Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (78 page)

“I thought that maybe you had ‘hacked’ that
stuff too.” Father accented the word almost to the point of insult.

“I must be moving on to my new assignment,” replied Cyrus,
as he returned each document to the manila folder without giving Father the
opportunity to examine them. “I am sure you can go through the
proper channels should you wish to revisit this data. The Vatican will
only fund your little escapade for so long before your claims of ‘The
Revelator’ tire our Brothers. Everybody answers to someone, don’t they Father?”

Father stood, never taking his eyes off of Cyrus. He did not extend a hand or wrap up the conversation with common
courtesies. Cyrus stood, as well.

“Father, there is one more piece of information I need to
pass on to you.”

“And what is that, Brother Cyrus?”

“The Second Cleansing is almost underway. I
suggest you send a recon report with a detailed explanation of the First
Cleansing as soon as possible.”

Father stepped within inches of Cyrus’ face.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to extract that data whenever you
wish. Good day, Brother Cyrus.”

The monk pulled the hood over his head and turned for the
door that led back into the church. By the time Father walked out from behind
the altar, the servant of the Internal Order had disappeared.

Father descended the steps into the
basement, where a throng of parishioners tended to the needs of the new, pure
community. He summoned the low-ranking soldiers to a concealed alcove next
to the bingo board.

“I want twenty-four-hour surveillance on the grounds. No one except the Holy Spirit himself walks in these doors without
my knowledge. Place two guards at every door and ground-level window. Got that?”

Nods all around.

“Secondly, I need a task force of seven men. They need to
get to 2913 Plainfield Road in South Euclid. Get a two-way. The
man in charge needs to be on that radio, channel number eight. I want the band open and on, twenty-four-seven. If anyone,
and I mean anyone, gets near that house, I want to know about it. Do not
secure, attack, defend, or otherwise engage anyone or anything, without my
express permission. Are we clear on this?”

The men scattered to find their gear and load for the drive
to South Euclid. Father stared at the red light on the
walkie-talkie and prepared for the wait.

Chapter 31

Chunks of plaster peeled back from the area
between the two windows. Two feisty squirrels chased each other across
the gutter that hung from the edge of the roof. Spiderwebbed
panes of glass on the first floor stood like alarming line graphs, diving down
in a steep decline. The pentagram, circled in red, remained exactly as
it had been painted. The Sign stood out like an open sore, festering on the
face of the community.

The soldiers arrived on foot and left
tracks in the wet snow, but did so without a sound. Two men ran down the
driveway, securing the side door. Two more ran past them and
pointed rifle-mounted flashlights into the garage. White power from LED
lights performed a macabre waltz with the red points of the laser scopes, as a
third pair of soldiers secured the back door.

When the synchronized timer beeped on the
men’s wrists, all teams sprang into action. The front, side, and kitchen
doors imploded with one ragged gasp. The wind current created
by the open doors blew draperies around the room like frightened poltergeists. Papers,
bags, and other pieces of debris lifted into orbit and then drifted back down
under the force of gravity.

“Clear!” rang out from every corner of the wood and brick
corpse. Soldiers penetrated and explored every habitable
space, securing the premises and defiling family memories.

Finally, the invaders retreated from the house, weapons
holstered. They met around back in the detached garage. The
sergeant in charge brought his team up to speed.

“The place is secure. Our orders are to maintain covert
surveillance. Under no circumstances are we to engage anyone,
friend or foe, without a direct order. That means you take a bullet in
the head before you fire upon an enemy.”

The young servicemen looked up at each
other and then back down at their muddied boots as he continued.

“We are looking for a John or Jana Burgoyne, owners of the
house. Here is a picture of John.” The sergeant held up
a pixelated image, taken and then enlarged from the original in the department
of motor vehicles. “We’ve got no visual for Jana yet, but
they’re working on it. The Covenant believes that these two might be
searching for each other, and this is the first place they’ll probably try to
check. Keep an invisible profile. We might have to let
them remain in the place for up to thirty-six hours before we raid it. In
addition, any other hostile forces that might arrive are
not
to be
engaged.”

