THE MISTS OF PAPOOSE POND-CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

 

This is my Terror Tuesday for this week.  Things are not going well for our intrepid hero and his army. Too many demonic warriors. How long can the end days last? Who will win? Who?


THE MISTS OF PAPOOSE POND
Chapter Twenty Five 



     Too many things are going wrong. Yes, we have the unexpected bolstering of our forces from the Angels on our side, and our webbed friends are still doing their fantastic job, but the shear mass of the opposing army, and the enormous size of our adversaries is overwhelming.

     "Holy fuck!" Tom shouts. "What do we do now, Golden child?"

     "Go after the big guys first,Tom. The Angels will help us with them. The extra flame throwers in all the other trucks will be needed, and even then, once their fuel is used up, there will be no time to go back to the Armory. None that I can see,anyway."

     One of the Angels is at the controls of my Black Hawk now, allowing Louise and me to man the guns, and release the napalm. We aim the weapons at the Nephilim Zombies, cutting them down: not obliterating them, perhaps, but making inroads into their numbers. The napalm does a great job, but it's difficult to exclusively target the giants when they are scattered about the field of battle. We merely attempt to target the largest concentrations we can.

     The forces of Zombie ghosts on our side are doing their job, but the closer we are to their Master, the more difficult it is to convert the newly destroyed ones over to our side. The fear of eternal damnation still looms large within their minds. There is no sense in worrying about it: we will have to use the troops we have, in whatever form they are. We'll sort it out as we go.   
                                                
     Barely . . .just barely do we hold Satan's forces back. Our munitions in the Black Hawks are running low, and the same holds true for the trucks. Time is not on our side.

     We have the Angel pilot take us down to the ground when we have no more ammo left in the guns and no more napalm. Louise and I take over with the flame throwers, not missing a beat as the pilot makes a run back to the Armory. Tom follows suit as Howard returns as well.

     The stench of burning Zombies fills the air, but we are not even close to winning this battle, and the outcome of the war, ever more seeming to be directed at our small force and not the rest of the planet, seems to be going to the Dark Angel.

     Since we are so short of human drivers, and for that matter people to handle the flame throwers, the Angels take over the duty, their white wings seemingly not presenting much of a Rambo like visage that I might have conjured up in my mind, and yet the purity of their appearance belies the strength of their resolve and the need to battle the common enemy.

   As expected, our fuel runs out for the flame throwers before the Black Hawks return, but I notice some machetes sitting in with the pile of our armaments, and as much as I realize this is only a last chance effort to slow the hordes down, Louise and I go to work, slashing away at any of the bastards getting close to us. Maybe it's not the same as the swords the Angels are wielding at the moment, but I'm glad our webbed brethren doing the reloading at the Armory thought to add these to our arsenal.                                              

   Tom, Bob, and Zach are soon joining in on the machete fun. It's almost like an assembly line of destruction, with us attacking the zombies, slicing them to pieces, and then being forced to further reduce the buggers because of their tenacity to recreate themselves. Mind confusion works on some of them long enough to stop them from advancing, and for a number of the slimers, it is enough for them to attack their brethren in their Zombie form even, but the worst of the forces coming against us are not deterred by any kind of thought transference or mind confusion.

     The Nephilim will not be deterred from their march against us. They feel an overpowering compulsion to right the perceived injustice done to them during the Great Flood when they, as well as most of humanity, were destroyed by the rising waters. Their struggles of trying to swim, to stay afloat in the face of certain drowning, and the gagging on the rising seas as their lungs filled with water has never escaped their minds, even in the present form they maintain.

     "Shit! They can't be stopped!" I holler to the others. "We have to stand and fight!"

     With their huge advantage in height, it's difficult to attack them like their smaller brethren. I lunge at one and slice off a leg, causing it to topple to the ground. While it attempts to right himself and come at me, I reduce it to many pieces of it's former great stature, but as with the others, the parts of the whole are many, and their purpose remains the same.

     We attack without stopping, but our bodies are taking a beating, all of us being the worse for wear from repeated bites and slicing from the limbs of our enemy. Damn! Where are the helicopters?!

     A huge eruption works its way up through the ground to the surface, splitting the battlefield in two, a deep chasm being formed between the advancing forces and us. But this doesn't stop those from behind us, and those on our sides, from attacking. We fight the army of the damned, and as we're tearing away at them, a plan comes to me, loud and clear. It's a little risky, but we can do it. We must do it!

     "In to the pit!" I yell. "Toss the pieces in to the pit. The whole ones even, if you can."

     Piece after piece, Zombie after Zombie, are thrown into the chasm awaiting them. Yes, as long as we don't get too close ourselves, we can stay out of harm's way.

     The battle is nip and tuck, with us holding our own, but just barely. And then . . .and then it all falls apart-for me at least. My foot gets tangled in one of the Zombies legs as he falls over the edge, and I plummet down with him.

     I manage to slice his leg off, but the damage is done, and I careen down the side of the chasm, trying to find a hand-hold somewhere, anything that might be there to slow my descent. Shit! I need to do more than that: the ones at the bottom will be waiting for me, and those odds positively suck.

     Blood pours from my left hand, my right one still holding on tight to my machete(I need it as a weapon if I do hit the bottom), as I search for some way to get out of the fucking mess I'm in. Adding my feet to the mix, although my running shoes aren't as effective as boots would be, I push in more, slowing down, but knowing one wrong move, one rock jutting out in the wrong place, will send me farther out from the wall of dirt and rock, and I would stand no chance at all.

