ARCHANGELS FURY

by Moerland, Scott; Clarke, Marnie; Gaspandrei

  Although it had appeared the whole town was deserted or all of its people were dead, the four men also noticed it was very orderly. There was no destruction and no smashed windows, fire damage or any of the other signs of mass panic and looting that you might expect. Even the cars were parked on the sides of the road or in car parks.

  Jim spoke. “It doesn’t look like there was a mass panic or anything!”

  “It looks like everyone just accepted their fate,” Bondy said.

  “I don’t know about you guys but this is giving me the creeps,” said Jack. “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t just hightail it?”

  “No, not really,” Jim said. “Let’s go to the supermarket and get some grub.”

  Upon getting to the supermarket Jim had a look through the window and said, “Look, all the aisles still look fully stocked.”

  “Well I guess it wasn’t food they needed!” Dillon replied.

  “Good point.”

  Bondy cut in. “Oh well, block your ears!”

  He raised his rifle and shot a single round through the window and then used his foot to kick out the remaining glass. The men walked over the broken glass from the automatic doors and proceeded into the trolley ranks inside the supermarket. Each man slung his rifle, grabbed a trolley and proceeded along the aisles.

  As there was no power all the frozen and refrigerated goods were useless to the men so they went straight for the canned food, toiletries, bottled water, soft drinks and anything else they thought they might need.

  Upon returning towards the front of the supermarket, Jim stopped and stared down at various magazines and newspapers. The front covers were all displaying headlines from several weeks earlier. Jim focused on TIME magazine, which had a picture of the U.S. President. The headline read: MAN OF THE YEAR. Jim shook his head and mumbled to himself, “The motherfucker of the millennium, more like it.” He continued pushing his trolley towards the exit.

  As the men bottlenecked at the exit trying to leave, they heard a sound coming from outside. It sounded like a Coke can being kicked. Instantly, the men unslung their weapons, shouldered them and covered each other as they crept towards the main street. Jim was the first outside and he lowered his weapon upon seeing that it was a few kangaroos that had knocked over a tin garbage lid. As the men all sighed with relief, Jack yelled, “SHIT,” and pointed off into the distant sky to a cigar-shaped alien spacecraft. The ship was at least 10 kilometres away but the sheer size of it made it visible in detail.

  They retreated back into the shop just in case and kept a wary eye on the ship. Within a few seconds the four men’s fears were justified as the ship made an abrupt turn and headed straight towards the town. They moved further back so they could see the ship coming towards them, keeping their angle of view small. They nervously kept the roof ledge of the supermarket a couple of degrees over the top of the advancing ship. The men gripped their rifles with anticipation as the ship slowed over the centre of the town. The ship made no sound; it just hovered for about 20 seconds and then flew off in the opposite direction from which it came.

  After about half a minute Jim spoke. “All right, it looks like it’s gone, let’s go home!”

  They slowly re-slung their weapons, grabbed their trolleys and headed up the road to Jim’s car.

  Once back on the highway Dillon and Jack kept watchful eyes on the sky through their windows. The back of Jim’s four-wheel-drive was packed so high with supplies he couldn’t even see out of the rear window through his rear-vision mirror.

  There were numerous stationary cars on the road so Jim drove slowly, weaving in and out of the corpse-filled vehicles.

  About two minutes into the drive, a shout came from Dillon in the back seat. “THAT FUCKING SHIP’S BACK! STEP ON IT!”

  Dillon and Jack pointed their M4 rifles out of opposite windows towards the sky behind them.

  Jim immediately pulled the car over under the shade of a gum tree and Dillon yelled, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

  “Look,” Jim calmly replied, “we can’t outrun it. At least this way it may think we’re just another empty car on the road.”

  The men kept a vigilant eye on the ship and Dillon and Jack pulled their rifles inside the car to avoid attracting attention. As they watched intently they saw a bright blue light shine down towards the outer edge of the town. Jack started breathing heavily and said in a shaky voice, “That’s what happens when they abduct someone!”

