by SD Tanner
“What the hell was that?” TL asked.
“RPG,” Pax replied abruptly.
“From where?” TL asked.
“You know what I know, dumbass!” Pax replied rudely.
“Shaddup both of ya,” Gears said, sounding annoyed. “I’ve called the bird over. They’ll Hellfire their asses whoever the hell they are.”
He rubbed the dust from his eyes until he could finally see clearly enough. Gears and Pax were crouched against the damaged wall, watching both the front and back of the small house. Looking out of the kitchen window, hunters were running towards the house from all directions. TL was by his side covering him, and Ip and Lucie were gone.
With his voice croaking badly, he grunted, “Err, guys, have you seen the hunters?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Pax replied confidently. “Ip’ll sort ‘em.”
Overhead there was the sound of a helicopter headed their way, and he assumed it must have been the one Gears had called. Determined to get back to Hull and Ruler to complete his mission, he asked, “I need to go and you guys should leave, but would you take Lucie with you?”
“Why’s that?” Gears asked.
“Because if they find out she’s with you, they’ll kill her slowly. She’s a hunter and they’re not easy to kill. She’ll die very badly.”
Gears looked up at him from where he was hunkered down. “What about you? Ruler’s a stupid shit, but he’s gonna work out you’re double dealin’.”
He’d already thought of that. “I knew that from the start, Gears. This was always a suicide mission. You leave Ruler to me. I’m resigned to my fate and I kinda deserve it.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of explosions outside the house. The pilot was eliminating their problem and within moments the bird landed behind the house.
“Gotta go!” Pax shouted, as he headed out of the back door of the house.
They all ran to the waiting bird. Ip and Lucie appeared seemingly from nowhere and climbed into the helicopter with them. As the bird lifted into the air, he walked back through the house and called, “I’m coming out!”
With his hands on his head, he stepped out of the front door and onto the dusty earth. In front of him were the remains of several trucks, but already another one was pulling onto the side of the road in front of the house.
Hull climbed out of the truck. “I knew you weren’t playing for the right team. Get your ass in the truck.”
It’s showtime, he thought. Following Hull, he climbed into the truck and got ready to put on the best performance of his life. With their ability to communicate telepathically, it wasn’t necessary for them to be in a single location anymore, and Hull and his demons were scattered across northern Ohio and Indiana. When Gears bombed their convoy in New York, Hull lost over ten thousand of his demon army. He’d been very angry and it only made him more determined to defeat Gears in combat. He thought it was a bad plan. With the demons and ghosts from hell now walking the earth, Ruler could easily infiltrate the bases and kill everyone. Deliberately blocking that thought from his mind, he closed his eyes and remembered the cynical, frightened, egotistical, self-centered and unreasonable man he’d once been. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, he thought, and that man still existed within him. He knew that man better than he knew the calmer and happier one he’d only recently become. He found, if he closed his mind to the good, all he had left was the bad, and that was the only side he wanted Ruler to see.
Sitting in the back of the truck behind Hull, he asked with a sneer, “Why don’t you just kill me?”
Without turning to look at him, Hull replied with disdain, ‘Cos Ruler wants your sorry ass, and I’m gonna enjoy watching you burn.”
“And to think we were once friends,” he replied, with equal disdain.
This time Hull turned in his seat. “We were never friends, mate. You and I were caught up in the same shit and we’ll end the same way.”
“If you know you’re doomed, then why do you still support Ruler?”
“I don’t give a shit about Ruler. I just wanna kill Gears.”
“But you can’t kill Gears. He’s a Horseman and they can’t die.”
Hull snorted. “Maybe not, but they can be broken. Let’s see how smug that wanker is when we kill everyone at his bases and destroy everything he’s built.”
“You’re a vicious little man, aren’t you? You’re willing to kill hundreds of thousands just because someone embarrassed you.”
“You don’t get it, mate. Gears is everything I’ll never be and that pisses me off. If you can’t rise to the top then change where the top is. Without Gears, I become the top of the tree.”
