“They take no notice of me,” the One said. “I am the reason for their existence and they do not know it.”
And the One dried up the oceans until they were fewer and he made many of the creatures living in it emerge from the water and he instructed them to learn to walk.
And the walking creatures worshipped him, saying, “Hail to the Bringer of Life! We shall never forget you!”
But they did forget…
Wilson hated the fact that he could recall everything he’d read in the Book. Passages drifted into his mind at the strangest, most inappropriate times. It was one of the things that caused his weeklong breakdown. Too much knowledge. Fuck it. Time to go to work.
The pattern of movement now established, he could see the moments in-between each movement of the staff. He waited until the hallway again became empty and waited for the male orderly who was roughly his size to re-emerge from one of the rooms before springing forward and grabbing him from behind. The man tried to scream, probably because he had no idea what was happening since he couldn’t see anyone, but Wilson’s sleeper hold rendered him unconscious.
Moments later, now dressed as an orderly, Wilson made his way to the opposite side of the long hallway.
And they stood as one to oppose Him, saying, “He is mad and must be stopped.”
Wilson shook his head roughly and opened the door leading to the other ward. Two large, androgynous beings stood before him, their expressions serene and unreadable.
And He cast them down on their bellies and said, “How dare you oppose me, your maker?”
Wilson blinked and swayed from side-to-side, trying to figure out if the creatures could see him. They didn’t react but that didn’t mean shit. He inhaled, held his breath and walked between them.
And they begged Him to stop tormenting them, for that was all He had ever done and He laughed and said to them, “Now you shall now true suffering!”
The androgynous one on the left sprang into action first, moving with a grace and fluidity Wilson would’ve thought impossible until he’d seen it. He narrowly avoided the blow, bending backwards and lashing out with a kick to the mid-section that should have sent the thing reeling. Instead, it merely stumbled back a step and resumed the attack, its companion remaining in place as if nothing was happening.
“There shall be a never-ending war with no victor and you will fight it as long as it amuses me.”
Wilson yanked the MAC-11 from his bag and sprayed the creature with it like he was watering a lawn. The creature jerked and grimaced with each impact to its soft, translucent flesh. When the clip was emptied, it fell down and stopped moving. Wilson reloaded the weapon and aimed it at the other one.
The One did not appear again for many years, as He did need to rest and be reborn.
The other creature turned its head and stared at him as if noticing for the first time. “I’ll shoot,” Wilson said.
“You will.” It wasn’t a question.
“Don’t move.”
The creature didn’t move, whether in obedience to Wilson’s order or because it had never intended to he didn’t know.
“Good,” Wilson said. “Very g…”
He screamed as the blinding light tore into his eyes and through the back of his skull, driving him to his knees. Wilson tried aiming his weapon but the pain was excruciating and he dropped it with a loud clatter. He wanted to reach in his pocket and pull out his backup weapon but couldn’t seem to make his limbs work.
Upon reawakening, the One looked upon the world and was displeased with the war He had created for it had not gone as planned.
Wilson fell onto his side in a fetal position and rocked back and forth. He’d never felt such complete, undeniable agony in his life. Yet somehow he sensed reluctance on the part of his tormentor, as if it did not wish to complete the attack and wipe him off the face of the Earth.
“They have forgotten me,” The One said to his servants. “They have convinced themselves they have a say in their destinies. We will show them the error of their ways.”
Somehow Wilson was able to force his hand into his pocket and pull out one of four vials of venom he’d stored there, wrapped in tissue paper, for just such an emergency. He rolled over, raised his arms as much as possible, and threw the vial at the androgynous monster as hard as he could.
The light in the room vanished immediately and the creature let out a single, high-pitched cry before falling to the floor.
Wilson forced himself to stand, ignoring his wobbly knees, and gazed down at the wounded creature, its face appearing as if it had been seared in a convection oven.
“Are you really what I think you are?” Wilson asked.
The creature turned its head toward him. “Please…hurry.”
Wilson froze. His arms went limp at his sides as the full import of what he’d been sent to do overtook him. The creature on the ground repeated its two-word phrase. Slowly, as if in a dream, Wilson bent down and retrieved his weapon.
The One made sure the stalemate would continue. But He could not always watch for he needed to rest and be reborn. If not, the Void would again come for Him.
Wilson pressed the large latch and opened the double doors leading to the ward he needed to reach. He felt another wave of nausea as he stepped into the hallway and the doors closed behind him. He knew he had to hurry and he did but no amount of running could erase the feeling he might be committing the worst atrocity in human history.
And no one but the servants of the One knew He needed to sleep and be reborn and they went forth and spread the word of His constant presence as they were told.
Having reached his destination, Wilson found he had to force himself to turn and look through the transparent glass. He shivered as a feeling of severe cold filled his extremities. There was only one child in there, alone and unattended. It looked at him with innocent yet knowing eyes and began to cry.
“Oh, God,” Wilson said and it cried harder.