     A voice . . .no, a thought transference, tells me to reach out, and I don't waste a second. The hand of one of my webbed friends grabs my arm and pulls me to safety. But where the hell am I? I'm not alongside the cliff anymore; I'm inside some kind of enclosure dug out of the chasm. Damn! It's a cave! I'm in a cave.

     The earthquake splits the cave apart: the rest of it is on the other side. This explains why my friends have been able to hide so well for so many years. No one knew of their existence because they can live in caves as well as the environment around the pond. And my guess? No one even knows these caves exist. Where do they go? Are they all over the planet or do they only provide a home for my friends here, an area having many lakes and ponds where they can find food. Obviously, the very design of their bodies says that they need to be in water at least part of the time. Otherwise, evolution would have long ago given them hands and feet that were not webbed.

     Fuck! No time to think about that now! I'm safe, but my friends are still topside in a battle for their lives. I have to get back to them and fight alongside them once more.

     My friends lead me through the cave, a spacious one, filled with some sort of luminescent rock, or . . .or some sort of miraculous lighting material designed and built by my buddies. There is no electricty needed to power any of this. Their thoughts tell me they can turn the lights on and off at will with the power of their minds. Damn, they are so far ahead of us!   

     We soon reach the surface, far away from the action of battle. As I wonder what to do next, a Black Hawk drops down, picks me up, and we head to the action. Oh yeah!

     The Angels and Howard are so much better with the helicopters than I am, so after they make an initial run to drop some napalm on the Nephilim behind our forces, I have the pilot of the craft I'm in drop me to the ground , and we flood the land with more flame throwers. The reality is that the flame throwers will run out soon, and we'll have to find other means to fight the bad boys, but for now, we'll use what we have.

     Louise looks at me as if I'm a ghost, thinking for sure that I had died when I went over the cliff.

     "Don't worry, sweetie, " I say, "it takes more than a little tumble to kill me."

     After a quick embrace, we're back to action central, and the fires resume once more. We mow them down like there's no end in sight, but the flame throwers are burning down again, running out of fuel, and we expect the worst. The trucks arrive with what appears to be the last of the weapons, plenty it would seem at first glance-fifty trucks loaded to the hilt can hold a lot of weaponry- but we will fall far short.
              
     Shit, this makes no fucking sense at all: Angels are flying in helicopters instead of by the power of their own wings along with one human pilot; more Angels are driving trucks; and webbed beings of great size are fighting next to the five humans left, wielding flame throwers and burning Zombies. Then, of course, Zombies are pitted against Zombies and Zombie ghosts against Zombie ghosts.

     End times. Just plain wonky.

     As we battle the army of Satan, I keep my senses alert to some sign, some possible way of getting away from our adversaries when our munitions are gone. One little hidden Armory in Maine can only hold just so much. Where will we go next? What will we use against them? Hit and run is great if you have firepower, and against these bastards, fire is the weapon. In some way or form, it has to be administered or the walking dead will continue to walk.

     Where is the Dark Angel? I haven't seen or heard from him since the earthquake. It appears He's a tad unwilling to get involved in the middle of the worst of the fray. Shit! That means something's ready to happen, something changing this battle.

     The skies light up, blue streaks flashing everywhere. The very hottest lightning, the most powerful, is all around us. This is a power display from God. Yes, that's why the Devil is not here. He doesn't wish to confront the Maker.

     Once more, the ground shakes wildly, causing upheavals everywhere. The chasm in front of us spreads to the sides and then behind us. We are on a shaking piece of ground, twisting, tilting, tossing the enemy still inside the ever changing circle against us, all of us searching for a way to hang on to something solid to keep from being swept into the abyss while at the same time trying to wage war against each other.

     Blood flows like a raging river toward the chasm. In one way or another, none of us escape becoming a part of the effluent of red. We are all caked in the life giving substance, some of it our own and some belonging to our combatants. There is no time to tend to healing now. This is a time to clear the circle: the part of the battlefield ceded to us.

     Just as it seems we are winning this battle within the battle, a huge upheaval occurs, knocking everyone off their feet. Towards the ever widening chasm, we all start sliding; every jack one of us. I swear I actually see fear in the eyes of the Zombies as they are being swept towards the edges of the cliffs, hastening their reunion with their brethren below.

     My little band is not exempt from this fear, though. We too are being catapulted towards  a destiny with death.

     The Black Hawks swoop down and in to pick us up. I assist Louise, Tom, Bob, and Zach into the copters. Just as I am being pulled up from above, one of the Nephilim grabs on to my leg and jerks me back.

     Rotting flesh and decaying teeth on his face can't hide the wide smile forming across what remains of his jaw. His long hands resplendent with razor sharp nails tear into my sides as he lowers his mouth to start feeding on my worthless carcass, but when he is mere inches away from ending my life, a tremor easily twice the size of any of the others splits the section of the circle we're in and throws both of us high into the air where we struggle to hold on to a slab of rock reaching towards the sky.

     I gain a hand hold on the very precipice of the rock, now at an almost impossible 90 degree angle, but the Nephilim hangs tight, refusing to let go, attempting to climb to the top, using me as a rope, cutting into my flesh with each move up the ladder that is Ed.

     With all the strength I can muster, I muzzle the sounds of my pain , not wanting to alert my antagonist to the success he is having with sending me to the Promised Land. But my strength is waning; I'm losing blood, feeling the torrents running down my body from everywhere as he slashes and climbs to the point he is after.

     He reaches the pinnacle of the rock, straddles my shredded body, and laughs wildly.

     Those disgusting yellowish, black teeth reach towards my head, ready to finish me off. The stench of thousands of years of rot greets my nose and invades my wind pipe, causing me to retch as the creature advances.

     His bared fangs reach their mark. The pain . . .damn the pain!



Blaze McRob