by Adam Moon
Then he noticed the werewolf climbing the wall in a frenzy. The guards didn’t see it coming until it was too late. A couple of them were thrown from the walls but the rest were mauled to death up there.
Karl Marx pointed at the recovering fallen guards on the ground and barked a quick order out. The hyena dashed into view and started biting the fallen guards to death. It was all over in minutes. The gunfire had ceased completely.
There were three flashes of light as Karl Marx, the hyena and the werewolf vanished.
Melanie exclaimed, “Shit. Why did the werewolf go? We still need him.”
The sound of helicopter rotors cut off the end of her gripe. A shadow fell across the front entrance as the helicopter lifted off from the roof and swept close to the top of the wall in front of them. It turned about and began firing at the front of the building. These rounds pierced through the glass like a hot knife through butter. Jack was forced to get everyone behind the guard desk. The high powered rounds were shredding everything to confetti, sending pieces of concrete all over the place as deadly secondary projectiles. The noise was deafening.
There was a whining metal against metal noise from outside that encouraged him to take a peek over the top of the desk. When he saw what caused it an awkward smile spread across his face.
The bat-mobiles had swarmed the helicopter. Some were inside crashing around while others drove on their wheels around the outside. The helicopter banked to the right. Then it fell a few feet. The pilot was having a hard time keeping control with all the pests inside and out.
Then the swarm moved toward the tail rotor and started flying into it. The rotor broke into pieces against their indestructible bodies and the helicopter started spinning out of control. The bats fell from the sky like hail, pelting the ground, clearly dead. The helicopter crashed to the ground next to the dead swarm. Before Jack could act, three men crawled out of the wreckage with guns in hand. They’d all survived the crash, mostly unscathed.
He saw movement in his peripheral and was surprised to see his and Jessie’s clones standing in the lobby staring out the windows. His clone was clutching the clone death ball but not like he was going to use it. He held it like a prop. The airmen started to move toward the doors and the clones ran forward on cue. The clones got through the door and ran off to the right as the armed men gave chase, guns a blazing.
It was a switcheroo and it worked.
The bat-mobiles erupted in tiny flashes of light as they vanished.
The path to the front gate looked clear of life now. Jack knew their window of opportunity was small; they’d come across maybe a third of the guards he knew the facility employed and he didn’t know if they had any creatures left to sacrifice for them. He tried to remember if there were any left but too much had happened in such a short amount of time. He just couldn’t concentrate.
Oliver got them moving this time. Jessie seemed shell shocked so Jack and Melanie half carried, half dragged him outside while Oliver held the door. They scanned the parking lot for a vehicle but they were all shot to shit.
Melanie pulled something from her pocket. It was a key for one of the SUV’s. She took off running along the wall of decimated vehicles, stopped and turned back to the group.
“This one looks ok. Hurry up.”
Jack saw movement inside the lobby. He squinted, trying to see if he needed to use the ball on more armed guards. As the figures approached he could make out their nudity; it was the gang of naked hotties. They came right up to the entryway and stopped. Then they formed into a line in front of the door, their naked asses pressing on the glass.
Shortly thereafter there were shots from inside, Jack could see the muzzle flares but none of the bullets made it past the chick wall and none of the fresh wave of guards could get through either.
Eventually the shots became less frequent and then ceased all together.
Apparently the sight of these beautiful naked women had suddenly mollified the guards. One beautiful woman had that effect; a bunch of the most gorgeous women on the planet fully nude maximized the calming effect.
When Jack turned away from the great wall of hotness he saw Jessie covering his eyes with his hands. That made him smile.
He took the boy’s hand. They met up with Melanie at the dented but otherwise roadworthy SUV.
She got behind the wheel before any of the men could volunteer. It made sense though; Jack had the ball and Oliver still had his gun. Plus she was a good driver despite the long layoff.
As she backed out of the space there was a thunk against the side of the vehicle and then another one. They were being shot at.
The General was crouched behind a broken wreck of a car. It was Jack’s Ford Focus and it was obliterated.
Jack felt an alien anger swelling within. At first he thought that the sight of his demolished car was what upset him but when he locked eyes with the General he knew it wasn’t the car’s fault. Jack felt at that very moment the anger he’d been suppressing. He realized he hated the General with all of his heart.
He opened the door before anyone could object and let the death ball hover in front of him as he walked. He felt his insides engorge with elixir.
The General bared his teeth like a rabid dog. He stood fully erect to get a better shot. He discharged the weapon but Jack used the death ball to deflect the bullets. He didn’t know he could do that until just now. It whizzed in front of him like an angry bee. It moved impossibly quick, darting this way and that.
He was barely aware he was controlling it as he moved toward the General at a brisk, purposeful pace. The General dropped his empty clip and tried again with a fresh one. This had the same effect. The ball was a perfect shield. The General let the gun drop from his hands as Jack rounded his busted jalopy.
The anger was suddenly gone from the General; he’d accepted his defeat like he knew it was inevitable. He hung his head low and waited for death.