The men shuffled their boots in the wet snow. Some clicked the safety on their automatic weapons. The sergeant
sensed their deep unease.

“Okay. Listen guys. If someone opens
fire on us, let ’em have it. I don’t care what the ‘official’ order is; we’re
not going to stand there and let the enemy fill us with holes. I got your back on that. But if civilians make their way
here, we gotta do everything we can to keep ourselves hidden and keep them
contained.”

 The men nodded.

“Let’s fall back into position and get the hell away from
this house. Hopefully we didn’t kick up the dust while they
were watching. Radio silence. Stay within sight of each other,
communicate with hand signals. Get comfy boys, we could be
here a while.”

The intruders faded into the surrounding environment, leaving
the house to shed silent tears.

Chapter
32

“How many?”

“Don’t know. At least ten, maybe fifteen. But
they’re raining bullets by the thousands.”

The burly man nodded, pulled his scope up, and placed the
crosshairs on a distant, helmeted head. He eased the trigger back. The machine
gun howled and let loose a shower of deadly missiles. A
bright-red burst exploded, and the man fell face-first into a freshly dug
grave.

“Now there’s nine.”

***

John pulled Alex down an embankment while shouts resonated off
the grave markers. His ears rang, though the explosions were
subsiding for the moment. Alex moaned and his eyes fluttered open for a
second. A maroon patch bloomed on his shoulder, and a piece of torn material
from his pants exposed an additional flesh wound on the calf.

John grabbed a water bottle from his bag
and poured it on his friend’s face. Alex continued to moan, and raised
an arm, shielding his face from a violent memory. John
scrambled around him, checking for more wounds.

He looked up into the somber sky through bare tree limbs. Outbursts of snowflakes doused a clear vision of the moon. John
and Alex remained hidden behind faded headstones. Their attackers held the top
of the ridge, firing down into the gulley. Bullets continued to sizzle the cold
air and dance from headstone to tree.

John felt a sting on his cheek. He
reached up to swat away the annoyance and felt warm blood on his face. The close call woke him from his momentary daze. Alex lay on
the ground, coughing, but alive and conscious.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

Alex burrowed his face into the frozen
grass as another barrage of gun fire responded to his question.

“Keep your head down. They’ve got the top of the hill and
are firing on us. As long as we stay cool and hold our position, maybe they
can’t do much more damage.”

As if on cue, another deafening explosion
fell from the sky. The mortar round landed near the men, blowing dirt
and stone across a wide path of the cemetery.

“Right. I’m sure they won’t be
firing any more of those,” said Alex.

He winced and tore a strip of cloth from
the bottom of his shirt. Alex took the strip and held it against his
shoulder in hopes of slowing the loss of blood from his gunshot wound.

“Is that gonna work?” John asked.

“If I don’t pass out, you’ll know.”

The attacking force suddenly stopped
firing. They heard shouts and commands coming from the top of the hill. John and Alex looked at each other and scrambled to reload their
weapons.

“How many clips you got left?” Alex asked.

“Two. You?”

“One. If they come down this hill, we’re not going to be
able to hold them off for very long.”

John shoved the clip into his gun. He
swung the barrel of it over the top of the headstone that protected him from
the majority of the rounds being fired in their direction. John
squeezed the trigger, letting the recoil of the gun drive his aim upward and
over the heads of the enemy.

Random bursts answered John’s fire.

“Stop! Man, we don’t got much left,”
Alex said.

“I’m trying to buy us time. Do you think
you can walk?”

“My leg has been hit, but not enough to keep me down. It’s my shoulder that hurts like hell.”

John shrugged and grabbed his bag.

“Guess I’ll leave you here.”

“Don’t be such a smart-ass. What do you
have in mind?”

“If we can get to those trees over there, we might have
enough cover to sneak our way through the cemetery and get to the Heights.”

