Red Twilight: A Dawning Of Power

Chapter 13: A Broken Union

The men all nod, knowing what needs to be done. Trash shakes herself in disbelief. After all that has already happened, they want to go out and fight some more. She looks at Ashley as Jacob blesses the artillery. "You aren't for real, are you?" Trash looks puzzled.

"Can't we wait for the National Guard or something to show up and rescue us?"

El racks-n-taps his Jackal after Jacob hands it back. "Not likely." He looks down the end of the barrel then makes a strange adjustment. "If the Guard were coming for us, they would be here already." He drops out the magazine and counts his shells, then reloads.

"So, what is the ultimate plan?" Trash asks.

Snake takes the lead. "We knock down that door," he points at the barricaded door, "we blast every flesh eater behind it, secure the floor, and head downstairs and out the back." He looks around. "After that, it's every man for himself, if that's the way you like it. I'll call the cops and have them clean up the mess, and by the time they get here I'll be well on my way to Mexico," Snake finishes.

El momentarily has an ill look on his face as he turns his attention back on his gun. "I'm not too sure I like this plan," he says to himself.

Jacob grabs his own gun and notices that his knife is gone, so he takes a bat instead. He looks severe. He clutches his weapons. "Gentlemen," he addresses the team, "let's go sanctify this unholy place."

"You said it, Lances!" Snake calls as he, Lacerti, and El topple the barricade for one last time.

"Lacerti," El looks up, holding the door shut while he gives final instruction, "you, Snake, Pistol, and myself will go out first," he recommends. "We are the front line. Jacob, stay behind Pistol." He looks around. "Trash, Spooky, you are the core men. You come out at the rear as a resistance line. Keep Ashley and Larry between you," he explains. "And for God's sake, nobody get dead."

El swings the door open. Instantly the army of zombies takes notice and rushes in to attack. Snake is the first out the door. Gun blazing, he shoots his way into the crowd. His first shots are two to a zombie's c.h.e.s.t. The ghoul hits the ground hard and with a grunt burns to ash. Next, one slug to another's shoulder—its arm singes off like the head of a match. As it leans in to attack, Snake side kicks it and shoots it once more in the c.h.e.s.t, turning it to embers on the ground. One fiend jumps in from his side. Snake tucks his gun under his arm and like a cowboy blasts it away, swings off to the other side, and with his last shot shoots out another's eyes.

Larry runs out behind his brother and draws his revolver from his coat. With an uncanny amount of precision, he closes one eye and squeezes off two rounds, firing one shot over either of Snake's shoulders so close that the bullets blow Snake's hair back.

One zombie falls with each shot.

Snake looks up with no small amount of shock on his face. "That's me, dumbass!"

"No, its OK, I can see them," Larry justifies.

Snake reloads and swings to Larry so they're back-to-back. "You can't see shit; you broke your glasses, remember?"

Larry nods as he continues fighting side-by-side with his brother. "I know, funny, ain't it?"

Almost like well-tuned soldiers, they fight toe-to-toe with the undead beasts, guarding each other. "What are you seeing, anyway? Your vision is something like twenty-eighty."

Larry bobs his head. "It's weird. At first, I didn't see nothing, now it's like heat vision or something, like in a comic."

Snake shakes his head in disbelief then simply responds, "Gnarly."

El and Lacerti rush in next. They're both old and experienced fighters, having spent years side-by-side fighting all types of monsters ("mostly other men," they joke). The two of them need not exchange another word to know what needs to be done. Lacerti pulls his blades and in a whirlwind begins sending his enemies howling back to the abyss from which they came. A slash and a stab and two vanish, a cleave and another is gone, a thrust and one more. A scissor attack and five bursts into flames at once.

El fires his mighty Jackal and massive holes are blown in several; a hand, an arm, and half of one's head all evaporate with a single blast, a leg and half of a torso with the next. Wishing to conserve his last two shells, the next monster to approach meets the back of El's arm. El shouts a battle cry as he grabs the next nearest zombie and twists its head nearly clean off. He throws the undead into Lacerti's spinning knives to finish it off.

Now that the heroes are armed with "the right stuff," zombies fall just as easily as anyone would. Pistol steps out next. His whip, Soul Eater, behaves outlandishly, glowing with a blue-white flame when he grabs at it. The flames do him no harm, but the monsters all leap away in astonishment before ultimately charging in, drawn in by the power of Soul Eater.

