The boat would not see Hernandez in his tiny dinghy. Not unless he did something about it. He reached inside the waterproof container at the front of the boat and rooted around. From its contents, he found the small orange stick he was looking for and yanked off the end. The flare ignited, chasing away the darkness around the boat.
A horn blared out.
They saw him.
Hernandez took another item from the storage compartment, one he might need.
The boat took almost an hour to move close enough to collect him from his floating prison, and the origin of his rescuers brought irony along with them. It led Hernandez to unexplained laughing, which the English fishermen probably thought was madness of dehydration, or grief over the dead woman in his boat. But the laughter came because Hernandez was suddenly sure that his downfall would be amended with vengeance.
The captain of the small fishing hauler was an amiable man named Thomas, yet he did not appreciate being held at knifepoint. The long blade was the last item Hernandez had taken from the storage container, and it gave him back the authority Granger had taken from him. “Where were you men heading?” he demanded of the frightened skipper.
“Nowhere. We were planning to live off our catch and stay on the ocean until it’s safe.”
Hernandez pressed the knife closer to his windpipe. “You fool. The oceans are no safer than anywhere else.”
The skipper seemed surprised. “Really? Then where should we go?”
Hernandez removed the knife from the man’s throat and smiled. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long couple of days. My exhaustion is making me mad. My ship was attacked by creatures from the ocean bed. It is not safe to be out here. We must make for land.”
The skipper rubbed at his throat, but nodded and seemed willing to forgive. “Okay, fine, but where?”
Hernandez grinned wider. “Home. I want you to take me home.”
“America?”
“Not my home, friend. I want you to take me to yours. Take me to England. I have someone there I need to see. I take it you know the way?”
The skipper nodded and once again seemed afraid of Hernandez.
He had reason to be. Hernandez had a score to settle, and anyone who tried to get in his way would pay dearly. Oh, yes. He was done playing by the rules.
Vamps
Vamps opened his eyes and saw only light, but slowly, gradually, like grains of sand through an open fist, his vision returned. The world had filled with smoke and dust, a choking atmosphere that clawed its way into his lungs and made him choke. It was only the sound of his friend cursing blindly that told Vamps he was still alive.
“Fucking ‘ell,” said Mass. “My fuckin ‘ed.”
Vamps rolled onto his side and found his muscle-bound friend lying beside him. “You dead, man?”
“Nah, man.”
“Good.”
They lay there in silence for a few moments, trying to catch a breath against the cloying dust. At one point, Vamps turned his head and looked to the end of the road. He thought he saw Lord Amon disappearing into a side street, but strangest of all was that he was almost certain he saw a second giant stomping along beside him.
Two giants?
“V-Vamps?” The voice was not Mass, yet it was from a friend.
Vamps sat up, possessing more strength than he realised. “Gingerbread?”
Mass tried to get up with him, but his leg was busted, and he cried out. Vamps bid him to remain and searched the rubble for their friend. “Ginge, where are you?”
“O-over here.”
Vamps clambered over the front end of a ruined Volvo and found his friend lying beneath a pile of bricks and concrete. Oxford Street had fallen down. “Ginge, you’re alive?”
“I’m hungry.”
Vamps laughed. “You always are.”
The relief of seeing his friend was the greatest elation Vamps had ever felt. They had lost Ravy, but three brothers still remained. They had each other.
But the elation quickly faded when Vamps moved away some of the bricks and concrete from Ginge. He didn’t mean to, but he sucked in air anxiously.
“What is it?” asked Ginge. “Is… Is it bad?”
Both of Ginge’s legs were broken beyond repair, pointing in odd directions. His stomach was also twisted and hung oddly to one side. “Can you move?”
“I don’t know. Can I?”
Vamps watched, but his friend remained still. Not a single finger moved. A tear traced its way through the dirt on Vamp’s face and spilled onto his lap. “You’re fine, mate. Just a couple of bruises. We’ll get a few beers in you, and you’ll walk it off.”
“I’d rather have a Snickers.”
“I’ll go get you one. You just rest, okay?”
Ginge was quiet for a moment, but then asked a question. “What happened, Vamps?”
“I don’t know. The gate exploded.”
“Oh. I thought it might have all been a dream.”
Vamps looked around for the demons, but they had somehow perished in the explosion. Had the gate taken all those who had passed through it? Were the demons somehow bound to the gates? Lord Amon might still be present, but there was no way his underlings could have all hidden away so quickly.
Even the bodies of their dead had disappeared.
He patted Ginge on the arm. “It wasn’t a dream, mate. It was a nightmare, but it’s over now.”
“Good. Because it was getting old.”
Vamps laughed. “Yeah, it really was, wasn’t it? If you hadn’t kicked ass there at the end, we wouldn’t have made it. You were a gangster.”
Ginge smiled. “I w-was, wasn’t I? Did I make you… proud? Did I…” His lips stopped moving and his eyes seemed to change. Whatever life he had clung to left him.
Vamps ran a hand affectionately over his friend’s face. “Yeah, Ginge, you made me proud. I hope that before I join you, I can make you proud too.”
