“Goddamn it,” Bishop muttered as he checked the communications systems in the tent. A few radios and a number of video display monitors had bullet holes in them but most looked to still be operational. “Get these people outta here and find me some replacement personnel to man this station,” he said to his men.
As the two prisoners were led outside, he pushed away the corpse of a dead guardsman from the table after realizing that the radio was still functional. While cycling through several frequencies, he started hearing a commotion outside.
One of his men ran back into the tent, his M4 rifle was dripping wet with rainwater as gunfire began erupting outside. “Governor, they’re attacking us!”
Bishop looked up from the table. “Who’s attacking? The National Guard?”
The man looked scared and hysterical. “No, sir. It’s those monsters, they’re all over the perimeter!”
“What?” Bishop said as he grabbed the pistol he had left on the table and ran outside.
The rains were getting stronger as the night sky became opaque with haze and gusts of howling winds. All around him he could see flashes of lightning as well as weapons fire. The command tent had been situated on a school parking lot and there was a chain link fence around it. Several dozen of his Texas State Guardsmen had parked their half dozen Humvees with machinegun turrets in a semi-circle around the command post.
Bishop opened the car door and then jumped into the front seat of one of the vehicles. The Humvee driver was trying to frantically switch frequencies on the vehicle’s two-way radio gear.
“Where in the hell is Colonel Sands?” Bishop said as he slammed the front seat door shut to keep out the pouring rain.
“I’m not sure, sir,” the driver said nervously. Bishop remembered his name was Blaine, a young kid who joined up just weeks ago. “He got a radio distress call from our lead unit at the outskirts of the city facing Cuevitas, so he took most of the convoy and sped off just under ten minutes ago. Now I can’t reach him.”
Bishop grabbed the radio receiver from him as he began to fiddle with the radio controls. “For God’s sake, let me do this.”
As Blaine looked out at the front windshield he instantly let out a cry of surprise. “Oh lord, look at that!” he said, pointing at the perimeter fence, less than fifty yards away from them.
Bishop looked up and instantly recoiled back into his seat, his shaking hand nearly letting go of the radio receiver. Just beyond the fence was a horde of pale-skinned skeletal creatures with jet black damp hair that hung limply down their shoulders, partly covering their flaccid breasts, just above their emasculated ribcages. Their long arms ended in black talons and they wore skirts that had shrunken human skulls hanging on strings around them. Their eye sockets were empty and sunken, as if someone had ripped out their eyeballs and left nothing but a hollow black void of nothingness with which to stare down their victims just before they would kill them.
The other Texas State Guardsmen had seen them as well. The gunners who were stationed on the vehicle turrets immediately turned their swivel-mounted M2 Browning heavy machine guns and opened fire. As the massive .50 caliber rounds began streaming into their direction, the demons immediately leapt up into the sky, and within seconds had landed on top of several Humvees as they began tearing and ripping into the hapless men sitting on the open turrets. The men on the ground began to run and fire in all directions, some of them even started to run away.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Bishop screamed. Blaine immediately shifted gears and floored the vehicle’s accelerator since the engine was already idle. The Humvee accelerated forward as it drove past the carnage and out into the rainy street. The city was mostly deserted due to the standing evacuation orders, so the Humvee skidded along the wet pavement as Blaine fought for control while trying to compensate for the adverse weather conditions as he accelerated.
Visibility was less than twenty feet as the Humvee drove through the sheets of rain that kept pouring relentlessly from the storm clouds above. As the initial adrenaline and fright had started to wear off, reason and logic had both begun to reestablish themselves, Blaine began to slow down as he sensed the danger was left behind.
“Goddamn that was close,” Bishop said as he slumped back into the front seat.
Blaine kept his eyes on the road as he made a turn along a deserted intersection. “What the hell were those things, sir?”
Bishop closed his eyes as he remembered reading the reports from the Department of Defense. “Some sort of Aztec demons. Apparently, those stupid wetbacks in Mexico must have done something to awaken those monsters, and now they’re making their way up north to us.”
