Lycan Fallout (Book 2): Fall of Man (34 page)
I opened the door and quickly got low to the floor. Superfluous words, where else was I going to get low to? Amazing the random junk that can go through your mind when you are in a dangerous situation. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. For a second it looked like an eclipse of the sun, well, if the moon was square and the sun was no brighter than a couple of torches. Other than that, it was just like a solar eclipse. They had an effective bullet shield and they were coming as quickly as they could. The steel had to be pretty heavy, and they’d only be able to get a couple of men to hold it up due to the hallway size constrictions.
I started moving forward slowly. Even as I did so, I kept telling myself how not brilliant this was. I got close enough to hear them talking. I was convinced I could hear Jangrut encouraging his men forward. I wondered, as well, if Saltinda and the others knew he’d found this access. Could be Jangrut was hording the secret so that, when he got the cache of weapons, he would keep them for himself. Sure would make taking over the world easier if he had all the guns to himself. I could hear the general cursing and bitching, like all military men throughout time, as they muscled that steel forward. I would do my best to end their suffering.
I moved as stealthily as possible, the light from their torches not illuminating more than three feet in front of the barricade, and most of that was the ceiling. They would never see me coming. The moving wall was nearly five and a half feet tall, and I could just make out the eyes of one of the carriers as I got close. They grew wide like he’d seen a ghost at the foot of his bed as he awoke from a particularly disturbing dream.
I was worse, because I didn’t portend to coming events. I
was
the end.
The explosions of the rounds in the confines of the corridor were deafening. I lit up from the strobe-like effects of my shots being fired. I did not see Jangrut as I advanced and placed the barrel of the rifle nearly on top of the makeshift wall. It had a small base that prevented it from toppling over even after I had killed both of the men who had been hefting it.
What I could tell as my bullets sliced through the enemy was that there were a hundred or more men shoved in that hallway. This was Jangrut’s gambit; he was bringing his whole army down here. I realized just how precarious my position was. I was past the halfway mark in the tunnel. I was about to be out of rounds, and I could not expect fire support from behind as they’d just as likely hit me—if not from a direct hit then a ricochet off the steel. I was going to have to make a run for it and hope that Jangrut’s men didn’t recover quick enough to figure out what was going on and send their own bullets down range. If I’d really contemplated this, I would have brought more magazines; but I’ve already shown my disregard for traditional ways of thought.
I can’t explain why I did what I did. Anger played a role, I’m sure. Death wish or suicidal tendencies I’m sure had a part to play as well. Wanting to send a message that we would never cede, yeah, that had a walk-on role, too. When my bolt stuck open to signify I’d expended my last round, I didn’t turn and run like a sane person should have, nope, not me.
If you’re going to do something fucking nuts, I say you go all in! Feet first, googly-eyed, and drooling.
I dropped the rifle and grabbed the small hand-axe I had strapped to my leg. For those who lived, I would give them images that they would tell around campfires for generations to come, probably to scare their kids. Although how you were going to get your unruly child to go to sleep after telling him a monster was coming to get him seemed kind of contrary to the original design. What do I know? I’d once taken my kids out for sundaes because Tracy was away and it was my responsibility to get them dinner.
The first fucker’s face that saw me coming over the metal plating lost his shit. Not literally, thankfully, just figuratively. I’ve got to imagine I looked like some demon possessed, eyes bulging from my head, tongue hanging out of an open mouth, and a glistening axe swinging towards his face. His hand had not even come halfway up to deflect before I cleaved half his face off. The scream cut through the quiet, my victim’s, or mine…both maybe.
The Cajunites had stopped their retreat when they realized the shooting stopped. They were in the process of regrouping when I descended upon them like an uncaged demon. I hacked, bit, kicked and slashed anyone who got in my way. They fought back at first, but in the tight quarters, the advantage was mine. They had to be careful of the man next to them, I had no such safety limitations. My axe bit deeply into necks, chests, and heads, cracking skulls like eggshells.
Men lay at my feet, dead and dying, twitching violently from wounds they would never recover from. I stepped on them or over, always advancing. The men immediately in front of me were panicking, trying to get away as the men behind them were pressing forward hoping to attack. I cared little as I severed spines and shattered ribcages. I gripped one of the men from the scruff of his neck, bringing him in close, I ripped out the skin from the back of his neck and plunged my canines deep, drinking my fill before tossing his emptying husk a few feet ahead of me onto some unsuspecting attackers.
