Excerpt: Cataclysm

CATACLYSM

by

Craig Kennedy

NOW – CONNOR

“Shut him up or we're all dead,” Logan whispered to Manny. The big Mexican nodded and grabbed the priest Nehring by the jacket and slapped his hand over the man's whimpering mouth.
They were in the basement of a recently abandoned house on Detroit's north west side – Birmingham to be exact. It was dark, only a bit of moonlight shone through the small windows high up on the concrete wall. Rummaging through stacked boxes and crowded shelves in the laundry room had at least produced extra clothing for the group. It was getting cold outside. They'd broken in here hoping to find a vehicle in the garage and keys to it, but no such luck. They'd decided to stay here and eat, maybe rest for awhile. It seemed relatively quiet in this particular subdivision. But then the demons came.
They were outside right now. Connor could hear them. Thumps, scratches, a rattle at the window. It wouldn't take long for them to find his group in the basement, it never did, it was like they could smell human souls.
“Abrams,” Logan said and urged Connor over with one finger. Connor moved to the soldiers side.
“This is gonna get ugly,” Logan said to him in a low tone that the others couldn't hear. “I need you to watch the priest here. Here's our most important asset. Me, Manny and Drake our gonna have our hands full.”
Connor nodded. He didn't know why this trained military man seemed to put so much trust in him. Ever since the three soldiers had saved him from the horrible winged thing that had him pinned down outside the supermarket where he'd been trying to loot some supplies, Logan had taken to Connor. It surprised him. Skinny nerds like Connor Abrams were not the type that muscular, tattooed, take charge Marines with shaved heads like Logan were drawn to. From the moment he'd helped Connor up off the pavement, Logan had treated him with respect and honor. But again, Logan treated most people like that.
The sounds from outside, grew louder, more desperate, and Manny shoved the priest into Connor with an apologetic smile on his thick face and took hold of his machine gun with both hands.
“It's okay,” Connor said to Nehring, who was trembling. “It's going to be alright.”
Nehring shook his head. “It's not going to be alright. It's Armageddon. We're all doomed.”
Connor couldn't respond to that because he believed it as well. He merely held the man's shoulders and tried to reassure him.
The soldiers had been trying to save as many civilians as possible, although why they still felt a responsibility to perform their civic duty was lost to Connor. Logan, Manny and Drake were all that was left of a troop of men that had been roaming the streets of Detroit trying to kill demons and gather up survivors. Nehring was their requisite priest, pressed into duty in order to bless the weapons and ammunition so they would actually harm the demons. To the military's great loss, it had taken them awhile to figure out their guns and bullets were useless with out a holy blessing.
Logan believed there was a safe haven in Lansing at the state capitol, indeed, Connor had heard the same thing himself, it was a last, best hope for many. They were making their way to I-96, trying to find some working vehicles and picking up as many survivors as they could find along the way.
The group was a motley one, and Connor had gotten to know them more than he wanted to in the last forty-eight hours since he'd joined them. Gerald was a black accountant who still wore his suit and tie and clung to a useless briefcase along with the hope that he might see his wife and kids again. Tammy was a former personal trainer from Birmingham with a short, jagged, two-tone hairstyle, whom Connor imagined wouldn't have spent a minute with any of them in the world they use to know. Off in a corner of the basement by himself was Warren, a a chubby, chain smoking construction worker with a wicked mullet who ogled Tammy shamelessly and was the most creative user of profanity that Connor had ever encountered. Phrases such as cum receptacle, ass burger, and choad smoker were just the tip an insulting iceberg. A close second in the profanity contest was cashier Tenisha, a proud, outspoken black woman that was proud of the fact that she was the only one of her six siblings who hadn't had kids yet and that she was still thirty-six, twenty-six, thirty-six at age thirty-six. The last of their group was Stefanie, a dishwater blond, the one Connor felt most sorry for. She was almost forty and had lost her husband and at least two of her three children. The oldest was unaccounted for. Stefanie mostly stared off into space and wiped tears away, numbly following Logan's barked orders like an automaton.
They all waited in silence in the damp basement, waiting for the demons to get to them. Connor tried to look at the boxes and scattered junk in the basement and wonder what kind of people had lived here. The occupants had obviously left in a hurry or been chased off. There were still edible leftovers in the refrigerator and clothes in the dryer.
The priest was still trembling, mumbling a quiet prayer over and over. Connor wanted to say something more but didn't have any words and the hunters outside were too close to risk it. He grasped the priest's clutched hands and tried to calm him.
Drake, a gray haired, grizzled man who Connor knew had done several years in Iraq stepped up to them and held out a serrated knife. He whispered, “Would you please, father? I forgot this one.”
Connor took several slow breaths as no one spoke, noting the ripe smell that clung to the air of ten humans that hadn't bathed in days. The priest stared at the knife, his thin face pale and sweaty, a swoop of dark hair clinging to his forehead. He'd made it clear that blessing weapons was not why he' had taken the vows of clergydom, but the soldiers had also made it clear he didn't have a choice in the matter.
Nehring put his hand out and touched the knife, speaking in Latin under his breath. He nodded and closed his eyes, dropping his chin to his chest.
“Thank you, father,” Drake said and as he slid the knife back into it's holder high on his left thigh, the basement door exploded inward and a snarling, fanged monster with leathery black skin and spiny protrusions along it's shoulders burst in.
Connor dropped his head and closed his eyes, too. It was fifteen years after Y2K, but Doomsday had finally arrived. He just wanted to block everything out and think about where his life was just a few short days ago before hell opened up.

TEN DAYS BEFORE DOOMSDAY – CONNOR

Connor practically skipped down the street as he walked for the Starbucks a block from his apartment in downtown Birmingham. He worked at home as an independent computer systems analyst for several of the financial firms located in town. His life was as predictable as could be and Connor couldn't be happier with the lack of uncertainty.
The day was a perfect July Wednesday, sunny, warm, with a slight breeze that carried a floral scent from planters the city had installed along the sidewalks to beautify the streets. Birmingham was an affluent neighborhood that used it's tax dollars well to keep the area attractive and appealing to shoppers and tourists.
Connor stepped into the Starbucks and was immediately energized by the strong aroma of coffee beans. It was part of his morning ritual. A vanilla cappuccino and the Detroit News at nine AM. He would plug in his laptop and monitor his accounts while leisurely perusing the sports or local news sections. He usually spent around two hours depending on how things were running with the networks. He generally didn't encounter any problems with his work. Connor devoted a lot of time and sweat to preparation and planning in his networks, testing and debugging systems until he was confident they were as secure and efficient as possible. Still, human beings were involved, many who were about as computer savvy as a monkey and he had his fair share of problems.
As he booted up and took his first steaming sip of the sweet cappuccino, Connor took in the scene outside the window. A busy street of low-rise buildings, full of high maintenance moms and pampered, silver spoon kids. The energy of the area was perfect for him. Not as high stress and high speed as nearby Detroit, but just enough to keep him going. He wasn't surprised though, he'd spent a lot of time researching where he wanted to set up shop and what area would offer the most opportunities personally and in business. Birmingham had most closely fit his needs.
His computer pinged at him and he saw he had in instant message. It was from BlackKat44. He smiled at his heart picked up it's pace just a bit. She was his match from E-harmony.
Hi, good morning, was her message.
Good morning to you, too. Just enjoying my morning Starbucks.
God, I LIVE off espresso! lol
Connor grew anxious by the moment. They'd only communicated by e-mail previously. He wasn't prepared for this. He like to be able to consider his words carefully. This was too spontaneous for his liking, especially before they'd met in person.
What are u up to 2day? he wrote.
Nothing much. Got the day off so far, although I might have a client later.
Kat was a massage therapist and licensed in holistic medicine. Connor had specifically tailored his E-harmony account to find someone as different from himself as possible. Kat certainly fit the bill.
That's cool. I'm always on call in a way, so I know what that's like. A man in a pinstriped suit walked in, talking loudly on his Blackberry. Connor glared at him.
You gonna b home 2nite?
Connor almost choked on his cappuccino. Was she about to ask him if they could get together? He wasn't ready for that. They'd exchanged photographs – she seemed to look good in every picture she had with her tall, athletic body and glossy black hair that belied her deep blue eyes. He'd had to sift through hundreds of photo's to find one that he didn't have a dorky smile in, or one that his short, thick hair had just enough gel, but not too much. He couldn't create muscles that didn't exist, but he could try and exclude as much geek as possible, and maybe include one accentuated what he thought was his nest feature – his smoke gray eyes. He paused as he considered what he should say back to her, listening as the in-store sound system played some light jazz – Miles Davis, Connor thought, although he wasn't as versed in jazz as he'd like to be.
I should be. Might have some after hours maintenance work on a few systems. Why?
Just wondered if we could talk on the phone.
Another first. Connor had expected, even looked forward to this step, though. A woman sitting across from him laughed as she read something very on her computer. Connor smiled at her even though she never looked at him.
Definitely. Call u around 8?
Perfect. I'll slip into something sexy 4 u ;) LMAO
Her outgoing and spunky attitude was what drew Connor to her the most. I can't wait.
When do we get 2 MIRL?
Connor jumped when a horn honked just outside the window next to him as a pedestrian walked despite the don't cross signal. Or maybe it was BlackKat44's words. He'd thought about this moment and had a plan for it.
What about Friday? he typed. Maybe just for a coffee?
He couldn't believe she typed a response so fast. Awesome. Where/what time?
Starbucks Birmingham? 7?
Cool. Should I wear underwear? j/k
She was definitely a wildcat. Connor decided to have some fun with it. He had a little bad boy in him after all. Undergarments optional.
Taken into consideration. Cool. C u then.
It's a date. Connor realized his heart was pounding and his throat was dry. The store music had turned over to Frank Sinatra “You Make Me Feel So Young.” And he did, even though he was only twenty-eight, he still felt younger somehow, more vigorous. It was the effect hope had on you.
He took a deep breath, enjoying the pleasant aroma of the coffee shop. The bustle outside seemed to have lost it's volume, all he heard was the bounce of Sinatra.
Still, something under the surface wasn't right. He'd always had the nagging feeling that something important to him was just out of reach. He'd pursued different things that Connor thought would fill the void – his education, the work he wanted to do, his home, his possessions. None of them had had quelled his yearning. He believed he was waiting for love, that that was the last ingredient in his recipe for happiness. He wasn't very social though, and had turned to his security blanket – technology – to help, and thus the trip to E-harmony. The match with Kat had proven to be intriguing and Connor wondered if she might be the thing he'd been missing all these years.
On Friday he hoped to find out.

