Capes

by Drabble, Matt

“WHAT IS THIS?” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “What is this… blasphemy? Under my roof, under the eyes of God. How dare you. HOW DARE YOU!”

  The beast took a step closer.

  “This is you,” Cynthia said, turning towards CJ who was now finally starting to stir. “This is more of your black magic. Change her back. CHANGE HER BACK NOW! RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”

  “This is not my doing,” CJ gasped. “Or maybe it is. I did not do this, but perhaps it is my fault.”

  Bullets started to fly now as Cynthia’s soldiers opened fire as they began to move in from the edges of the hangar… well, some of them did but others were already running for their lives having seen what the beast had done to men with guns previously.

  The air was quickly filled with deafening echoes as military hardware spat fire, but none seemed to offer much of a deterrent. Summer swayed between the gunfire and the participants, all the while keeping her head down low and praying that she could miraculously become invisible.

  The beast turned to CJ and Cynthia while bullets struck its impenetrable hide. It studied them for a moment before starting to move towards the men and women shooting at it.

  Jamie-Lyn and Link saw their chance and quickly ran towards CJ and Cynthia.

  “Turn her back,” Cynthia demanded again as she moved towards CJ. “Turn my daughter back now, or you shall suffer a wrath greater than even God’s himself.”

  “It’s not CJ,” Jamie-Lyn said as she reached them and made a show of tucking her pistol into her waistband. “It’s Gustafson. Olaf Gustafson. Do you know that name?”

  Summer swung the camera back to the group. She had eased herself as far from the action as the camera’s zoom would allow, but it still felt like she was in the thick of the firing line.

  “Leave this place, child,” Cynthia replied to Jamie-Lyn. “Leave now and I shall leave you for another day.”

  “Listen to me!” she yelled back. “Gustafson! You must know him because he knows you and your daughter. He’s the one that changed her, that changed your daughter into that!” She pointed over towards the current carnage.

  “I will hear none of your lies,” Cynthia said firmly as she shook her head. “My path is clear and you are all servants of the serpent. Your tongues are thick with his lies and my mind is too clear with God’s love to be muddled by any of you.”

  Around them now came the mixture of gunfire and screams of Cynthia’s soldiers as the beast ran through them or, more accurately, ran them through.

  “Seriously? Are you really that crazy?” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed. “That’s your daughter!”

  “No it isn’t,” Link added.

  “What?” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed.

  “It’s not her daughter; it never was,” Link explained.

  Cynthia laughed riotously. “‘Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life,’” she quoted.

  Link looked at Jamie-Lyn.

  “Don’t ask me.” She shrugged. “Afraid I don’t speak crazy.”

  Summer zoomed in with shaking hands trying to run the camera and process what she was hearing at the same time.

  “Do you really think my mind so weak?” Cynthia sneered. “Do you honestly believe that your tricks and games will work on me?”

  “We’re not trying to fool you,” Link pressed. “I’ve seen the files, files on your daughter, or what you believe to be your daughter. She is an… artificial being made in a lab by a man called Olaf Gustafson. Is any of this getting through?”

  Jamie-Lyn could see clearly that it was not.

  “Gustafson made that thing?” she asked Link.

  “Implanted memories to make it think that it was her daughter,” he replied as Cynthia merely stared at them.

  “You’re sure?” Jamie-Lyn asked as she risked a look over towards the sight of bodies and limbs being thrown about with ease as the beast continued its slaughter.

  “That’s what the files said.” Link shrugged back. “At least, as far as I can tell. I’m not exactly an expert here.”

  “All lies,” Cynthia scoffed. “The devil wears a false face and hides behind it; you are all nothing but minions in his service.”

  “They are not lying, Cynthia,” CJ whispered as he started to struggle to stand before slumping back down again.

  “You are already dead, demon. The Angel Blade is working its power through your black bones,” Cynthia replied triumphantly. “Can’t you feel its heavenly glory?”

  “So that thing, the beast, is a clone of her daughter or…,” Jamie-Lyn mused aloud.

  “Or what?” Link asked.

  “Cynthia, what do you remember about her, your daughter. What memories do you have of her? Do you remember her childhood? Being born? What about her father, do you remember him? Do you even know who it was?”

  Link started to ask a question, but Jamie-Lyn quickly flapped a hand at him to silence him.

  “I will not play your games,” Cynthia replied haughtily, but there was the faintest glimpse of unease across her features.

  “You can’t, can you? You can’t remember anything about her,” Jamie-Lyn continued.

  “Where are you going with this?” Link asked from beside her.

  “Something that’s been bothering me for a while now, ever since she came back. 20 years… that’s how long ago Havencrest was. 20 years and what, now she shows up again?”

  “So? Surely it takes time to build this sort of conspiracy?”

  “But 20 years? What’s your first memory after Havencrest, Cynthia?”

  “I told you, I shall not engage with your deception.”

  “Think, Cynthia, after Havencrest, what’s the first thing that you remember?”

  “I know who I am.”

  “But do you know what you are?” Link asked, cottoning on to Jamie-Lyn’s thought process.