At last Soul Eater seems to recognize its master. Pistol grins, empowered by the memories of his ancestors. With foolish persistence, masses of beasts' lunge at Pistol. He lashes his whip from side to side, killing waves of the tormented monsters. The Wolfin was right, Belmond lives, Pistol thinks, and he lives in me. As the beast swarm begins to thin out, Pistol hops into a zombie, kicking it over as he continues his onslaught.

Jacob stands alongside him fighting with what might he has left, but it is clear to Pistol that Jacob has little left to offer. The holy man fires his shotgun twice, killing one. He then pulls his bat and begins smashing one into the dirt. He seems half exhausted after only three swings. Jacob stands up straight and cracks his neck and back. Caught unaware, a zombie grabs him from behind.

Pistol spins around and throws one of his knives into Jacob's attacker's forehead.

Pistol calls out, "Eyes open!" Jacob nods in understanding.

Trash holds Ashley back with one hand as Spooky takes the point, the two friends staying close together. They mathematically aim and fire at separate targets, offering cover for the forward combative party. "Hey, Spooks, do you think El was right and I'm sick?" Trash asks, thinking back to when El had called her mentally ill.

Spooky thinks for a moment or two. "Maybe." He snipes a zombie. Trash asks as she also blasts a monster. Mohamed Quinn, fires a shot, but he grimaces as it finds the wall instead of a monster. Lucia Wingate brings one of the last zombies to its knees with another shot. "Your aim kinda' sucks, you know that?" she teases.

The last zombie runs at Snake, who dr.a.p.es his revolver over his shoulder with the intent of shooting behind his back at it but is shocked to find his next bullet a dud. The foul monster wraps its arms around the man. Snake swings his arm down and elbows it in the gut; he stomps on its foot, grabs the monstrosity's head, and flings it over his shoulder. "Do I know my shit or what?" Snake jokes, stomping on his fallen enemy several times.

El takes one of Pistol's knives from the ground, struts over to Snake, and flings the knife into the broken beast's body. As the monster smolders away, El turns his gaze to Snake. Snake leans back with a look of momentary surprise, or perhaps fear from El's frozen, intent look. Snake can feel he has done something wrong, even if he can't tell what.

***

The Lamia pulls herself back up onto the catwalk, a look of fear and concern on her face. What was otherwise a typical hunt has suddenly become something awful; Lord Cravixs is here, Belmond is here, the temple guardians have been killed, and know the pups' downstairs are practically unprotected. Can this week's hunt get any worse?

The Lamia silently slithers along the catwalk, following the party to the back. They make their way down the stairs to the first bas.e.m.e.nt. Well, they're not sailing clear yet. Cravixs and the male Wolfins will still give them hell. Not to mention the labyrinth of doors and halls before they get anywhere, anyway. The maze is well-known to normal visitors, but the strangers will have difficulty. The snakelike monster thinks, If I survive this, I think I will go home and lay a lot of eggs and never come back to this place. She hisses aloud to herself, "For now, I have to go tell everyone to hide."

***

The party gets down to the first bas.e.m.e.nt, where the walls are cluttered with a painted representation of an epic battle between Heaven and Earth. The group is overtaken by the vastness of its splendor. A hall half a mile long, every inch covered with the landscapes of holy war. Hundreds of men are all identifiably different, with the horrible armies of God descending on them with divine fire. Given time to look, all the party members would be capable of finding likenesses to themselves in the mural.

Pistol shakes his head, awestricken. "Th-this," he stutters, "was not here an hour ago."

Snake looks back at him. "Are you sure this is where you were?" He spots his likeness as a shirtless man with a red sash drawing a bow with a dozen other men around him doing the same.

"Well," Pistol thinks, "there is only one stairwell going down."

Jacob removes his glasses and squints at his likeness, a man in a blue robe holding a staff overhead and calling down the flames of the sun itself through the thick clouds. Jacob notes how the painting seems to sink into the ground and resume below. As he kneels to examine it, the ground shakes.

Walls spit from the ground in some spots and other walls fall, creating new rooms and locking off the group members from one another. Pistol grabs Jacob's arm and pulls him out of the way of a wall shooting from another wall. Lacerti leaps over a rising partition and tackles El. Snake and Larry stand in shock as four walls enclose them.

Spooky and Trash get pulled away from each other as a wall grows between them.

Ashley yells for help, but everyone is lost.…

"Dad!" Ashley calls. "Charlie!" Strange carnival-like music begins to play. "Trash!" The wall behind her falls out, revealing an evil-looking merry-go-round. Ashley whimpers, "Where is everyone.…"