NOW – LISA

Lysandra Rigatos stood inside what used to be a Borders store in downtown Detroit, hiding behind a bookshelf, listening to the wind whistle through broken windows and rustle pages of the hundreds of books strewn around the battered store. There was a demon hunting her, a low hulking, brutish thing the color of rust with a boarish face and razor tusks. She still had two blessed knives. They would have to be enough.
She chanced a look over the shelf out at the Campus Martius roundabout and Woodward Avenue. The city looked much like it had before the apocalyptic events of the last few days aside from one thing - people. They were still around, but now instead of bustling through the streets, they were in hiding. The buildings still looked the same except for some smashed windows and a few fires, cars were still intact and parked around the city. Demon's didn't loot or care about cars. They only wanted blood.
The street outside the bookstore appeared to be empty, but she'd learned the hard way that shadows were the friends of the demon creatures and they could just about hide anywhere.
There was a shuffling and a snort behind her. The boar-thing was closer now. It didn't move very well but was powerful and if it got one of those tusks into her she was in trouble.
She drew both knives and got her self low, into a defensive stance. She could feel how close it was. She'd rather deal with this thing inside that go out into the cold street and face who knows what.
A book case behind her was slammed over and she saw the thing standing their with a salacious grin. It looked her over like a toothless hillbilly at a family reunion might look at his sixteen year old cowgirl cousin. These thing's were perverse horndogs that would fuck anything any way they could with any part of their anatomy that might fit and some that didn't. It was way better for them to kill you than to let them get ahold of you and have their way.
It took a couple of quick steps forward and she backed away along the shelf behind toward the front door. She didn't want to go out on the street but she wanted the option if it came to that.
It lunged at her with a growl, beefy arms swinging together to grab her. Lysandra, or Lisa as everyone called her, jumped straight up and avoided them, bringing both knives down and driving them handle deep into the demon's shoulders. She spread her feet out and braced herself on it's extended arms and then kicked her foot back and forth across it's face.
The demon howled in rage and jerked backward, flipping Lisa away from it, her knives still embedded in the demon's flesh. She landed on her back but rolled into a crouched position, thanking gymnastics class in high school and years of self defense classes she took as a young woman trying to find her way in the rough city of Detroit.
It reared back and bellowed with fury at her. It dropped to all fours and charged.
Lisa charged, too, screaming her best big fat Greek scream and launched like a baseball player diving head first into home plate but aiming high, trying to fly over the thing's head. It worked and she found herself soaring over the creature as it rushed beneath her. She reached out her hands and yanked the knives out as she passed over him, then spun her self over and slammed them into the demon's back as her feet hit the ground and stopped her.
The thing arched it's back and screeched in a horrific swan song. The blessed weapons did their work and the the monster shuddered, spasmed once and then keeled over and fell against a stack of bargain books. Within seconds it had dissolved into dust that floated in the air and then disappeared in wisps. She'd seen it every time she'd killed one, but it still fascinated her.
Lisa stood there over it, her hands still gripping the wood handles of the knives. She was in shock over the maneuver she'd just pulled off. In the last two days she'd been amazed to find that she was quite skilled as a demon fighter. She hadn't been gifted at much, if anything, in life, but it seemed she had found her true calling. She felt powerful and alive, it was better than any drug she'd ever shot up, snorted or smoked in all her days and an addict. While the world cried for it's own demise, she found a new world just opening up for her.
She withdrew her knives, wiping them on her black linen pants. She hung her head, long tendrils of curly dark hair framing her face and listened. The demon's wailing had garnered attention. She heard far off cries and then closer moans and howls. Others would arrive soon and she needed to be gone when they did.
She headed for the street, planning to go north on Woodward toward Pontiac. She was out of blessed ammo for her two Glocks. She had clips, but needed a priest to bless them or they were worthless. She knew one, knew one quite well. She didn't know if her mother would still talk to her, but she was the only Catholic priest Lisa knew how to find.
Now she just had to live long enough to make it to Pontiac.

EIGHT DAYS BEFORE DOOMSDAY – AVERY

It was the largest excavation project in the history of the world. Avery Stanton watched on a computer monitor as a crane lifted the last pieces of ice from the mile deep pit that gaped only yards away from the trailer Avery sat in. The trailer was small and filled with too much equipment. On top of that, he was a terribly messy person and worker, which proved to combine for a cluttered and trash filled mess.
They'd just about succeeded in clearing the bottom of the pit. What was revealed was the actual surface of the ground of Antarctica – the first time the sun had shone on this dirt in millenia.
It was the culmination of twenty-three years of Avery's life and of a breakthrough technology that allowed computers to see through arctic ice. The last five years he'd been leading the effort to remove over a million cubic feet of ice so they could get to the ground beneath it.
What rested on that ground was Avery's life passion. The remnants of an ancient civilization, and what Avery hoped would prove to be evidence of a once temperate climate at the poles. Many scientists wanted to say it was the home of ancient people who were alive before the ice age, a huge blow to the evolution of mankind theories. Others held to an alien race that left earth to seek the stars, some to a polar shift theory that holds the equatorial regions were once under ice.
Avery had another idea. He'd believed in God and the bible and held to the theory that the flood was a global catastrophe caused by the descension of the water that formed a canopy during early times and made all the earth a tropical environment. He felt that after the protective water canopy dropped, the world's climates and seasons were thrown into chaos, resulting in deserts and polar regions. He believed the civilization under ice had been alive at Noah's time, but weren't spared from the judgment and discipline of God.
It wasn't a popular viewpoint amongst the scientific world, and thus Avery kept most of his theories to himself. But his moment of redemption had arrived. Now he would show the world that the events of the bible were real. He may be the beginning of a global spiritual revolution. His only problem was the damn runes.
Dug into the earth were huge markings that could only be observed as a group from the sky. Avery had taken several helicopter rides to confirm what the computer imaging system had been showing them. Whatever civilization had lived and died here, they'd left a message for someone.
Avery couldn't match the runes to any known language. They did seem to be based in an imagery similar to the Egyptian's of King Tut and the pyramid times. He'd been able to come up with a few rudimentary translations but none of them made sense. He'd thought he'd cracked it this time, though, and he was running his translation algorithm through the computer to see what it spat out.
He stood up swiped a hand through the sandy hair that had grown too long since he'd been out here. The computer monitor captured the crane lifting yet another huge block of ice out of the pit and onto a waiting semi-trailer. They'd been storing the ice at different location throughout the nearby area. The plan was to put it back after they learned everything they could. Avery really didn't know how it would work eventually. Nothing like this had ever been attempted. He was amazed that he'd even gotten government funding for the project. But then it seemed like the government was funding everything right now, so why not?
The computer started printing and Avery ran over to the laser printer on the opposite side of the trailer. A series of sentences were printed out in stanza's like a poem.

“When the son of man returns,
let him know the error of the elders,
and the power of the great God,
see the light and the blood,
embrace the spirit and the woman,
remember the ways of our Father and
never repeat them.

Life and the future kingdom to be
must be cherished or all will come under
the oppression of the wicked ones.”

It was a typical biblical style passage, but Avery felt a great sense of pride. This would date to long before the biblical Noah. It may even make biblical scholars reconsider when they believe man created.
He ran a hand over his bald head as he read the passage again. This had to be the one. Cryptic, prophetic, repentant. It had all the hallmarks of the writings of a man of God. They must've felt it was very important to warn others of whatever had befallen them to work as hard as they must've to build the in ground runes. The project was on par with the Nazca lines. It must have taken years. Months at least if a large civilization was dedicated to the task.
Avery stood and stared out at the bleak landscape around him. White, gray, white, gray. They were about the only colors he ever saw anymore. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He needed a break. He could feel himself not running at one hundred percent efficiency. It's been too long since he'd been somewhere warm.
His radio crackled from the work table next to him.
“Dr. Stanton,” came the voice of Greg, his top assistant. “We need you down here right away.”
“Be right there,” Avery replied.

Fifteen minutes later, he was in full polar snow gear, barely able to move, stomping across the excavation site to reach the other scientists who were clustered in matching green and black suits around something.
Avery shoved his way through, and pulled down his scarf, his nostrils freezing inside with the breaths of arctic air. He found Greg on his knees, gently chiseling away ice a rectangular rock formation nearly obscured by the permafrost.
“What is it?” Avery asked over the howling wind.
Greg shrugged. “It looks like a door.”

NOW – CONNOR

The demon was over seven feet tall, barely being able to stand at full height under the floor joists in the basement. It floated in front of him like a horrible nightmare. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, but vaporous in form, roiling and wisping as it moved, staring at Connor with a faceless visage that seemed hidden inside a cowl of smoke.
He backed away, hoping one of the soldiers would come to his rescue. He heard a few shots here and there – the soldiers were very selective with their ammo – but the demonic voices were what he heard most prominently and they terrified him, all seeming to speak to him alone and at once, mocking and taunting him.
He saw Logan locked in a death struggle with a something that looked like a spider, it's skin ghostly pale and legs skeletal bones. It had the face of a human, smiling maniacally, and two human arms that sprang out of it's chest. It held Logan by those arms, but he didn't seemed phased by it, he seemed to be waiting for his moment.
Tenisha was already dead, cleanly decapitated. Two goblinish demons fed on the blood that poured from her neck and another, a gargantuan wolf-like creature with a huge, out of proportion penis was having sex with her head. Blood and sex were their vices of choice.
Connor dodged a vaporous swipe from the thing and it spoke to him.
“Give in human, there is no salvation for you,” it said in a hissing voice. “It is already too late.”
The basement smelled thickly of the now familiar odor these things gave off, a mixture of coppery blood and dead flesh. Connor refused to converse with these abominations.
“You are different from the others,” it said to him and flowed forward, tendrils of black smoke licking at Connor, stinging his arms as he ducked and lunged behind it.
“I can't sense your life force, your spirit,” it said. “Are you dead?” It asked the question as if such a thing were as common as having red hair or a mole on your cheek.
Connor drew his weapon, a curved scimitar like blade he'd picked up after a battle in in an antique shop downtown. He swung it at the vaporous demon, but the creature merely floated above him, wisps of it being cut down by by Connor's blade.
“You can believe in God now, yes it is true, he has cast this judgment upon you, we are merely it's deliverers,” the thing said and swooped down to drop into Connor.
“Shut up!” Connor screamed as he dropped onto his back and swung the scimitar upward, cutting the smoke demon in two distinct black vapor clouds.
A rumbling moan emitted from it and the black smoke dissipated. Connor thanked god – if there really was one – that the demon held such a strong belief that they were invincible. It was there most vulnerable aspect.
He got up on one knee and surveyed the landscape of the basement battleground. Logan pulled a knife out of the white spider-thing that now lay on it's back quivering. Drake and Manny were still in a protective formation around the priest, battling a group of small creatures that looked like they were made up of mechanical parts and computer chips, occasionally they would jump together and combine to form one man sized creature that looked more robot than demon. Manny was trying to aim his hand gun at the skittering things, but he couldn't get off a shot. Drake kept kicking them back, just trying to keep them off Nehring.
“Goddamn it!” Gerald cried and Connor spun to see him entangled with a muscular humanoid with red skin and the head of a hound. It barked guttural sounds and saliva flied everywhere as it snapped at the former accountant. Gerald was doing everything he could just to hold the demon at arm's length. He wasn't going to last long.
Connor ran for them. As he did, a demon roared to intercept from the basement stairs. It looked like a reptile with a thick body and eight legs, rows of spike on it's back and a forked tongue that flicked out through rows of sharp teeth. Warren was holding onto one of it's legs, bouncing along the concrete floor roughly and hacking at it with a hatchet.
Tammy leaped from the shadows beside it and dropped with all of her weight to bring down a crudely fashioned spear made from a small garden spade and a broom handle into the top of it's head. The reptilian demon collapsed onto it's belly, dead, and slid forward to a stop at the feet of the hound that was about to feed on Gerald.
Connor rammed his blade into it's back and the hound wailed and thrashed back and forth. Connor left the blade in it's back and looked around for Stefanie. He knew she was the only civilian the soldiers had given a hand gun, simply because she seemed like she needed it more than the others. The demon as his feet shuddered and began to disintegrate and Connor with drew his scimitar. He wondered what made them dissolve like that. He could only think that they had to disappear because they didn't belong in this world to begin with.
She was on her back, a demon who resembled a normal human with horns poking through blonde hair on top of her, thrusting through her pains to have intercourse with her. Stefanie laid there, staring at the ceiling, an expression that Connor though bordered on pleasure on her face. Her arms were spread out at her sides, one hand still holding the Colt .45 Logan had given her.
Connor sprinted over, slid on his back side next to them, grabbing the gun as he did so and came up firing into the demon's face. It slumped down onto Stefanie, who didn't seem to notice the monster had stopped raping her.
Connor turned around and charged the wolf-demon humping the head that had moments before been Tenisha's and fired several bullets into it.
Logan grabbed his shoulder and spun Connor around, snatching the gun away from him in a quick, fluid movement. “One bullet is all you need. Ammo is more precious than gold right now.”
They both turned to check the other soldiers and found them huddled over Nehring, the mechanical monsters all dead on the ground around them.
Logan ran for them. “What happened?”
Manny was almost in tears. “There were too many. We couldn't keep them all away.”
“One got him in the throat,” Drake said. “Not too bad, but good enough to worry us.”
No on said it, but they all were thinking about the problem with demon wounds – they got worse instead of healing.