Stunned by Hull’s warped logic, he asked in disbelief, “Did it ever occur to you to become a better man?”
“Well, now there’s the problem,” Hull replied honestly. “I can’t be more than I am, but I can make everything else less than it is.”
“Oh, I see,” he replied, with genuine comprehension. “You’re actually insane. Good to know.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Say hello to my little friend (Pax)
It was just after midday when their bird lifted into the air, and they looked down on the barren land and still smoking trucks below them. Fumbling for headsets, he put them on and asked, “Where to now, Gears?”
Gears was peering out of the door of the bird. “We should head back to the bases. We need to make sure everyone’s ready to fight.”
He agreed they needed to prepare for the battle, but pulling Gray’s notes from his pocket, holding them steady in the wind, he looked down at the list. “You know, while we’re here we could do ourselves a favor.”
Looking over his shoulder, Gears glanced at the paper in his hand. “Whatcha got in mind?”
“According to Gray’s notes they’ve got some locations nearby with trucks, ammo dumps and birds. We could mess ‘em up a bit.”
TL shook his head. “Are you sure it’s worth the risk? If we get killed doing something we don’t need to do, then there’ll be no one to lead the living into battle.”
Ip speaks: We do not live and we cannot die, so why not let our fury fly?
Winking at her, Gears declared aggressively, “Let’s fuck ‘em up!”
Gray had listed three main sites and half a dozen smaller ones. Poring over the locations, they agreed they could hit three of them over the space of four hours. Hatch always made sure his pilots kept the birds fully loaded for battle and theirs was armed with eight Hellfire missiles and thirty-eight Hydra rockets, plus the two M240 machine guns. Despite being an alcoholic who failed to attend his final flight exam, he was grateful Hatch turned out to be highly disciplined and an excellent fleet commander. They had a well-stocked bird, time on their hands, and a clear shot at their enemy.
Ever since Gears decided it was time they ended the fight, he’d felt a growing sense of excitement, but he wasn’t interested to learn he might be immortal. Thoughts of his own mortality had never bothered him before and being immortal didn’t matter to him now either. If he died and he wasn’t immortal, then he’d be none the wiser. If he died and he was immortal, then he’d never really die. He was more excited by the idea of a final battle with Ruler. Even though Ruler took him prisoner and tried to wreck his mind, he didn’t take it personally. More than anything, he wanted to be able to do his job properly. According to Ip, he was the Horsemen who either brought famine or feast. If man was to be destroyed, then he brought pestilence so man would starve and be sent to hell. If man was to live, then he made sure there was food and a life to be had. That was his role before he knew he was a Horseman, but the supply problem was getting worse. With the land dying everywhere, he didn’t think he could keep the people fed. There was only so much food they could grow, and if Ruler’s power extended to the world, then all the land would die anyway.
Gears told them they could only win against Ruler if man had the will. The virus brought out the best and the worst in people, and he h
oped there were more good ones than the bad. Watching the dry land passing below them, he thought, I guess that’s the test. We might rule, but the truth will be told by how well they fight.
Ip speaks: Man does not deserve this hell, but it is nature that has raised the risk so well.
That was the other thing Gears told them. He said the virus was a natural phenomenon and not something Ruler could make happen, otherwise he would’ve used it before now.
Nodding at her, he asked, “How’s Lucie?”
They’d chosen Benny, Mackenzie and Max as their young leaders and trained them. It had been going well until Lucie began seeing both Benny and Mackenzie. From what he heard, it disintegrated into a stupid love triangle and Mackenzie asked to be infected. It had been nothing more than the angst of young love, but it had devastating consequences. Mackenzie was no longer human, Benny never found his footing, and Max ran away with Mackenzie to live in the hills. Despite the trouble Lucie caused, he felt sorry for her. She’d been a young woman experimenting with her power over men and she didn’t deserve to become a hunter. Sitting opposite him on the bird, she was tucked away from the wind, and with her delicate bone structure, her face was still strikingly beautiful.