  “Just stay still!” Jim replied. “Nobody move!”

  What happened next came as a surprise to all the men – even Jack, who had plenty of experience of being sucked up into the ship and dumped back out wherever the Nephilim saw fit.

  As they watched, they saw eight men in army outfits being slowly floated to the ground through the bright blue light. One after the other landed easily on the ground about five metres apart. As soon as the ship had delivered the soldiers to the ground it flew off into the distance. The soldiers cocked their rifles and adopted a staggered formation on either side of the main road to the town.

  “What do you guys think?” Bondy asked the others. “Should we go check it out?”

  “Fuck that,” Jack said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Those men were wearing U.S. Army cams,” Dillon said.

  “Well you can bet your bottom dollar they’re not fighting for the U.S. now!” Jim said.

  He paused, not knowing what to do. “It’s up to you lot. Shall we go back or not?”

  After some brief deliberations the men decided to go back and try to make contact with the soldiers but only on foot. They decided they would drive slowly to about 300 metres from the town and then approach the men cautiously in case they turned hostile. Little did the four know the soldiers were one of the Antichrist’s kill squads; it was inevitable they would turn hostile. The men noticed that the soldiers didn’t have any gas masks on so they decided to ditch theirs, too.

  The four men spread out to either side of the road. Jim took the front right hand side, Bondy the left and the other two spaced out to the rear. Jack was the only one with no fighting experience so he trailed a good 20 metres behind the others. The men crept closer and closer to the kill squad, making sure they took cover every five to 10 metres behind whatever the landscape had to offer. Because the kill squad was moving quickly through the winding streets in the town and Jim and his crew were moving slowly, it took a good 20 minutes before their paths crossed. As Jim crouched behind an industrial bin he looked over to the other side of the road where Bondy was hiding behind an electricity box, with Dillon covering his rear about 10 metres behind him. He gave a quick “eyes on reconnaissance” hand signal to Bondy and Dillon. He then turned to Jack and gestured for Jack to get down and stay down. As Jim peeked around the side of the bin he saw two of the soldiers kick in the door of a house while the other six stayed outside, covering the front door.

  Within a few seconds they heard a gunshot from inside the house followed by a scream. A young girl came running out the front door only to be gunned down by the soldiers waiting for her. Jim quickly pulled himself back around to the safe side of the bin so he was completely out of sight of the kill squad. It was now obvious to them what the soldiers’ intentions were.

  Bondy lowered his voice so only Jim could hear him. He whispered urgently, “Fuck me, there are survivors here!” Jim then gave another hand signal for a quick ambush to be deployed for the kill squad, as it appeared to Jim that they were advancing in their direction, straight past their fire zone. Bondy nodded and passed on the information to Dillon. Jim beckoned to Jack. Jack crawled along the side of a building ensuring he remained out of the view of the kill squad. As he got right alongside Jim, Jim whispered to Jack, “OK, we’re gonna cap these pricks and the shit is going to hit the fan. I want you to stay on your guts and cover down that alley. Do not shoot until we start shooting or you absolutely have to. OK?”

  “OK, I won’t,” Jack replied nervously.

 
Jim stayed where he was and Bondy and Dillon retreated out of the field of view of the kill squad so they could re-advance on the same side of the road as Jim. They did this because they knew they were setting up an ambush and they did not want to hit each other on opposite sides of the road as the kill squad advanced through their fire zone.

  Within 20 seconds, Jim watched to the rear as Bondy and Dillon came running towards him. Bondy stopped two houses prior to Jim’s position and adopted the prone position under a house facing the road. Dillon came one house closer to Jim and did the same thing under a similar-looking house. The underside of both of the houses had a clear view of the road. The men stayed perfectly still and waited until the soldiers walked straight into the ambush area. As Bondy was the shooter in the furthest position from Jim it was a given to these well-trained men that he would fire the first shot because of the direction the kill squad were walking.