Something in the rubble moved a hundred metres away, disturbing Vamps’s final moments with his brother. John fucking Windsor.
The Prime Minister clambered out of a pile of metal and brick and dusted himself off. He was covered in as much blood as masonry, but his limbs were intact. When he saw Vamps sat up and looking at him, his eyes went wide, but he did not approach. Instead, he scurried away. Some of his men were still alive too, shocked and stunned, but still of service. They gathered up the PM, and together they built a quick retreat. Vamps considered chasing after them, but he was too tired, and he was not yet ready to leave his friend.
Something else moved in the rubble. Something closer.
“Is Ginge okay?” Mass shouted out from where he still lay.
Vamps stood up, looked at his friend and shook his head.
Mass swore loudly, then went silent. Vamps wasn’t sure, but he thought his last remaining friend might have been weeping. But it was the movement in the rubble that was of most concern. Vamps was quite certain the demons were gone, but did danger still remain? Somehow, throwing Pusher through the gate had blown it up. There were other human survivors, Vamps realised now. They lay amongst the rubble, too afraid to move. Yet something did move.
A man.
While he was trapped beneath the rubble, he was not covered in either blood or dust. He was unhurt. Wearing ragged robes more suited to the Middle East than London, the man was able to stand up straight and face Vamps.
“Who are you?” Vamps demanded, examining the strange Arabic gentleman standing in the rubble before him.
The man looked around with confusion, seeming not to know where he was. All the same, he glanced at Vamps and gave an answer. “My name is Aymun, my friend, and it is good that I am here.”
Vamps frowned. “Why?”
“Because I know how to kill the giants.”
Rick Bastion
Weary and ill, the survivors marched along the motorway. This time they headed south and were accompanied by no demons. They had freed themselves from slavery, and the memory of
it spurred them on. Whether any semblance of safety still existed in Portsmouth, none of them knew, but having a destination kept them focused.
In total, there were fifty-seven of them. By no means an army, but at least a seed of one. As the demons had travelled the lands gathering up lost souls, so too would Rick and his companions, collecting bodies like a rolling stone collecting moss. Their numbers would swell.
For the last hour, since setting off from where Rick had closed the gate, Keith and the others had kept their distance from him. He was no longer the man they had known. He was something else—perhaps no longer even human. Daniel had left a part of himself inside Rick—had changed his very soul—and that unnerved the others, yet Rick knew that the dying angel had bestowed a gift. Daniel had been good, there was no doubt in his mind, and whatever he had done to Rick was to help them all.
Rick had no idea of his new powers, but he had dispatched The Caretaker and closed a gate. He could do things no other human could, and for that reason, he knew that he was important. His destiny was no longer his own. His body belonged to the people around him, and his power must be set towards good purpose. No longer could he think only of himself or those closest to him. It was time to start resisting. It was time to fight back on a grander scale. Looking back at the weary crowd behind him, Rick knew that the war had only just begun. And he had become a leader.
Yet leaders could lose battles as well as win them, and his decisions would get people killed. The only question would be how many and for what?
Rick had never felt so alone, not even in the alcohol-fuelled exile of his former life. His brother could barely look at him now, and Maddy—the one person who actually made him feel anything—was afraid of him. Would he ever be close to another again?
The road ahead was long and the end was unknown, but Rick was ready for whatever lay ahead. He hoped others would be ready too. The first line of a favourite song rang through his head and the lyrics were ominous.
All our times have come.
Here, but now they're gone.
Win or lose, things had changed forever, and so had every soul left alive.
Hell had come to earth, and its Legions scoured the earth. The reaper had come.
But Rick no longer feared him.
Guy Granger
English Coast
Guy Granger stood upon the bow of the USCG Hatchet and watched the south-western tip of the United Kingdom appear on the horizon. Never before had he sailed the English Channel, but he embraced it now as home waters for his children, Alice and Kyle, lay only a hundred miles inland.
“We can reach Portsmouth in a few hours, Captain,” said Lieutenant Tosco at his right side.
“Who knows what we’ll find,” said the retired captain, Skip, to Guy’s left.
Guy nodded. “We will find the world changed, as we have everywhere these last few days, but if my children are safe, then it is familiar enough for me.”
“What will you do at Portsmouth?” asked Tosco unsubtly. The thought of gaining command of the Hatchet glowed green in his eyes,
“I don’t yet know, but if I depart, I may need to return to the Hatchet once I have Alice and Kyle.”
“We need to join the fight,” said Tosco. “Back home ideally.”
“This is the fight, Lieutenant. Alice and Kyle are children. Is saving them not the very essence of the fight we have before us?”
“There are many children besides your own who need help.”
“And we shall help them, but before we reach Portsmouth, it would be unwise to plan.”
“Agreed,” said Skip. “We’ve been hearing the United Kingdom has a force assembling there. Who knows what aid they might offer us, or we them.”
“We are not here to help the United Kingdom,” said Tosco. “We serve the United States.”
“Way I see it right now,” said Skip, “we serve the human race.”
