by Paul A. Rice
Hours later and the only thing now filling their sweaty vision was the summit. The enormous lump of misshapen rock seemed to have somehow leapt closer to them, almost as though it was taunting them, laughing at them, making itself all too readily available. They had maintained a decent pace and now they were fully warmed up, the Hunters seemed to flow up the hill effortlessly. It was almost too easy, and apart from the headache-inducing altitude, their final assault was no more difficult than a brisk Sunday morning stroll.
Ken had made sure they were all properly spaced, he had asked Red to bring up the rear as the last thing he wanted was to have someone starting to straggle off the back of the group. His concerns were, however, totally unnecessary as the unknown task ahead had filled them all with enough fear and adrenaline to make ensure that their focus remained pin-sharp.
Eventually the slope began to narrow, and the nearer to the top they climbed, the narrower it became. In the end they found themselves walking along the rocky path, the same rocky path upon which they had seen the unfortunate Jack Wildeman taking those final steps towards his destiny. The ground to their right had begun to fall away sharply, whilst the base of the mountain reached down to them from the left. There were no other choices – it was either: keep going straight up, or give up and go back down. But, today of all days there was to be no giving up, no going back, not for anyone.
The long moments of silence, broken only by the sound of their boots scuffing the rocky track beneath their feet, or the rustling of their trouser legs, gave each of them the time for reflection. Normally a person would have a set of idle thoughts drifting through their mind at times like this…‘When are we going to stop, what’s the time, have I locked the house?’…However, today it was to be only the memories from the last moments of Jack’s life that entered the Hunters’ thoughts. The vivid images, which the silver screen had mercilessly fetched before their eyes, of Michael’s father battling the storm and his heroic, but ultimately futile, attempts to kill the Demon, played over-and-over in their minds.
Jack’s spirit seemed to fill their beings, the noise of the bodies he had launched over the side of this very place, crashing and snapping as they cart-wheeled into oblivion, was almost palpable. They felt his rage, tasted his courage, and they knew, all of them in that one, blinding moment of realisation, that today was to be their last day spent wrapped within the soft cocoon of their previous lives. They knew that today, here and now, everything was going to change.
Jack’s spirit left them in no doubt as to the inescapable reality of that fact – it filled them with light. A bright beam of total clarity overcame all other thoughts, and as one they felt themselves lifted to a higher plane. A strange energy seemed to fill their hearts; it washed away all sense of fear, removed any angst regarding pathetic things such as sore feet, or pain from the biting cold, which was now busily nipping away at any exposed skin.
If the truth be known, the Hunters felt indestructible.
They were about to put those feelings to the test.
***
It was Junior who killed the first of the Demon’s henchmen. Ken had been at the front, leading them up the rocky track with the others in single file behind. The going was tough, sharp-toothed boulders had started to become more frequent, and a crusty layer of ice had begun to form around the smaller stones where the moisture in the soil had finally surrendered to the icy wind that buffeted them from all directions. The sun, which had been so gracefully blessing them only an hour ago, was now nothing more than a wistful memory.
Rounding a small bend in the track, and being faced by a cluster of waist-high rocks, Ken stopped and turned around to signal the others. As he did so, and with the freezing wind doing its best to suck the eyes right out of his sockets, Ken saw the unbelievable sight of Junior, doing something rather horrendous.
The young man was aiming his rifle straight at Ken’s head.
Ken’s widening eyes saw that Junior’s trigger-finger was exactly where it should have been, and it was pulling the trigger. He tried to step backwards. Luckily his foot slipped on one of the frozen rocks beneath his boot heel, at the precise moment his sliding foot send him staggering backwards, Ken saw Junior open fire. He stared in slow motion as the muzzle-flash seared from the rifle’s barrel. With a cry, Ken let himself tumble backwards, falling onto his behind and watching the empty bullet-case as it ejected from the pumping mechanism of the Kalashnikov, mesmerised eyes following the small brass container as it twirled over the edge of the track to spin away into the void. Over the deafening report of Junior’s weapon, Ken also heard the unmistakeable sound of an exploding head. Spinning himself around, to face back up the track, he was in time to see a flailing arm and the remnants of a fine spray of blood being whipped away by the gusting wind.