NOW – KYROS

Kyros stood atop the Empire State Building, in the cool wind and fluttering snow, looking down at the ravaged city of New York. Or what used to be the city. The only visible buildings now were those over twenty stories tall. Everything else was underwater now. This was just the beginning.
Soon, all the world would be his. He would succeed where the Devil had failed. Kyros would show Him what his creations were capable of. The human form he'd chosen was meant to be the ultimate abomination, an affront to Him and his Son.
Kyros was the spitting image of Jesus Christ, not the modern human version, but what Micheal really looked like when he walked the earth. All the pictures throughout the centuries of Jesus had been pretty close, but Kyros was an exact representation. The wider nose, blue eyes, a tint of blonde in the hair from the sun. Why not? He'd grown to hate the Father as much as he loved Him. How could He abandon them and yet provide a ransom for the sins of the flesh wearers? They were ungrateful children, but he'd given them a provision to be made clean in His eyes. Why couldn't he have done that for those of the spirit realm? Many were repentant, longing to return to the kingdom, but they would not be allowed. Satan had given up, resigned himself to watching things play out on the earth, knowing he had no hope.
Kyros wouldn't do that. He wanted to bring as much pain and suffering to these children of God as he could.
A fellow demon stepped up next to him, it's incessant, raspy breathing revealing it's presence to Kyros. He turned to look at Talas, one of his commanders, a tall, hairless gray humanoid with an elongated, alien like head, and a drooping, inverted mouth.
“The city is nearly clear, sir,” Talas said with a slight bow. Kyros appreciated the demon's respectful address.
“And no sign of the One?” Kyros asked.
Talas shook his head. “You instincts were good to search the most densely populated areas first, but nothing here. Perhaps in Los Angeles or London.”
Kyros nodded and smiled. “The end is not yet. It has only just begun.” He turned back to the city, his dark, curly hair whipping about.
“I sense something bothers you, sir,” Talas said.
Kyros nodded. “I fear we allow time for the prophecy to be fulfilled with each moment we delay his discovery. Perhaps a more singular approach would be more effective.”
“Have you considered consulting with the Master?” Talas ventured, a bold decision considering Kyros' well known disdain for Satan.
“He is a defeated creature, unable to turn the humans away from God, accepting of his fate. His consult would only be damaging to our efforts.”
Talas nodded in deference. “What of Baal?”
“Our brother is content to influence the savage people's of the lesser lands of earth. He's grown fat and content on the worship they've given him over the years. He has fallen into the pit himself, adoring the devotion of these things too much, afraid to lose their adulation. He is lost.”
Talas rose straight and erect. “The mantle has been passed to you then, sir, and I am proud to stand with you.”
Kyros smiled at him. “Thank you, Talas. I have a request. Could you bring Apollyon to me?”
Even the gray color of Talas' skin faded for a moment. “Apollyon, sir? Are you sure?”
Kyros smiled. “Even he will do my bidding. He must. Bring him to me.”
Talas nodded and spun to do as he was ordered.
Kyros turned back to the city, reveling in the death and destruction, the taint of blood and fire that stained the city.
His city now.

SIX DAYS BEFORE DOOMSDAY – CONNOR

Six fifty-nine. Connor checked his watch as he sat at his usual table in Starbucks, checking for Kat. He expected her to be late, and while that normally irritate him to know end, with her it only seemed to add to her charm. She was exactly the free spirit he thought he needed to ignite the fire inside that he so desperately yearned for.
He'd tried a white chocolate flavored cappuccino today. He delighted in considering this his opportunity to try new things.
Three minutes after seven and he saw her strutting up the sidewalk. Her hair was a shade lighter now, and she certainly had a more voluptuous figure than her pics indicated. She was a bit older than him at thirty-three, but he didn't mind and she didn't seem to either. Overall, the pictures she'd emailed him had been pretty accurate, except maybe for a profile that revealed a nose that might be just a tad too big, but it mattered little to Connor. He was smitten.
She yanked open the door and flew into the shop in a whirlwind of hair and perfume. Her light blue eyes immediately caught on Connor and she stopped still,staring and smiling.
“You must be Connor,” she said and came over.
He stood and extended a hand but she hugged him instead, a lingering hug that suggested she wasn't disappointed either.
“Guilty as charged,” Connor said. “It's great to meet you, Kat.”
She sat and then leaned back and checked him out with a mischievous grin. “Your pics don't do you justice. You're hot,” she said. “Definitely not the atypical computer guy.”
Connor felt himself blush. “You look great, too.” He hoped she didn't think that sounded as lame as he did.
Kat was still looking at him. “Your hair is lighter than in your pictures.”
Connor nodded. “It lightens up in the summertime.”
She squeezed his tricep, visible under his t-shirt. “And much more ripped than I thought.”
“I've been working out a lot this summer.”
“I can tell.”
She reached out and messed up his sculpted hair. Connor's jaw dropped a bit, and he wanted to be pissed. He spent several minutes a day making sure he messed up his hair just right. He kept his cool, though and grinned at her. “You done?” he said.
She laughed. “Good. I was a little worried you were one of those guys that always had to have his hair perfect. So, cool, you're not.”
They smiled at each other, not sure where to go next with the conversation. Kat just grinned, seemingly content to say nothing and just look at each other.
“So, how's your business?” Connor asked. “Have you been staying pretty busy?”
“I have a good clientèle. A lot of people I've worked with for years, so I do pretty well. I love making my own schedule.”
Connor nodded vigorously. “Me, too. One of the perks of the self employed.”
They continued to talk and Kat ordered a non-fat latte. Before they realized it, two hours had past.
“You want to get a bite to eat?” Connor asked.
“Yes, I'm ravenous,” Kat replied and flipped her hair back, her bangle earrings jingling. “I know a great organic place over at Eastern Market.”
“Sounds good,” Connor said and they were off. He watched her walk up to the corner, the sun just about to set and casting long shadows across the street and marveled at how well things were going.

Connor unlocked the door to his apartment and ushered Kat inside. They'd enjoyed a nice dinner ind indulged in probably too many drinks. But Kat had been as intoxicating as the liquor. Connor was falling and falling hard. He didn't want the night to end.
They spent a few hours talking about books and music, listening to Connor's MP3 collection, particularly his big band stuff. Kat loved the Glenn Miller sound, said it made her feel romantic like she was in a Hepburn movie.
He lit a couple of candles that were supposed to make the room smell like a Spring Forest as the label proclaimed. Connor didn't know what a spring forest smelled like, but it was a nice aroma that worked well for the mood.
They kissed for the first time when Connor went to get them some wine from the kitchen. He lived in a small two bedroom apartment with a balcony that looked out on Main Street just north of town and almost in the heart of the financial district. The sliding glass door was open to let in the summer breeze and he noted her perfume on it as he picked up the wine glasses. When he turned, she was there. He had to lift the wine glasses up and away from his body to keep from splashing them on her. She grabbed his shoulders and planted her lips on his. They were soft, full and hotter than he thought possible. He was immediately turned on and she noticed.
“Whoa, tiger,” Kat said in a low, smoky voice that only made it worse for Connor, “nothing happens on the first date, got it?”
He grinned at her. “Got it.”
They shared the wine on the balcony, enjoying the bliss of the warm evening and starry sky, the quiet cacophony of the light street noise their soundtrack.
“Wow, it's two AM,” Connor said when he happened to glance at his watch.
Kat looked sleepy. She yawned. “Yeah, I thought I was getting tired.”
They gathered their wine glasses and took one last look at the nearly empty street below. They kissed for a moment, a tender, romantic, slow kiss before going inside.
They made their way to Connor's sparse living room, decorated with dark leather and cherry wood furniture with a few colorful vases thrown in to liven it up a bit. She sat on the couch and yawned again.
“You know, you could sleep over,” Connor said. “I'll take the couch.” He couldn't believe he'd put it out there.
She threw her head back and giggled, exposing the shapeliness of her thin neck. He wanted to kiss that, too. “I thought you'd never ask,” she said. “But I insist you sleep in your own bed. I like the couch better anyway.” She patted one of the brown and white stitched pillows and pounded it with her palm before tossing it to one end and slumping over on to it.
“I can't let you do that,” Connor said and started toward her.
She waved him off. “Not a chance. It's your house. I'd feel uncomfortable sleeping in your bed anyway to be honest.”
Connor wasn't sure how far he should push his chivalry. “Well, I'd be more than happy to if you change your mind.”
She smiled at him and settled her head into the pillow. “I would like a light blanket if you have one.”
“Sure thing.” Connor left to find her a blanket.

He awoke at seven the next morning to find Kat climbing into his bed in nothing more than purple lace bra and underwear. He slid over and she snuggled in next to him, smelling of vanilla. Kat started kissing his neck, and writhing against him, her body satiny smooth on his skin.
“Technically, since we slept, this is our second date,” she said.
“And that means?” Connor asked, although he knew perfectly well what it meant.
“Sex is okay on the second date,” she said and slid under the covers and kissed her way down his chest.

NOW – LOGAN

They dragged themselves through the snow covered wood, trying to ward off the bitter cold that seeped through the extra clothing they'd taken from the house. It was overcast and dark under the trees even though it was noon.
Logan led the way, trying to will the others to keep up, failing miserably. Warren and Tammy were having no problems, and he'd made Manny and Drake carry the priest, but Gerald whined non stop and Stefanie had to be prodded every step of the way. Connor was at the rear watching their back. He'd proven okay with the gun back in that basement so Logan let him keep it.
They were making their way west from Birmingham, crossing through suburbs and a urban wilderness on their circuitous way toward I-96. Logan wanted to stay under cover as much as possible. The demons had scouts searching from the sky.
He had a plan to hit a car dealership that was on the way toward Telegraph Road. He thought they could get some vehicles and then tear down Telegraph to 96 and take that all the way to Lansing and hopefully Safe Haven. He had to admit there were a lot of holes in his plan, but it was better than nothing.
He sidestepped his way through a cluster of trees and and saw more houses ahead. There were subdivisions all over this area and they had to be careful about each residence. Demons crawled everywhere humans dwelled.
“Can we stop Just for a minute?” Gerald asked. “My feet hurt.”
Logan knew the man wasn't whining about his feet. Gerald still had his leather business shoes on. His feet were a size thirteen and they'd been unable to find him a pair of boots thus far. Logan's own feet were sore and stiff from the bizarre cold that had come on after the earthquake. He figured Gerald's were damn near frost bit.
“Let's stop here and eat. Drake, get a small fire going. Try to keep the smoke to a minimum,” Logan said as he dropped back to check on the priest. Nehring was pale, his lips purple. The white cloth bandage they'd put on his neck wound a dark crimson.
Manny just shook his head when Logan leaned down to look at the man. “How you doing, father?” Logan asked, but Nehring didn't open his eyes. Logan could smell the sour rot of the wound. Flesh going bad.
Logan looked around for Connor, saw him settling in at the base of a tree and called him over. “You mind cleaning this wound and putting a new dressing on it? I need Manny to help Drake get firewood.”
“No problem,” Connor said and dropped to one knee next to Nehring. Manny handed Connor their first aid kit.
Logan watched as Connor set to work. The guy was all business, all the time. He would have made a good soldier. Logan was glad they'd added him to the group in Birmingham. It made him proud to help people like Connor. Good people, hard working Americans that always tried to do what was right. People soldiers didn't mind dying for.
Manny and Drake left to find suitable wood for burning, leaving Logan with Nehring and Connor.
“So, what exactly is our plan?” Connor asked asked he gingerly removed the dressing from Nehring's neck, immediately covering his nose with the back of his hand.
“We find some vehicles and head for Lansing,” Logan replied. He wanted to make it sound as simple and easy as possible.
“Won't we be more of a target in cars? Kind of advertising ourselves aren't we?”
Logan had thought of that. He knew Connor was right. “Probably, but I'd rather take my chances out running them than trying to fight them all the way to Safe Haven.”
“If there is a Safe Haven.” The words came out of Connor's mouth so casually Logan wondered if the man knew he'd said them out loud.
“Don't say that,” Logan snapped. “People create their own realities with what they believe.”
Connor turned as he strung out medical tape for the new bandage. “Why, Logan, I never took you for one of those people who subscribed to 'The Secret'. Did you buy the book or DVD?”
“Funny. What I do subscribe to is this – if you think you're going to miss a shot in basketball, chances are you're going to. If you think you can make, maybe you will. If you know you're going to make, well, you saw LeBron James play ball back in the day. You think he ever doubted himself?”
Connor shrugged and delicately taped a new piece of gauze over Nehring's gaping, red and yellow gouge. One of those robot-demon's had sliced a nice chunk of flesh out the man. Good thing it was on the opposite side of his jugular. The priest never even opened his eyes, only moaned a bit.
Logan nodded, satisfied that his point had been made. Although he wasn't much older than Connor, he felt like he needed to take the guy under his wing. He liked Connor, saw something special in him, but saw something missing as well. He hoped he could be the mentor that helped Connor figure out what he wants in life.
He sighed. They were all trying to figure it out now. Whatever you believed three days ago is long gone now. If they survived this as a race, they'd have to start from scratch on what they thought about the universe and how they organized themselves.
“You keep an I on him for me, okay?” Logan asked, desperately wanting to go have a smoke.
Connor nodded and found a smile even amongst all this horror. “Will do.”
Logan fought the urge to salute, didn't have a smile to give, decided on a return nod and walked away. In that moment he knew he'd die for the kid and he'd never let Connor go the way he had his big brother.
Logan walked away, lighting up as he went.

