though. In went a bastard of a Leviathan, out came the teddy bear one.”
Juntto smiled. “I learned compassion. I learned to love someone else, sometimes even more than I love myself. I learned to love all of you that way. To protect, not destroy. When my body recognized the positive my brain effects was receiving from that, it changed. It rewired itself to run on compassion instead of destruction.”
Katie thought about it for a moment. “But how do you rewire your own brain like that? I don’t think any of us are really thinking like old Juntto right now. We are thinking like the people we have always been.”
Juntto looked pleased with his revelation. “That’s right. But the trick is not to rewire it. Kabbus is trying desperately to rewire us to run on and act from places of fear and anger. He is the one doing the rewiring. Instead of allowing that to happen when you see him, when he is close, you do the opposite. You act from places of love, bravery, and hope. Once that is done and we can get close to him, we might have a standing chance of taking him the hell down before he kills anyone else.”
Katie and Pandora left the armory and shut the doors tightly behind them. They looked out across the base, but there was no sign of the Leviathan. Katie wrung her hands in front of her. “Okay, we know what we need to do. And don’t act like it’s so hard. I know that deep down, you already act out of those places.”
Pandora sneered, pushing up her tits. “Fine, but you don’t need to go telling people that. I have a street rep I need to keep intact, bitch.”
Katie chuckled. “Our secret. So, love and hope, Pandora. Love and hope.”
Pandora’s lips bent down on each side and she strutted forward. “I can do that.”
Katie closed her eyes for a moment. “Whatever you need to do to get into that headspace.”
Pandora smiled. “A three-some with…well, I’ll keep that to myself.”
Katie raised her eyebrows. “Thanks. Appreciate that.”
They clapped their hands loudly in the air, and their armor snapped to them, their swords appeared in their outstretched hands. Katie smiled and spread her wings, flying to the middle of the base. “Kabbus the Nightmare Man! Come face your worst fear! Face me, fuckwad!”
Kabbus appeared to her left, smacking his lips. His body was even more disgusting now that it was bloated from feeding on fear.
23
Pandora took a deep breath, feeling the confidence building inside her. She smiled as she reached up, holding her sword high up into the air. “I will strike with force. I will strike true. I will strike…”
She looked up at her sword and stopped, staring at a pitchfork instead. She tilted her head to the side, suddenly feeling a blast of heat surrounding her entire body. Glancing around curiously, she lowered the pitchfork and rubbed her hand over her chest.
A volcano erupted in the background, and the bubbling rivers of lava sizzled and glurped. She was back in hell. “Huh. Home, sweet home?”
Hearing the familiar sounds of whimpering and crying, she whirled around, immediately balling her hand on her chest. Chained to smoldering crosses along the front of a tall lava-rock cliff face were her friends. Katie was in the middle, her smoking wings spread behind her. To her right were Calvin, Korbin, Sofia, and Stephanie, and to Katie’s left were Brock, Eddie, Turner, Sean, and Timothy. Their skin was blistering and red, and they groaned as small demons raced around them, cracking whips at their knees.
She stepped forward and opened her mouth but paused, hearing someone exhale behind her. Slowly Pandora turned and saw Lucifer with a huge smile on his face. He put out his arms and bellowed, “My queen has returned. I knew your heart was forever with us.”
Her feet were moving before her mind could catch up. She galloped across the hot stones and wrapped her arms around Lucifer, kissing him. Stepping back, she spread her arms out, looking down at her body. She was no longer the beautiful, voluptuous angel she had been on Earth. Her scales had returned, moving up her body and over her neck. She glanced over her shoulder, looking for her wings. Instead, she found blackened and charred bones where they had once been.
She gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “My wings.”
Lucifer laughed loudly, the sound mixing with the chorus of screams and agony from her friends. She turned toward them, shaking her head, tears pouring from her eyes and sizzling down her cheeks.
Lucifer walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “You knew it was in you the whole time.”
Pandora shook her head. “No! I became an angel again. I was meant for good.”
Lucifer guffawed loudly, holding his stomach. “Were you? Think about it.”
Pandora stared at her friends, feeling the bones of her wings cracking and disintegrating on her back. Her heart sank. “I’m afraid this is who I am—evil through and through. There never has been, and there never will be, a chance at redemption for me. How could I have ever seen through the dark? It was all a shadow. It was a trick. A punishment for choosing this life, a life I could never live. A life that defines exactly who I am.”
Pandora groaned and wailed, running toward the river of flowing lava. She stopped at the edge and cried into her palms. She pulled her hands away and watched as her tears turned to steam rising from her black skin. “My heart is the color of my body. My soul is dark, and my appearance reflects that, no matter how much I wanted it to be different.”
Lucifer walked over and rubbed her back with his long black talons. “There, there. Come, look at these people you thought were your friends. They saw right through you. They were the ones who delivered you back to us. They didn’t want you, because they knew your true nature was nothing but dark.”
He turned Pandora and walked her over to them, lifting her chin so she could stare into their eyes. She combed over their faces until she reached Katie’s. Her eyes started to close but then opened, the blue in them still shining brightly. Even though she was being tortured and her wings were aflame, she shook her head with force.
Pandora’s mouth opened slightly, and she pulled away from Lucifer. She walked up to the cross and put her hands on Katie’s feet. Katie groaned as she bent her head forward, looking down on Pandora just as God had looked down on her the day she’d left her post above.
With chapped lips and a mangled body, Katie spoke with strength and courage. “No. Your words are not true, and you know they aren’t. Darkness is a choice, and you chose long ago, even before us, that it was not the place you wanted to be. Remember, there is hope. There are people who love you.”
Pandora looked at the guys, all of whom had their e
yes focused on her. She turned the other way, watching as Sofia cradled her hands around her belly, the only part of her not burned, singed, or whipped.
She looked back up at Katie, who forced a smile. “Be brave. Be righteous.”
Pandora looked down at her hands on Katie’s feet, and the scales began to retract. She could feel the warm glow of her angel powers begin to spark again in her heart, and her eyes faded from red to blue. She closed them tightly, hearing Katie’s words over and over in her head.
Tears poured down her cheeks as she remembered that there was, indeed, hope. “I can be righteous and brave.”
When she opened her eyes again, there was no more fire and brimstone. No more lies and deceit. She was back on the base with Katie reaching down to her. “Are you okay?”
Pandora took a deep breath and got to her feet. She looked down at her body, finding her golden angel armor shimmering brightly. She looked in her hand, which was clenched tightly. Not on the handle of a pitchfork or whip, not to Lucifer or any demon. Instead, she held her sword firmly in her one hand and her shield in the other.
Pandora stretched her wings out wide behind her, full of feathers and glory. They were still black and silver as she had wanted but didn’t represent evil, not in the least. A smile moved across her lips and she looked at Katie, no longer suffering. “I’m okay. Thank you.”
Katie gazed back at her, slightly puzzled. “For what?”
Pandora chuckled as she folded her wings back. “Because even in my dreams, you doled out useful tidbits of courage.”
Katie smiled. “Glad I could be of service. Now, can we take care of this bitch?”
Pandora looked at Kabbus, his tentacles wildly cascading around him. “Yes, please. Ursula over there is starting to get really fucking old.”