The Edge of Hell: Gods of the Undead A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

by Peter Meredith

  Jack was shoved in next and found himself almost on top of the door gunner on the other side of the bird. The gunner was rock and rolling his weapon, blasting back the waves of ghouls, tearing them apart, littering the cemetery with bones. Hands and arms flew and skulls cracked like tea cups. The gunner wore a madman’s grin and his eyes were huge and his hands like iron on the handle of his gun.

  Then Jack felt his belly go light and they were lifting off, going straight up, allowing the second helicopter to land. And all the while, the gunner never let up. He kept up a steady firing until the moment the second copter lifted and then he sat back, his face breaking into a wide smile of relief.

  All the men shared the same look and some were joking and some were high-fiving each other. Jack didn’t want to burst their bubble and yet they had to know. “That was the easy one,” Jack yelled into Neilson’s ear. “We have three more and each is going to get harder. My cousin knows. Look!” Jack pointed down at the ghouls. Where before they had glanced up at the passing helicopter with only mild interest as they flew overhead, now they were turning in mass in the direction of the copter’s path.

  “That’s not good,” the lieutenant exclaimed, staring over the edge of the doorway. He punched his throat mike and said in a voice that was unbelievably calm: “We have to go faster.”

  Chapter 41

  Manhattan, New York City

  Either Robert had more spells that Jack didn’t know about or he was a very good guesser. The helicopters raced along the narrow streets, keeping low enough so that the entire city of dead couldn’t track them, and just high enough to avoid the traffic lights and still, they were mobbed just as soon as they landed on the front lawn of the UN building—the eastern boundary of Jack’s spell.

  Even before they touched down, the door gunners were firing like mad to keep the wave of bone-creatures back. Fearlessly, the Seals leapt from the chopper and charged at the dead, putting themselves between Jack and a thousand of Robert’s creatures that were hell-bent on killing him.

  It was a swirling fire-fight as more ghouls raced in, while those that had already been practically obliterated by the chopper’s guns reformed, sometimes under the feet of the Seals. Jack couldn’t watch. He dragged his sacrifice out of the copter and didn’t waste a second moving him any further. Out came the knife, the old blood on it still wet; he slashed the man open a second time, the blade sinking deeper than he had expected.

  The blood was dark. It was mesmerizing. It sent a hunger through Jack that had him licking his lips. He reached out a shaking hand and put his fingers in the wound; it was warm and good; good in what way, he didn’t know, he only knew that it was good for him. The fingers went deeper, penetrating so that he felt the pulse of the man’s heart so close…

  A sudden blast of hot air as the helicopter lifted off, was like a slap to Jack’s face. It brought him around to his duty and not a second too soon.

  Pulling his hand away, he began dipping the brush in the dark blood and drawing his symbols as fast as he could, only dimly aware of the second helicopter landing, or the blasting guns, and the explosions as grenades were being used in a sign of desperation or the screams...someone was hurt.

  Jack knew the pain of the poison; it was a horror.

  A second man began screaming and another. In the middle of the battle, one of the helicopters appeared to leap like a frog. It had been hovering low about a block away, trying to get the ghouls to come after it, but to no avail—the ghouls were after Jack and raced around the copter, ignoring it.

  In one great bound, it lifted off and landed twenty feet from where the Seals were fighting. This time the landing wasn’t the least bit graceful. It came down with jarring force, crushing an unknown number of the creatures, while from its sides, fire and lead flashed outward in a torrent but too late to save a Seal who had his eyes driven into his brain by stiff, bony fingers.

  Jack barely paid attention to any of this. The only thing he cared about were the symbols and the soft hand on his shoulder. Cyn was there, standing next to him, holding her shotgun, one-handed, braced against her hip, pointing at the sky.