Jack slapped him open handed across the mouth. The General staggered backwards a step. Jack slapped him again.
Then he turned his back on the defeated husk of a man and came back to the SUV. He didn’t worry that the General might have a sidearm and try to shoot him in the back; the General had no fight left in him. He was thoroughly broken.
They slid past him in the SUV and made for the gate. Jack watched through the rear windshield as the mini soldiers the toad had crapped out fell upon the unarmed General.
He didn’t watch them finish him off and he didn’t tell the others about it. They’d seen enough death for one day.
Chapter 65: Escape
They rolled within ten feet of the closed gate and Melanie asked, “What now?”
Just then the tire spikes in front of them retracted. As they slowly inched up to the security pillbox they witnessed through the window the weird spider with the mammalian eyes slapping its human dick down on the switch that operated the gate. The gate opened up in front of them.
The female security officer inside the pillbox was face down on the ground. She wasn’t moving.
The spider looked at Jack and its eyes teared up. Then it went very still, almost statuesque and he knew it was about to be consumed by the light.
As they passed through Jessie said, “Look” and they turned around to see what he was pointing at.
The white tiger was standing at the open gate spraying blood out of its blowhole. It was streaming out fast like from a fire hose. Within seconds the road around it was thick with the stuff. The creature must have accomplished its mission for it too vanished in a spark of light.
When the first chase SUV came roaring toward them Jack understood why the tiger had sprayed the road. The vehicle hit the patch of blood and its tires went spinning out of control. It hit the pillbox hard. When it tried to reverse the tires spun as though in midair. Whatever that blood like gunk was it was infinitely viscous.
Melanie floored it.
A minute later a rusty piece of crap station wagon fell in behind th
em. Jack recognized it as belonging to the people who had tried to abduct him at his apartment; the people who were working with Melanie and Oliver to free Jessie; the people who were supposed to help them escape.
“Some help they were” he said sarcastically to Melanie with no trace of humor.
“It worked out. We didn’t need them.”
“Did they know that?”
Melanie fell silent. She let the station wagon overtake them and she followed behind it.
After a few miles she pulled over and got out. She reached under the wheel well of the driver’s side tire and pulled something out. She threw it on the ground and by way of explanation said, “GPS” as she got back behind the wheel and roared after the station wagon.
Oliver said to no one in particular, “I can’t believe we made it.”
Jack realized he was still holding the death ball so he stuffed it in his lab coat pocket. His coat had blood splatters on it and his shoes were wet with blood and human gore.
“We all need a change of clothes.”
Oliver said, “Agreed. Let’s get somewhere safe first though.”
Jack’s mind had been racing the entire drive so he had no idea how long they’d been on the road before they eventually pulled up to a respectable two story house with trees lining the front yard. The driveway was wide enough to allow both vehicles to park side by side. From the station wagon emerged the tall black guy Jack had met last week at his apartment, a white woman and a white man.
It occurred to Jack that two people were missing. There was the Hispanic woman who apparently had been excommunicated and then there should have been another white guy.
The black guy said to Oliver, “Sorry we didn’t get in on the action but Jackson took off on us when the fighting started and we spent the whole time trying to persuade him to reconsider.”
Oliver sighed. “That man never had the conviction necessary to do what was necessary. He was a thinker, not a doer. We will be fine without him.”
“I know that, but what if he talks? He knows where we are.”
Oliver shook his head grimly. “There’s nothing for it, Daniel. We have nowhere else to hide. If he talks, he talks. We need to forget about him and concentrate on the task at hand.”
Chapter 66: Hideout
Daniel led them to the entrance of the well kept house and let them in.
“For those who haven’t been here before, welcome to my home.” He made sure to make eye contact with Jack and Jessie as he said it. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”
Jack allowed Daniel to lead him to a nicely furnished bedroom on the first floor. He was in a daze. He dared not remember what they’d just done to get to this point or he might go insane.
Then he thought - we escaped so now what? Now everything he believed in was about to be challenged. Now an evil demon was going to devour his soul. What kept one foot moving in front of the other was a belief that despite all the weird shit he’d seen lately, Lucifer was on a whole new level of bizarre and so he did what he always did when something seemed irrational, he chalked it up as bullshit.
He couldn’t deny the growing curiosity though. Perhaps he’d been exposed and therefore numbed to too much madness this past week. Anything seemed possible now. But Lucifer? Really?
The bedroom had its own master bathroom.
Daniel said, “There’s a bathroom right through there if you want to get cleaned up.” It was only then that Jack noticed just how disheveled and grimy his body was. He had pancake sized sweat patches under his armpits and his hair was matted to his scalp. His eyelids and skin were sticky from sweat. There was the blood spatter too and it wasn’t just on his clothes.
Daniel continued, “I didn’t know your exact size so I got a few different sizes of shirts and pants for you. They’re on the vanity in the bathroom. I hope some of them fit.”
Jack half heartedly thanked him and Daniel left him alone.
He shrugged off his lab coat, careful to remove the death ball from the pocket first. If the ball hadn’t already been red in color he was sure he’d see just how much blood and gore it was coated in.