‘Stay down, there may be more – wait!’ Junior’s hissed command was as clear as a bell to Ken’s straining ears. Pulling his rifle into the aim, he slid sideways in order to gain some better cover behind the clump of rocks next to his shoulder. He heard the sound of feet behind and looked back to see Junior and Mikey standing shoulder-to-shoulder, rifles aimed and eyes blazing as they scanned whatever it was that lay on the other side of the rocks.
Junior looked down at him and winked, whispering: ‘The guy just popped up outta nowhere – I hit him right in the mouth, man, you should have seen his head explode!’ He grinned widely and stepped across Ken’s prostrate figure. With Mikey hot on his heels, he proceeded to edge around the rocks in order to search the headless corpse that lay ten feet away.
The dead man was exactly as they had imagined, tall, dark-skinned and very lean in build. Much like before, Ken was struck by how much he looked like the Afghans he had worked with, and fought, so many years ago. Very similar, but somehow different: taller and darker with long, powerful limbs, and certainly better fed. He would have liked to take a look at the dead man’s eyes, if only he’d had a face. Junior’s well-placed shot had indeed hit the man in the mouth. The impact of the heavy round at such close range had completely taken the top of his head off, the remains of which were now mostly lying over the edge of the track.
Mikey had rummaged through the pockets of their headless victim, but other than a handful of some paper money…of which they had no recognition, nor were they able to read the strange symbols denoting the value of said money…and a small pouch containing some pungent, black tobacco, there was nothing on him of any interest. Like his father before him, without a word, Mikey dragged the corpse to the edge of the track, and then using the soles of his boots, pushed the cadaver over the side. The tumbling and snapping noises the body emitted as it plunged downhill were all too familiar to the silent Hunters. In silence, they turned back to the task of reaching the top, this time they were much more alert.
By the time they reached the final crest line, which marked the outer boundary of the Demon’s monolithic lair, they had killed another three of the Dark One’s strange foot-soldiers. Each time it had been over in seconds, the enemy seemingly oblivious to the presence of the deadly team of George’s Hunters who were advancing upon their master’s final abode at such speed. In an instant, the enemy would be seen and then dispatched with a single bullet to the head, two more shot by Mikey and one more killed by Junior.
Ken had positioned Tori and Jane, ably accompanied by Red, somewhat further back down the track behind his and the two boys’ advance element. Firstly – he didn’t want them all to become tied down in any prolonged gun battle. Secondly – he needed to make sure that he had a reserve. And finally, of course – he wanted to keep the women as far away from danger as was possible. Although, it has to be said, Ken was more than aware of the fact that no matter what he did, it was never going to negate the mortal danger into which they were all trespassing. Irrespective of any plans he made in an attempt to keep people safe, sooner or later they, all of them, were going to have to walk straight into the Dragon’s mouth.
As it turned out, walking into the Dra
gon’s mouth was an event which happened rather more quickly than Ken would have hoped for.
As Mikey was heaving the latest body over the side – he seemed to have taken on the task as one of his own, and they all knew why – Ken had gathered the others and made sure that they were now lying in fire positions along the crest line and looking upwards towards the huge door that sat carved into the face of the mountain. Mikey, having finished with his latest body tossing chore, crawled over to take up a position between Ken and Jane.
Now that all six of them were together again, they lay in silence looking up at the place they had talked of so many times. It was there, just there, and no more than thirty yards away. What possible chance was there of anything going wrong? All they had to do was figure out a way in which to prise the door open, and then they would enter like a hurricane and kill everyone inside – simple.
Yes, simple indeed, and made much simpler by one part of the task being completed for them, free of charge.