Ip speaks: She is sad and sorry too. She never meant to harm our few. She does not see that the story unfolds exactly as it should be told.
He reached across to Lucie, and gently touching her fragile face. “Tell her no harm was done. All’s well.”
Moving to a position by the door, he watched the land passing by below them, and it took them another hour to reach the first location. It was a small airfield with a runway, a good size hangar, and a small makeshift building that looked like it was used as an office. There were about forty birds of various makes and types in a line along the runway, with several hundred trucks and armored vehicles in a line opposite them. They couldn’t see inside the hangar, but he assumed it was probably filled with heavy and personal weapons and supplies. Unlike their own bases, aside from the equipment, there didn’t seem to be many people on the ground, and they probably used the site to store and refuel their trucks and air fleet. He couldn’t see any type of security, but they he doubted they expected to be attacked by hunters or humans. As they flew over the location, no one reacted or even looked up at them.
“Whatdaya think? Gears asked, as he peered down at the airfield.
It looked too easy, but he wasn’t going to argue. As far as he was concerned, they could blow it from the air and not even bother to land.
“Doesn’t look like they know what the hell they’re doin’.”
Gears nodded in agreement. “Man the guns and let’s fly by with some hell of our own.”
The pilot arced back, and flying low, she fired rockets directly into the hangar. Being only twenty feet above the ground they were vulnerable to ground fire, and he and Gears opened fire with the M240s at the men who were running towards them shooting wildly at the bird swooping down.
As the running men collapsed under his barrage of fire, he cheered, “Woo hoo!”
We might lose the bigger battle, he thought, but I won’t be seeing any of you assholes there! The hangar must have been full of armaments, and the rockets set off a chain reaction of explosions that literally took the roof off. He felt the bird dip under the force of the explosions in the hangar, but Hatch trained his pilots well, and she kept good control of the bird and pulled it higher into the sky. Once they stabilized, she turned, dropped altitude again, and flew low over the line of trucks and birds on the runway.
Several men were now manning the machine guns mounted on top of parked trucks. “Gears! Watch them assholes on your side.”
“Yeah, I ain’t blind or stupid, Pax. I’m War and you’re Pestilence, which kinda explains a lot.”
He heard laughing through his head set and TL said, “Finally, an explanation for why Pax is such a pest.”
“Shaddup, TL, or I’ll have Death kill ya.”
“As if Ip would do anything you told her to do,” TL retorted scornfully.
He heard the continuous explosions of the Hydra rockets, and while flying low, he continued to shoot at the men running from the burning airstrip. More men fell under his lethal aim, and despite having the upper hand shooting at them from the air, he still felt a sense of achievement he hadn’t known since the virus began. They’d spent nearly two years trying to deal with their enemy and it felt good to have an easy win for once. The pilot banked high into the sky, and he eagerly looked back at the airfield to survey the damage they’d done. Shattered vehicles and birds were burning on the airstrip, and billows of smoke were continuing to puff over the hangar. The crumpled bodies of super hunters caught in their gunfire were scattered between the birds and vehicles.
Sounding as satisfied as he felt, Gears asked, “Wanna another run? We could take down more of them super hunters.”
“Yeah, whatever we kill now is one less we gotta deal with later.”
He heard Gears order the pilot to fly along the airstrip again, and settled behind the M240 ready to fire. His ammo belt was running low, but he figured he had enough rounds left for a final run. Men were still running down the long road, but they didn’t seem to know where to go, and their M4s were hanging uselessly by their sides. They should have formed fighting squads and mounted some sort of defense, but they were running in all directions. Falling under his constant fire, he wondered why they weren’t at least trying to shoot at them. Under any other circumstances he might have felt guilty about killing men this way, but he figured it wasn’t his fault they were incompetent. Clearly satisfied they’d caused enough damage, he heard Gears order the pilot to the next target.
The pilot left the airfield, and as he and TL began reloading his M240, he asked, “Did you notice they were all guys down there?”