FOUR DAYS BEFORE DOOMSDAY – LISA

The halfway house stunk of roach spray. Like they could kill the generations of cockroaches that infested this place with a few cans of fogger. Lisa knew enough to shake out her blankets and check her shoes before she used them. All she cared about was a warm meal and a bed that was softer than the street outside.
The room was full of the underprivileged, as a politician might put it. Addicts, homeless, drunks. Anyone with nowhere else to go. She had somewhere she could be, but she couldn't stand her mother.
Lisa's skin itched and she was trembling, trying not to think about what she might be able to pick up a mere block up the street. Her detox was going well; she was six weeks sober now, but she still got hit hard sometimes. This episode was one of the more manageable ones.
She shook out the blanket on the cot in front of her and let it float down to the bed. She didn't need it to stay warm – God knew it was too hot for that – but she always woke up clutching at it as if it were some type of totem keeping away her nightmares.
After fifteen minutes of tossing and turning and listening to the other homeless snore or cry or masturbate, she decided she couldn't sleep. A late night walk sounded like just the right remedy.
She walked out of the church and onto the busy streets of Detroit. She decided to walk along Jefferson and go by the GM building. Maybe walk down by the river.
As her tennis shoes scuffed along on the side walk, she wondered what her mother was doing right now. Probably praying for her 'baby Lyssy'. She should go see her, Lisa knew that. It was just that her mother would demand she come home and think that everything would go away with more baklava.
Going home would drive her right back to where she was trying to climb away from. She wasn't ready yet.
She decided she did want to see the water, and the Ambassador Bridge. She skirted the GM building, passing through a park where several homeless slept on cardboard or grimy blankets. At least they were free. She felt at home among them, maybe because she was comfortable. They accepted everyone and no addict or bum had ever made her feel inferior.
That was the real clincher. She didn't necessarily feel at home with degenerates of the city, on the contrary, she felt like an outsider, but nothing was expected of her, which meant she couldn't let anyone down. Damn her mother for messing her up so bad.
She strolled along the river, enjoying the sparkle of city lights on the water, thought of driving across the bridge, starting over. If only it were just that easy.
She sat down on the steps that led down from the back of the GM building. A light July breeze ruffled the curls of her hair, lifted them off her thin shoulders.
She thought of Two-Bit, of his glittering smile, and what she knew he had in that bass thumping Escalade with him. That would be just that easy. She could float right here across the water to Canada and back.
But it wasn't real. That was the one thing she'd learn in rehab that had stuck. Even when she was high, it wasn't the same anymore because she knew it was just as fake as the real world.
She let the tears come and slide down her face as she watched the cars and trucks cross the bridge.

NOW – CONNOR

Connor walked next to Logan. They were in a different subdivision now, this one full of smaller, starter homes for the soon-to-be-rich. The sun was coming up behind them. They'd walked all night, only encountering three demons at different times. They dispatched them with blade weapons to save ammo and avoid drawing attention to themselves. Manny almost got bit by one that looked like a praying mantis, but otherwise they came out looking pretty good.
“I've noticed something,” Connor said as they walked through the side yard of two story home in Bloomfield Hills.
“What's that?” Logan asked. He walked with his M-16 over his shoulder, eyes scanning their surroundings constantly for any threat.
“Most of the things we've encountered weren't organized, you know, working in groups. A few were, but most acted alone. They're intelligent though.”
Logan sighed. He was tired and Connor sensed he'd grown weary already of the conversation. “What are you getting at?” Logan asked.
“What if they unite? Organize, work together for a greater cause?”
“They're monsters, Connor, they drink blood and rape people. They don't have a common cause.”
“I think they do.”
Connor watched Logan pause and turn to check on the group. They were straggling along, especially Drake and Manny who were carrying the priest. Warren was annoying Tammy with his lewd attempts to make her laugh. Gerald had a pained expression. Stefanie was typically dazed. They shuffled onto the paved street, all of them too tired to continue walking through yards and woods. The group was a walking meat train.
“Tell me, what is this common cause?” Logan asked.
“Eradication of our species. Maintaining farms of humans to provide a constant blood supply.”
Logan looked at him. He laughed. “I see you've been thinking about this quite a bit.”
“Just trying to prepare worst case scenarios, you know disaster planning,” Connor said. He couldn't stop his own chuckle from finding it's way out of his mouth.
“We've got trouble,” Logan said, his face suddenly serious. “I think your worst case scenario just became a reality.”
Connor noticed Logan looking upward and all around them. The air gained a sudden tension, and Connor got a whiff of the familiar stench of death that was carried on the brisk wind that whipped at their clothes.
Logan's skin rippled under the tribal tattoo that stretched from his breastbone and wrapped around one side of his neck to the base of his skull. “We're being hunted,” Logan said. He nodded toward a roof top across from them.
Connor saw something hunched just behind the peak of the roof. Something with wings. He glanced at other homes and noticed several other dark forms hiding, watching.
“I had to pick now to be right,” Connor mumbled.
Manny groaned behind them.
“What is it?” Logan called to him.
“The priest just died.”
Connor got the handgun out. “Now, it's the worst case scenario.”

TWO DAYS BEFORE DOOMSDAY – AVERY

Avery stood inside the underground temple, reeling. He thought he might pass out. He'd gotten too thin out here, not eating enough. This was too incredible, too world altering. Everything he'd dreamed of all those long, lonely years.
He walked to one end of the cavern and began to look at the carvings on the wall. It was so musty he almost gagged from it. Greg was next to him, documenting with a video camera. The team had set up temporary lights and between the halogens and the fact that they were several feet under ground made for a practically tropical climate compared to what they'd been enduring for the last several months. Avery had Greg had both removed their head gear and Avery was considering taking off his top layer as well.
“These carvings definitely correspond to the passage on the tablet discovered on the surface,” Avery said in his best narrative voice. This video would be studied by generations of scientists, he had to take his time and do it right.
He pointed at the first one. It was a crude picture of a man returning to a village. “This depicts the return of the son of man, possibly prefiguring Christ or sometimes simply referring to the arrival of a people to an area, such as the Israelites entering the promised land.”
They moved along the uneven ground on the cave floor. There were remnants of moss here and crusty remains of what looked like vines crisscrossing the floor and walls. These things would definitely need to be sampled and analyzed in the lab. “We see apparent remains of vegetation here, obviously unusual in this climate and area, perhaps it is because of geo-thermal warmth, but nothing seems to be alive at this point.” Greg's camera dropped to pick up a few of the evidences of plant growth.
Avery moved on. “Next we have a carving of what the tablet described as letting the son of man know of the error of the elders and the power of god. A group of people have fallen to the ground as what looks like a great light or power emanates from the sky above.” He almost reached out and touched the engraving in the rust colored rock but contained himself. He began to see tiny rivulets of water and drops of condensation on the rock face. It was getting too warm, too fast. The humidity was rising dramatically, the ground starting to thaw. That was not a good thing for the preservation of the site.
“We need to reduce the number of lights immediately to nothing more than what's essential. Probably only hand helds,” Avery ordered and the crew went to work. In a moment, it was considerably darker and Avery was shining a hand held light on the wall to illuminate the carvings.
“Here the carvings seem to change,” Avery said as he moved on to the next carving. “This is more of what we might call an interactive portion of the cave here.”
He cracked a smile at the camera and pointed to what looked like a dial set into the rock. “This appears to be a sun dial, perhaps correlating to the portion of the tablet that reads 'see the light'. It looks as though at one time it turned, actually moved, but it's probably fused now as we've seen in other mechanized crypts.” He grinned again. “Maybe it's a dimmer switch.” Even Greg chuckled at that one.
He moved on to describe the next display, a bizarre one with a hole in the center and what looked like a slide opening at the top. Avery had no idea how this tied into the section about blood, but assumed it did because the next one referred to the spirit and the woman.
“This carving depicts a woman wrapped in some type of wind or perhaps sun rays. It is slightly inlaid in to the wall and – can you move in closer Greg to see these – it looks as if it can be or has been depressed based on grind marks in the wall at the edge of the inlay.” Greg focused on what looked like scratch marks all the way around the inset where the carved stone sat.
“This final piece is the most intricate and fantastic of them all. It is a set of smaller, carved stone pieces that fit into smaller cut outs like a jigsaw puzzle. I believe the crafters of this work where indicating that the smaller pieces were to be kept in a specific order as to 'remember the error of the elders'. Perhaps to serve as some type of warning to future worshipers.”
He stopped at this final piece and faced the camera. “That's it for the standout attributes of the cavern. We have much work to do and many more discoveries to make hopefully, all which will be documented in a similar manner.”
He stared at the camera smiling until Greg stopped recording and dropped the camera to his side. “That's a wrap.”
Avery showed his slightly crooked teeth in a grin that said we did it! Greg reached a hand out and shook Avery's in enthusiastic congratulations.
“You're going to be known worldwide, you know that right?” Greg said. With his short, tightly curled dark hair, Greg reminded Avery of a more serious version of Tom Hanks after he'd lost all that weight in the movie 'Castaway'.
“I don't know about that,” Avery said. “Who knows the name of the guy who cloned that sheep besides guys like us?”
Greg raised a finger. “But everyone remembers the sheep's name was Dolly. Your name will be up there with Darwin and Einstein as great visionaries.”
Avery snorted. “Hopefully, I can knock Darwin down a peg or two.”
He turned and shined the flashlight around the underground temple. “Okay, let's get this staked and marked off.”