  “I am the hand of God. I am his fist, his weapon. I am here to show the world his pathway to the light.”

  “But think, Cynthia,” Jamie-Lyn urged. “What do you remember? This is important and none of us have much time.”

  “I told you…”

  “I don’t care what you said! What do you remember?” Jamie-Lyn demanded urgently as the gunfire behind them had now ominously stopped.

  “HIS VOICE, OKAY? I heard his voice. God’s voice brought me back from the darkness where I slept. He brought me back eight years ago. My eternal slumber was interrupted when he reached down and showed me that I still had work to do – his work.”

  And there it was. She had come back only eight short years ago. Summer’s hands trembled now as she recorded all of this for broadcast to the nation. She wondered just what sort of award this would win her, presuming, of course, that she lived to receive it.

  “It wasn’t God that brought you back, Cynthia,” Jamie-Lyn said, almost kindly despite the things that this monster had done.

  “‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’”

  “No, Cynthia.”

  “‘He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint,’” Cynthia railed as she quoted.

  “It was a lie, Cynthia,” Jamie-Lyn stressed.

  “‘His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.’”

  “It wasn’t God, Cynthia.”

  “IT WAS HIS WILL, HIS POWER, FOR HIS GLORY!”

  “I don’t understand,” CJ said. “What does any of that mean?”

&n
bsp; “It means it’s not her,” Jamie-Lyn answered.

  “Not her?”

  “This Cynthia is not our Cynthia at all.” Jamie-Lyn breathed heavily.

  “How can that be?” CJ asked, confused.

  “She’s a clone,” Link answered.

  “A clone? I’m lost,” CJ said, shaking his head.

  “Cynthia Arrow died at Havencrest 20 years ago,” Jamie-Lyn replied as she watched Cynthia stand motionless, as confused as CJ.

  “She also never had a daughter,” Link offered. “I’ve been through more of the files that I smuggled out. Whoever brought her back also made that thing out there. It made the beast and made both of them think that they were mother and daughter.”

  “But why?” CJ asked in a stronger voice.

  “All of this, it has been him, hasn’t it? Gustafson!” Jamie-Lyn stated rather than asked.

  “Gustafson?” CJ demanded.

  “Olaf Gustafson,” Jamie-Lyn confirmed. “All of this has been him: bringing back Cynthia, the new SOUL movement, framing us. He’s been behind it all.”

  “Are we sure it’s him and not someone else using his work?” Link asked. “I mean, the guy’s got to be ancient by now, right? Those journals would make him… what…, in his nineties?”

  “With a war chest full of Dr Frankenstein’s secrets, he could have done anything to himself. Hell, look at what he made,” she replied, nodding towards the carnage on the outskirts of the hangar. “I’m guessing that there’s very little he can’t do.”

  Summer desperately wanted to check that all of this was being picked up clearly, but her proficiency with the camera allowed her to hold and point it and not much else. She had no idea who they were talking about. She’d never heard the name Olaf Gustafson, but she knew enough to know that this was where the story lay and she was capturing it all.

  “This is all more lies,” Cynthia growled, but they could all see from her face that deep down she knew it to be true, that she had known something was wrong all along.

  “Then where is he?” CJ demanded. “Where is Gustafson?”

  “My guess is watching all of this remotely,” Link said, looking around.

  “I am in control of my life,” Cynthia said, shaking her head as if to dispel the negative thoughts now invading her mind.

  “Really?” Jamie-Lyn smiled without any trace of humour. “Because two minutes ago, you were spouting that God was running his will through you. You’re a puppet, Cynthia. You’ve always been a puppet. You were just mistaken as to who was pulling your strings.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t believe it. I… I can’t.”

  “Doesn’t much matter what you believe,” Jamie-Lyn replied. “The truth doesn’t change just because we want it to.”

  “But I…” That was as far as Cynthia Arrow got.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t have found the words, perhaps she might have. Perhaps she would have offered nothing but more defiance, or perhaps she might have begun the long journey to seeking the truth.

  The grey area of the woman’s existence could have been explored if not for the fact that at that precise moment, a green scaly claw exploded out of her chest, showering Jamie-Lyn and Link with blood and bone fragments as the beast took advantage of the brief pause. All of it was witnessed in close-up by Summer Sloan, who somehow managed to keep filming while vomiting off to the side at the same time.

  ----------

  For his part, Crimson had dragged himself up again to his feet and had started the journey staggering back towards the centre of the hangar before seeing something that caught his eye and making a detour.

  He had already taken anything of use from the guard that had landed on top of him, including a rather nice-looking serrated hunting knife from an ankle holster.

  While his abilities were failing, he was still far from a spent force, just a slightly wounded and limping one.

  His ears were still working just fine, and he heard the exchange between the others.

  If he was being honest, as far as he was concerned, it really didn’t much matter right now.

  There were two current enemies in from of him in Cynthia Arrow and the beast. Of course, there would have been three in the guise of Cynthia’s goons, but the beast had just about finished with them as it slashed with its claws and tore with its teeth, spraying the grey concrete floor with large splashes of blood.

