“False God!” Gabriel shouted at the skeleton. “I will cut out your heart from the inside!”
Gabriel was dropped and swallowed by the giant Baron Samedi. The giant Loa patted at his stomach contentedly, showing Remy that he was pleased with the offering. It was then that Remy woke up and saw what was actually happening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Remy was still in the Superdome when he woke. As were the Heirs of Salvation and the Sodomites. Karina, Gus, Raimond - they were all alive. Daniel Blanc was still dying on the ground right where Tracey had left him. No one had ascended anywhere. Everyone was very much present and alive on earth. But they were not alone.
Orb creatures floated in the air with glowing, jellyfish-like skin, shimmering with a full spectrum of colour. They looked like floating Tesla coils with arcs of energy emitting from their glowing orb bodies and connecting with the minds of every human present. It was like Remy was standing in a field of blue lightning. Bright lights filled the sky, emanating from a giant disc that hovered above the stadium. The disc whirred as it spun at great speeds in a counter clockwise direction. At Remy's feet was a burst and deflated orb. It no longer shimmered with colour, and its spilled insides had the consistency of snot.
“Is that you, Gabriel?” Remy asked of it. “You don't look so divine now.”
Remy stomped on the snot corpse, taking delight in its dead squish. He picked up a nearby shotgun and looked around. People were starting to drop down dead all about him as the orbs conquered their minds. He had to act fast to save as many of the Sodomites as he could.
Remy stepped over Daniel Blanc who appeared to be in his own private version of Hell. Daniel shook his head and muttered as the Tesla beam bore its way further into his mind. His eyes were open, but they looked out at nothing.
“Why have you forsaken me?” he asked of the illusions in his mind. Tears streamed down his face and mixed with the cold sweat and blood.
Remy left him to it and started shooting orbs out of the sky. They shrieked a horrible sound when they were punctured, but they died easy. He killed the orbs that had attached themselves onto Gus and Raimond. They woke from their stupor disorientated and confused. Remy quickly placed weapons into their hands.
“No time to explain. Start killing those fucking things.”
Luckily, they could still remember how to shoot a gun. They followed Remy’s command without so much as a question, shooting as many of the orbs as they could while they advanced towards Karina. The orbs quickly started to wise up and shot arcs of blue Tesla beam in their direction, but they saw it coming and jumped out of the way. Karina's orb saw them get too close and shrieked so loud that they had to stop and cover their ears. For a moment, that orb glowed brighter than any other and shot out multiple arcs of Tesla beam at once, connecting with the minds of Remy, Gus, and Raimond, while keeping its hold on Karina. They were instantly transported to another place. It was New Sodom. Just as it was before the flood. They stood alone on deserted streets that they were all well familiar with.
“Okay, would someone please tell me what is going on?” said Gus.
“Would if I could,” said Remy. “I've been figuring it out as I go. Our bodies are still in the Superdome, and we are still in danger. We need to find the angel that controls this hallucination. If we kill it, we'll get back to where we need to be.”
“This is all in our heads?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Gus slapped himself in the face, but he did not wake. He jumped up and down and felt nothing but the solid pavement beneath his feet. He shook his head furiously and went pale in the face.
“Excuse me, but I think I'm going to need a minute.”
“Nuh-uh, you heard the man,” said Raimond as he cocked his gun. “We're still in danger, and we've got us an angel to kill.”
“It's just one thing after another, isn't it? Fine, I'll stop thinking about the fact that I'm not really here, and that nothing around me is real. I'll go help you kill some angel that doesn't exist so I can get back to fighting a bunch of floating soccer balls that shoot lightning out of their damn heads. It's all perfectly logical when you break it down.”
They moved through the empty streets with Gus grumbling all the way. They looked for signs of anything out of the ordinary. They did not have to look for long.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” said a voice from behind them. They spun and pointed their guns towards a man wearing an open fur waistcoat, with his muscular bare chest proudly on display. He was supported by a familiar giant of a man and a bunch of other men wearing tight and colourful spandex.
“Name's Killer Rex. You've probably heard of me. We're looking for that bitch, Karina Katana. We raped and killed her friend, and now we want to do the same to her. Have you seen her?”
“Karina's here too?” asked Gus, still trying to wrap his head around everything.
“I think we're inside her head,” said Remy.
Gus looked like his own head was about to explode from all the processing he'd been doing.
“I guess that you haven't seen her then,” said Rex. “Looks like we'll have to settle for killing you.”
“Enough of this shit,” said Raimond as he opened fire. Remy and Gus quickly added their support, and it wasn't long before there was a pile of dead wrestlers on the ground in front of them, looking like a bunch of discarded action figures on the floor of a boy’s room.
“Never liked that fake shit,” said Raimond as he walked away.
“If Karina's here, we need to find her,” said Gus.
Remy nodded.
“I agree. I have a feeling that if we find her, we'll also find the angel.”
A crying Karina turned the corner and ran straight past them.
“Well, that didn't take long,” said Remy. “Yo, Karina, wait up!”