NOW – APOLLYON

Apollyon stared at Kyros as they stood on the walkway that rimmed the inside of the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Water was almost up to her waist now. A couple of days ago, it would have been a magnificent view of the city lights at night. Now, Manhattan was dark and the city was reduced to a few sky scrapers jutting out of the water like remnants of some worn down break wall from long ago. It was below freezing with a bitter wind and an icy snow fall, but they were impervious to the conditions. Kyros' chosen form disgusted Appolyon. A leader such as he should have chosen something intimidating to humans as Apollyon himself had.
His body was huge and impossibly muscular, like a hero in one of their comic books. His skin was black and shone as if covered in oil. He had an impossibly wide mouth which couldn't smile but only bare rows of tiny, serrated teeth like a barracuda's and covering his body was a thin layer of fire that flickered and licked everywhere on his body, culminating in hair of flames that burnt bright against his black skin.
Kyros bowed slightly with his upper body, a show of respect for the governor of the pit of souls. “Thank you for coming at my request, Apollyon.”
“It is my duty,” he replied, his voice deep and booming like the rumble of an erupting volcano.
“We have a unique opportunity, Apollyon.”
“You can look at it that way,” Apollyon said.
“I do look at it that way,” Kyros said with a scowl. “And you should, too.”
“We are merely His missionaries, delivering judgment to those humans deserving such. All has been decided for us, as it has since the dawn of time.”
Kyros slammed a fist down on the railing, splintering ice that had formed there and sending pieces showering down, crackling against the metal folds Lady Liberty's dress. “Do you not remember the case of Noah? Only eight faithful humans left? Were we not close at that time?”
“'Twas all prophesied. The Devil has learned the vanity of his ways, when will you? Why don't you spend the rest of your days indulging yourself as so many others do?” Apollyon said.
Kyros' eyes glowed with fire, making him look like Jesus possessed. “We can win the war and take over heaven. Nothing is decided, not as long as we have free will, and not as long as God has granted free will to humans as well.”
Apollyon emitted a guttural laugh. “You will never turn all away from Him. Even now a savior is prophesied to lead them out of this darkness. Remember what His very name means.”
“I -” Kyros said and thumped his own chest, “Shall Prove To Be. Satan was never strong enough. He should have killed Michael when he had the chance.”
Apollyon crossed his great arms and looked down at Kyros. “You know that wouldn't have been allowed to happen.”
“How can you know! We were all granted free will. Satan had the gift of vision, he saw what was possible, but he lacked the strength to see it through. You and I, my friend, are not lacking for strength. But that is not why you're here,” Kyros said and regained his composure. “The prophesy you speak of, remember who it pertains to?”
“The one born of no man or woman.”
“Exactly. Who is that?” Kyros said, waving his hand out at the world around them.
“We have no way of knowing. Every spirit creature knows His ways and means are hidden to us.”
Kyros snapped his fingers. “You're right of course. But we can find out.”
Apollyon was interested now. “How?”
“Satan had influenced humans into the realm of cloning as a way to foster a greater division between science and religion. What if they'd succeeded in cloning humans, but not through traditional pregnancies. If they'd used DNA samples and test tube technology, isn't it possible they produced at least one living offspring?”
“Possible. Not likely. That were border on the act of creation, an affront to Him and it would break the laws of the universe. He would never let it happen.”
“I believe it could have. That's why you're here. With your specialized talents, you can find things out, persuade humans to speak to you.”
“That is my job,” Apollyon said, showing his teeth.
“And you have never failed to elicit a confession of sin from any damned soul, that's why you are perfect for this.”
“What makes you believe I will forsake my position and join your hopeless cause?” Apollyon asked.
“For the opportunity to roam the earth and ply your trade,” Kyros answered with a grin. “Torture humans and drink their blood.”
Aplloyon waved Kyros' words off. “I can do that anyway. I don't need your permission. There are lesser demons everywhere doing just that.”
“This is true,” Kyros said and looked back out over the patches of ice and snow that bobbed on the water. “I have nothing to offer you but a possibility.”
“And what possibility is that?”
“The barrier has been removed, a gateway opened. Demons are allowed to venture into the world of Man. The Great Tribulation is at hand. We have been given a short time to actually touch the souls of humans.”
“And?”
“I offer you the chance to find this one born of no man or woman.”
“And do what with him?”
Kyros smiled as he looked at flooded New York city. “Kill him of course. Feed upon his anointed blood. You'll never have this chance again.”
Apollyon stared at Kyros for a long moment, his skin afire, casting an orange glow on the metal structure behind him. “I will do it. You have sufficiently tempted me. It is an opportunity which has never occurred, no, nor will occur again. I will hunt for this one. Where do I start?”
“Talas has assembled a list of names and last known location from some the humans written records. He will instruct you from here.”
Apollyon bowed to Kyros. “Thank you, master. I will not relent in my pursuit.”
“See that it be done, Apollyon, and we may yet return to our rightful place in Heaven.”

DOOMSDAY – CONNOR

Kat simply had never gone home since their first date. They'd spent the last six days together and they'd been the best six days of Connor's life. At least until this morning.
He'd awakened early, about a quarter to seven, and decided to enjoy some green tea on the balcony and watch the sun rise. It was the kind of thing you did after six straight nights of the most amazing sex you've ever had.
The morning smelled fresh and free, and he'd sweetened his tea with a little extra honey. It seemed like the world was in high definition for him lately. He'd upgraded to 1080i with a plasma display.
A horn honked and Connor looked up the street toward downtown Birmingham as he held the warm mug with both hands. A delivery truck of some kind was stopped in the road , it's hazard lights flashing. A BMW was behind it trying to get around. After a couple of cars passed going the opposite way, the impatient driver of the BMW was able to go around.
As he watched the very domestic moment take place, a familiar feeling crept into his soul and he wanted to cry as he sensed it's arrival.
He wasn't whole. He had to accept it now. The final piece to his life's puzzle had been put into place yet he still wasn't happy. Kat was perfect for him. Just this morning he'd cleaned out two drawers for her and they were already full with much of her favorite clothing. Sure they were different, sure she slept with her socks on, but they complemented each other. The things about her that would've eventually driven him crazy with the wrong girl, would some day be the funny stories they told their kids boyfriends or girlfriends during that uncomfortable few minutes with the parents before the teens got to escape the asylum.
But she wasn't what he needed to be complete. He didn't know what was wrong, but he decided that he would get help, counseling, whatever it took, because he wasn't going to pass this on to -
“Baby, what's wrong?”
Kat stood in the kitchen, staring at him like he was an intruder and he realized he was crying for real.

They held hands across the kitchen table but said nothing. Connor had spilled it to her, everything about his emptiness inside. It had been a major moment for him, but she never made him feel uncomfortable.
Kat smiled at him. “Actually, this makes me like you even more.”
Connor looked out the window where it had started to rain. Just a light summer sprinkle. They opened the door to the balcony so they could smell the rain and enjoy the cool breeze. “How's that?”
“I know you're not perfect. I was starting to wonder there for a minute. I couldn't find anything wrong with you. That's a big red flag right there.”
Despite his frame of mind, Connor couldn't suppress a laugh. “Yeah, that's gotta mean skeletons in the closet.”
Kat nodded. “Huge, tyrannosaur skeletons.” They shared a laugh together. “Now, I know you're just as insecure and screwed up as the rest of the world. In other words – normal.”
Connor looked at her, one of those long, held looks where more passes between two people than if they talked for hours. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and Kat nodded, her eyes briefly welling up.
Connor looked down. “I guess when you break it down like that, I feel kind of stupid.”
Kat grasped his hands and her face narrowed with seriousness. “No, Connor, don't ever feel ashamed or embarrassed of your feelings. They're who you are, they're the honesty of your soul. Embrace them and listen to what they are telling you.”
Connor raised hie eyebrows. “Soul? That's what it feels like I'm missing sometimes.”
Kat smiled again, her dark eyes alluring in the soft kitchen light. “Impossible. Everyone has soul. It's your passion. What are you passionate about?”
The question struck Connor. Yes, what was he passionate about? An answer didn't immediately come to him. I don't know. I never really thought about it.”
“Come on. What really gets you going. There's got to be something. Music, sports, books. Computers – it's computers, right?”
Connor rubbed his chin as he contemplated the question. Most things he did just because he knew he should, not because he was driven to by any overwhelming desire. His parents had instilled in him organization, discipline, and structure, taught him that these things were the most important principles in the universe. He believed any problems in the world were a direct result of a lack of one of these primary faculties.
“I just picked computer systems because I knew it was going to be something companies needed for the foreseeable future. I don't have any particular fondness for them or derive special satisfaction from solving problems with them.”
“What do you get satisfaction from?”
“A job well done. Things being in order. Being prepared. Punctuality.” He shrugged. “I guess I'm dork.”
They laughed together again. “Well, I know one thing you're passionate about – me, “ Kat said. “At least you were last night. I definitely felt -” and now she broke into the melody from the old motown song - “the earth move under my feet...”
And then the earth moved for real, shifting the whole apartment to a sideways slant, Kat and Connor grabbing at the table to keep from falling over. A great, thunderous rumble erupted from below them as if the very bowels of the earth were collapsing.
“Oh my god!” Kat said as she slumped to the floor and tried to keep from sliding toward the balcony.
“It's an earthquake!” Connor yelled. “We don't get earthquakes in Michigan!? Get into a doorway! The bathroom!”
Everything shuddered beneath them as they got to their feet and the building lurched the opposite direction, throwing them onto the ceramic tile of the kitchen floor. Connor grabbed Kat and half carried her to the bathroom across the kitchen. They crouched in the door way as wall hangings and furniture fell all around them.
“What's going on?” Kat asked as she clutched at Connor.
“I don't know. It's got to be an earthquake.”
They heard screams from the street and from the surrounding apartments. Connor was reeling, off balance from an odd sensation of movement. “Does it feel like we're moving?” he asked.
Kat just nodded. Her face pale and she kept swallowing and Connor imagined she was trying not to vomit.
“I want to get to the balcony and take a look outside,” he said. “You stay here in the doorway. I'll be right back.”
She grabbed his shirt and kissed him. “Don't leave me.”
“I won't, I promise. I'll be right back.” She let him go.
The building dipped again and Connor stumbled forward. The glass in the windows and the slider door shattered outward and Connor saw a huge crack appear in the drywall above the door to the balcony. He continued for it.
“Connor, don't!” Kat called. She slid backward with the tilt of the building until she was in front of the toilet.
“I'm fine! I have to see what's happening outside!” He stumbled forward through the kitchen, stepped around the overturned table and made it to the sliding door.
It was no longer raining. The sun was out now. He stepped through the door, careful of the broken glass and moved out onto the balcony.
The city of Birmingham was in chaos. Parts of buildings had toppled into the streets. Cars were turned over. People were collapsed on the road and sidewalks, maybe some dead, certainly some under the various piles of rubble. The ground seemed to have calmed down but Connor looked to the sky and his breath caught in his throat.
Clouds whizzed by in a blur, dizzying him and making him grab the railing. Something was beyond wrong here. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but it wasn't normal, nor was it merely an earthquake.
He looked up and down the streets for a sign of police or fire personnel but didn't see any. He decided he should try calling 911 emergency service.
He checked the street once more for anyone who might need help. People ran for cover here and there, he saw an older woman sitting on the ground next to a fat man who was on his back, a puddle of blood beneath his head. He could smell sewer and saw a back up overflowing from one of the man holes in the street. The sky went dark with clouds as he watched and Connor had to fight a moment of vertigo.
“Connor, get back here!” Kat yelled for him.
Connor nodded but his attention was drawn to the street when he heard a vehicle racing along main street. A hummer was careening back and forth as it headed south and avoided cars and pedestrians. It honked at people to move and bounced up onto the sidewalk at times to avoid obstacles.
Where are they running to? Connor wondered, but ignored it and went back inside to find the phone.
Of course, the phone was out. He went to Kat. She was huddled next to the shower, crying. “What the hell is happening out there?” she asked. They could hear police sirens and fire trucks.
“I don't know, babe, but we need to get down to the street. I don't think the building is structurally safe anymore.”
“I don't want to go out there,” Kat said. She was shaking. He took her into his arms and helped her to the kitchen.
“Let me get you some tea and then we go downstairs and see if we can find a policeman or something. Somebody has to know what's going on.”
“I'll check the t.v. while you get the tea,” she said in a weak voice.
Connor's hands shook as he made the tea. People were hollering outside. He heard calls and cries from his neighbors. The stench of the sewer was starting to reach them up here.
“No cable,” Kat said as she came back into the kitchen. She rubbed her shoulders. “Is it getting cold in here?”
Connor handed the cup of tea to her. “We have to get somewhere safe, find some police, government officials.”
She sipped the tea and set it down. Screams erupted outside and strange sounds, like animal cries or roars. Kat ignored them. She put her hands on Connor's cheeks and forced him to look into her eyes.
“Connor,” she said, her voice full of conviction. “No matter what is happening outside, we are going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
Behind her, on the balcony, a winged creature that looked for all the world to Connor to be a pterodactyl, landed with a wood crunching thump.
Connor could only stare in disbelief. His head shook involuntarily as the thing started through the sliding door toward them.
“What is it?” she asked.
Connor grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to yank her back but he was too slow. The winged thing took several quick steps forward and thrust it's wings forward.
Twin horns, weapons attached to it's wings, erupted through Kat just under each shoulder blade. She didn't even have time to scream. The thing dragged her backward toward the balcony.
“No!” Connor yelled and lunged for her. He got a momentary hold of her fingertips, but then she was on the balcony with it, blood streaming down her chest, looking at Connor with eyes wide and confused.
Connor ran forward, ready to leap to his death if it was the last hope of saving her. The creature ripped it's horns back out of Kat, eliciting a strangled whimper from her and then flapped it's wings and lifted off the ground.
Connor burst through the busted out slider just as the thing clamped it's feet onto Kat's bloody shoulders and hoisted her into the air. Connor jumped and grabbed her by the waist and was lifted into the air, seeing the cracked streets of Birmingham below them as they swung wildly.
“Help me!” Kat screamed. They dropped suddenly toward the street.
“Good-bye boyfriend!” the creature said as they fell toward the ground.
Connor held on, looking up at Kat. He wanted her face to be the last thing he saw and his to be the last thing she saw.
He slammed into the concrete belly first and lost his grip. His world had stopped swirling so rapidly, his face buried in pavement. He smelled the tar from street repairs, felt the radiant heat from a day of summer sun. He pushed himself to his feet despite the ravaging pain that was emanating out from his lower body.
The winged creature had spoken to them. What was going on? This had to be some kind of nightmare. The world had turned upside down.
Connor watched as the monster carried Kat away. It flew across the street and dropped her with a clang on to a metal awning in front of a clothing store. It dropped down onto her and Kat screamed.
Connor stumbled forward, his legs numb, fighting to get over there. The creature swiped quickly at her several times until it had shredded her clothes. Kat stood naked on the awning, sobbing, calling for Connor.
“Kat! I'm coming!” he called to her as he struggled to get across the broken and jutting asphalt of the street.
He saw the monster standing in front of Kat. It had a huge erection sticking out in front of it, impossibly huge, at least a foot long. What hell had descended on them?
Kat turned and started for the edge of the awning and Connor thought she was going to jump to the street but the winged horror knocked her down and then violently penetrated her from behind.
Kat groaned and grabbed hold of the edge of the awning trying to pull herself away. Connor was almost across the street, forced to watch the evil unfold from below. She saw him and reached out as the demonic thing slammed into her.
Connor had to get up there but he didn't know how. He paused to look for something as if a ladder might just be lying on the ground for him. There was nothing and he couldn't tear himself away from the scene on the awning. The girl he was in love with was being raped by some type of pterodactyl-man that had dropped out of the sky. If it wasn't so horrifying he would've laughed at the absurdity.
Kat screamed and Connor thought he saw blood fly from behind her. The thing was thrusting harder and faster and had her pressed against the interior of the awning. It let out a banshee yell and smashed Kat into the railing one final time. Her eyes bugged and she vomited blood that sprayed so far some of it hit Connor.
“No! Goddamnit!” Connor had tears of frustration and pain streaming down his face. How could this thing that was so new and so wonderful be taken from him so suddenly?
Kat slumped over the edge of the awning, her eyes open, blood draining out of her mouth on the sidewalk below. She didn't move again.
The winged-thing removed itself from her and flew off above the buildings, leaving Connor to see the first love of his life dangling ten feet off the ground, nude and bloody and lifeless.
At that moment Connor didn't know demons were roaming the earth, but he knew for sure he was in hell.

