by Jesse Gagnon
The breeze brought a foul odor of concentrated activity up ahead. Apparently the river Bear brought the group through knocked off some time. A massive group would struggle to wade through the river so they most likely detoured around to a natural land bridge somewhere along the river.
The five quietly pushed through the woods until an opening brought a visual of the massive herd a mile into the field. The weeds and grass were a good six feet tall masking some of the smaller Azrael.
Bear grunted and gestured towards the large Alpha surrounded by three massive Azrael. Randall took notice and focused his gaze further, enhancing his distance ten times normal. Most of the picture was blurred but where he focused came in clear as long as the intended target was moving. The Alpha was dangling Brooke in the air like a yoyo. The other Azrael were knocking her around. It infuriated Randall and he could feel his blood boiling. The hatred and anger were taking over. He began an intense sprint towards Brooke while growling and grunting. He managed twenty yards before Karla caught and stopped him from storming into a one sided victory for the Alpha’s herd. Randall didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to finish what he started back at the brook. The other three caught up and placed their hands on his shoulder in some strange attempt at calming Randall. Somehow it worked, plus with Bear’s grip, Randall was going nowhere.
Red, Karla, and Harry pushed forward low, hiding in the grass. Randall and Bear moved behind them still keeping a low profile. Bear traversed on all fours, bringing his size down considerably. The wind was blowing towards them so they were in good shape for a surprise attack. As the first three approached about fifteen yards out, a flock of birds was frightened into flight. The herd paused and took notice. After a few seconds of focus, they continued their transit. They were approaching at a flanking position, moving in on the west side of the moving herd. As they finally arrived they stepped into them and blended into their ranks. It wasn’t until Bear and Randall attempted to assimilate amongst the herd that they took notice. Brooke was within fifty yards but deep within the center of the Azrael mass along with the Alpha.
A Bravo class Azrael discovered Randall’s group and let out an alert howl that carried for miles. This was Randall’s only chance. He quickly dashed towards the Alpha knocking over any Azrael in his way. Bear followed behind on all fours swatting away those foolish enough to follow Randall. The Alpha saw Randall and hauled Brooke up into the air well above his head. He grabbed her tiny skull with his left hand and her body with his right. Randall slowed his charge as did Bear.
Brooke caught Randall’s eye and smiled. A glow emitted from her that lit up his face.
Instantly time slowed to a crawl as the Alpha’s large Beta class Azrael approached the two. Randall pushed out his chest and exhaled a mighty roar that even caused the Beta to recoil and cower. At that moment the Alpha removed Brooke’s head from her body. The individual tendons and flesh tore violently causing blood to ooze on top of the Alpha’s face. It howled and shook its head shaking the fallen blood all over. Randall’s eyes widened and a deep sadness and anger battled within his heart. Bear’s jaw dropped and his head hung low, knowing the war has now started. Randall showed his teeth, growled and powered through the herd. Before he could grab the Alpha two Betas and seven fresh turners had Randall held down. Bear charged in like a wild gorilla knocking down any in his way but his head was down and didn’t see the large rock the Alpha raised and dropped onto Bear’s skull, dropping him to the dirt. Several fresh turners climbed on top of him and bit into his body.
The Alpha walked over towards Randall as he was being apprehended and speared into him like a professional linebacker tackling an unsuspecting quarterback. Randall managed to grab onto the Alpha’s beard with his right hand and tore a large tuff off of its face before the others grabbed onto him. The fresh turners were biting into Randall, tearing out chunks of flesh from his body as they helped hold him down. Before the Alpha could kill Randall machine guns opened fire into the herd, cutting through them like a chainsaw through paper. The Alpha howled and fled east into the woods away from the gunfire. A good forty men were lined up to the north firing on the herd and were slowly moving forward. Harry and Karla helped Bear up and brought him away from the gun fire to the south. Red guided Randall behind them. All the other Azrael charged the men fearlessly.
After a few minutes and failed reloading evolutions the men were overwhelmed and absorbed into the Azrael mass. By this time Randall and his four Azrael companions were a few hundred yards away.
All of this was for nothing, Randall thought. His first friend since he became an Azrael had been killed right in front of him. Why? For what gain was killing Brooke? Is this what will become of the world when the Azrael inherit the Earth? Randall still maintained his humanity but knows that there will be an end. Will they move on from hunting man to hunting each other? Will there ever be an end to all of this? Randall pondered his existence further. He’d come to accept himself as he is, an Azrael, nothing more. However, with his new awakening, he has been able to control his fate once again. He can now influence whether he will live or die on his own terms. A sharp mind with sound logic separates man from other primal hunters. Our use of our hands has given man yet another advantage over those hunters that spend all of their time on all fours. Man has learned to adapt to their surroundings with crafting skills and survival evolving. The Azrael virus placed a shunt into the logic portion of human brains creating them into a pure primal beast dead set on spreading the virus. Also, the virus endowed its host with advanced adaptability, a constant state of motion conditioning once fat bodies into strong and enduring ones. It stimulated a lightening quick healing process that repairs the body from injuries that most creatures would surely die from. The virus wants to survive so it can reproduce itself. What happens when there is nothing left to infect? Will the virus evolve again? Will it move across other species? It will have met its goal.