War cries had turned into screams of terror as more and more of the combatants realized what was going on. I was a vampire possessed, tearing into anything before me. I had an army in retreat, the chokepoint on the other end inhibiting their escape. Pleas of mercy fell upon deaf ears, as there was no forgiveness to be found in this hellish underworld. My boots were slogging through an inch of blood and bile, causing ripples in the pooling liquid as I moved forward, ever forward.
I would stoop down to strike at those unfortunate ones who had been injured in their escape attempt as a horror-filled horde had pushed over and stepped on those unable to move fast enough. A broken bone or a turned ankle here meant certain death. I hacked through outstretched hands and turned away heads. It was not my job to administer forgiveness. I would let whatever higher entity they chose decide on that particular area. My arena was meting out an unyielding and heavy-handed justice.
Discarded torches began to catch bodies on fire, choking the passageway in the smoke of burning carcasses. I was twenty feet from the entrance when the last of the Cajunites, save one, found their way to safety. Jangrut was staring wide-eyed at me as I let a savage yell erupt from my being. He did some sort of sign on his chest that looked like a bastardized Holy Trinity.
“I am Michael Talbot, death embraces me as one of its own!” I screamed. Jangrut took one last look and swiftly left. I thought about pursuit, but I was spent.
“Michael, Michael!” I heard drifting up from behind me. I turned to the direction of the sound as it tried to bring me back from whatever black place I had found. Bailey and three others had got past the steel barricade and were now looking at the carnage I had laid out for them. One man quickly placed his head over the steel and began to heave.
“Michael? Are you injured?” Bailey was approaching, albeit slowly and cautiously. Moans escaped those few who had not yet discovered they were dead and were merely waiting to be collected. Bailey came closer. Words eluded her as she looked down and then to me.
My chest was heaving, my arms down by my side, my hand axe hanging low. Blood cascaded off of me. I could not have swam in a pool of the life-fluid and been any more saturated with it than I was now.
“Michael, come with me, we must leave this place. It reeks of evil.”
“The evil is me. I fear it will follow wherever I go.”
She had stopped coming forward. My teeth had not yet retracted, my pupils dilated. I could sense the heat of her blood coursing through her neck. It would be so easy…I took a step toward her. She held her ground.
“Michael, do not come closer.”
I had a sly grin on my face that showed the whiteness of my teeth, which must have been quite a sight compared to the red I was bathed in. I took another step. She did not hesitate as she brought her rifle up. I could not slake the desire to kill, to feed, to rend; it burned like a wildfire within me. I knew who Bailey was and what she meant to me, but that was overshadowed by my uncaring of those very facts.
“I will shoot you.” The rifle now buttressed up to her shoulder. She would do it, even if the barrel was shaking.
“Please, God, help me,” broke out from some isolated area within me.
“Mike?” This query came from behind me and the passageway that the Cajunites had used.
I turned to look, a light somehow brighter than the sun washing over me. It should have seared the flesh from my body, melting my muscles into pools of sludge. Instead, it was colder than the hand of death, something I’d felt brush past me on numerous occasions. I had the sensation of falling, but not to the floor. This was for countless miles, into an abyss that had no bottom, no sides, no top. Air flowed around and past me as I kept descending.
You’ve done it now, Mike. Hell awaits,
I thought just as a darker blackness enfolded me.
The wind whipped past Azile. She was somehow colder now that Mike had left. In the distance she could just make out the sounds of men preparing machinery for battle. They would soon be launching missiles, attempting to break the backs of the people of Talboton. She could not allow it. This was the only place that had a chance against Xavier and the cruel mightiness of his army.
She could hardly believe that she was going to break her promise to Michael before he was even completely out of her sight. She stepped over the wall in front of her and to the ground, ten feet below, landing as if she had not dropped from more than the curb onto a street. Her feet never touched the ground as an unseen force propelled her forward. She kept her arms crossed in front of her chest, but it did little to keep out the chill that was pervading her being. Try as she might, she could not discover the source of this menacing feeling.
