KILLING ANGELS
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM MICHAEL MCGOVERN
Morbid Thoughts
First published in Ireland in 2019
First edition
Copyright © Michael McGovern, 2019
The right of Michael McGovern to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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KILLING ANGELS
MICHAEL MCGOVERN
PROLOGUE
The prophecy was written on cardboard. It was a rectangular piece ripped from an old refrigerator box. The box had been assembled in Delaware by people who knew nothing of its future significance. They put a fridge inside it and put it on a truck bound for New York. There it was bought by the Espinosa family who disposed of the box by illegally dumping it on the side of the street. The box became home to vagrant Gunther Peterson who slept in it for seven days and seven nights. On the seventh night, God spoke. He told Gunther of all the things to come and informed Gunther of his duty to tell the world. Gunther ripped a rectangular piece from his cardboard home and wrote in giant, legible letters,
THE END IS NIGH!
He picked a street corner and stood atop an overturned shopping cart with his message prominently displayed for all to see. For the first time in his life, he felt a great sense of purpose, but that sense of purpose quickly turned to frustration as Gunther faced the reality of the New York streets. People saw him standing there, but no one actually took the time to look. They had no concern for Gunther or the words that God had commanded for him to share. He could see that he was merely a phantom on their periphery. A man to be threat assessed, but not seen by the active mind. Their active minds were too busy engaging with the devices they held in their hands. The pale, glowing screens sucked away their very souls and brought them closer to Satan as Gunther failed to draw them closer to God.
Gunther was confused by it all. The Lord had told him what to do, but the message just wasn't resonating with the people like he thought it would. In desperation, Gunther started to shout at the passers-by, hoping to startle them into listening to what he had to say. The only thing he accomplished by shouting was to make people walk faster, and draw the attention of the police. The police would come and move him along with unsympathetic nods as he told his tale. Even the keepers of the peace had no patience for the sacred prophecy and its messenger.
Gunther picked a new corner every day and repeated the process over, but it was clear to him that the people were deaf to God, and by extension, deaf to Gunther. He had failed as a messenger, and the failure brought him great sadness. Gunther went back to the box that he called his home, and he prayed for help. He sought the means to make people see the error of their ways. God listened to his humble servant, and God answered. It was a day that no one would ever forget. It was the day that people finally started believing Gunther Peterson. It was the day that the angels came.
It was a beautiful night in San Francisco. Ava Williams stood on the Golden Gate Bridge and looked out towards Alcatraz. If ever there was a night to do it then this was the night. She climbed over the protective railing and felt her heart beat faster in her chest as she looked down at the drop below. The water called to her. A black expanse in the dark of night leading to oblivion. She closed her eyes and steeled herself. Just one more step into nothing and it would all be over.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a flash of white against the black. It was a feather. It danced in front of her face and dropped into the abyss. Then came another one, and another. Ava turned back towards the bridge. Every car had come to a complete stop. One by one, people were getting out of their cars and looking up towards a sky that was now awash with snowing feathers. Above the feathers came the sound of fluttering wings. The wings were attached to creatures that looked like the best of us on our best day. They soared overhead in flowing, white robes and descended down towards the bridge with great smiles on their faces. They landed amongst the cars and brought a message for every man, woman, and child.
Ava could hear one coming from above. She looked up as it descended and watched it effortlessly land on the narrow ledge beside her. It was the most handsome man she had ever seen - if it could be called a man. He smiled at her warmly and tenderly touched her cheek, though she felt nothing of his caress. He spoke his message to her, and the message was a single word.
“Jump.”
So, she did. The wind rushed around her as she fell. She looked up, and the sky was filled with wings. The angels had come, and for a brief moment, she shared their sky. She hit the water and never resurfaced.
Paul Brock straightened his tie while he practiced his diction in front of the camera.
“Round the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran.”
Paul was a man who liked a good massacre. The higher the death toll, the more eyeballs on him. He was always the man on the scene, and this scene was a gruesome one. He stood as close to it as the police barricades would allow. A Muslim extremist had stormed into the offices of the video streaming website, Viewbox and cut down 12 of their employees with an AK-47 assault rifle. The extremist had uploaded a video onto the Viewbox website prior to the shooting. In the video, he said he was going to kill them all for their refusal to remove a video profaning the Prophet Muhammad or some such nonsense. Paul didn't care as long as it brought viewers. People were always gripped by a good terrorist story.
“Larry sent the latter a letter later.”
The cameraman cued him in, and it was time to get into the appropriate emotional zone. He had practiced his sombre face in the mirror countless times for moments such as this. In his earpiece, he could hear the studio in New York directing the broadcast towards his location outside the Viewbox offices. So many eyeballs and they were all for him. Paul could feel himself get hard at the thought of it.