Karina kept on running. It was like she didn't notice them at all. A Dodge Challenger came swerving around the corner after her, and the group had to jump out of its way to avoid getting run down. It chased after Karina, but Karina just couldn’t run anymore. Her legs were running on empty. She came to a stop, and the Dodge also came to a stop in front of her.
“Is that Darnell?” said Gus, squinting at the man behind the wheel of the Dodge Challenger. “What the fuck is going on?”
Darnell gripped tight onto the steering wheel and scowled at Karina out ahead of him. He shouted at her through the open window.
“You killed me! You let me die!”
“No, I didn't. Please... I'm sorry.”
Darnell revved his engine.
“You deserve this.”
Darnell sped towards Karina, and she did not move. Remy was quickest to action, tackling Karina out of the path of the speeding vehicle. They hit the ground with a thud and a tumble. Karina looked up at Remy, not quite comprehending his presence there.
“Remy? Is that you?”
The Dodge skidded back around, and this time Gus and Raimond stood in its path. Darnell revved and charged, screaming at the top of his lungs as he looked to run them down.
“Sorry, old friend,” said Gus as he and Raimond opened fire at the oncoming windshield. The bullets killed the fake Darnell and sent the Dodge crashing into a nearby wall.
“Darnell!” Karina cried out. Remy took a firm hold of her and shook her as he spoke.
“Listen to me. None of this is real. Darnell is not real. He's dead, and you know it. No one comes back from that. No one.”
Karina seemed to come back to herself as Remy stopped shaking her.
“He's dead,” she repeated in a monotone voice.
“Karina, I know you're in shock, but I don't have time to explain everything. We need to find an angel. Have you seen one?”
Karina shook her head.
“No. All I've seen is Darnell.”
“Shit. Bastard's hiding. Trying to let all the illusions do the dirty work for him.”
Remy got to his feet and dusted himself off. Karina
took his hand and helped herself up. Remy looked up to the heavens and addressed them.
“Alright, you fake, feathered, piece of shit. Let's have this over with. Show yourself so we can move on to killing all of your friends.”
An angel emerged from behind the St. Louis Cathedral and flew in the sky, high above them, well out of their reach. He pointed his sword down at Remy, and the look in his eyes was pure venom.
“I am the archangel, Uriel. You dare to challenge me?”
“Already killed Gabriel. Figured I’d start an archangel set.”
“You killed my brother?”
“Is that what he was? He looked more like a ball of snot to me. You guys aren’t as pretty as your profile pictures.”
Uriel suddenly divebombed towards them, and they quickly opened fire in response. Numerous bullets struck the angel on his descent, but not a one pierced his perfect skin. Everyone scattered as Uriel came swinging with his giant sword. Karina took a cut down the side that nearly severed her entire arm. She dropped to the ground, clutching at her wounded limb. Gus immediately rushed to her aid and tended to her.
“Any other bright ideas?” Raimond asked Remy as they got to cover.
“I don't understand. That should have worked. Wait, let me try something else.”
Uriel completed a circle and took a second pass on their position. Remy stood directly in his path and tried to call forth Baron Samedi once more, but the only thing that came was Uriel's sword. Remy rolled to the side at the last possible moment and narrowly avoided having his head taken off.
“What was that supposed to be?” Raimond scoffed.
“You're not helping!” Remy spat back at him. “I'm missing something,” he muttered to himself as Uriel began to circle again. Remy looked to the bloodied Karina on the ground, and everything clicked into place when he saw her injuries.
“Karina, this might not make sense but, we're in your head. You are the person that has all the power here. If you think of something hard enough, it will become reality. Think! Your arm isn't really hurt right now.”
Karina seemed to concentrate. She lifted up her arm and looked at it. The wound was gone.
“Well, I'll be damned,” said Gus.
“What do I do?” she asked with a sense of urgency in her eyes. Remy pointed up to Uriel, who was rapidly descending from the sky.
“Kill that motherfucker!”
Karina got to her feet and closed her eyes. Instantly, her bare skin burst alive with colour. It was more than paint, it was a series of living images moving about her skin. Miniature Karina's in the style of cave paintings swarmed all over her body. As Uriel drew close, she thrust out her arms and sprayed the images off of her like a hose. They hit Uriel with a great splash and became one with his body. He spun about in the air and tried to scratch the tiny Karina's off his skin as they travelled to his vital parts, but they were already apart of him, and there was no getting them off. With painted spears, they stabbed at every inch of his body. Blood burst out of the points that the spears targeted. Two painted Karina's climbed up to his face, and with a coordinated effort, they stabbed out his eyes. Uriel howled in pain and fell to the earth from a great height. The real Karina walked right up to him and pointed her gun.
“Time to rise from the ashes,” she said as she pulled the trigger and finished the job. They all were instantly transported back to the Superdome.
“No time to lose,” said Remy as he went straight back to the task of turning orbs into snot. The others quickly joined him and started killing with a passion. It was the founding of New Sodom all over again. A new way forward, born under the gun. The more Sodomites they freed, the greater their murder force became. The Heirs of Salvation were left to their nightmare deaths, and when the orbs had sucked them dry, they too were popped by the Sodomites. Remy spotted the young boy that he had seen earlier by the end zone. His face was frail and his mind still linked to an orb. Karina was closest to where the boy stood.