  The glyphs and the mumbled spells took all of three minutes to complete. And as before the “sound” erupted in his mind, louder now and the vibrations were worse. His heart became a dark, sore hunk of coal in his chest and had he been performing the spell under different circumstances he might have gone off the deep end right then. However, he wasn’t alone. He was surrounded by brave men fighting against outrageous odds, and as he watched, one of the Seals was dragged down by sheer numbers as he tried to reload his gun. The man’s vest was ripped off of him and he was torn in two. Nearby two more were slashed by the raking claws and poisoned, their screams adding to the din of battle.

  All around them was a wall of bones and decaying scalps and the filthy remains of funeral suits and the flapping remnants of burial dresses.

  “Holy crap,” Jack breathed and then frantically waved the helicopters in.

  “The injured first,” Neilson ordered. Jack stepped back and watched as two of the men who couldn’t walk were dragged to the chopper and hauled in, while another three staggered in under their own power. Next the bloody sacrifice was put in and then Pastor John climbed in and went to work right away on the injured. Two more Seals came up, each hefting a corpse over their shoulders.

  One of the Seals jumped onto the helicopter and the other did a quick count. “There’s ten,” he said to Jack. “Get on.”

  Jack hesitated. The wall of bones was edging ever closer and he didn’t see how the next helicopter would be able to land in the middle of it all, especially since the remaining men were spread so thin. And if it couldn’t land, everyone left behind would die a gruesome death.

  The spell had such a hold over Jack’s mind that he almost got on the chopper. He almost left Cyn behind to die, but then she looked at him and he saw the fear in her eyes. Just the look damped the ringing tone. She was his anchor and he knew if she died it would be better for everyone if he died as well.

  She was facing out from the chopper, in a crouch, her shotgun at the ready. Cyn was such a slim, elegant figure that it was surprisingly easy for Jack to pick her up, one hand gripping the seat of her jeans, the other on the back of her tactical gear.

  “What the hell?” she cried, as she went sprawling half on the dead, half on the poor boy with the “Mom” tattoo. She tried to scramble out again, but he stopped her, grabbing her shoulders.

  “I’ll get the next one; it’ll be ok.”

  She was so close that he could have leaned forward an inch and kissed her; he wished she had. She licked her lips, wanting to say something, only there was no time. Jack slapped the metal hide of the bird and screamed: “Go!”

  The pilot needed no further orders. His bird was full and there was no sense waiting even a second longer. It went up like an elevator, leaving Jack blinking as the ash swirled. Then it was just Jack, Lieutenant Neilson and nine men surrounded by an army.

  “Keep the LZ open!” roared Neilson. “Hold them back!” He then turned to Jack and said: “You should have kissed her and you should have gotten her weapon.”

  Jack had only his rapier, and was just then realizing what a ridiculous weapon it was for the situation. Though perfect for a one-on-one battle with a single monster made of bone, it was too slim for the hard-bitten melee which faced him.

  The only other extra weapon at hand was Neilson’s ceremonial saber. It was nothing like Jack’s fencing weapon. Its blade was heavy but fine in its balance. It was a cavalry saber and had been perfectly designed for exactly this sort of fight. It was loosely tied to the back of Neilson’s Kevlar vest.

  “What the hell are you doing, Jack?” the lieutenant yelled, as Jack snatched it and then ran to the weakest point in the line. “Get back here!”

  Jack was filled with a lust for blood and death, and with these beasts there was no need to hold back. He could give in and hack and maim with impunity. He cou
ld even have fun. The sword was surprisingly light in his hands and the blade was clean and pure. It heaved the head off the first creature, passing through bone and gristle like they were nothing.

  He then hacked off a reaching arm with a back hand stroke and then brought the blade back to leave the ghoul standing useless and limbless. He turned to the next one and went at it with two hands in a swing that was all muscle and no technique. The creature, partially caught up in her own burial dress, exploded as if she had been made of kindling and string.

  Another met the same fate and Jack suddenly realized he wasn’t feeling the ugly, electric evil sensation he had felt when he had used his own swords against the creatures. Not only that, the saber felt impossibly light in hands as though he was flicking a willow wand back and forth.