“Demons?” Blaine said nervously. “How in the hell do we fight that?”
“I don’t know,” Bishop said as he felt a drop of rain on his cheek. As he wiped it away with his hand he looked at Blaine. “Is there a leak in this vehicle? I’m starting to get wet.”
“No sir,” Blaine said. “Private Calhoun was on the turret gun so maybe you ought to ask him.”
“Huh?” Bishop’s eyes widened as he realized the Humvee actually had a gunner stationed on its turret. He quickly turned around, then let out a gasp a split second later.
As he looked up at the turret in the back area of the Humvee, Bishop saw that Calhoun had already been torn in half, only his lower torso and legs were left standing under the open turret. The governor could see bits of entrails and blood all over the back seat. It was then that he noticed that one of those demons was actually sitting on top of the vehicle and then used its claws to climb in through the open turret to sit right behind them. Its leering mouth filled with jagged sharp teeth was now inches away from Bishop’s terrified face.
Both men screamed as the demon began to tear at them with its claws. Blaine’s throat was sliced through and his dying hands let go of the steering wheel. The Humvee swerved sideways and then fishtailed into the side of an abandoned building.
24. The Flood
Arabian Desert
They had been driving across the desert for almost two days now. The grey dust of Iraq had now given way to the vermillion sands of Arabia. Patrick Gyle kept his hands on the steering wheel of the Toyota Land Cruiser while Ron Boland rested in the back seat. Both of them had barely escaped the attack in the Green Zone. They had jumped into the Tigris River and made their way south after stealing a sedan from a terrified Iraqi man who was prostrate on the ground, begging the ancient gods of Babylon to spare him and his family. They didn’t come out of it unscathed though, as Boland’s left leg was horribly mangled when a winged demon landed on it before flying off again. Gyle had fashioned a makeshift splint for him. He wanted to leave Boland at a local hospital when they made it south to Najaf ahead of the sandstorm, but Boland refused. He made the painful decision to go with Gyle, because he told Boland of the dream he had about an ancient man sitting in cave who had been calling out to him. They weren’t sure about the significance of Gyle’s visions, but it was enough motivation for them to try and head southwards, across Saudi Arabia, with the hopes of finding that man. Boland theorized that with everything that had happened, he needed to find more intel before he could report back to Washington. The last thing he wanted to do was to return in disgrace.
The car’s windshield was caked with dust as Gyle took another swig of the water bottle that lay beside him in the front seat. The Land Cruiser was brand new and still smelled faintly of factory synthetic leather mixed in with their sweat. They had made it into a car dealership in Najaf City. The sympathetic owner had given them the car keys and his blessing. He told them to take the vehicle and do with it as they pleased. Boland had later told him that the man who owned the dealership was in fact a courier for the Israeli Mossad. He could be counted on as an ally when Gyle had wondered why the man gave up the car so easily. After quickly loading it with water, rations, and jerrycans full of diesel that Gyle had placed at the back, they immediately sped off towards the south until they crossed the
invisible border as his visions led the way.
Gyle checked the Land Cruiser’s dashboard computer. The GPS display was indicating that they were less than twenty miles north of Ha’il, a small city in northwestern Saudi Arabia. He had marveled at their luck since the GPS maps had already been preloaded by the resourceful Iraqi car dealer, so all he had to do was to manually adjust their current position by triangulation. He was pretty much being guided by his feelings now, as if the old man in his dreams had been calling to him. He drove in the direction where he felt was the right way and he had been doing this for days now, only stopping for a few hours in the night to rest and refuel the vehicle’s gas tank.
Boland began to cough dryly as he opened his eyes. Gyle glanced back in the rearview mirror to see if he was still okay. As their eyes met, Boland silently made a thumbs-up sign with his hand, and then promptly closed his eyes again while slumping back into the seat. The man must be in a lot of pain because of his busted leg, Gyle thought. And yet he insisted on going with me. That takes a lot of guts.