  The industrial bin Jim was behind covered about three quarters of an alleyway that Jack was covering, relatively out of the way of danger. The kill squad walked straight into the men’s ambush area with arrogant overconfidence, oblivious to the shit storm they were walking into. Jim could not see Bondy but knew where he was so he waited patiently as his aim switched consecutively from one soldier leading to the soldier following. He quickly glanced to the last soldier tailing behind the other seven and hoped the distance between the first and last soldier was not too great. Because of his and Jim’s training years earlier in the S.A.S., ambush set-ups were second nature to them. Dillon, who was still in the U.S. army, followed suit. His training was still fresh and although some finer details of ambush drills differed between the American army and the Australian army, he didn’t have years of police training corrupting his “kill or be killed” mentality. The unspoken plan running through all of their heads was that Bondy would take out the leading soldier, Jim would take out the last and then all three of them would take out the soldiers in the middle.

  Bondy’s timing was impeccable. He waited patiently until the scout soldier was as far to the left in his aiming arc as possible to ensure all of them were in the kill zone. With pinpoint precision he fired off three rounds directly at the first soldier and then moved his fully automatic fire to the second and third. Within a split second all three men emptied their entire magazines straight at the kill squad. Jim started with the tail end and worked his way to the seventh, sixth and fifth. Dillon also shot at the fifth then the fourth and third. It took slightly more than four seconds for all their magazines to empty, except for Jack’s, as he was facing the opposite direction. He was the only one of the four who never fired a shot.

  Each one of the soldiers in the kill squad had been shot several times. Their evil deeds in life fell dead to the ground with them. Jim screamed out at the top of his voice, “OK, LET’S GO, MOVE RIGHT NOW!”

  Instantly Jim, Dillon and Bondy changed magazines and the four crawled out from under the houses towards the side streets that led to the rear of the ambush site. As soon as they were clear of the houses they jumped to their feet and sprinted back along the alleyways. Within 10 seconds all four of them met up and continued running as fast as they could out of the town.

  Eventually they made it to the outskirts and, breathing heavily from exhaustion, they jumped into Jim’s car, slamming the doors behind them and speeding off at a great rate of knots.

  They had not made it even two kilometres out of the town when the men’s heavy breathing started to slow down, but the peace was short-lived. As Jim zigzagged through the cars on the highway all the men screamed like girls in shock when, totally out of nowhere, the roof of Jim’s car was ripped off and all the glass smashed. A bright blue light engulfed the car and the electronics failed. The light was so bright that, even in the daytime, it made it difficult to see. The men were paralysed and Jim could not even steer the car or brake as it slowed down and eventually ran onto the dirt and came to a halt. As they sat there, unable to move, their bodies were pulled straight up towards the ship that had dropped off the kill squad earlier. As they looked up helplessly their bodies began floating horizontally towards an opening at the bottom of the ship. The men grunted with frustration as they tried desperately to move even their fingers. It was useless. Before long all four of them passed through a transparent screen; it felt like passing through a thin sheet of water. They were placed on the cold steel in the inside of the ship, powerless to do anything as they were surrounded by 10 grey aliens looking down upon them. Jim raised his eyes and noticed a cone-like instrument on the ceiling. He could tell that the blue light rendering him so helpless was coming from this instrument. The fear the men were feeling would have incapacitated them even without the light. A painful thought for them was the realisation that each one of them had their weapons slung around them but could not even move a trigger finger to use it.

  The Nephilim moved in and one of them grabbed Jim’s leg and began to drag him along the cold steel floor. As he was being dragged he noticed that the blue light from the cone-shaped instrument was still shining out of the ship through the transparent opening they had been brought on board through. What seemed like a hopeless and intolerable situation was about to change in an instant.