  It was the blessings and the Holy Oil. Against the undead, they made the sword magic. He waded in slashing back and forth, hewing them down like weeds, the blade shining brighter and brighter. He found himself grinning when he saw that those he struck down weren’t reforming. Their parts wiggled or jumped like landed fish, but they weren’t slipping back together.

  The power of the priest’s magic on the blade had unwound them, destroying whatever bond kept the bones knit together. “The swords!” Jack cried. “Use the swords!” His grin grew from ear to ear—here was a way to defeat the army of undead! For just one second, he let himself forget that Robert could call another army if this one was destroyed.

  Eagerly he swept the creatures back and there was a malignant joy in him.

  What brought him around was that a touch of reality began to force itself into the unreal battle. The sword might have been magical, but so were the creatures. They came on, armless and even headless, and even a touch was debilitating. Jack’s tactical armor saved him from being killed time and again, but one touch had him gasping in pain and reeling away.

  And this brought on a new focus and understanding. There were too many of them for the little group to stop. They would all die if the second helicopter didn’t land soon. The problem was that the tiny circle of Seals was being pushed ever inwards and there wasn’t room.

  The helicopter was almost directly overhead and even with the door gunners pouring hot brass down on them like rain from a squall, it couldn’t make up for the thousands of beasts clawing to get at the eleven men. It was stuck fifteen feet off the ground.

  In between swings of his sword, Jack could see Cyn in the first copter staring across a space of seventy feet. It was as if they were again nose-to nose and he was looking right into her eyes. She was afraid for him and she was afraid for herself—when he died, she would have to finish the spell and she would have to give up her soul.

  He knew this for an absolute fact and it made him crazy and it made him evil. He roared something. It wasn’t English or any language spoken by man. It just came up out of his perverted soul and it stopped the ghouls in their tracks, but only for a second and then they came on fiercer than ever and Jack fought harder than ever.

  All in vain.

  There was no power on earth able to stop the tide of the creatures...only Robert could and, in his paranoia, he did.

  The dead were within the tight perimeter when Jack suddenly felt the death knell of a human sacrifice. He knew it now and understood it. He had slain Carl, stabbing him with a bitter hunk of faceless, factory forged metal and he had killed Connor with the same ugly, inelegant blade. He knew when someone was using his spell.

  All three of the spells were his birthright and it galled him somewhere unspeakable whenever they were used by someone unworthy.

  Around him, the ghouls suddenly stopped attacking. Time seemed to stop for them. They stared west. They stared in the direction where the gate of hell had opened.

  Lieutenant Neilson and the other Seals, couldn’t feel a thing. They didn’t know that Robert, in his fear of Jack, had brought something big into the world. They were just happy at the unexpected reprieve in the fighting and while the ghouls stared, the Seals blasted them into pieces.

  In seconds, there was enough room for the copter to land among the bones and grave-clutter. The air was suddenly a hundred and ten degrees and whipping ash all around. There was a crunch of breaking bones and then, right behind Jack was a great gray metal beast. Just like the ghouls he stared west and had to be pulled into the copter.

  When he blinked, they were cutting through the streets once again, the mood aboard the helicopter somber. The men went about reloading their weapons in a state of grim anger. Jack, on the other hand wasn’t anywhere near somber. He was downright freaked out. What Robert had brought through the gate was greater than any demon they had yet faced.

  He tried to “feel” for the creature, and even though there were so many of the lesser creatures around them and their evil was a huge burst of static, he could feel the new one. It was horrible, like a mega-watt transmitter of evil. And worse, not only was it a transmitter of dark energy, it was a receiver as well.

  It knew Jack was searching for it and it knew right where Jack was.

  Neilson nudged Jack, making him jump. “Where are we putting down?” he asked.

  “What? We’re here already?” Jack asked looking out of the chopper’s door. Sure enough, out the right window was the Hudson River. They were at the western edge of the boundary Jack had chosen. He had wanted to land in a strip of a park that ran along the West Side Highway; however it was already overrun with the creatures, all looking up eagerly.