Tosco went to speak again, but Guy cut him off. He knew a quest to save his children was selfish, but he didn’t care. As captain of the ship, he had earned the right. Their time for being heroes would come later. For now, Alice and Kyle needed him to be their dad. He hadn’t always been there, but he would be there when it counted.
He would be there for them soon.
They sailed in silence for the next hour, day breaking fully and giving the men on deck a brief respite to enjoy the sunshine. The day was mild, and run through with a gentle breeze, but it gave one cause to hope. Humanity might have fallen, but the day still displaced night as it was supposed to. The world still turned.
The south coast reeled along like a spool of rope pulled before them. Portsmouth would be upon them soon, and their fates decided. Tosco and Skip left to attend duties, but Guy remained upon the bow alone, looking out at a country not his own and praying that it still cared for his children.
The Hatchet listed starboard and then back, then rose up on an errant wave.
More waves followed. The ship tilted to and fro.
The English Channel was not the high seas, and such rough conditions were unexpected. Guy was about to hail the Bridge when a great booming roar skated across the water. The Hatchet leapt up on another massive wave, and Guy had to hold onto a railing to avoid going overboard.
Inland, the sky lit up with light bright enough to eclipse the sun. The explosion was massive, unparalleled by anything Guy had ever witnessed, and it came from the direction of London.
Alice. Kyle.
<<<<>>>>
Collateral Damage
Turn the page for more stories from the end of the world
“I’m not interested in playing the victim. I like stories about survivors.”
--Laurie Holden
Takao
Tokyo, Japan
Takao wandered the quiet streets of Tokyo like a scowling Ronin, his bloody katana pointing the way in front of him. His battle with the Oni had cost him his left hand, stamped to pulp by the giant inside the JoyCity Plaza. Never again would he play video games, but such things were behind him now anyway. He was a warrior, a weapon of honour his ancestors could wield against the Oni and its Legions. The underworld had opened up and spilled its Yōkai upon the earth.
Yet, the streets were quiet now. The towering glass skyscrapers of Japan’s greatest city were darkened and still, like facets of nature rather than manmade hives. Were people still inside? Takao did not know, and his focus was on the enemy.
He had been forced to escape his battle with the Oni, for every cut he made with his katana produced no wound. The giant was impervious, and a wise warrior did not fight an enemy without weakness. He walked away until he learned that enemy’s weakness. That was why Takao was walking through the city streets now; he was trying to think.
The lesser demons had fallen easily, their bodies yielding to blade as flesh was supposed to, and during his retreat Takao had beheaded more than a dozen of the monsters. Yet, unless he could figure out a way to defeat the Oni, it would be for nothing.
He walked for another hour without contact, leaving the busier city districts and entering the Bunkyō-ku ward. It was there that he heard noises coming from the park. Rikugien Garden meant Garden of the Six Principles of Poetry, and it was somewhere Takao had used to come as a child with his family. He had resented it back then, being pulled away from his videogames, but now he realised how blessed he had been to enjoy such nature. The sight of demons currently surrounding the picturesque pond set his teeth on edge, and tightened his one-handed grip on his katana. What disturbed him more was the sheer amount of people huddled together like captives. The men, women, and children were being rounded up in the centre of the park, their whimpers breezing across the pond like ghostly water lily.
This would not do.
Takao focused on the agony of his swollen left hand and used it to ignite his temper. He slunk amongst the trees, moving towards the enemy encampment. Were they a part of the Oni’s forces, or where they a separate horde? Exactly how bad were things in
his homeland? Were these demons everywhere? He knew the answer already.
Takao used the fading sunlight to his advantage and kept to the shadows. Like a preying mantis, he struck out from behind a low hanging maple and impaled a demon through the back. The burnt monster made no sound as his lungs imploded, and Takao dragged it backwards into the long grass before anyone noticed. He took two more demons the exact same way, and before long he was right up alongside the enemy camp.
Two hundred monsters at least, and three times as many human prisoners. They huddled on the ground, averting their eyes from the horrors surrounding them. The elderly clutched one another, as did the children. Adults surrendering so meekly to capture was shameful, and if the men and women died soon, they would do so with dishonour. As a blooded warrior, it was Takeo’s duty to help. The weak could not help themselves.
Takao ducked and waited for night to fall across the park. In the darkness, the enemy were only shapes, yet everything standing was a target. He stalked as many of them as he could from the shadows, thinning their numbers as much as he could before he would be forced to enter open battle. He was just one warrior, yet he had stood against an Oni and lived.
Eventually, all of the demons around the edge of the park lay dead in the grass, and the time came for Takao to test himself.
Honour demands I do this. A warrior does not turn from his duty.
With a deep breath, Takao stepped out of the trees and into the open, night air of the park. The demons saw him immediately and came all at once, screeching like bakeneko. He sliced his katana horizontally and beheaded three in a line, then twirled to slash diagonally downwards into the rancid thigh of another beast. At the end of each slice, Takao launched a new one, spinning and dancing through his teeming enemy without pause. To stop would mean death. A moment’s inaction would present his enemy a target to strike at, and with so many foes he could not avoid them all.
Legion: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (Hell on Earth Book 2) Page 26