He wrapped it up in a spare pillowcase that was stacked among others atop the lone dresser in the room. He brought the pillowcase with him into the bathroom and tied a knot on the end.
He couldn’t shake the image of Billy’s prone, lifeless body and he couldn’t shake the guilt associated with the mental image. The ball in the pillowcase hadn’t killed Billy, Jack’s foolhardiness had. He refused to be responsible for the deaths of anymore innocent men or women.
He realized for the first time that he was now technically a mass murderer, or was it a spree killer? He forgot the difference. He shook his head. He didn’t think he had the energy to feel the magnitude of guilt associated with that.
He put the pillowcase in the bowl of the sink for safekeeping and removed his clothes.
He was mostly rinsed off and the water was running off his body clear instead of pink when Melanie appeared, fully nude. She joined him in the shower. Neither of them made a move on the other; they were too emotionally drained. He washed her back and she turned and kissed him. He hadn’t realized it but he needed the embrace. They held each other for a full five minutes before finally getting out.
While they were drying off Jack asked, “So, you know all those guys from Oliver’s little occult seminars?”
Melanie shook her head. “They came after I was already long gone. I spoke to Daniel, the black guy, on the phone that time I went for coffee at your apartment but otherwise they’re strangers to me.”
“Do you trust them?”
“Oliver trusts them so I do too.”
He let it go. It wasn’t worth arguing over. Personally, he thought they were all kinds of incompetent but what did that matter now?
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t know for sure but Oliver suspects it’ll happen soon.”
Jack said as seriously as he could, “What should I do? Should I say yes?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I spent three years learning about this stuff from Oliver but then I spent the next several years in the military, in a semi-normal environment with little talk of the occult or Lucifer. If it weren’t for all of the horrible things that happened to me as a child I probably wouldn’t be going through with this at all. I probably wouldn’t even believe it. I want there to be a counterpart to God and I want whatever it happens to be to overthrow the status quo. Should you go through with it? I don’t know really. Remember what I told you though, whatever decision you make, I’ll be right by your side.”
“But you’d like me to say yes to him, ultimately.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. Stop looking to others for the answer. Only you can decide. But remember that your choice affects all of existence. No pressure though.” She laughed but Jack didn’t find it fucking funny at all.
Melanie cut her laugh short when she saw Jack’s angry expression. More seriously she said, “Just remember that this is not the devil Jack. This is the greatest angel of them all; some say the most perfect creation God ever imagined. He’s been unjustly punished by his cruel father and the tortures will never end unless we intervene on his behalf.”
He looked at her with raised brows and said, “What do I care? It’s not my fight.”
“It wasn’t your fight to help Jessie escape and you still did the right thing. I believe in you even if you don’t.”
He let the thread die. He tried on a pair of jeans and they were a perfect fit. He held all the shirts up and put on a large sized polo neck. Melanie wrapped her towel tightly around her perfect body and left to put on her own clothes, presumably bought by Daniel as well.
Jack picked up the pillowcase and went into the living room to meet everyone officially.
Daniel stood and gave up his seat. He shook Jack’s hand as they passed. “I’m glad to meet you under better circumstances.”
Jack tho
ught that was a stupid thing to say. The last time they’d met was nuts but not selling-your-soul-to-the-devil nuts. He noticed the side of Daniel’s face was still a little discolored from when Billy had soccer kicked him in the head back at his apartment
The white guy and girl were both sandy brunettes and looked to be in their mid twenties. They stayed mostly in the background with Daniel and Oliver taking the lead. Jack shook their hands as a formality and they each mumbled their respective names but Jack couldn’t make either one out. The guy was either Jared or Garrick or Derek and the girl was maybe called Sandra but Jack wasn’t sure enough to repeat it.
Just to offset their timidity he barked his own name at them and shook their limp hands with strength and vigor. He made a snap decision that he didn’t like them one bit.
Daniel seemed cool enough though so he directed his questions to him and to Oliver. “What now guys?”
They looked at one another and Daniel said, “Now we wait and see. There’s no way to know what comes next. All we know is that a very advanced ritual’s in full swing and we’re at the payoff end of it.”
Oliver joined in, “I’m going to guess that Jessie’s mother left him because even she didn’t know what to expect out of this. His abilities most likely shocked her out of her senses.”
Jack countered, “Maybe they shocked her back to reality. Maybe she realized the ritual actually worked and she freaked out.”
Oliver didn’t take up the debate. He simply said, “There’s no way to know for sure.”
“So if she was able to abandon the ritual then I can too. I’m just the back-up plan. Who’s to stop me from walking away from all of this?” He said this menacingly, as a point blank threat.
He wasn’t fully aware of it until Oliver backed up, staring at Jack’s hands, but he was untying the pillowcase. He was trying to get the ball into his hand.
Oliver said as reassuringly as he could, “Jack, we’re all friends here. We all want what’s best. If you want to leave, then so be it but remember young Jessie. Until this has run its course he’ll be forever haunted by his terrible gift. How will you raise a child like that?”