The Glooming (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 1)

by John Triptych

  Even the experienced spec ops soldiers began to scream and panic along with everybody else as they all started running in every direction. As Blake got up and looked around in sheer terror, he saw one of his men, the soldier with the night vision goggles, slip and fall off the edge of the ruptured floor, and then was crushed by the giant grub worm as his body fell down into the basement. Blake knew that the position was untenable as he sprinted towards the device. The modified B83 nuclear bomb had an instant detonation fuse in addition to the timer, so all he had to do was to take the key that he wore in a necklace around his neck, and twist it into the key lock on the side of the cylinder.

  As more of the floor collapsed, Blake tore off his backpack that had the flamethrower and threw it to the side before jumping over a tottering display. He made one last sprint as he got to where the bomb was sitting. Thankfully, they had placed it in front of one the main bulkheads in the building so the floor around it had yet to collapse. He could already see the concrete support beams cracking as the gigantic maggot grew even bigger. As he opened a flap along the side of the cylinder, Blake holstered his pistol and used both hands to pull out the keychain from underneath his ballistic armored vest. As his hand clutched the key, he inserted it into the lock and was just about to twist it when Valerie tackled him from behind and they both fell over to the side, near the edge of the gaping hole in the floor.

  Blake instantly rolled and then got up as Valerie dove at him once more. She tried to put him in a headlock, but the spec ops soldier elbowed her in the chin and she fell back onto the floor, stunned. As she fought through the pain and tried to sit up, she saw Blake move towards the cylinder just as the remaining floor shifted again. Blake almost fell over the side as more of the floor collapsed right beside him. He struggled to regain his balance, the key he had in his hand fell away and flew down into the basement level. As he roared in frustration, Valerie crouched and leapt up into the side exit and into another hallway, just as both Blake and the bomb were crushed when the giant worm rolled its body sideways as it burst through the roof of the museum. Valerie started to run towards the Grand Gallery exit as the walls began collapsing all around her.

  Brooklyn

  Most of them had walked out of the command tent and stared across the river. They too had felt the earthquake and they could see the giant worm’s monstrous reflection up in the night sky, as if it was some sort of ghostly image that had projected itself onto the rain clouds above. An intense, roaring noise like that of a shrieking bird, reverberated across the entire city as the great god Okeus had started to come into being.

  “Oh my god,” Paul said as the rain had intensified.

  Joe shook his head in disbelief. “What is that thing?”

  The Otherworld

  The great oak tree looked even bigger now that they were alongside of it. The two spirit manifestations of Okeus and Ahone seemed to be just standing there as if suspended in midair. Ilya noticed a silvery thread of energy that was emanating from Ahone’s avatar and it connected like a current to the tree. Okeus’s aura was blood red as the evil god’s energy tendrils were also connected to the oak’s trunk from the other side.

  “Look, there’s something here,” Tara said as she stared at the trunk of the tree.

  Ilya walked over and stood beside her. Lying on the outside of the trunk was a very large white maggot trying to eat its way into the bark.

  Tara immediately remembered her dream. “This is the symbol of Okeus! We need to kill it. I need to find a rock so I can crush it.”

  “Gods cannot be killed,” Coyote said as it sat down on its hind legs to observe what the two of them would do.

  Tara looked at the trickster in frustration. “Then how do we defeat it then?”

  Ilya thought about it for a minute before looking at Coyote. “Wait, you said that they were two gods, right? Or are they just different sides of one god?”

  “The ancient peoples believed that the many gods could have good and bad aspects to them,” Coyote said. “Even the most malevolent god could also become a protector to their people.”

  Tara frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s it then!” Ilya exclaimed. “If we cannot destroy the evil god then we combine him with the good one. It will be a stalemate, like in chess. That worm is a larva—it can grow into something good or into something evil … if we show its true form, maybe it can grow as one god who can be both.”

  “And the balance will be restored,” Coyote added.

  “Okay,” Tara said. “How do we do that?”

  Ilya grinned as he took out some bits of the magical raskovnik plant from his jacket. “If the worm likes to eat, then feed it this. It is said to uncover the truth in whoever eats it and unlocks all doors.”

  “That’s a plan then,” Tara said as she grabbed the maggot and set it down on the ground. “Eew, that was gross. I can’t believe I had to touch it.”

  Ilya placed the bits of raskovnik in front of the grub worm. “Now let’s see what happens next.”

  Almost immediately, the maggot chewed on the magical herbs. Seconds later, it began to glow as it grew bigger. Sensing danger, both Ilya and Tara began to back away, but the grub worm had suddenly turned into a bluish wisp of energy that divided itself into two halves. The ghostly figures of Ahone and Okeus each started to move. Both gods took an equal share of the energy pool as both their forms began to merge into one. Within minutes, there were no longer two avatars but a single god that stood before them. As both Ilya and Tara stared in wonderment, the god placed a hand on each of their foreheads before finally turning around and walked into the great oak tree’s trunk as they too merged as one. When Coyote walked over to the two astonished kids, they now saw that the oak tree had somehow gotten bigger and was now glowing with a multicolored, mystical aura around it.

  Tara and Ilya looked at each other and grinned. There was a feeling of peace and accomplishment between them as they sensed that they had just averted a major catastrophe in their own world.

  “Gimme five!” Tara said as she and Ilya clapped their hands together in triumph.

  Ilya recoiled as soon as he touched her palm. “Your hands are sticky and disgusting!”

