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I liked the world how it was, even when it could be an ugly, messed-up place. And if I ran, I wasn’t heading towards safety or freedom. I was fleeing from something inevitable and horrifying. No, I couldn’t do that. Running would just lead to a life of running, and then what? I’d die eventually anyway, after watching everything I loved burn to ashes around me.
This wasn’t my first apocalypse rodeo.
“No,” I told him. “If you’re staying, I’m staying.”
A screech of tires sounded at our end of the alley, and a moment later an entire tactical unit decked in bulletproof gear and helmets poured out of the van. With them all dressed head to toe like Black Ops agents, I couldn’t tell which one was Tyler.
The laser sights on their weapons created eerie red lines through the smoke, which had grown to envelop us. Still, I had no problem seeing the two demons looming over the whole scene.
“Don’t shoot the short one,” I commanded, knowing they’d hear me. “He’s with us. Red and Big Black are all yours.”
Someone thrust an AK-47 into my hands as the unit advanced towards the demons, and I checked the weapon, disengaged the safety, and switched it to full auto.
Pew-pew-pew, motherfuckers.
The earth-shaking laugh of the biggest demon rattled windows in the nearby buildings and turned my knees to jello. Was I sure I couldn’t run away? It seemed like such an awesome idea right now.
A few of the highly trained agents nearest me also paused their advance and seemed to second-guess whatever life decisions had brought them to this point. I did not blame them one bit.
I suspected, if we survived this, more than one of them might be submitting a request to be sent to a nice, quiet field office somewhere in Kansas, and I would approve each and every one of those requests.
If we lived.
“No one draws first blood on the demons,” I heard Tyler shout from the front of the group. “You wait until my word. I don’t want a stray bullet being the thing that ends the goddamn world, am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the rest of the group shouted in unison.
I kept close to Harold, not using him as a shield per se, but certainly not complaining about the extra element of security he was providing me. The two demons, realizing we were coming to them, had stopped moving altogether and were simply waiting for us to walk right into their open arms.
“Sir, what do we do about the civilians?” one asked.
He was referring to the cloaked idiots who had set this whole ball rolling. I answered before Tyler could. “Under the Apocalypse Code, they are guilty of irredeemable actions against humanity. They can be killed, by my authority.” To make them understand I wasn’t fucking around, I lifted my gun, trained the sight until I had one hooded head in the center of my scope, and pulled the trigger.
Bam.
“But aim for the head, because they might all be vampires.”
I knew Tyler’s words about first blood didn’t apply to the grunts. Demons didn’t care a whit for their underlings, and sure enough, they simply stood back and watched the carnage unfold as the remaining five grunts bellowed and charged at us, fists flying.
They were unarmed, but if they were vampires, that would be enough to evenly match them with the strength of our resources.
The problem with them running at us in close quarters was that there was no easy way to gauge a headshot, and the agents were all hyperaware they couldn’t let their rounds hit one of the demons. Tyler had made that very clear. Shots hit the charging cultists in the belly and legs, but barely seemed to slow them down.
Soon they had gained ground, and hand-to-hand combat was the only remaining option, lest friendly fire become another major concern.
All the agents were equipped with handguns, but you had to be able to reach your secondary weapon if you were going to use it, and they were so busy fighting for their lives they couldn’t exactly go for their backup pieces. A cloaked figure leaped on an agent nearest me, tackling him to the concrete. A muffled pop-pop-pop told me the agent had been able to get his gun out, but it hadn’t seemed to make much of a difference.
I saw a flash of fangs, and it was all I needed.
Some of them, at least, were vampires.
“Hey, fuckwad,” I challenged.
The vampire looked up at me, and I could see her face clearly. Dark hair was stuck to her forehead and cheeks, and her eyes had gone a solid black like the demon’s, the urge to feed taking over all other instincts.
I lifted my gun and shot her right between the eyes.
She flew back across the alley, hitting the nearest wall and landing in a heap. I helped the agent to his feet, feeling the tremble in his hand he probably didn’t want me to acknowledge.