They lay and watched with bated breath as those very same doors started to slide open of their own accord. Whilst the doors took their own time in opening, sliding apart an inch at a time, Tori spoke to them all, spoke with her mind.
‘Be warned,’ she said. ‘What you are about to see has never been seen by anyone who has lived to tell the tale!’ They heard her sweet voice, tinged with anger, entering their heads.
The echoing whispers of her warning were joined by a vision of Maggie’s flowers. They grew across a sweeping hillside, those beautiful, yellow blooms with their thick petals nodding against the warm breeze in some far off sunny place, stretched as far as the eye was able to see. There must have been acres of them, acres and acres of beautiful flowers. The image was so strong they were almost able to smell the flowers’ scent. No, not almost, they were able to smell them! The scent surrounded them, it filled every corner of their minds and such was the power of the message, which Tori gave to them, that all they felt the warmth of the sun as it lovingly caressed Maggie’s blooms.
Tori spoke again. ‘Ready yourselves,’ she said. ‘He knows that he is doomed and he knows that we are too many, but he will try to hurt you first, he will injure your mind before he hurts anything else!’
The image of the flowers cleared from their minds and as they regained their focus, the onlookers began to see a black mist ebbing from within the cave. Like an early morning fog, the blackness clung to the ground, almost crawling like a living thing as it slithered from within the bowels of the enormous cavern. Within a few minutes the blackness had formed a perimeter around the doorway; it lay there in oily thickness, with strands of its almost liquid body wisping upwards in twisted fingers, grasping at the air above.
They heard the undertone of evil coming from the ethereal substance, and all of them most definitely felt the hairs on their necks rising in time with the fear rising in their throats. The sound was like a thousand chuckles, soft, sick and horrifying. If they had pressed their ears to the doorway of hell, the listening friends would not have heard to a more odious sound – the terrible, whispered mirth of every madman there had ever been, sniggering and wittering at some deeply-insane, private joke. With growing horror, the Hunters had an awful feeling that it would be they, the Demon’s arch rivals, who would be the butt of such a hideous joke.
It was about that time when Maggie came out into the light.
But it wasn’t the caring, wise and witty old women they remembered, the one who had made such fine peanut-butter biscuits, the one who would smile at even the slightest sign of a flower – the one whom they all loved so dearly. It wasn’t she who made her long-awaited reappearance. This was someone else entirely.
Maggie was on some kind of a rack, standing upright with her arms and legs spread-eagled, ankles and wrists tied to the corners of the rusting, metal apparatus. The rack was on wheels and was being pushed from behind by two of the tall men who so faithfully served the Demon.
With a low moan, Michael rose to his feet, howling like a banshee.
‘Grandma! Leave her alone, you bastards – leave her!’
He raised his weapon and fired two rounds at each of the men.
Instantly, the writhing mist lifted into the air, its rippling movement forming an almost translucent wall between the men and Michael’s speeding bullets. As the projectiles entered the wall, it seemed to shudder slightly and as they watched, the Hunters saw the four bullets fall harmlessly to the ground. Like toffee apples, they had been coated in a thick layer of the mist; it seemed to have turned in some tar-like substance, the way it had managed to wrap itself around the bullets in a blink of the eye, was an awful confirmation of the warning that George had given them about the possibility of their weapons being useless.
The mist hadn’t finished yet, with a rising wail of its own, it sent out a thick jet of energy. It shot outwards like a giant hand and poked Mikey right in the middle of his chest with a vicious, black finger. The power of that blow put paid to any hope of Newton’s laws of motion being adhered to in this dimension – there were no rules about equal and opposite force being applied here.
Michael flew off his feet, crashing onto his back some twenty feet down the slope. Ken stared at the mist with his stomach sinking; he knew that whatever had reached out and struck Mikey was definitely not of this world, not of any world. The whole, crazy episode took place in slow-motion, each of them watching the mind-altering events unfolding themselves, frame-by-frame, in front of their widened eyes. Frozen to the icy ground in fear and disbelief, as one they turned to look down to where Jack’s son had just suffered from the same devastating blow that his father had all those years ago.
