This is my Terror Tuesday for this week. What's lurking beneath the mists? You don't know? Read and find out. You're not afraid are you?
Chapter Twelve
"Thought you were going to get the upper hand in this confab, Mr. Hageman? I don't see it happening right now, do you?"
The bastard laughs in my face, knowing he holds all the cards at the moment. I'm fucking fried. No two ways around it. There must be at least fifty of the damn dogs leering at me, their red eyes boring into and through my body. A word from their Dark Master and I won't stand a chance.
"Heh, heh. I should be calling you Mr. Ed, shouldn't I? Yes, you so remind me of that old television show. The talking fucking horse. You're not even worthy enough to clean the shit out of his stall. Not that it matters now. I'm tired of your interference in my plans."
He raises his hand and prepares to lower it as a sign to the Hell Hounds to attack just as Louise and Tom come out to join me.
"This is just too funny!" Satan roars. "Look at your pitiful army. Three versus many."
He drops his hand and the dogs attack, but as we fire our weapons into their midst, the webbed creatures arrive, rush in, and attack, their claws slashing, creating crimson streaks on the flanks of the Devil's little pets, and their mouths biting huge chunks of the hounds' flesh. Our bullets don't kill the beasts, but they do slow them down enough for our webbed friends to do what they came to do.
The battle is fierce and there are casualties on both sides, hounds and our allies both going down to defeat. I'm not exactly a poster child for proper first aid as there are enough cuts covering me for everyone battling out here, but there is no tomorrow if we don't win tonight, so I go on. Louise can patch me up later. One of the perks of having a doctor on your team.
Lo and behold, the campers actually find some spunk and guts and join us outside, shooting at the hounds and assisting getting the wounded dogs to where the great webbed creatures are waiting for them.
Fuck! The Zombies arrive, so many of them it's impossible to even fabricate a guess as to their numbers. The hounds have been waging a damnable battle, and now we have the main army front and center!
The Watchers, the eyeless, greenish ones, come upon the scene, making me wonder whose side they will be on. They observe for a few seconds, then they lift the zombies overhead, bring them down to the beach, and throw them into the pond. The leeches are waiting, hungry for whatever food comes their way. It matters not that the zombies are a foul smelling lot and are putrid to the taste and touch. Sustenance is what they are to them.
Better them than me.
"Holy shit!" Jack shouts. "Will you look at that!"
I'm looking and not quite believing, but it's happening. Our army is getting bigger and it appears, for the moment at least, as if we are gaining ground. How long will this hold the zombies at bay?
Shit! The fuckers will be drained of their blood, but they'll still come after us. I know they will. The Watchers have given me time, and I can't waste it.
Our webbed buddies, Louise, Tom, and the rest are holding the hounds at bay, so I run down to the beach and scout out for a way to stop the Zombies. For now, the leeches are taking the battle to them and not creating any pieces that will have to be destroyed later. Their blood is all they're taking, and as long as that blood stays inside the leeches, we're fine. Right now, the leeches are our allies too.
I gather wood from assorted camp fire sites and start a blaze up. Oh, yeah! The son-of-a bitch gets roaring in no time. Some of the campers see what I'm doing and run inside the lodge, grabbing brooms, dried mops, and cans of aerosol spray. They learned!
Dried pine needles and downed limbs are next. I scrounge some up and spread them out along the beach. The Zombies, looking even worse for wear now that they have been drained of blood, start emerging from the pond, and I set the slash on fire, my compatriots following my lead. Soon, the entire beach area is lit up like a Fourth of July display run amuck.
The zombies are confused, listening to the exhortations of their Master but afraid of the fire. The fear of Satan is stronger than their desire to exist, and they walk through the flames. That is a huge mistake for them. The burning slash sets their feet and legs on fire, and our team finishes off the job with our home made torches.
Zombie after zombie is relegated to the fate of their unfortunate compatriots who earlier discovered the power hidden within the dancing heat of vengeance.
Satan hollers like a mad man at the Zombies, telling them they can't give up. "Fight back, damn it! Knock those torches from their hands before they have a chance to use them!"
But,the fear . . .the fear of burning and becoming nothing, of fading into a state of non-existence, is worse than the fear of retribution at the hands of the Devil now. The remainder have seen their comrades vanish to a mere sprinkling of ash. Even a life at the feet of a vengeful Master seems better than that. It means there is still "something", even though that something is horribly flawed.
The Zombies around the lodge break en mass and head back from where they came, the hounds still alive tagging along with them. Satan fumes and bellows but they don't stop. Surely Satan possesses power and magik that could nullify all of our efforts. Why is he doing nothing to use them? To get rid of us now would make his rise to power so much easier. Does anyone else on the planet know what's going on? I seriously doubt it.