Stanislaw had used the phrase, “The greatest monster that ever lived.”
The One who had started it all.
Hands shaking, Wilson reached inside his pocket and pulled out another vial of venom. With his other hand, he raised the MAC-11 and sprayed the glass until it shattered.
Wilson knew this was his chance to fix everything, to seize destiny by the balls and let the chips fall where they may.
The infant cried as if trying to summon help but none came.
Slowly, unable to control his sobbing, Wilson stepped inside the viewing room and uncapped the vial.
Emergence
Christopher Nadeau
They’re here. I can smell them.
Above me, church bells ring as it turns eleven o’clock in the morning. Behind me, the roar of traffic serves as a reminder that this is not some isolated location like last time. It won’t always be that easy.
Checking the load on my automatic shotgun for the tenth time, I tell myself a professional knows what’s in his weapon long before he enters a hostile situation.
Something rustles behind a row of dumpsters. I crouch and aim the shotgun in the direction of the noise. Silence is punctuated only by the occasional sound of my own suppressed breathing. My heart thumps unceasingly in my eardrums, threatening to drown out all other sounds. They’re waiting me out. If I don’t move now, the inhuman fuckers will devour me.
“I know you’re there.” My voice shakes. “Might as well come on out.”
My first shot tears a hole in the dumpster. The second travels through the hole and strikes the brick wall behind it. Something cries out. By the time I fire again, the dumpster tumbles over and slides in my direction. I barely have enough time to sidestep it, stumbling over my own two feet and landing hard on my side as one of them steps out of the shadows.
“Leave us alone!” it screams.
“You don’t belong here.”
The sounds of grinding metal and rushing air are the only things that warn me of the dumpster being
raised above my head and brought down mere inches from where I lay moments before.
Told you I’m not a professional.
I can see it’s weakened from the strain of using its mental powers, so I press my advantage and force myself to my feet.
“Please,” it says, “Please.”
I fire into its chest, lifting it off the ground and sending it flying back into the wall. I run after it, intent upon firing an entire volley of lead if the need presents itself. It doesn’t. The creature sputters, coughs blood and stops moving.
I look away and remind myself it’s not human.
The sound of rushing wind fills my ears. I whirl around as a larger one comes to a gentle landing.
“Scum,” it says. “Pure and simple.”
This one is bigger, older. Angrier.
“Feel like a big man?” it asks me.
I glance over my shoulder at the unmoving creature and smirk. “Just taking out the tra…”
I don’t get to finish that statement. The monster moves almost too fast for my eyes to follow, heading right for me. I raise the shotgun in front of me, a talisman warding off evil, and am rewarded by the sound of the creature striking the barrel and flying backwards. Its body hits the ground and skids for approximately seven feet before coming to an abrupt halt.
I trot over on unwieldy legs, shotgun aimed at its deceptive face. The monster moans and groans, trying with no success to sit up. This is the time to kill them, while they’re still figuring out what they can do. This is why I travel non-stop, rarely sleeping or eating. Forget about relationships, that’s not even a factor these days. Once they get a handle on what they are capable of, it’s game over for the entire human fucking race.
The monster stops struggling and looks up at me, wide-eyed, accepting.
“Now I feel like a big man,” I say.
One hit is all it takes to shatter its head into a red hail of skin and chunks of brain.
I lean against the nearest wall, get my breathing under control, unable to believe what I just pulled off. Maybe there is a God watching over me.
Or maybe I’m just the luckiest son of a bitch to come along in years.
My cell phone rings for a few seconds before I dig it out of my jacket pocket and answer.
“Nice work,” says the voice on the other end.
“Thanks.” I glance at my motel room window as headlights momentarily bathe me in their unfocused glow. “What’s next?”
A heavy sigh comes through, “They’re congregating in the church.”
I sit back, numb. “I can’t go back there. You know why.”
My benefactor says nothing. We both know how this conversation will end. We both know what I’ll wind up doing. This is mere ritual, a prelude to the inevitable.
“You shouldn’t have ignored the bells.”
That’s true. I heard them and I went into the alley anyway, hoping to ambush a few of them before they could reach sanctuary. The gambit worked, but the real problem continued.
“I’m only one person.”
Mild chuckling fills my ear. “I promised you help, and help you shall receive.”
“But what if…never mind.”
“Say it.” Not pushy, just gently insistent.
“What if she’s there?”
“Is she any different than the others?”
“In name only.”
“Then you have your answer.”
The call ends. I cradle the cell phone to my ear a moment longer before letting it fall to the bed. I curse the day I woke up to reality and found a dim future. I curse the day I found out all of the mythology was true.
Don’t ask me where they come from. They could be a mutation. They could possess alien DNA. They could be the subjects of an ongoing genetic experiment. Hell, they might even be all three.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have killed her…it. I suppose I could have tried to reason with Jenny, the thing that was once my daughter, and tried to convince myself that its newly emerging abilities weren’t a curse, a perversion of its previous humanity. I could have done that if I’d been thinking clearly, if the monster hadn’t killed my wife.