DOOMSDAY – LISA

Lisa was underground, sitting next to some kid about twenty years old who slumped against her now, asleep. She had been staring at the needle he'd given her for about twenty minutes now. She wanted to take it, wanted to drift away, ached for something to fill the empty hole inside her. But she kept thinking about where she would be in a week if she did so, what hospital she would end up at, of her mother sitting at her bedside. Consequences.
They were in the sub-basement of one of the older buildings along Jefferson in Downtown Detroit. She didn't remember coming here, she'd been drunk in some dive bar when she'd met this kid and he didn't have to try too hard to convince her to come along.
The room looked like it was used for storage at one time, with concrete floors and block walls, but now it only housed rats and homeless. It smelled of piss, body odor, and booze. Lit by a number of candles spread around along the outside walls. Several homeless people and addicts were scattered throughout the large basement. In the corner across from Lisa, a skinny, pale skinned young blond girl was orally pleasuring a greasy bearded man who still held a crack pipe in one hand. He smiled when he saw Lisa watching, showing brownish, rotted teeth.
She looked at the needle again. It would wash it all away. She could already feel the ecstatic rush to her head. She was almost thirty now, and she had nothing, no one. She closed her eyes to this dungeon of sickness and depravity and tried to remember being a little girl living in the suburbs of Livonia, her father an autoworker, her mother at home to take care of Lisa and her three brothers. It was so simple then. Skipping home from school hoping to watch reruns of Sponge Bob Squarepants while she did her homework. Playing football with her brothers who hated playing with a girl but heeding her to make even sides.
She was crying and wanted to get away, escape. She decided she needed it, had to do it. She poised the needle over her naked arm.
An unearthly rumbling from below her stopped her. The ground began to vibrate. Dust fell from the ceiling and a crack sprouted on one wall and spider-webbed it's way along from floor to ceiling.
The ground shook, grabbing everyone's attention, even the generous girl who lifted her head and looked around with glazed, sleepy eyes.
Lisa tossed the needle aside, shoved the young man - Brian? Was that his name? - off of her and got to her feet. The ground shifted beneath her and she fell against a wall as she searched for an exit. She saw an open door and stairs beyond it. Lisa ran for them.
As she stepped through the door, the world tilted and threw her hard into the wall against her right shoulder. A thunderous groan welled up from somewhere under the floor and urged her on, up the stairs.
As she hopped up as many steps as she could handle, she heard the others from below following her lead, trying to scramble out as the building shuddered and moaned.
Lisa found herself on what she thought was ground level in a run down warehouse. She looked around the wide open space, trying to remember how they'd gotten inside. A door which bent inward at the bottom. She ran for it as she heard glass break and a tinkling of broken pieces fall to the floor nearby.
She reached the door and stopped. People were yelling outside, just in the alley on the other side of the door. They sounded confused, trying to figure out what had happened. She felt the same way, pausing in the near gloom of the darkened warehouse to think for a moment. It must have been an earthquake. That was the only possibility.
She grabbed he edge of the warped door and pulled back, letting light in from outside. She felt cold air rush in. That was odd. It'd been hot when she came inside.
She pulled the thin metal up and slid her body under and out into the alley. A small group of people had congregated out by the street. They didn't notice her.
Another rumble and quake in the earth almost knocked her off her feet. A fire escape ladder dropped the ground with a clang right next to Lisa. She ran for the group out by the street.
They looked like college kids. A set of two couples, one white, one black, both appeared to have money. Maybe they'd just come downtown for lunch.
“What's going on?” she asked no one in particular.
“The million dollar question,” the young black man said.
“An earthquake,” his girlfriend said.
They gawked down the street at where part of a building had collapsed and a crowd was forming. People milled about, confused. Things like this only happened in movies.
Lisa's instincts told her she needed to get out of here, get out of sight. This was only the beginning. She grabbed a hair tie out of her pocket and put her coarse, dark curls up into a pony tail. She ran up the street, looking for somewhere to hide.
A fire burned in one of the businesses she passed on her left. Some thuggish looking men across the street appeared to be trying to decide if they were going to loot a store. The streetlights were all blinking yellow.
She heard a screeching cry from above her and instinctively thought there was a hawk or eagle or some other bird above her. A glance at the sky caused her to gasp. A black shape flew by with flapping wings the size of a hang glider.
Something huge stepped out of a side alley in front of her. It looked like a gorilla walking upright with long, shag hair that fluttered slightly in the wind. It smelled horrible, like feces, and snarled at her with monstrous fangs.
Lisa stepped back and it lunged for her. She ducked under it's arms and ran forward, past it and across the street toward the thugs.
“Help me!” she cried, hearing the heavy footfalls and grunting from the thing chasing her.
“Get back here, bitch!” Lisa heard from right behind her. Had it spoken to her? That couldn't be. It was a gorilla, escaped from the zoo or something.
The thugs turned to face her and immediately started to back away, preparing to run.
“No, don't!” Lisa begged, but they were already turning on their Michael Jordan's and beating feet out of there. She chased them, followed on down a skinny alleyway.
“Please, help me!” she yelled, desperate to get him to turn around. The guy had dreadlocks and New York Yankees Derek Jeter jersey on.
“Leave me alone, lady!” he hollered back and tried to escape through a door on the right side of the alley. It was locked and he looked behind Lisa in horror and she knew the thing must be right on top of her.
She spun around to face it and instinctively dropped to the ground on her back as she did. Her instincts were right; the thing was already leaping at her. It's powerful body flew past her though, toward Mr. Dreadlocks and slammed the kid against the door, going right for his neck with those vicious fangs, blood spurting back onto Lisa, pouring over its black fur as it fed.
Lisa turned and ran back toward the street.