Azile had covered the majority of the cleared field without being spotted, her blood red cape blending in with the approaching darkness more than it had a right to. She was moving fast atop the ground. A lone sentry bored with a duty he figured would see no action had not the time to sound the alarm as Azile floated to him. His throat had closed involuntarily and his legs, which had worked fine moments earlier, were rooted to the ground as if they’d been planted there. Azile slid past, dragging a blade across his exposed throat, laying open his windpipe. Blood flooded his lungs before he fell to the ground soundlessly.
Azile had been spotted just as her hand touched the dried timber of the middle catapult, a spark smaller than the head of a pin leaping from her outstretched fingers to the wood. The spark immediately multiplied and began to run along the length of the crossbeam. It looked like party lights had been strung along it for effect. More and more of the miniature embers moved along the entire frame of the structure, glowing in iridescent blues and purples before exploding into a conflagration of flame.
Tendrils formed along the sides, extending out, looking for more fuel to fan its feeding frenzy. Men and horses became victims as the fiery fingers reached and emblazoned all they came in contact with. Azile watched as her pyrotechnics sought and found the other two war machines, reducing them to ashes in minutes. Men ran in all directions to get away from the blistering heat the flames produced. Those too slow had sores form on their skin moments before they also burst into flame as if they were incendiary devices. When Azile was confident the catapults would no longer be a threat, she turned to head back to Talboton. She was already dangerously taxed, and this stunt had drained her even deeper. Before long, she would be able to watch as her soul was pulled apart like old frayed cloth.
Azile had been going back to rejoin Michael at the tunnel when she saw men running from the woods to her right, not away from the fire, but towards it, as if they were moth-men drawn to the savage pillars of flame. Those first few seemed confused. It was as more came out that she saw shock and terror etched on their faces. They had seen things they could never burn free from their memories. Following after them were those covered in sprays of blood, some with weeping wounds, others dragging a fallen friend or a wounded appendage.
“What has happened here?” Azile asked as she moved to their point of exit from the woods.
She was on the small, hidden trail that led to the underground passage when she saw a lone figure standing in the middle of the pathway. His back was to her, but he turned when he heard her brushing up against the surrounding fauna. It was Jangrut. He carried a curved blade, which hung by his side. He seemed to have nearly forgotten he was carrying it. His face had been drained of all blood, clearly outlining all the veins and vessels that pulsed just below the surface. Azile did not believe he had even noticed her as she approached.
“I am done with this,” he told her as he tossed his blade to the ground, where his knees closely followed. “Please grant us mercy,” he begged of her, his hands outstretched but not quite willing to touch the hem of her cloak.
“What has happened here?”
“Hell has opened its gates.” He was weeping. “Something has stepped through that accursed portal that has no right to be among us.”
“Michael,” Azile said in alarm.
“I will leave this place if you will allow it, never to return again. I swear it, I swear it on all that is sacred to me.”
His words fell on deaf ears as Azile raced for the trap door. She was on the small landing watching a figure that could have been Mike staring down Bailey who was getting ready to shoot her rifle. Fear radiated off of her, intermingling with the malice that emanated from Mike. His shoulders were heaving with exertion, his back hunched in preparation for attack. His hand axe was rising almost imperceptibly.
“Mi—” Her first attempt to say his name fell short.
She feared she was seeing the demon that had erupted from the bowels of the earth, just like Jangrut had claimed to see. She repeated his name, this time loud enough to gain its…his attention. He pivoted to look at her. She gasped when she saw that not much was recognizable on that mask of hate he wore. With the last of her strength, she pulled open the minutest of slivers that shielded man from Heaven. The blinding white light washed around, over, and through him. He was as see through as a sheet of glass to that all-knowing light. The weight of the reflection was more than he could bear as it drove him to the ground.
“Help me, Bailey,” Azile said as she reached out to the wall before she folded in on herself.
Bailey did not feel comfortable with anything she had just witnessed and was hesitant to get nearer to Mike or Azile for that matter. She did so, but skirted Mike as much as the confines would allow. Bailey helped Azile to stand and steadied her.
“Are you better?”
“Getting there.”
“What is going on?”
“I think Michael has hastened the conclusion of this battle.”
“And the light? I wanted to simultaneously weep forever and laugh until the end of time. How am I not blind?”
“You have seen a glimpse of something few living have ever gazed upon.” Azile did not elaborate. “Get your men to bring Michael out into the forest. I will be waiting.” Azile once again placed her hand to the cement stones to steady her exit.