Randall thought of Brooke once more. Was she aware of her actions or driven by the virus as the rest of them? It would suit the virus to want to survive. If that were the case then she would have complied with the Alpha and submitted to its will. Unless Randall’s dominant pheromones overwhelmed the virus’ pursuit of infection. How was the Alpha performing logic based actions beyond the virus’ control? It was obviously still in control of the body. Or was it? It deliberately killed Brooke to hurt him, to cause pain in a way the body cannot heal from. This creature is a monster that needs to die. Its very existence threatens any progress the Azrael virus could make in the future. Randall has found his purpose, not just to avenge Brooke but to stop a defect in the virus…cut off the foot before it infects the body.
CHAPTER 17: TOKO’S PAST
About thirty minutes passed since Giselle and Toko left the police station. They were on his motorcycle. It was one of those sports bikes that had the rider leaning forward. Giselle had a firm grip around his waist and clung close. This was the first time that she’d ridden on one of those kinds of motorcycles before and it excited her.
“I could do this all day.” She hollered over the whine of the engine and the ferocity of the wind as it assaulted her hair causing it to thrash in it.
“Try to stay quiet Miss Giselle. The bike may provide interest to the Azrael but your voice will generate desire. They lack fear and will jump in front of the motorcycle.” Toko suggested.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.” Giselle apologized and strengthened her grip. She could feel Toko’s ab muscles through his shirt. She felt his heart beating as fast as her own. She closed her eyes, laid the side of her head against his back and listened to it. She heard the intense heartbeat thumping in his chest. She heard the blood flow moving in and out of his heart. She heard a shrieking howl. Wait, What? She opened her eyes, sat her head up and glanced over his right shoulder. A massive herd was blocking the road up ahead and it looked like they spotted the bike.
“Hold tight Miss Giselle.” Toko instructed.
&
nbsp; “Got it.” Giselle answered and increased her grip around his chest harder.
“Not so tight…” Toko gasped. “I do need to breathe.” Toko admitted with troubled words.
“Ooh, sorry. Guess I was holding tight enough before.”
“Hai, was my fault. I forget your strength.” Toko spoke and laughed a bit after.
He slammed on the brakes and turned to the left down an alley. The back tire lifted off of the ground slightly. His reflexes were remarkable. He narrowly missed a parked car that wedged itself into the alley. There was barely enough room for the bike to the right of it. The end of the handle bars scraped the brick wall marking it up as if it were chalk, while the other end of the handlebars left a nasty scratch on the car’s right doors.
“Shit that was close.” Giselle exhaled as the words escaped her breath.
“Hai.”
They exited the alley going about forty miles per hour and Toko turned hard to the right down a road that paralleled the last one. The road was clear at the moment and they accelerated through the streets to eighty mph. Giselle heard a loud rumbling noise to the west. He slowed to about forty.
“What was that?” She asked. A giant plume of smoke was visible in the distance along with a bright glow within it indicating a massive explosion.
“Ahh, the other mission. Sounds like success.” Toko mumbled.
“And that mission was?”
“Stop or slow a massive herd heading for Chicago.”
“How big?”
“Massive, in the thousands.”
“What did they use, dynamite?”
“No, about fifty proximity mines utilizing C4 explosives and twenty or so claymores.”
“How did you know they would go that way?”
“The trees around there were tightly grouped and it opened up about where the mines were placed. They have been monitoring them for a while now. One Alpha is leading them through the countryside and picking up stragglers along the way.”
“Shit.”
“Another group of mercenaries are up a bit further with automatic weapons. They won’t stop the herd, just cause it to move a different direction.”
“Sounds like suicide.” Giselle wondered.
“Hai, very brave warriors unlike ourselves. They are just human but brave.”
“Who would volunteer for a job like that?”
“I did, in the beginning. It was after I lost my brothers. I just wanted to make a difference. I wanted to sacrifice myself for a higher purpose and join my brothers in the afterlife.”
“Obviously you didn’t die or turn into one of them. What happened?”
“Hai, by a stroke of luck after fleeing to our second position I failed to notice a root of a tree that tripped me. I also was moving along a rocky cliff that overlooked a deep valley. After I lost my footing I fumbled down the cliff, struck several rocks and tree limbs on the way down. I broke several bones and was paralyzed on impact.”
“That sounds awful. What luck are you talking about?”
“Hai, it does sound pretty bad when it’s said like that. Not long after I fell I heard my team being torn into. I slowly awaited my death but after six hours of the worse pain imaginable I was rescued. It seemed that my employer had a team in the valley where I fell. They were scouting the area for straggler Azrael.”
“So, what happened then? You’re not paralyzed anymore.”
“So impatient Miss Giselle.”
“Well…”
The road led to a side road and the pavement was destroyed. Toko slowed the bike and stopped it. The two climbed off of the bike and pushed it off the road hiding it behind a bush. Toko removed his helmet and sighed. He wiped the sweat that was on his forehead with his sleeve.