TL nodded. “I guess the Devil has no plans for procreation.”
Ip speaks: Children are innocent, their souls are pure for which the Devil has no cure.
Looking worried, TL turned and asked, “What happens to the kids if we lose?”
“They die,” Gears replied grimly. Continuing to reload his own M240 machine gun, he added, “But we ain’t gonna lose.”
Surprised by Gears confidence, he asked, “How do you know that?”
Gears turned to face him. “Back at the Ranch, I met myself.”
He chuckled. “You been talkin’ to yourself again, Gears? You know that’s the first sign of bein’ crazy.”
Batting him across the shoulder, TL said, “You always ask the wrong question.” Turning back to Gears, he asked, “What did you learn?”
Gears stopped loading his gun and faced them. “Nothin’ much, but I know we ain’t alone and we’ve been doin’ this since the beginning of time. I don’t believe the Devil is smarter than us, but I can’t tell you why.”
The thought of there being two Gears amused him. “Musta been annoyin’ to meet yourself, Gears. Now you know how we feel havin’ to put up with you every day.”
“Shaddup, Pax,” Gears replied, but he didn’t sound like he meant it.
“How do you know it was you? Maybe you had a psychotic break.”
TL snorted. “Do you even know what that is, Pax?”
He didn’t really know what it meant. “Yeah, it’s when you do crazy shit.”
“Then your life’s one long psychotic break, Pax. You’re always doing something crazy.”
“Stupid, TL” Gears said bluntly, as he continued loading his gun. “The word you’re lookin’ for is stupid. Pax does stupid shit. And I know it was me, ‘cos I ain’t crazy and there’s a difference between bein’ psychotic and a psychopath, and I know which side I fall on.”
“Nah,” he replied dourly. “Out of the four of us, Ip’s the psychopath. I ain’t ever seen anyone who kills like she does.”
It took thirty minutes to reach their next location near Bryan, Ohio. It was another small airstrip, but he figured they must have used both airfields to refuel the
vehicles and the birds. Clearly someone in their army had the sense to commandeer the airfields, and judging by how useless the men at the last airstrip were, he assumed it was Hull. There were several hundred vehicles and thirty birds parked at this location, and again there was no security. He guessed they didn’t know about their raid at the other airfield, but given they had telepathy, he didn’t understand why.
Puzzled by their lack of preparation, he asked, “Shouldn’t they know about what we did at the other airfield? Can’t they jus’ mind meld or something? How come they ain’t prepared for us?”
Ip speaks: You think like a man and a soldier too. Why would you think demons would too?
He nodded at Ip. “I guess that makes sense. Gray said they weren’t really trained. Telepathically sharing the mechanics of weapons ain’t the same as bein’ trained to fight. Plus I might not be the brightest, but these demons are dumb as shit.”
He was glad they might only be as good as the hunter army they controlled, but that didn’t eliminate the advantage of having millions of hunters under their control. With their equipment starting to fail and Mackenzie’s warnings, there was a good chance they might lose the battle, but he knew they were out of options. Over the past months, he’d come to trust himself and the ways of the universe, and accepted sometimes you had to go in blind and hope for the best. Gears was right, it was better to die fighting than to die on your knees.
With such limited and ineffectual resistance, they repeated the same style of attack and were again successful. In less than twenty minutes, all that was left was a smoking hangar and burning vehicles. Bodies were strewn across the airfield, and there was nothing left to do other than move on to their final location. Again, they reloaded the M240s, and sat back watching the scenery pass below them until they reached their final target. Unlike the others, this one was an old military base, and the vehicles and birds were not conveniently lined up in a way they could simply swoop down and bomb them. This site had about twenty small buildings along a winding main road separated by parking lots. The birds and vehicles were mostly next to the buildings in the parking lots, and there were more trucks lining the main road that threaded through the base. Some of the buildings along the road were single story, others were three or four stories high, and he figured anyone in the taller buildings would have a decent chance of firing an RPG at them.