NOW – CONNOR

Logan's group stood in the street of the subdivision, surrounded by the American Dream, the sun setting in front of them, waiting for demons to attack. Wind hissed through trees full of leaves that were rapidly dying in the sudden change of temperature.
They pulled themselves together in a tight unit, leaving Nehring in the yard of one of the homes they passed. The demons were chittering and cat-calling them, having fun with the group.
“This is not the time to worry about conserving ammo, boys. I want your rifles on full auto,” Logan said. He already had his against his shoulder and a finger on the trigger.
A strange call sounded from one of the demons on a rooftop. A return cry came form the others in unison and they attacked.
The first to confront the small group looked like a green slug with centipede legs. It had writhing tentacles that snaked out from beneath snapping mandibles and a sharp-toothed maw. It screeched as it sped down the wall of a two story brick home and crawled to cut off their path.
“Open fire, boys!” Logan ordered and the three soldiers with automatic weapons cut the thing to green, slime spurting ribbons.
Connor held his gun over his head, pointed at the sky as he tried to determine just how many demons were coming after them.
The closest on was behind them, a bulbous thing with seemingly a million eyes dotting a viscous sac from which sprouted numerous needled tentacles. It oozed toward them in undulating, snail like motions that covered a surprising amount of ground.
Another dropped down right next to their group. It was tall and lanky, with long spindly arms that ended in hands that looked more like octopi with tiny spikes for latching onto. It's head looked like an eyeless skull with skin stretched over it and it hissed and spit something like acid.
Connor stepped out of the protective circle to the rear and fired at the bulbous, rolling monster. It absorbed the bullets, barely flinching and continued it's advance. Connor wondered if he hadn't had the priest bless these bullets, but then the thing stopped and swelled before it's skin split on top and it's insides blew out in to the air.
Warren came running toward the lanky creature with the tentacles hands, holding a hatchet he'd grabbed from the basement they were in and swung it at the demon.
The demon snapped out one of it's arms and latched onto Warren's wrist with it's octopus hand and jerked him forward, baring a nasty mouth full of canine teeth.
Tammy and her muscular frame came to Warren's rescue, slicing the arm off with a butcher's knife. The creature howled at the sky and reeled back.
A loud clicking sound drew Connor to his left and he saw a giant insect like demon, with disproportionately huge lobster claw hands. It had a mottled, armored exoskeleton and a beard of wriggling wormlike appendages that hung from a head like a crab. It clicked it's claws together and it's four legs clattered on the asphalt as it reached out to snatch Gerald.
Logan was there, firing his M-16 on full auto. The bullets seemed to bounce off of the creature's chest and Connor thought he heard it laughing at them.
Manny and Drake teamed up on the one who'd lost it's arms, rushing it and firing point blank into it's snarling, screeching maw. It's head finally exploded, spraying bits of gray gore all over the group.
Connor checked Stefanie, pushed her toward Gerald who took her in under his arm. The malodorous smell of these creatures, like acrid smoke from plastic or rubber burning, began to overwhelm them, clinging to the back of their throats and souring their taste buds. Connor was coughing and he saw all the others were, too. He covered his mouth with his coat sleeve and joined in with Logan, fired his weapon at the creatures underbelly, hoping to find a soft spot.
A new demon dropped out of the sky onto them. It looked like a manta ray, but it's underside held was thin and skeletal. It had a bony, whip-like tail that snapped and curled with a dripping proboscis on it that Connor knew couldn't be good to get stung by.
It swooped down over Logan and whipped it's tail out, the barb at the end thumping into his back.
“No!” Connor yelled and rushed forward to aid him. Connor fired three shots until his ammo was gone, but they found their mark, hitting the soft white underbelly of the manta-demon. It yanked it's stinger our of Logan's back and flew off over the surrounding roof tops with a whine.
Logan didn't slow down, he drew a machete' out from a scabbard strapped to his leg and started hacking at the lobster -thing. The others joined in now, as this was the only remaining demon to make itself known to them, stabbing and hitting, no one using guns anymore, stomping and punching. The thing squawked and slapped at them with it's enormous lobster pincers, knocking first Drake and then Tammy to the ground.
Manny barreled into it and knocked it over and Logan leaped forward to finish it off but the demon knocked his machete' out of his hands.
It clattered to a stop on the asphalt right at Connor's feet. He dropped the gun and picked it up, charging into the fray with abandon. He jumped on top of it and stabbing the machete' into the creature's neck until he felt it hit the pavement underneath.
It moaned and rambled in a language Connor couldn't understand and then he felt it's breath escape in a cold draft that enveloped him briefly and was gone.
“Not bad for a computer guy,” Logan said as he helped Connor off the rapidly dissolving body of the demon. They corpses of these monsters would be reduced to dust in a matter of seconds.
Connor checked himself for injuries and found he was okay. He searched for Logan, found him standing over Warren, who was sitting in the road, clutching his wrist. Connor went to them.
“Are you okay?” he asked Logan, unable to believe the man was walking and talking.
Logan grinned. “Good as gold.” He rapped on his chest which was protected by a Kevlar vest. “Body armor, my friend. We gotta get you some.”
Connor nodded. “Yeah, that'd be nice.”
Logan patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Help me get everyone moving before more of them show up.”

NOW – THE PRESIDENT

They sat in the White House war room, gathered together around a long, oval table with a glossy black finish. A huge plasma video screen in front of the White House cabinet had just finished a brief Power Point display detailing the percentage of functional power plant and vital utility facilities in the continental United States. The recess lights over head cast a dim light on an even dimmer atmosphere. The Chief of Staff, a short, man with a horseshoe of gray hair rimming his head, had just finished telling them that basically, they were at a national security threat level red and the District of Columbia had been put on lock down. He paced along the table, rubbing his chin.
“What about communications?” the Vice-President asked. “I have been able to use my cell since yesterday.”
The Chief of Staff looked down through bifocals at a report that rested on the table in front of him. “Our satellites are off line right now. Our connections with them need to be re-calibrated and reconfigured. We have short wave comms up, but it will be a few hours before we all get our cells back. Unfortunately, the world is in a great deal of turmoil right now and in the private sector ... there just aren't any people worried about their jobs or working on getting wireless and telecommunications up and running right now. Most hard lines are still working, but those are dropping like flies without maintenance.”
The President cleared his throat and turned to his Secretary of Defense. “I get that we're screwed, big time. What no one here has told me is what exactly the hell happened.”
The SecDefense, a man with a salt and pepper comb over and sagging jowls to go with a sagging gut, cleared his throat and stood. “Mr. President, we are monitoring and unprecedented phenomenon that, frankly, will sound quite unbelievable to you.”
“At this point, I'm just about ready to entertain any possibility. Spill it.”
“Have you ever heard the term 'polar shift'?” SecDefense asked. There was a grumbling amongst the other members of the staff.
“Please,” the President said, and held out his hands. “Inform me.”
“It's a rather outlandish theory, but one that has gathered attention from prominent scientists. It involves the idea that the continents changed locations millions of years ago. It could explain many historical mysteries, such as the disappearance of the dinosaurs, stories of ancient advanced civilizations that disappeared.”
The President chuckled. “Sounds like the X-Files.” Everyone else in the room laughed, too, even if out of respect.
A secretarial assistant brought in coffee for everyone and the SecDefense grabbed one and took a quick sip of the steaming beverage.
The President grew serious. “Get to the point. The whole world is crashing down and I want to know what the hell to do about it.”
“Well, our top men are telling us that North America is now in a different geographical location than it was three days ago. A massive shift in the earths crust has taken place and were are now located only a few hundred miles south of the north pole.”
The President's face sagged. “You've got to be ... is there data to support that?”
“It's true. That explains the sudden severe weather change. California is gone, Florida and southern Texas are mostly flooded. New York is under water. You've seen the flooding we've been experiencing here. Temperatures are on average fifty degrees lower than normal.”
“Goddamn.” The President rubbed his tired eyes. “What so we have to do now? And what's with all these reports of monsters roaming the streets?”
The SecDefense walked to the plasma screen and pressed the bottom right corner. A display of the globe appeared. “Let me give you some visuals first. This is where the continents used to be located.” He tapped the screen. A second picture of the globe appeared. The continents all had moved north and to the west. Australia was now in the northern hemisphere.
“We have intelligence that tells us the problem originate here.” He tapped another section of the screen and and the globe moved and spun to show Antarctica, which was now just below the equator.
“An archaeological excavation to locate evidence of an ancient civilization under the ice may have unearthed some type of inter-dimensional portal that is allowing some type of extra-terrestrial beings to enter our world.” The SecDefense let this sink in.
“Christ, this is the X-Files.” The President's face was ashen now.
“It gets crazier,” SecDefense said. There was grumbling and heads shaking across the room. He took another sip of the bitter coffee, burnt the roof of his mouth and then adjusted his decorated jacket, giving them time to take all this in.
“These beings have encountered a number of civilians who we have debriefed. The common belief is that they are demons.” The room erupted and he had to eave his hands to clam everyone down. “I know its hard to accept and we have no proof of anything at this time, but our intelligence and experiences of engagement have shown us one telling fact.”
He looked from face to face of the men who ruled the most powerful country in the world, knowing that if he hadn't lost all credibility with them already, he was about to. “My men have been telling me that the only way to kill these things is to use ammunition and weapons that have been blessed by a priest.”
The room exploded this time, several members of the cabinet standing, pointing, cursing. The President had to stand himself and raise his voice to get the group to quiet down. “Now let the man speak,” the President said. “And please tell us what you're doing about the situation, Mr. Secretary.”
SecDefense thought the the temperature in the room must have risen instantly by about twenty degrees. “We have small squads all across the country rounding up ministers and priests as fast as possible. We're encountering a lot of resistance -”
“Resistance from who?” the President asked.
“From the demons, sir.”
“Christ,” the President said and dropped his head into his hands.
The Chief of Staff spoke next. “Where does this stand as a global threat?”
“We have similar reports from everywhere sir, Russia and Europe seem to be particularly hard hit by attacks. The UN is set to hold a meeting as soon as we can establish a safe place to conduct it. I feel we going to need to react strongly before it gets out of hand.”
“It's already out of hand!” the President snapped. “What about Washington? Why haven't we seen these things here?”
“We have, sir, just mainly outside of D.C. It seems they've maintained a perimeter around the city.”
“What? Why?”
SecDefense put his hands on the table and looked at each man in the room before settling on the President. “We think they are coordinating an attack.”
The President's face paled and he his jaw hung open. “What is our plan? We've got to have something.”
“First off, we think you should get in the air immediately. Air Force One is ready and waiting on the tarmac. Secondly, I've assembled a special task force.”
“A task force?” the President asked. He looked stricken, overwhelmed. “For what purpose?”
The SecDefense pounded a fist on the table. “To find a way to stop this.”

NOW – CONNOR

Connor stood between Logan and Drake as they surveyed the impound lot and the twelve foot high fence with rolled barb-wire at the top. It was almost dark but a few mercury lights had come on and were lighting up the lot well. Every night it seemed to get colder and colder. They were all so bundled up now, you couldn't see much of anyone except eyes and noses.
Inside were numerous cars, trucks, and SUV's. And one mean looking junkyard dog.
“We'll have to kill it,” Drake said matter-of-factly.
Logan let out a sigh. “Hope none of us are dog lovers.”
The brown and white, thick bodied pit bull growled at them on the other side of the fence. It's ribs showed through it's skin.
“It would have to be a hungry one,” Connor added.
“They're all hungry,” Drake said and bit off a piece of beef jerky. He must have an endless supply of that stuff Connor thought to himself.
“Well, we better just do it,” Logan said and drew his hand gun from it's chest holster and pointed it at the dog.
“No! You can't shoot the dog!” Stefanie cried. It was the first anyone had heard her speak in days.
They all turned to see her giving them a pleading look. It started to snow and the light, fluttering flakes that floated around her and drifted in the space between them even made her seem more sympathetic.
Logan walked up to her, a wide, genuine smile on his face. “It's good to finally hear from you again, Stefanie,” he said. “I know it sucks but we have to get some of those vehicles to help us out of here.”
She shook her head of blond hair at him. “No, there has to be another way.”
Connor stepped up, his hand raised. “I have a suggestion.”
Logan turned back to him. “I'm all ears.”
“We have some sedative painkillers in the first aid kit. I don't know how they'll work on dogs, but it's worth a try.”
“How do we feed it to him?” Logan asked.
Connor didn't reply but turned and looked at Drake who was chomping away on the beef jerky.
Drake's hands dropped to his sides and his shoulders slumped. “Aw, hell man, not my jerky.”