  The crazy lady from the news was filming all of this from what he presumed she thought was a safe distance, but he had seen the beast in action and he knew that there was no such thing, but at least she was clear of the danger zone albeit temporarily.

  He saw the beast finish up with its appetisers and start to head towards the unsuspecting others as they wasted time with their pointless blah-blah talking. Instead of talking, he was making himself useful.

  There were several small gas canisters locked away inside a cage on the far side of the hangar, and he hurried as quickly as he could manage towards them.

  Once there, he used the butt of his pistol to break open the padlock before selecting one of the canisters that felt the heaviest.

  He prayed that the beast’s attention would stay focused on its target, and he allowed himself a little grunt of pleasure as he watched Cynthia Arrow have her guts exploded out of her chest, showering Link and Jamie-Lyn in the process.

  CJ was starting to move, although interminably slowly, as Crimson came up unnoticed, but the big alien suddenly caught his eye and a brief moment of understanding flashed between them like the old days.

  Before the beast could lash out at anyone else, Crimson put everything his weary bones had left into throwing the small gas canister through the air from 25 feet or so away.

  The effort almost wrenched his arm out of its socket, but he ignored the pain and concentrated on what came next.

  The green canister spun through the air and reached the others just as the beast moved towards them. CJ hauled himself up from the chair and threw himself past the surprised beast.

  CJ snatched the other two up in his arms with a mighty scream of effort that sounded like it was ripping his insides out.

  There was the briefest crackle of green electricity that spat, sparkled and fluttered before the three of them were teleported away. Given CJ’s condition, it was a miracle that he managed to move them at all, but the 20 feet or so was enough.

  Crimson took careful aim at the tumbling airborne canister and silently asked for Six-Shooter’s immaculate aim just for this one time.

  He fired, and the bullet struck home a split second later, hitting the canister and exploding it right in the beast’s face, sending the creature spinning backwards as the explosion of flame scorched its features at close range.

  Crimson ran to the others as Link and Jamie-Lyn staggered while CJ sank to his knees, spent.

  “We’ve got to move,” he said, trying to drag them away. “That’s only going to slow it down for so long. CJ?”

  “Go…, get them out of here,” he replied wearily from his crouched position.

  “Not this crap again! We’re not leaving anyone!” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed. “Not every ending has to have a sacrifice.”

  “Get them out of here, Crimson. I’ll hold it off.”

  “Jamie-Lyn’s right,” Link added. “Whatever you had left, big fella, you've just used it all up.”

  As if in confirmation, CJ’s knees buckled as he stood. He swayed for a few moments before shaking off Jamie-Lyn’s hand as she tried to pull him away.

  “It’s moving,” Crimson warned as the flames on the beast’s face had now died down and it was getting back to its feet.

  “Get out of here!” CJ ordered.

  “No,” Jamie-Lyn replied firmly as she pulled her pistol back out from her waistband and cocked it as she remembered being shown a lifetime ago.

  “Ditto,” Link said as he did the same.

  “Please, there’s still time,” CJ implored.

  “Together,” Jamie-Ly
n said as she placed a hand gently onto CJ’s wrist.

  “Together,” Link agreed as he stood his ground.

  “Fuck it,” Crimson added as he prepared himself for the end. “I’m too damn tired to run. Together.”

  “Okay then…, together,” CJ finally agreed with a slow nod as the four of them made their last stand, unaware that Summer Sloan was filming them all in close-up and broadcasting their words and selfless actions to a riveted watching nation.

  ----------

  chapter 44

  DIRECTOR’S CUT

  With the delay, the action by now on the overwhelming majority of the population’s screens had reached the part where Cynthia Arrow was being exposed as a clone and her daughter as a horrendous science experiment.

  The people watched on as the beast was horrifically slicing through multiple bodies mercifully off-screen while the camera remained focused on the protagonists and their story.

  Out of shot, screams rang out alongside the now dwindling gunfire, captivating millions of people as they watched a Hollywood movie unfold in real time with real participants and real blood.

  They heard heroes trying to offer a hand to their faltering enemy as they fell across the conspiracy unfolding in front of their eyes and the fact that there was a secret villain who had remained in the shadows pulling the strings.

  Social media became a swirling mass of theories and outpouring emotions from those who didn’t believe what they were seeing and hearing, to those who claimed to have known this all along.

  Mass sentiment began to shift back towards the heroes as Cynthia Arrow became increasingly unhinged, exposing herself as the psychopath she clearly was.

  Heads snapped back from screens in violent recoil when Cynthia was struck down, a clawed hand exploding in some disgusting 3D imagery. There was surely no way to stop this new threat.

  Simon Clermont gasped as Cynthia Arrow died on his television screen while Dennison felt the tide of luck possibly change in his own direction with the death of the woman. His bigger problem, of course, was the fact that the woman who’d promised him a way out from under Cynthia’s influence was apparently quite literally a monster.

  Clermont had already started the process of ordering his men to trace the broadcast signal and find the location. The animal on screen had stolen quite possibly the love of his life from him and he wanted the beast dead as much as anyone, probably more.