Although he was mostly driving off-road, there were times when he went along the highway. But even then, both the roads and the areas they passed through were mostly deserted, except for the occasional car, or a gaggle of Bedouins on their camels heading southward. Gyle would cycle through the radio for any recent news. From what they heard it was obvious that Iraq had fallen to the supernatural gods and demons of the blowing sands. Even though the Saudis proclaimed that they would defend their borders, Gyle did not see a single Saudi military unit the moment they crossed through. English language news reports on the radio had intercepted top-secret government cables that revealed the Saudi government and their military units had retreated south towards Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. That would be the city where the Muslim faith would make its final stand, as the Saudi government implored all those loyal to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed that they would form a ring of steel around their holiest shrines, and defend it with their lives. Gyle scoffed at the ridiculousness of it all. He knew they were worshipping the false god because the real ones were in fact just up north and coming this way.
As he turned the car into the highway near As-Sufun, Gyle glanced at a ring of mountains to his right. His hands began to tremble as a warm feeling began to cascade over his body. This was it, the old man was nearby. Taking his foot off the accelerator, the car slowed down as Gyle began to bring the vehicle towards the base of the small mountain range. There were dry riverbeds called wadis that cut along the mountains. Gyle began to drive the Land Cruiser through them, the vehicle kicking up small clouds of dust as its wheels turned slowly on the loose sand. He had seen a glimpse of the city of Ha’il a few miles away on the horizon, but he noticed there was no movement or vehicles near the outskirts, so he guessed that the whole place must have already been evacuated. He drove on for another hour, as he twisted and turned along the wadis until the hairs on the back of his neck were so electrified they seemed to run a current through his spine.
Turning off the car ignition, Gyle turned around to look at his CIA case officer. Boland lay stretched out in the backseat, the makeshift splint on his right leg was straightened out to keep his injured limb steady. “Ron, I think we’re here,” he said to him.
Boland opened his eyes again and pushed at the seat cushion in order to sit up. “Where are we?”
“About a few klicks west of Ha’il. That city looks deserted by the way.”
Boland took out his own plastic bottle of water from the rear compartment, and took a sip to moisten his dry throat. “Are you sure this is the place?”
“I can feel the tingling all over my body,” Gyle said. “I know what I’m saying sounds far-fetched, but the man with the answers is somewhere here, I can feel it.”
“After everything I saw in the Green Zone,” Boland said softly. “I can pretty much believe anything now.”
Gyle had a Beretta M9 pistol on his hip that he took off a dead soldier that was lying in the Green Zone a few days back. He did a brass check by slightly thumbing back the slide to make sure there was a round in the chamber. “You want to come with me?”
“With this blasted leg I’d be only slowing you down,” Boland said as he popped a few aspirin tablets into his mouth before sipping more water. “I’ll guard the vehicle.”
Gyle thumbed the safety of the gun and gave it to him butt-first. “Keep this, then.”
Boland shook his head. “That’s for you, just in case that old man’s hostile.”
“He won’t attack me, I can feel it,” Gyle said as he offered him the gun again.
This time Boland took it and placed it on his lap. “Okay, if you get into trouble, don’t make me come limping after you, G.”
Gyle nodded as he opened the front door and slid out of the driver’s seat. As he stretched his back, he began to survey the area. The mountains didn’t look particularly tall, the highest elevations looked to be around a hundred feet, though he had a feeling that he wouldn’t have to climb since his last dream was of a cave, which meant that he needed to look at ground level.
The late afternoon sun was being blocked by the mountains so it gave the wadi an overcast look. Gyle began to walk along the dried riverbeds that had naturally carved their way along the base of the mountains over the centuries. For an hour, he did nothing but follow the smooth paths of sand as he walked deeper into the base of the mountain range. As he made another turn by just walking along the dried riverbed, he noticed a large desert bush at the end of a trail that led to the base of a rock spire just ahead of him. A strange feeling came over him as he realized that he was close.