  Brooklyn

  As everyone stood watching with a sense of growing hopelessness, the gigantic reflection of the maggot suddenly began to shudder and collapse in on itself. A few seconds later, there was a loud scream like that of a dying animal heard across the city with such force that nearby windows shattered and doors flew open. The simulacrum of the larva had disappeared as its energy wave seemingly began to dissipate into the night sky.

  Paul looked up as the rains suddenly stopped and the clouds began to miraculously clear over the brightening horizon. Some of the police offers gave a loud whoop while others began to scream and holler with delight.

  General Benteen had been looking out from the entrance of the command tent. Then he finally walked over and stood beside Joe, Paul, and Commissioner Donovan. “Just what the hell happened?”

  Commissioner Donovan didn’t even look at him. “A miracle, that’s what.”

  “We need to get EMS crews over to the museum,” Joe said as he turned and headed back towards the command tent.

  Commissioner Donovan looked at Paul. “Did that giant worm somehow die or something?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said. “Perhaps that larva was a sign of change since worms like that grow into something else once that stage of their existence is over. I’d like to think that it transformed into something beautiful, like a butterfly.”

  “Let’s hope it didn’t change into something even worse,” Commissioner Donovan said.

  30. The End of the Beginning

  Manhattan

  By the time the emergency teams arrived at the museum, it was already mid morning. As Valerie Mendoza stood beside the rubble that had once been a historic landmark, she realized that she had just somehow escaped the wrath of a very angry god. She looked up, and
was immediately surprised to see that the rain clouds had miraculously parted as the morning sun shined over her. Valerie closed her eyes in quiet satisfaction as she could feel the heat on her face for the first time in weeks.

  The convoy of emergency rescue teams came over fifteen minutes later. There were about a dozen other cops that had survived the giant grub worm’s attack and the ensuing destruction of the museum. And about half of them were hurt. A number of emergency crews took the ones who couldn’t walk onto stretchers and into the back of the half-dozen ambulances in the convoy. Valerie refused medical attention, but she did take the offer of a blanket as she wrapped it around her shoulders.

  A Humvee parked itself beside her. Dr. Paul Dane came out from the passenger side door along with Lieutenant Joe Pascorelli. She hugged them both and told them what had happened. Just as she had gotten out of the museum, the giant maggot had somehow begun to shudder and collapsed in on itself as an energy surge was all around it. Within seconds, there was nothing left … almost as if it never existed.

  “That was a near thing,” Paul said wistfully. “Manhattan would have blown up if it wasn’t for you.”

  “I think it was something or somebody else that saved me,” Valerie said. “I’d like to meet whoever it was that did it.”

  Joe gave her a playful punch in the arm. “Maybe it was Myron. He’s your guardian angel now.”

  “Maybe,” Valerie said.

  “So I guess it’s all over then,” Joe said.

  “Nope,” Paul said to him. “We’ve still got big problems all around the world. This isn’t over yet.”

  “I can’t help but think that maybe God was the one who saved us,” Joe said. “If that’s really what happened then maybe there is justice in the world.”

  “Either that,” Valerie said. “Or it was just us.”

  Siberia

  “God, I can’t believe how cold it is where you live,” Tara Weiss said as she walked along with Ilya Volkhov and the little dog along the snow-covered trail in the moonlit night. The jacket and sweater she wore just wasn’t enough to block the cold, and she felt they needed to get to shelter soon. As they had passed through a portal and were now in the forests of Siberia, Coyote changed back into a little Chihuahua once more.

  Ilya said something to her in Russian, but she realized she couldn’t understand the language. Tara cursed out loud as she realized that they were no longer in the Otherworld and that meant that she wouldn’t be able to communicate with the boy.

  “He said he doesn’t understand you,” the dog said.

  Tara stopped walking as she drew back in surprise. “You still understand him though? Okay, ask him what we’re doing in this part of Russia, please.”

  The dog and Ilya chatted in Russian for a minute before Coyote looked back at her. “He said that in order to find his mother, he needed to return to the orphanage so he could find out her last known address,” the dog said.

  “Okay then,” Tara said as she saluted them playfully. “Lead on.”

  Just as she said those words, Tara was instantly blinded as large searchlights were activated and were shown in their direction. Ilya cursed out in Russian as both of them were quickly set upon by over a dozen armed men wearing winter camouflage.

  “What’s going on?” Tara screamed as she was grabbed by two men. She tried to fight them off and run but they were too strong. “No, get away from me!”

  Ilya also tried to get away, but they quickly picked him up and began to carry him to a nearby vehicle. The boy yelled out in frustration when they started to bind and gag him.

  The little dog immediately started running into the forest as two of the men leveled their assault rifles and began shooting at it.

  “Bibsy!” Tara screamed once more as someone placed a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. A pungent, bleach-like chemical smell suffocated her lungs and all she could think about before she finally lost consciousness was her little brother Timmy.

  The Story Continues In:

  Canticum Tenebris

  Wrath of the Old Gods Book II

  Now Available!

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  Wrath of the Old Gods Series: The entire world is thrown into turmoil as the ancient gods of myth and legend return. An epic, post-apocalyptic series with multiple characters, mythical beings, and world spanning adventures.

  The Glooming (Book 1)

  Canticum Tenebris (Book 2)

  A World Darkly (Book 3)

  And more on the way!

  Wrath of the Old Gods Young Adult Series: A complete and standalone series for young adults that ties in with the main Wrath of the Old Gods series. This trilogy centers on a young British boy and of his quest to save his country from supernatural forces.

  Pagan Apocalypse (Book 1.5) E-book version is FREE!

  The Fomorians (Book 2.5) E-book version is FREE for all mailing list subscribers!

  Eye of Balor (Book 3.5)