“Yes, Catherine. I have been speaking to my sources here at the scene, and I can tell you that the situation is still ongoing. He is surrounded, but the authorities are proceeding with caution as it is believed that he is wearing an explosive, suicide vest.”
To the many sets of eyeballs watching the broadcast, it appeared as if Paul Brock sprouted a set of long, white feathered wings as he spoke of the situation. Paul continued on oblivious until he spotted the awe-struck face of the cameraman and heard Catherine's shocked gasp in his earpiece. He turned and saw the angel that stood behind him. Paul dropped his microphone in the dirt and backed out of the camera’s view. The only thing left in the frame was a handsome, curly-haired angel locking eyes with the entire nation. Its message was clear and well enunciated.
“You're all going to die. The men. The women. The children. You will all die. You have two years to prepare your souls for judgement. Then we come for you.”
7 DAYS
CHAPTER ONE
The wheels of a Dodge Challenger turned on an empty road in Baton Rouge. There were no traffic lights, or even police to stop the car from speeding. There was only the road that stretched ahead, and it was a road th
at had no end. Dead leaves spiralled about the car's exterior as it breezed past a deserted McDonald's. The golden arches were dull and lifeless, and the building’s front windows smashed. The vacant and eternal eyes of a Ronald McDonald statue stared out at a big, quiet nothing and smiled.
“Man, I miss Big Macs,” said Darnell with his hands on the wheel.
“What was that?” said Karina. She strained to hear over the music that Darnell had cranked up to full blast - 'Yesterdays,' by Guns N' Roses. Darnell turned the volume down and repeated what he said.
“I said that I miss Big Macs, how about you?”
Karina scrunched her nose at the imaginary Big Mac in her head.
“I was more of a Five Guys girl.”
Darnell cocked a mischievous eyebrow in her direction.
“Really? I didn't know that about you.”
“Why would you?”
“You should have said before if you like having Five Guys inside you. I’ve got friends.”
Darnell felt Karina’s death glare without having to see it. It burned a hole into the side of his face.
“Jeez, alright, I'm kidding, okay? You just can't beat a down and dirty Big Mac is all I'm sayin'.”
“It's dirty alright, just like that sick brain of yours.”
Darnell's eyes drifted from the road and glanced sideways to get a good look at Karina. Anyone that knew Karina couldn’t help but look at her, as she never looked the same way twice. The Karina you met on a Sunday would look different to the Karina you met on a Monday, and that Karina, in turn, would look different to the Karina you met on a Tuesday. Her features were always the same, it was the paint on top that changed. She always painted her body from head to toe with whatever pattern she decided to go with that day. Darnell shuddered to think how long it took her to apply something like that every morning, but apply it she did. She somehow even got all of those hard to reach spaces on her back. Darnell could not recall seeing her natural skin at any point in the almost two years he had known her. Today she had gone with an aquatic theme. Schools of fish swam about her ocean coloured body, with the occasional shark or whale chasing them down. There was even a giant squid reaching out across her face with its long tentacles. A submerged fisherman was doing his absolute best to swim away from its grasp, but his future looked to be a short one judging by the agonised expression on his face. Everything she painted had such intricate detail. You could stare at her for hours and still find something that you hadn’t noticed before. Darnell wished that he could say that Karina was his, but she wasn’t. Karina didn’t belong to anyone.
“What are you looking at?” Karina asked.
Darnell didn't realise he had been staring so long. He promptly turned his eyes back to the road.
“I used to watch you,” he said.
“What the fuck is wrong with you today?”
“No, no, not like that. Jesus. I'm not some fuckin' weirdo or somethin'. I meant that I used to watch you on TV. I just realised that I never told you that.”
“It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago, just all this shit makes it seem that way sometimes. I used to watch Renegade Wrestling every Monday night. 'The Painted Bitch' they used to call you, right? 'The Painted Bitch' Karina Katana. Man, you and Lucha Dora had some wars.”
Karina looked out the window at the mention of Lucha Dora. She saw rats as big as dogs scamper away at the sound of the engine noise approaching. They had to scamper less and less these days. The world was theirs to inherit.
“We were friends really,” said Karina. “All of the rivalry was just for show. She was a good person. Loved her family.”
“What about that dude who was the champion? Killer Rex. What was he like?”
“I don't want to talk about him,” she said in a tone that invited no argument.
“Oh, that's cool. We can talk about whatever you want.”
An awkward silence fell between them and held for a while. Darnell reached for the volume control dial when it seemed like Karina wasn't going to speak again, but then she did, and he pulled his hand away.
“Why V8's?”
“Excuse me?”
“Every time you bring a car back to New Sodom it has a V8 engine, why?”
“Are you kidding me? Haven't you ever seen Mad Max?”
She shook her head and looked a little embarrassed.
“No fucking way. We're raiding a Best Buy on the way home, cause the next movie night we're gonna have a Mad Max marathon. All of them.”