No amount of crying or screaming or claiming it was an accident could convince me. I’d helped birth a monster into the world, one with the ability to turn into living flame, and now it was my responsibility to send it to a place where flame was eternal.
I no longer saw my daughter as I turned the outside fire hose on it and aimed right between its deceptive eyes. The creature had a moment to say, “Daddy, please” before I put it out of everyone’s misery with a shot from my old .38 revolver.
It didn’t occur to me until later that my wife’s body had disappeared.
It’s amazing how clueless comic book store proprietors are. You’d think they would be on the cutting edge of this knowledge, but they don’t know shit. Their ignorance is an entrance ramp to acquiescence. If allowed to continue, they will unknowingly bilk the public into accepting these freaks as some next step in evolution, as if there’s any truth to that ridiculous theory. That’s why I blow up as many stores as I can.
The news has branded me the “Funny Book Bomber,” much to the chagrin of the serious-minded comics fans out there.
I stand in front of the burning store and think of Jenny. Someday I will be killed by one of them. My benefactor, the person who speaks through a voice modulator, will send me into an overwhelming situation and the monsters will destroy me. I can only hope to expose them before that happens.
“Maybe your best work yet.”
I turn to face my protégé, a man I know as Slim. “I prefer explosions to fires.”
He shrugs and smiles, revealing a gap where his two top teeth should be. “Same result.”
He’s right, I guess, but the dramatic impact isn’t the same. This is little more than busy work until my benefactor grows tired of waiting for me to return to the church.
“Was this all you had planned for tonight?” Slim says.
I nod. I no longer possess Slim’s exuberance. When I’m gone, he will be my heir apparent. God willing, he’ll succeed where I have failed.
Imagine yourself after having killed your daughter after she—it—accidentally killed your wife. Imagine your state of mind as you wander out of your secluded cabin in Northern Michigan, hot gun melting the skin on your hand, but you barely notice.
You walk into a quiet night, a night undisturbed by the ever-encroaching intrusions of so-called civilized society. There’s nobody around, and you curse yourself for having gotten away with it. You hate yourself for it. What makes you so goddam special?
That’s the last coherent thought you have for six weeks, during which you wander the streets of a nearby city, filthy, mumbling, too far-gone to grieve. Ready to die, hoping someone will make it happen, you walk in front of oncoming vehicles, hang around dangerous people, eat things animals would find repugnant.
Then everything changes. You wake up in a dumpster with a note pinned to your chest, a cryptic letter asking if you’re ready to do battle with the inhuman infestation currently threatening to supplant God’s creation. As if emerging from a dream, you find yourself feeling very much alive. Sad, yes, now that your wife is gone, but that wasn’t your fault, and as far as the thing that called itself your daughter, it needed to be dispatched.
The note tells you to go to a post office box after picking up a key under a garbage can in what has become your “favorite” alley. You ignore the shocked and hostile stares of the people at the post office as you walk past them and to the PO Box. The only thing inside it is a cell phone, which rings almost immediately after you close and lock the box. The voice on the other end is distorted, but it says all the things you want to hear. It tells you to prepare for the Coming War and that it will help you as your benefactor.
It lives up to that claim providing weapons, intel, escape plans, you name it. Soon you can’t imagine doing this without your benefactor, and that’s when you start telling
yourself it’s best if you never know their true identity.
The church looms before us, a forbidden fortress. This is where they go, the inhuman ones, the ones with newly emerging powers. This is the place they go when they feel alone, scared, in need of answers. And with any luck, this will be where they’ve gone to die.
The six of us stand outside and check the various access points. We’re armed but you can’t tell by looking at us. With any luck, we’ll be able to enter the place looking like good old-fashioned parishioners and get into position long before the bastards know who we are.
The few weapons we have concealed on our bodies aren’t gonna do it, so my benefactor has squirreled away some heavy ordinance in various locations throughout the church, including a satchel containing a huge amount of C-4. Since I’m the only one with the map detailing where they are, I’ll have to watch my ass as I move about from spot to spot.
The church itself is surprisingly full for the middle of the day, further indication of hard economic times. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t behind that, too.
Slim takes up his position at the front, near where the priest would normally arrive if a Mass were taking place. I scan the room, taking in each lonely soul sitting in the pews, their heads bowed, muttering their hopes and fears to the Almighty. What they’re about to see will test their faith beyond normal human limits.
My benefactor’s map is accurate to the square inch and soon all of my people are heavily armed. We take our places, each in a spot that covers a main access point, and we wait for the phone call.
While we wait, each of us growing antsier by the moment, and more lost souls arrive, sitting in the pews around us. Slim gives me that “We could have burned another comic book store instead look,” and I respond with what I hope is a sympathetic shrug. I’m three seconds from calling the whole fucking thing off when the cell phone fills the silent church with obnoxious, tinny Muzak.
Giving the annoyed faithful a brief apologetic look, I hold the phone to my ear.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 44