Tom leads a contingent with him to make sure the remaining forces of the Dark go back through that viscous opening, while my gang and I slaughter all the Zombies caught on the beach. Before the others arrive back on the scene, there is the beautiful array of flickering light dancing about on the Zombie dust scattered aimlessly about. It will take longer for the stench the get out of the air, the acrid bite on my tongue making me gag.
When the troops arrive back, we make a sweep of the cabin to make sure it's safe, and Louise goes back to tending to George's wounds.
"We need to tend to your body, Ed," Tom says. "You look like raw burger. Bloody, raw burger."
"Maybe I should wash off in the pond or something, " I say. "The ancients, and even not so ancient, say leeches hold some kind of power to draw poisons and shit out of you."
"Not these leeches."
"What's their story, Tom? Why are the fuckers so big?"
"As near as I know, they go back a long ways, long before man arrived on the planet. I'm not sure if the webbed guys were here first or them. Guess it doesn't matter one way or the other. Somehow they formed some weird kind of an alliance, our allies getting food for them from above the water surface when pickings were tough for them below. In exchange, the leeches would drive fish towards them. Recently, the leeches have even been eating an occasional moose or bear wandering too close to the pond."
"And how do you know this, Tom?"
"Don't laugh at me."
"Oh, shit! The webbed guys talk to you! They fucking talk to you! But how?"
Tom shakes his head. "No words, Ed. It's some kind of thought transference."
"Telepathic?"
"That's as good a way as any to describe it. They are more advanced than us, able to live in different environments even with the fuck ups we humans have done to the planet. While humans rely on high-tech shit that destroys everything around us, they have always preferred a simple existence, cherishing each other and only taking what they need to survive. No wars, no hate, no bigotry. They live a long life, they die, and they go to Heaven."
"But they're not human. How can they go to heaven?"
"The least righteous of them is more righteous than the most righteous of us."
Time for me to shake my head now."What about all the talk in the Bible, the Old Testament at least, about God's chosen people, the Jews? Where do these beings come into play?"
"Maybe not all Scripture was included in the Bible. Men picked the books in the Bible. There's a lot of debate on that."
I grab my pack of Camels out of my pocket. If the smokes looked bad before, they look like paper and tobacco pulp now. Tom shakes his head. "I have something better than those. Wait here."
He returns and hands me a couple of cigars. I stare open-mouthed; I know enough Spanish to know what these are, as if the bouquet alone isn't enough.
"Cubans, Tom! Where the hell did you get these?"
"Friend of mine who spends a lot of time up here. Believe me, I don't ask him any questions, and he gets super-special rates. I've been saving these for a special occasion. I think the end of the world qualifies. What do you think?"
I light one up and do the same for Tom."I knew there had to be an upside to this end games shit. Thanks, buddy!"
We go outside to take a look around, needing to make sure our defenses are in shape: as much as one can defend from an enemy with untold strengths and powers. Who knows what's next?
The exterior of the lodge appears to be pretty secure. The window we accessed before looks untouched except for the pane of missing glass. Still, it is a weak point, and we'll have to figure out a way to batten down the hatches, so to speak. Can Satan read our minds and pull that crucial fragment of information out. Best not to think about it.
As much as I'm not thrilled with the possibility of starting a huge forest fire-it has been a very dry year-we need to gather large amounts of kindling and other wood so we have some kind of fuel to tap into when the Zombies return. A bunch of us work as a team, combing the woods and gathering what we need. No one can be allowed to act as a Lone Ranger any more. Sitting duck would be more the correct term.
Absolutely silence accompanied by a sharp ozone odor in the air surrounds us.
Fuck!
"Back to the lodge!" I holler." Be quick about it!"
My words are barely out when goosebumps form all over me. The hairs on the nape of my neck tingle every which way and the air is heavy and rancid. The smell of impending death!
Clouds, so dark as to make even the moon-less night even darker and more foreboding, encircle us from all directions.
A huge flash of lightning strikes the ground in front of us, the electricity so strong as to surge through the soil and into our bodies. the scent of charred flesh fills the air as laughter peels out, not from one source, but from many.
"I'm back, you pathetic twerps!
Did you think your little aerosol cans and broom torches were going to stop me?!"
More lightning from the surrounding clouds attacks us from all directions! We're out in the open! There is no escape!
"Prepare for the ultimate magik! You dare to challenge me?! Get ready to embrace your doom. Your demise is at hand!"
He appears before us, huge black wings spread out with confidence, knowing we are his. Raising his hands upwards and outwards, blue sparks fly from him to the clouds, and they all respond to his call at the same time. In one swift move, we are surrounded by so many lighning bolts that the sky becomes as day, and the ground becomes as a conduit of pure electrical energy and power.
The surge of power runs through me from below as well as above, the pain worse than anything I have ever experienced, my body twisting and shaking to the absurdity of power within my body and around my frame, looking for new avenues to strike out at me.
I try to fight back, to ignore the pain, to show that his power can not defeat me. But my consciousness is leaving me.
And His sinister laughter escalates . . .
Blaze McRob