“Okay, I'll watch Mad Max, but what does that have to do with the cars?”
“Well, Mad Max is a badass motherfucker that takes no shit from anyone. He lives in a world that ended a long time ago and fights his way through one situation after another in his V8 Interceptor. The V8 engine is the only engine worth driving during the end times. If you haven't noticed, the end of the world is all around us, and here's me driving this beautiful V8. Mad Darnell ain't gonna take any shit, and he needs a car that shows that.”
Karina laughed and snorted simultaneously. Darnell smiled at her sideways.
“What? What's so funny?”
“You. You're such a dork.”
There came a loud popping sound in the distance, almost like a crack of thunder.
“Wait, did you hear that?” asked Darnell.
“What? The sound of you being a dork?”
Darnell turned the music all the way down. Another loud pop, followed by others in quick succession.
“No, that. Sounds like there's a gunfight up ahead.”
“Should we go around?”
“Nah, we should probably check it out. Lemme radio the others.”
Karina passed the walkie talkie over to Darnell.
“Gus, Cormac. Did you guys hear that? Over.”
Gus and Cormac were driving a truck filled with supplies a little further back. Darnell could see them cresting on the horizon in his rear-view mirror. The Irish accent of Cormac responded.
“We heard it loud and clear, Darnell. Over.”
“We're gonna go check it out. Close the distance and stay close, we're not sure what we're getting into yet. Over.”
Darnell drove towards the sound of gunfire until he felt he was close enough to sneak a peek. He brought the car to a stop and grabbed a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment, looking into the distance.
“You're not going to believe this,” Darnell said to Karina.
“What is it?”
“There's a shooter on top of a Five Guys building.”
“No way. He’d better be shooting some cows so he can make me a burger.”
“No such luck, I'm afraid.”
Indeed, there was a single man on top of the Five Guys restaurant, and he was holding off an attacking force with a scoped rifle. Darnell surveyed the opposing force as they changed cover positions, always working their way closer to the restaurant's entrance. He spotted a couple of tattered police uniforms in the group that numbered at six people in total.
“Looks like he's holding off Governor Barnes' men. I guess that makes our mind up for us. Remy wants one of them taken alive and brought back to New Sodom for interrogation.”
“Fine. How do you want to play it?”
“They don't know we're here yet. I think that it's time for a good ole fashioned drive by.”
“What about the sniper?”
“If he's an enemy of Governor Barnes, then he's a friend of ours.”
Darnell signalled his intentions over the radio to Gus and Cormac and took a moment to put himself into the proper mindset.
“This music won't do at all. Pass me the CD wallet.”
Darnell flipped through the selection until he found something to his liking.
“Ah, perfect.”
He rolled down the window and placed an Uzi submachine gun on his lap. He popped the CD in and revved the engines while he waited for his track to come on. 'Hit em up,” by Tupac Shakur. He sho
uted along with the opening line as he accelerated into battle.
“THAT'S WHY I FUCKED YOUR BITCH YOU FAT MOTHERFUCKER!”
The attacking force had their backs turned to the Dodge Challenger as it approached at speed. When they finally heard the engine over the gunfire, they were too slow at turning. Darnell pulled hard on the steering wheel, skidding the car so that his open window faced his targets. He threw out his shooting arm and the Uzi submachine gun sprayed bullets in their direction. He hit three in one swoop before the other three ran in search of better cover to shield them from both angles of fire. Of the three that Darnell hit, two were dead, but one still cried out in agony, clutching at a wound in his side.
“Oh good, one of them is still alive,” said Karina. “We can just grab him and go.”
The sniper on the roof finished him off by exploding his head. He cried out no more.
“Never mind.”
The cavalry truck arrived up behind the Dodge. Gus and Cormac both exited the truck with their weapons already in hand. Darnell and Karina got out to join them. Gus was an overweight, plaid shirt, trucker hat wearing, giant of a man, with big, meaty forearms and a ZZ Top beard. The Irishman, Cormac, was an almost comical sight by Gus' side. He was thin and wiry with a shaved head and an open leather vest that had no shirt underneath. All over his body were the kind of tattoos that only kids thought were cool, like flaming skulls and naked ladies. They were all inked under a fresh, red sunburn on his pasty, white, Irish skin.
“Just once,” said Gus as he made his heavy-set approach. “Just once I'd like to go on a supply run without having to shoot at something.”
“Relax, big fella,” said Cormac. “It's not like you couldn't use the exercise.”
“Who needs exercise when they're going to outlive the world?”
“Let's focus on outliving today first before we worry about outliving the world. What's the plan, Darnell?”
“Well, the Five Guys sniper doesn't seem to be interested in us, so I say we just march on their position with guns blazing while he keeps them pinned where they are.”
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