“Too dangerous to travel on this road on the bike. We walk on foot.”
“Well, that sucks. I was just getting used to the bugs in my hair.”
“You should try up front.” He showed her his helmet coated in bug guts. He then opened his jacket, brought his collar down on his shirt and showed her this massive welt on his collar bone.
“Damn, that looks like it hurts. Why didn’t you zip up your jacket?”
“I need to have access to my weapons just in case.”
“I guess so. So, what happened next?” Giselle asked as she started to walk down the road with Toko.
“My employer said that he could fix me so that I could fight again.”
“The virus?”
“Hai.”
“So, how did they do it without totally infecting you?”
“I’m not sure the entire process, but they figured out a way to isolate the necrosis element that you have immunity to. It only isolated the element for a little while. So I take these.” Toko explained and retrieved a vial of some liquid from his backpack that he had stored on the handlebars of the bike. He also removed a syringe, punctured into the vial, sucked out the liquid and injected it into his neck.
“Holy crap, why the neck?” She asked.
“Into the jugular vein to be exact. The quickest way into the bloodstream between the heart and the brain.”
“So did they give you any special training to control the virus?”
“Hai, after three days of the worst sickness I’ve ever had my body began to heal itself. By the fifth day, I was up and moving like it never happened. A week later my eyes changed and my gifts evolved. We started intense training that involved reaching our new limits with our new abilities. How long did it take for you to, uh, change?”
“Almost instantly. There was a brief moment when my body felt weak and numb, but after a few seconds, my senses were overwhelmed. I heard things I never heard before in intricate detail. I could smell things for miles away and my vision changed completely.”
“Your eyes…how long?”
“About a day.”
“That quick, huh?”
“Yes. When it didn’t happen instantly I thought I’d have normal eyes.”
“Takes the longest to fix the eyes.”
“Fix? Ruin you mean?”
“No Miss Giselle. These eyes are perfect for a predator.”
“I see your point, but they aren’t hu-”
“Human?” Toko interrupted.
“Yeah.”
“They are better. Hai, they are sensitive to sunlight but they still work. At night humans cannot see like we can. And when we focus…”
“We can see farther and sharper on things that move.”
“Exactly. They are perfect!”
“Such an optimist Toko.”
“You are just too negative Miss Giselle.”
“I’m a bitch, you can say it.”
“No, you just haven’t found your peace yet. You haven’t accepted who you are. It frightens you and you are afraid of losing those you love.”
“Well, damn. I guess I’m an open book then.”
“Actually, much of you is hidden in there.” Toko points to her heart. “Pretend to be tough to protect what’s inside your heart.”
“I have to be tough Toko. People are counting on me.”
“Hai, they are. The whole world is counting on you, Miss Giselle. They just don’t know it yet.”
“I can’t be that important.”
“You are. Once you acknowledge your worth you will find your inner peace.”
“But I kind of like being a bitch.” Giselle admitted.
“Everybody’s peace is different.” Toko laughed.
“It’s a long walk, wanna start jogging?”
“Hai, a run is good. Loosens you up for a good movement.”
“You talking about taking a crap?”
“Hai.”
“Men.”
“We all do it, Miss Giselle.”
“We don’t all talk about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Or not.” Giselle glared at him.
“Or not.” Toko repeated and started to jog. She followed shortly after.
CHAP
TER 18: MARIO’S MISSION
An explosion ignited fifty yards from Mario and his squad. Johnson was bleeding from a gunshot wound to his stomach. Tank was working on him, stitching up the wound real quick. Mario was holding his flashlight on the injury as they worked. He had it turned to a red setting to avoid attention. Flint was holding Johnson down. The room was pitch black and smelled like old fish and pig shit.
“Shit’s finally stopped bleeding Cortez.” Tank mumbled with string in his teeth while stitching up the wound and clipping the excess string. “Johnson’s one tough son of a bitch.” He finished.
“Let’s drop in from the roof. Can elbow fuck the mud and use that tree behind the shack.” Johnson pointed at a tree twenty yards from the window separated by a mud pit. “Monkey that shit and drop on top of the fuckers.”
“Dude you were just shot, relax. Flint, Tank and I got it, bro.” Mario instructed.
“I’m fucking sound dude. Don’t leave me like a third world orphan left to scrub shit off of the back of a water buffalo. Tank healed me, bro. I’m healed! He’s a fucking max level priest. He divine protected my ass.” Johnson exclaimed.
“I don’t play that shit no more.” Tank admitted.
“Seriously look at it. It’s fine. I’m good.” He struggled to sit up and motioned towards his wound with his eyes. “Don’t leave me out, Sarge.”
“Fine Johnson, just take it easy.”
“I got it, Cortez. I’m golden.” Johnson gave Mario the ok sign with his hand. They let him go and he dragged himself to his feet. He sat over in the corner and was talking to himself.
“Tank what did you give him?” Flint asked. Johnson walked over to the other room and pissed on one of the corpses in there.