They need not have worried, Michael was at least as tough as his father and the power he held within his young body was far greater than any Jack had ever possessed. The young man staggered to his feet with a soft curse, raised a sleeve to his face and wiped the blood from his mouth and nose. Bending down, he retrieved his rifle before clambering dazedly back up the slope to join the others as they lay in frozen stupor. As soon as he slid onto the mound next to the others, nodding in answer to their worried glances, they turned back and watched Maggie.
There was something wrong with her. She seemed to be misshapen, somehow. Her dimensions weren’t quite right, but she was too far away and the mist, which had started swirling around her and the two men, prevented the onlookers from getting a better view. As they watched, they saw the mist parting, like a velvet curtain on opening night. It gently wafted apart, only for a brief moment, but for more than long enough to allow the two men time to shove Maggie’s wheeled crucifix out from the cave’s entrance.
Ken saw her head loll backwards as the inertia of their uncaring push sent her rolling down the sloping ground. ‘At least she’s still alive,’ he thought, and rose to his feet. Dropping his useless rifle, Ken dashed out from behind cover and sprinted over to restrain the old woman’s trundling mobile prison. It was a mistake, and if Ken had ever been given the chance of doing the same thing again, he would have definitely passed that particular option up as a no-hoper.
As it was, he met Maggie’s rapidly accelerating advance almost halfway up the slope, his own momentum and her downhill rush caused the two of them to meet at quite some speed. Ken reached out and braced himself for the weight of the trolley. Stepping slightly to one side, he managed to grab the side bars of the rusty apparatus as it sped past, his actions swinging him around like a demented shopper, one who had only just managed to catch his runaway shopping trolley before it crashed into the side of some rather expensive car. The weight of Ken’s prize swung him violently sideways, he had to dig his heels in to prevent himself, Maggie, and her awful wheeled prison, from hurtling over the nearby precipice – the same one that Jack Wyppen had leapt over.
It was at that precise moment when Ken really started to wish he’d not been so hasty in his rescue attempts. Had he known better, the horrified man would have let dear old Maggie simply trundle over the edge and c
rash her way into oblivion. If he’d known what was about to happen next then he would have done exactly that, but he didn’t know, and instead he had to watch whilst the desperate grasp of his powerful hands jerked the trolley to a halt, the force of his actions snapping Maggie’s body forward against her restraints.
In a rare moment of total disbelief, and to their abject horror, the onlookers saw the old woman’s head come away from her body, like a popping champagne cork, it just flew off her shoulders. In horrified fascination they watched as it sailed through the air. Like a scene from some cheap horror movie, Maggie’s head landed face-down with an awful thudding sound, and then proceeded to roll and bump its dreadful way down the slope, coming to a rest in front of Red’s horrified face.
Red screamed loudly, and it was one of the most soul-tearing sounds any of them had ever heard. It came from the very bottom of his chest and tore across his lips in a wave of fear, horror and anger. He had barely finished emitting that terrible howl, when he rose to his feet with another sound crossing his lips, this time it was the feral growl of an enraged lion – he literally spat fury and hatred as he rose to his feet and began to scrabble across the mound.
For the second time in as many minutes, Ken was forced to rescue someone, only this time his heroic attempts were needed to save Red, from himself. With a flying leap, he crashed into the big man, his impact sending them both smashing to their knees and tumbling across the mound to land amongst the others in a heap.
Just as they landed, the mist fired another blast of its powerful black plasma, the blast had been aimed at Red, but Ken’s quick action had managed to save the distraught giant from being on the receiving end of its awesome power. The black beam rocketed over their heads and disappeared harmlessly into the horizon above the deep valley behind. Ken held onto Red for a few moments, letting the shuddering sobs of grief and anger that wracked the huge man’s frame flow through his own arms.