Alex sat up and pain raced from his
shoulder to his brain. His squinted his eyes and his mouth held a breath
captive in a tight grimace.

“Do or die, right?” Alex said. He
got into a crouch like a runner anticipating the starter pistol. “You’re gonna have to provide cover fire for me. I’ve got to
use my one arm to hold my shoulder tight. Fire high rather
than low; it’s more effective in keeping them in place.”

“Okay. On the count of three, we run for the trees.”

Alex threw his bag around his waist, and
left his gun on top of the grave.

“Won’t be able to carry that and run.”

John pulled the lever back on his gun and
removed the safety. With his fingers accompanied by a whisper, he began
the countdown. “One, two—”

Before John could get to three, dozens of guns fired, the
sound rolling through the valley like deadly thunder. Both men
spun around, searching for the source of the new volley. Rapid gunfire
and exploding grenades followed the initial blasts, all directed back toward
the top the ridge.

Alex looked at John and fell on his back.

“What can you see?”

“Looks like the Warriors of Christ may have found targets
more evil than us.”

***

“Get some, get some!” yelled Sully, doing his best
Full
Metal Jacket
.

He stood behind the opened door of a 1987
Dodge pickup. The broken window allowed the bulk of Sully’s frame to
fill it while he fired his semiautomatic twelve gauge at the troops facing down
the hill. The rest of the biker clan fanned out in a rough
line, zigzagging across the top of the ridge. They used the advantage of
surprise to fire lethal doses of buckshot at the Warriors of Christ. Soldiers
flew through the air, flung many feet by the force of the close-range gunshot
blasts. Several men managed to find cover, but Sully and the
Keepers of the Wormwood killed six in the first ten seconds of the engagement. A
second round of firing by the bikers obliterated another three soldiers. The remaining
men hid behind overgrown trees and slanted headstones.

***

John stood, no longer fearful of getting a round to the
chest.

“Wait here,” he said to Alex before
breaking into a full sprint.

He ducked back and forth between headstones, climbing up the
slope toward the summit as the firefight died. He heard two
distinct explosions echo up and away from the fight, and then, relative
silence. His ears rang and the smell of spent gunpowder forced a moment
of nausea. John moved three feet toward the summit when a blow struck him on
the left ear. He fell to the ground, but pointed his weapon
toward the attacker. A tattooed forearm knocked the barrel off to the
side.

“You don’t wanna do that, son,” Sully said.

His big man’s chest heaved and his hair tangled in his
beard. The men recognized each other at the same time.

“Sully. Jesus Christ.” John let go his
weapon. “I hope you have a cold beer I can use to keep my face from swelling.”

“Be glad I didn’t shoot your ass when I saw you climbing the
hill.”

John smiled and accepted Sully’s hand. The
President of the Keepers of the Wormwood pulled John to his feet.

“What the hell are you guys doing all the way over here?”

“Long story. We’re not about to pass
up an opportunity to fight these bastards. Maybe even patch them over.”

“Thanks,” said John.

“For what? We didn’t come here to save your
hide. Is that your buddy down there trying to crawl up the hill?”

John turned and saw Alex moving toward
them, his face turned pure white, hair plastered to his forehead.

“Yeah.”

“You’d better get down there and help him
out. Dude looks like he’s about to collapse.”

Sully’s men maneuvered through the
cemetery, certain that they had found all the bodies. Together they
loaded Alex into the back of the truck, where one of the biker chicks began
working on his shoulder. Sully drove through the cemetery and
back onto Mayfield Road. He headed away from town, toward Cleveland
Heights. John sat next to him in the truck, looking at the caravan of three as
they moved around abandoned cars and buildings marked with The Sign.

“This shit doesn’t bother you, does it?”
asked John.

“Not really. This is how we live. When
you’re not part of society, you don’t miss it when it goes to hell.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Your buddy is in bad shape. You’d better hope Crystal can
fix him up.”

“Where are we headed?” John repeated.

“Chill, man. Nobody is going to fuck with you when you’re
with us.”