“Karina!” Remy called to her.
She turned from her shooting to hear him. Remy pointed his finger towards Sam.
“Save the boy.”
It took only a second for her to follow the instruction and set Sam free. Sam looked at the scenes around him and started to panic, but Karina was quick to his side. She put a comforting arm around him with one hand, while she killed orbs with the other.
It took a lot of killing, but the time eventually came when every last orb was dead. Remy aimed his gun up at the flying disc in the sky, but it was already retreating to some other place where the humans were less dangerous. Remy fell to his knees, exhausted.
“What the hell was all that?” Gus demanded.
“An invasion,” said Raimond.
“Raimond's right,” said Remy. “I think all of this, everything we’ve been through, has been nothing but psychological warfare. They've played us all for fools. Look at these snot bags, they're weak as shit. They could never take us in a fair fight. They looked for a weakness, and they found our faith. Why bother trying to kill us when they can use our faith to make us kill ourselves. It almost fucking worked too.”
“Why did they wait so long to show themselves?” asked Gus.
“I don't think they were physically here yet. We couldn't touch the angels cause they were nothing but psychic projections sent to turn us against each other.”
“Do you think this is happening everywhere?” asked Karina.
“Almost certainly,” said Remy.
“Then what do we do now?”
Remy's breather was over. He picked himself up and then he picked up his gun. He turned his gaze out towards the outside world.
“We take it back,” he said. “We take it all back.”
THE END
Enjoy what you read? Leave a review on Amazon! Every little helps a struggling author.
Subscribe to the newsletter at michaelmcgovernblog.com for exclusive content and future updates.
FOLLOW THE AUTHOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA
facebook.com/michaelmcgovernwriting
twitter.com/mikeymcgovern
instagram.com/miholik
MORBID THOUGHTS
CHAPTER ONE
I die a thousand times a day. You might think that’s an exaggeration, but it’s not. Every day I find new and interesting ways for my fantasy self to die in the confines of my own mind, and every time that I die, I feel a little less alive. Sometimes it’s as simple as stepping in front of a bus. There is a soundtrack of shocked gasps from horrified rubbernecks as my body is crushed and flattened into a long, sticky tire-track of human flesh. At other times I imagine that a homicidal maniac burst into my place of work with an ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and sprays me with bullets, punching holes from head to navel with my blood still dripping off the walls long after I’m dead. People would long after make claims that they were there the day Aaron Walsh died. Old ladies would read about it in their morning newspapers and tut at how far society had fallen since they could last chew a steak.
Sometimes I like to take the fantasy further and fast forward to the faces of my family when they hear the news of my death. How much would it hurt them? How much would they care? I think of all the things that would be said at my funeral and how quickly it would take people to move on and forget about me. I do this because death is a far more interesting proposition than life. In life, every morning is just like the last. I wake up and I wonder why the fuck I even bothered. In life, death is really the only thing worth talking about, because the thought of another day is simply unbearable.
It is fortunate that life does eventually end. We are all of us marching towards the reaper and his swinging scythe, but the vast majority of us are doing it the dull way. We are killing ourselves off with the silent disease they call routine. It fucking kills me – literally. I can feel my heart slowing at the mere thought of it. The thought that when I open my eyes I am going to do the same crap as yesterday, and I will continue to do it again and again until I can’t do i
t anymore because I am shitting into a diaper for the second time in my life. Almost makes me want to do the noble thing and hang myself. There is no meaning to this mess, only expiration. We are no better than a carton of milk in that way.
Yet people keep searching for that deeper meaning in vain. There is no meaning to be found in the scriptures. They are the lies and fabrications of men too scared of the unknown. There is no meaning to be found at the bottom of a bottle either, just the sweet taste of oblivion flirting with your tongue. I’m sorry to tell you this, but there is no meaning to anything. It is all an accumulation of useless experience that the maggots add to their calorie count.
‘So, what does one do when they come to the conclusion that nothing has meaning but they are too chicken shit to kill themselves?’ I hear you ask. You do what everyone else does and pretend that there is something worth getting up for. That just around the corner there is an experience worth putting yourself through all this for. You think that you can’t possibly kill yourself when there are so many experiences you haven’t accumulated yet. You have to sky dive. You have to climb a mountain. You have to fuck a goat. Validation might be waiting for you just around the corner if only you would fuck that goat. These are the patches that keep the rusty boat above water, but even the most patched-up boat eventually sinks and gives in to the rust. We are all sinking without meaning and drowning in oceans of confusion.
I sit up in my bed and contemplate getting dressed. Yes, at the end of that rambling rant, I’m just as weak as all of you. Showering, brushing teeth, taking a piss, eating breakfast, getting the bus, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, watching TV, taking another piss and going back to bed. This is the day that is in front of me. Sound familiar? No matter what your mother told you, we’re not snowflakes. Some details vary, but we all, at some point, must take a shit and sit wondering if we remembered to buy toilet roll.
Killing Angels Page 23