Gyle walked over and stood in front of the dried shrub, he realized that there was a soft breeze coming from behind it. As he walked around it, he saw that it actually hid an entrance to a cave. Taking the flashlight from his belt, he turned it on and crouched down as he ventured inside.
Whether it was formed naturally or hewn by hand he couldn’t tell. He crouched and made his way in further. A slight upward draft of cooling air continued to drift by him. Gyle could smell myrrh and cedar coming from somewhere. The descent along the cave tunnel was narrow and he nearly fell as his boots slid down the smooth limestone floor, until he slowed down and began to gingerly choose his footing. Gyle reckoned he had gone down about a hundred feet below the mouth of the cave when the tunnel finally ended, and he stood before a massive underground chamber.
Fist-sized rays of light illuminated the cavern, so he turned his flashlight off and clipped it back on his belt. As he looked up, he figured there must have been thousands of these tiny holes up on the cave ceiling that led out into the sky, it gave the effect of standing over a night sky full of stars. Looking around, Gyle saw that a small, underground stream of flowing water crisscrossed the cavern floor and wild plants grew all around him. The far side of the cave had a cliff side loft with a makeshift wooden pallet that was apparently used as a cot. Peering further out, Gyle could see that near the bed was a wooden chest, as well as a metal cooking pot near a smoldering fire pit. A handmade wooden table with various tools lay nearby. As he kept looking around, he soon heard the sound of footsteps.
Gyle reacted quickly by crouching down as he slid into the side of the cave tunnel, away from the beams of light shining down, and into the shadows. As the sounds of movement got closer, he noticed an old man appearing from where the loft was. The man started to make his way down using a narrow trail along on the side of the limestone wall. He could see that the old man was clothed in nothing but a tattered robe and wore sandals, his long white beard and wild mane of hair made him look like a stereotypical hermit of the sort that one usually sees in old movies. As the old man made it to the base of the cavern, he raised a bony hand in a gesture of peace towards Gyle.
Since he had been obviously discovered there was no point in hiding any further, so Gyle stood up and faced the old man as he walked into the center of the cavern. The old man didn’t seem to be hostile, so Gyle
raised his hand with an open palm at him in return.
The old man smiled and gestured at him to come closer. “Welcome, my friend. I am of no threat to you. Would you like some tea?”
Gyle took a step before stopping abruptly. Even though events of the past week had shaken his beliefs in practically everything, there was still a part of him that couldn’t believe it at all so he compensated by returning back to his old, cautious ways. “I saw you in my dreams. And you speak English. Who are you?”
The old man nodded. “Ah, that is the way with dreams. I saw you in my dreams as well along with some others, like the woman with the scar, and the two children, wandering all by themselves in the netherworld. Dreams are important because it is the god’s way of talking to you, especially when they have no voice. As far as my speaking to you in your language, I have had plenty of time to learn most manner of tongues that all men speak.”
Gyle came closer. “So let’s talk about dreams then. I dreamt of this very cave and it led me from Baghdad and across the desert. I’ve seen many people die on my way here and I am no closer in knowing what the hell is going on than I was when I first saw those demons in the dust.”
“I was not calling you with my dreams,” the old man said as he bent down, then he started to take some leaves from a flowery plant growing at the edge of the underground stream. “But perhaps the gods are using us as part of their plans. But then again, who really knows the will of the gods except maybe the gods themselves.”
“For the last two days, every time I closed my eyes, you kept appearing before me and you’d tell me the same thing.”
The old man stopped and looked up at him. “And what were these things of which I would tell you?”
“You kept saying that the world was in danger and that I was needed,” Gyle said. “But for what, I don’t know. The dream just ends without any further explanation.”
The old man looked up at the ceiling as if thinking to himself before sitting down on a smooth rock near the stream. “That is strange. My dream is of you wandering the desert. Then I dream of the others, and they are also making their way across different parts of the world.”
The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1) Page 28