  Unfortunately, there was nowhere else to land. The roads and sidewalks were packed with cars. Even if they could land, there wasn’t ten feet of open space to draw the glyphs. The helicopters slowly made their way along the highway in five minutes of fruitless searching. Those were precious minutes that shouldn’t have been wasted.

  The dead were racing towards them, including the latest monster Robert had called up. The thought of it ate at Jack and he finally said: “I guess we land in the park and take our chances.” They were terrible chances, he knew. He could envision the fight: the door gunners would blast a landing zone and they would set down in a litter of bones which would reanimate practically under their feet as Jack tried to draw his glyphs and the others fought and died.

  “No way!” Neilson yelled. “We’ll be shredded. What about on top of that building?” He pointed to what looked like a warehouse—its roof was flat and empty, and perfect.

  “Yes! Do it. We might have to get down to ground level, but at least we’ll be able to land.”

  Since they didn’t know whether the roof could hold the weight of the helicopters, they couldn’t actually set the 17,000 pound birds down. They leapt out from about four feet up. The Seals spread out, racing for the three exits while Jack waited for the second helicopter. He could pick out Cyn’s frightened face as if she was standing right in front of him.

  Then he was blinking and holding up an arm as the wash swept him. The second team, minus four Seals jumped out and then helped Cyn down. Jack’s sacrifice was newly awake and looking around in a groggy, barely lucid state. He too had to be helped.

  Cyn ran right for Jack, her eyes going wild in their sockets. “It’s coming! It’s coming! I can feel it. We can’t stay here.” There was no use questioning what the “it” was.

  “Block it from your mind, Cyn. Block it out. Just don’t think about it at all.” She tried. Her mouthed formed a little “O” and her brow furrowed, but the fear never left her eyes.

  The Seals, holding the sacrifice, keeping him from crumpling to the ground, were standing near, waiting for orders. Jack pointed to the closest stairwell door. “Get him down to the ground floor and I’m going to need him unconscious. I don’t care how you do it, just make sure he’s not moving.”

  The Seals trooped away and Pastor John, looking strangely frail and worn, started after them. Jack grabbed him and pointed him toward Cyn, who was almost hysterical from the fear of the coming creature. “Fix this and then get downstairs.”

  “I
can feel it, too,” Pastor John said. “It’s big. It’s a-a fiend from the lower hells. I know it. I don’t know how I know it but I know it.”

  “And you also know that your God is bigger than any fiend. Now fix this. Bless her or whatever, and get downstairs!” Jack turned and raced for the stairs. They were three stories up, but Jack practically threw himself down the flights until he was on the ground floor.

  The warehouse held brown boxes Stacked on shelves all the way to the ceiling; what was in them, Jack didn’t have a clue and didn’t care. What he cared about was just being laid to the floor with a large knot swelling on the side of his temple. “Good, good,” Jack said, feeling the eagerness of the spells coming back. By the way one of the Seals glanced at him with disgust twisting his handsome features, Jack was sure that he looked demented—he didn’t care about that either.

  He laid aside Neilson’s half-forgotten saber, and out came the knife and with an even deeper cut than before he added another layer of blood to the blade. He began painting and the Seals began fighting.

  Three of the tall rolling doors of the warehouse were attacked and the metal was no match for the strength of the thousands of beasts. The doors bent in, further and further until there were three foot gaps at the sides and the walking skeletons began to slip in. They made easy targets and at first the battle was controlled and even easy by the standards that they had been fighting under.

  Then the fiend arrived, casting a pall upon the fight. Even the ghouls stepped aside in favor of the monster, and the warehouse grew eerily silent. They could hear the heavy clacking steps as it came right up to the warehouse walls where it cast a shadow that was as tall as the thirty-foot ceiling and as wide as a city bus.

  It was big and the fear that flowed from it made even the blessed soldiers retreat almost to the stairwell, while Jack practically withered into a shaking ball.