  To the men’s relief and the alien’s shock a loud bang went off as the archangel Michael flew straight through the ship’s opening and landed on one knee, wings spread wide and face towards the floor. His eyes were closed. He landed with such a thump that the floor shuddered. His sword was on fire; he held the flaming weapon with his right hand, its point sticking into the steel floor. His left arm was stretched out to the side and his fist was clenched. Even with his arm in this position it still looked bigger than a man’s leg. Michael slowly raised his head and opened his eyes, revealing his bright blue pupils. His face was blazing with ferocity and the Nephilim jumped back and scrambled. With a flick of his right hand, Michael threw his sword at the cone, destroying it. Instantly the men regained control of their motor functions.

  They all wasted no time in jumping to their feet, shouldering their weapons and taking aim at the Nephilim.

  They opened fire.

  The Nephilim were no easy foe, however, and although slender in appearance they had tremendous speed. Jim shot one of them in the head as he rushed toward him. The other Nephilim were leaping and bounding up to 10 metres at a time in random directions making it difficult to hit them. Their movements were similar to the demons Jim had fought once before. This time, however, he had an archangel to back him up.

  As the men shot at the Nephilim, Michael casually stood up and ripped his sword out of the cone-shaped instrument he had destroyed. He took a deep breath and, after exhaling slowly, unleashed a storm of vengeance all around the vast room, swinging his sword with precision. The speed at which he was moving made the men hesitate amid their own shooting. Halfway through Michael’s rampage the men stopped shooting and within 10 seconds all the alien Nephilim lay dead.

  Jim lowered his weapon and wiped his brow while Bondy, still dripping with sweat, muttered, “Fuck me drunk, remind me to stay on this guy’s good side!”

  CHAPTER 11

  After Michael’s attack on the alien ship he walked around to each of the four men and asked with compassion if they were OK. Having witnessed what Michael was capable of, they were astounded. They had neither the words nor the will to question how he could be such an extraordinary fighter and yet look at them with such tenderness.

  But the job was far from done. Michael ordered the men, “Stay behind me!”

  All four men began going through their reloading drills on their rifles while following Michael down a long corridor.

  Before too long a grey alien Nephilim appeared about 50 metres ahead of Michael. He had a weapon and he knelt and fired off a shot. The weapon was a plasma weapon, which fired an almost-transparent projectile. Michael immediately wrapped his left wing around the front of his body to shield himself but the projectile still hit him with enough force to knock him do
wn onto his back.

  Dillon was directly behind Michael and already had the grey in his sights. As soon as Michael hit the floor Dillon fired off a three-round burst from his M4, killing the Nephilim. Michael staggered back to his feet, shrugged off the blow he had just taken and continued down the corridor. He came to an intersection of corridors and turned right with the men in tow. Michael knew exactly where he was going and the men followed eagerly.

  It took about two minutes for the group to arrive at what looked like a control room. There were panels spanning its entire length and three Nephilim were working the controls. The room was as cold as the rest of the ship and smelt like a hospital. Michael retracted his wings and went to stand behind the three aliens. They turned around and instantly attacked him. It was three against one but their blows were useless against the angel. One of them climbed onto Michael’s back and was pulled off by Jack and the other men.

  Jack, who had a score of his own to settle, pushed the other men away to get to the alien. He punched the alien and began wrestling with it. Michael lifted the other two aliens up by their necks and smashed their heads together with enough force to crush them.

  The alien that Jack had wrenched from Michael’s back started communicating with Jack telepathically, taunting him and expressing evil, hateful thoughts. Jack immediately fell to the ground and grasped his head with both hands, screaming in pain. “We enjoyed abducting you and torturing you all these years!” the alien sent to his brain. “Your race is doomed. We have killed everyone who is special to you.” Michael swung around, picked the alien up by its neck and stared it in the eyes, using telepathy against it. “And don’t worry, you are going to pay for it!” he said. With a slight twist of his giant hand, he broke the alien’s neck and threw it on the floor.