“How long will it take to work?” Connor asked as they watched the pit bull chomping away on the jerky they'd covered with the powder from the sedative capsules.
“Who knows?” Logan said, his fingers splayed to hold on to the chain fence links. “The drugs'll probly kill him.”
Stefanie stood a few feet away from them, holding on to the fence and watching intently.
Drake shook his head. “That girl's messed up,” he said in a quiet voice.
“See how you are after losing your entire family,” Connor said, thinking of his own loss. “You'd be messed up to.”
Drake turned and grabbed him by the coat collar. “We've lost a lot, kid, don't ever question that.”
Connor swallowed hard as he looked into Drake's hardened eyes. The man had seen a lot and wouldn't tolerate fools.
“I didn't mean to ...”
“Drop it, Drake,” Logan said and the soldier complied, releasing Connor roughly. “Besides, we got dog yawns.”
The pit bull had stopped eating and was laying on it's belly. I gave a wide, tongue rolling yawn and then dropped it's head onto it's front paws. A few seconds later it's eyes were closed.
“Okay, guys, let's move here. We don't know how long that thing will be down or when our good buddies might show up,” Logan ordered.
Manny and Drake sprang into action, climbing the fence and throwing their battle armor over the barbed wire so they could traverse the very top.
A memory rushed over Connor and he smiled to himself, then grabbed Logan to get the man's attention. “I know how to hot wire a car,” Connor said. “I know how to hot wire a car.”
Logan scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I have a photographic memory,” Connor said. “I saw a television show once where a former car thief showed how easy it was to steal a car. He showed how quickly you could hot wire. I know how to do it.”
Logan shook his head at Connor. “Drake can do it. We don't have time to send you over.”
“Drake thinks he knows how. He said it might take him awhile. I can do this, Logan, I know it. Let me.”
Logan took in a long breath and let it out slow as he looked into Connor's eyes. “What the hell. You try one while he does another. One of you will get it. Go on.”
Connor gave him a quick nod and jumped at the fence, pulling himself up hand over hand as fast as he could. He took his time around the barbed wire, straddling one of the Kevlar vests nervously before he swung over and jumped to the ground inside the lot.
He ran over to join Manny and Drake.
“What are you doing here?” Drake said as he made his way toward a Dodge Ram 4x4.
“I just remembered I know how to hot wire a car,” Connor said with a smirk.
Manny laughed and Drake just nodded toward a Chevy Trailblazer. “Whatever. You give that one a try.”
Connor glanced at the pit bull. It was still sound asleep. He ran over to the Chevy and yanked on the handle. It was locked. Panic overtook him. He didn't know how to jimmy a door lock. He called back to Drake and Manny. “It's locked!”
Manny jogged over, his bulk shifting up and down under the heavy overcoat, a grin on his face. “You so silly sometimes, Connie.” It was what the big Mexican had dubbed him.
Manny raised the butt of his M-16 and smashed in the side window with two quick hits. “There you go,” he said and headed back over to Drake, who was performing the same delicate entry procedure on the Dodge.
Connor opened the door and popped the hood. It was an automatic transmission and he made sure it was in park. He got back out and went to the front to locate the red coil wire. It still amazed him when he got the replays on his memory. He didn't have true photographic memory, just on certain things. For some reason, he would get flashbacks that showed him every minute detail about something he saw or read. There was no rhyme or reason for how it worked, but he thanked God for this one happening at this time.
He found the coil wire on the left side near the center of the engine. He needed a wire to connect the battery to the coil. He got out his knife and found the antenna wire, cut it where it connected to the bottom of the antenna and then yanked on it until he ripped it free of it's connection to the dash.
“No America's Top Forty now, guys, sorry,” he said and then bared the metal on each end of the antenna wire and connected one end to the positive battery lead and one to the positive coil wire.
He lifted his head from under the hood and yelled over to Manny and Drake. “Hey, I need a screwdriver!”
Manny ran over while Drake stayed under the dash board in the front seat where he must have been trying to bypass the ignition system.
Connor took the screwdriver from Manny who was puffing great clouds of breath into the air with all the running around. “Thanks, man,” Connor said and returned under the hood.
Next, he located the solenoid, which he found on the starter. He followed the positive battery cable to the solenoid, then the small wire that connected the solenoid to the start. He jammed the screwdriver between them and crossed the wires and the engine fired up.
“Yes!” Connor yelled. He grabbed the screwdriver and got back into the vehicle.
He checked the gas gage. “Half tank,” he hollered out for the others to hear.
“Great, no get over here and hot wire this one,” Drake yelled back.
Connor left the Chevy running and then took the screwdriver over and got the Dodge started. Manny high fived him and they backed the vehicles out, Drake driving the Dodge, Connor the Chevy. As Drake lined the big truck up and put it in four wheel drive to ram the gate, a demon hopped out from behind a car near the chained entrance.
It was gargantuan, nearly ten feet tall, and looked like a hunched toad standing up right. It had broad shoulders that rose above it's head and a set of three rows of long spines that ran down the length of it's back. It's wide mouth looked like it was smiling with two rows of short, sharp teeth, and narrow eyes sat on each side of gaping nostrils. A long tongue slithered in and out and it flexed webbed fingers at the end of it's thick arms.
“Come out of that tin can so I can feed!” it said in a voice like a rock slide.
Logan was aiming at it's back and the others were spreading out away from the gate, figuring what was coming.
Connor honked his horn to urge Drake on. “Do it! Ram him!”
Logan fired, bullets peppering the monster's back. It jerked it's head around and saw the group for the first time. It laughed at them. “Good, you have women for me to play with after I feed!”
Logan fired more rounds into the things face, but it only laughed more. “I am no lesser demon. Your blessed weapons are of no use against me.”
Drake punched it and the Dodge growled as it's tires bit into the pavement and threw the truck forward. The demon turned back around, but too late, only having time enough to catch the grill of the truck like a football in it's gut. The force drove it back through the gate, snapping the chains holding it together with ease. Drake kept the accelerator to the floor and drove the beast across the street and directly into a row of elm trees that lined the block.
Pinned against the tree, the creature couldn't move. It thrashed it's arms and legs but free itself.
“Come on!” Drake yelled as the Dodge's tires squealed and smoked on the pavement. “Everybody in!”
Logan directed Gerald and Stefanie to join Drake and Manny and he and Tammy ran for Connor's truck as he pulled up just behind the Dodge.
Logan hopped in the front, Tammy in the back. “Go, go, go!” Logan yelled and Connor stepped on the gas, rocketing the Chevy forward and then turning sharply onto Telegraph and heading south.
He watched in the rear view mirror as Drake slammed the truck into reverse and spun it away from the demon who immediately lurched at them as it was freed, slamming a fist into the driver side door as Drake sped away and caving the door panel in. Connor knew that must have hurt Drake.
The monster took up pursuit with great, thunderous leaps that Connor feared would allow him to catch them, but as they approached eighty on the speedometer them beast got further and further away.
“Jesus, Logan, what happened back there?” Connor blurted. “What was it talking about our weapons are useless.”
Logan was shaking his head continuously. “I don't know. I don't know. My bullets didn't phase it and the were hitting him solid. I know they were.”
Tammy was rocking in her seat. “Oh my god, oh my god. This is bad. If the blessings don't work... oh my god, oh my god.”
Connor gripped the steering wheel as wind whistled through the open window next to him. He had to settle down, settle them all down.
“It's okay, “ Connor said. “It was just a fluke. Or the thing was lying. You know how they are. Do you trust them to tell the truth? We saw bullets bounce off that lobster thing, remember? But then we found it's soft spot with a sword. I bet it was just the same deal.”
Logan stared at Connor with a surprised and – Connor hoped – respectful look. Logan nodded in approval.
Tammy stopped rocking. “Yeah, you're probably right.” She slumped back into her seat. “Damn, I need some sleep.”
Logan and Connor shared a knowing look.
“We all need some sleep,” Logan said. “Maybe we can get it on the drive.”
“Good idea,” Connor said. “On to Lansing and Safe Haven. I'll find us a good station.” He almost turned the radio on before he remembered. “Oh yeah, no antenna.” It had an auxiliary port and an old CD player. “Anybody remember their MP3 player?”

NOW – LISA

They called it their 'Sanctuary'. It was where they went together. Just the two of them. To get away from her dad and brothers. It wasn't a secret, but they treated it like on.
Lisa hid inside the parking garage for the Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital, trying to remember where the church was. It was cold, arctic cold. She couldn't imagine where the weather had come from. She guessed hell had finally frozen over.
She looked down from the second floor of the garage, in a cozy spot behind the concrete side wall, sitting on a high step that allowed her head to be just higher than the wall. She could see for several miles up and down Huron street, but she didn't know which way she needed to go to find the old church. Maybe it wasn't even there anymore.
She had a hunch it was, and that her mother was there.
Lisa didn't want to move. The wind couldn't get her here, the cold was almost tolerable. But she couldn't wait any longer. They had a way of sniffing her out it seemed. She needed to keep moving.
Lisa tugged her wool hat down around her ears and tightened the scarf at her neck. It was just a Michigan winter. In July. She'd survived plenty of winters, most in a lot worse condition than she was now.
It was early morning; probably around six am. She had no way of knowing for sure anymore. Early morning seemed to be their least active time. Maybe they had to rest from all the rape and blood drinking.
She made her way down to the street and headed west along Huron. Something told her to go this way. She'd learned to trust her instincts after things had changed. They hadn't let her down yet.
The deserted city was eerie to her. There must be more dead than she wanted to admit. The loss of power and the cold probably killed off most of the elderly and a lot of the kids. The demons must've gotten plenty of the rest.
She passed what had been the Oakland Press on her right. The windows were smashed out in the front and she saw a small group – maybe five people – huddled together inside, asleep or dead, probably a family. She told herself it was a family that had survived and was getting some well deserved rest. It was good to have some hope.
The overpass was what spurred the memory. She thought of many times being stopped at the light and staring at the massive supports, which to her childish mind seemed like castle columns. She thought of how cool it would be to touch them , put her arms around them.
Lisa knew their Sanctuary was just beyond that overpass. She jogged for it, her boot soles stamping softly on the thin layer of snow that covered the sidewalk. The air was crisp, even through her scarf it chilled her lips and nose. She turned right just after the overpass and saw the church only a block ahead.
It wasn't the grandest of Catholic churches, or the biggest, or the oldest. It wasn't special in any way. A single tall steeple, with a smaller one on each corner of the building. No intricate stone work, just a simple brick facade. It wasn't noteworthy in anyway, but it was theirs. Rundown, out of date, but their special place. She knew her mom was there.
Lisa sprinted down the silent street, up the steps and to the front door. It was chained shut. No problem. She knew how to get into places people tried to keep her out of.
She found the side door, the one that led in to the church kitchen and found it open. Guess there's not much reason to lock it to keep out creatures that can fly through windows anyway. She went inside quietly, still not wanting to draw undue attention to herself.
The kitchen had been ransacked for food. Empty cartons and containers were strewn all over amongst pots and pans and silverware. The church wasn't much warmer than outside, but at least the wind couldn't get to her. She headed for the interior of the church.
The double doors to the auditorium creaked when she opened them and she saw her mother slumped forward over the steps to the stage. The huge crucifix that hung behind the podium had been turned upside down by something with superhuman strength. The figure itself had been debased; Christs mouth had been bored out somehow and what looked like a human penis shoved into the hole. Written in large letters across the statue's chest were the words “COCK SUCKER”. Out of habit, Lisa crossed her self at the mere sight of such blasphemy.
She ran to her mom, fearing the woman was dead. “Mama?” she cried and felt tears in her eyes. She grabbed the womans shoulder and pulled her upper body back off the stairs.
Her mother's hat fell back off her head as Lisa did so, revealing curly, gray hair matted and tangled. Lisa thought her mother probably would've said at one time she wouldn't be caught dead with her hair like that. The irony.
“Mama, wake up,” she said and patted her mother's cheek. The woman's skin was warm to the touch. “Mama? Come on, it's Lisa.”
Anthea Rigatos, or Thea to all but her family, fluttered her eyes open. “Baby Lyssy? Is that you?”
Lisa started to cry. “Yes, Mama, it's me.”
“So I did die then. Thank the lord, I'm in heaven.” Thea reached up to touch Lisa's face.