All Hell Breaks Loose

Every step that we took in the summer heat was timid and cautious. The sound of gunfire came in waves. There would be nothing at all for ten or twenty minutes at a time, then it wouldn’t stop for what felt like an eternity. When we’d hear it, we’d duck and run for the nearest cover. Even with the streets seeming otherwise abandoned, we didn’t dare open any houses or venture too far into any buildings for fear of what we might find inside. The stench of sulfur, death, and decay was already more than enough outdoors.

As a child, I’d always had a strange fascination with death. Maybe it’s what drove my choice to go into medicine. But, unlike then, my fascination wasn’t in wondering where we go or what happens to our minds after we die. Instead, I found myself constantly investigating the corpses around us trying to determine how they died. The vast majority of the bodies were human with a few demon corpses very rarely mixed in. All of the victims that appeared to have died on the first day were burned to death, killed with a bladed weapon of some kind, or appeared to have been killed by an animal. When I got the opportunity to finally examine the corpse of an imp while we were hunkered down behind an abandoned swat van, I took as many mental notes as I could about how it could have died. Its body was remarkably warm seemingly hours after its death, but that could have been due to the fact it was left out in the sun. By all appearances, it was killed after being shot multiple times by low caliber rounds. It was easy for me to assume it had taken multiple shots to kill even this comparably tiny creature as I counted five or more entry wounds but only two exit wounds. One in the throat and one in the back of the skull after being shot through the eye. Without proper tools to conduct further investigation, I simply came to the conclusion that the imps were nearly as bulletproof as grizzly bears are alleged to be.

As we continued on, I noticed the stark difference in reactions from my companions. Smalls’s response to seeing hundreds of bodies in a matter of minutes was very typical. If he had much more than granola bars for lunch, it probably wouldn’t have stayed down. He could barely look at any one particular body for more than a moment before turning away. But Evan was a different story. Not once did I see him turn his nose up at the stink of decay. Not once did I see him bat an eyelid over corpses with expressions of shock and terror still visible on their faces. I’d have to ask him about this later. Now didn’t seem like a good time to ask a man with a gun why corpses didn’t bother him.

About an hour into our journey, we reached the halfway point between where we were and the Golden Gate bridge. Hearing copious amounts of gunfire maybe a block or two away from us, we ducked into a back alley and hid as best we could without breaking down any doors or windows. The sounds got closer and closer until we could hear voices mixed in with the gunfire.

“Fall back! We’ve done all we can!” Shouted a man’s voice. The sound of people dying around him and something crashing through the wreckage of cars and buildings came next.

Smalls began making an escape plan. “We should bounce! Just head down there and turn right. We gotta double back a little bit but--”

“I’m gonna go check it out,” Evan interrupted.

“Are you crazy?!” Smalls half whispered, half shouted. Evan ignored the protest and began climbing a drainpipe with seemingly well practiced skill. Smalls just stared in disbelief before glancing back at me. “Fifty bucks says he dies in ten minutes.”

“I don’t have any cash on me, Smalls,” I casually retorted. “But your idea was a good one. Let’s get outta here.”

Before we had taken ten steps down the alley, Evan fired a single shot from his rifle that nearly deafened us. The demon we assumed everyone was shooting at cried out in terrible pain. A few dozen more rounds fired off from the other group shooting at it and the demon fell with a resounding thud. Smalls turned around in his chair and stared in awe and disbelief at the road behind us.

Evan’s head poked out from the rooftops as he shouted down to us. “Head out to the road. I’ll meet you there.”

I paused for a moment before wheeling Smalls around toward the road. He pulled me closer as we headed out of the alley and began speaking in a hushed voice, “There’s something up with this guy, right? It’s not just me being paranoid?”

I simply nodded in agreement, “I’ve already got a few things I wanted to ask him after we got out of the city. I’ll be sure to add this to the list.”

We approached the street cautiously and saw Evan casually conversing with a group of police officers and military personnel. Everyone else seemed to be treating the massive corpse of a demon just a few feet from them as mundane. Smalls and I could scarcely believe our eyes. The officer apparently in charge beckoned us over as we approached.

“Know where you’re headed?” Asked the officer. His name plate read C. Hartford and he was a middle-aged, African-American, mustachioed beat cop that looked very, very tired. It also seemed that he was old enough to be the father of everyone else present. All in all there were a little more than half a dozen police officers and soldiers. Several of them were kicking nervously at the giant demon that lay dead behind them. Just to be sure.

“Unless you have better advice, we’re heading north out of the city,” I replied.

“Well, you’re a smart bunch,” replied the officer. “The last of the first responders are hiding out at Fort Point. We’re trying to get people evacuated before something terrible happens, but it’s going a lot slower than I’d like. All our usual avenues of communication are down too, so we have no idea what the military is going to be doing.”

“What’s the plan after Fort Point? And how do you not know what the military is doing even though you’re clearly working with them?” I asked motioning at the uniformed soldiers behind him.

The officer simply sighed at my cutting questions. “The people at Fort Point should have more of an idea how to help you. I think they have a ferry going to Kirby Cove or something. As far as your second question goes, these boys...” He said while jerking a thumb back at the people behind him, “were some of the first boots on the ground. All they’ve told me is that the military didn’t want to risk bombing civilian targets any more than they initially did, otherwise there would have been more of a response from the Air Force. Their comms are all on the fritz too. We’re on our own and we have no orders from anyone about anything. Look, just keep heading in the direction I told you and everything will be fine.”

“I’m sure it will.” I nodded. “We’ll be on our way then, unless you’re planning on escorting us.” I glanced expectantly at the half-dozen ragged but armed military and police officials. In return, there were only sad looks of disappointment from them.

Hartford shook his head and began gathering up what remained of his crew. “I’d like to escort you, but we can’t. We have a deadline to meet at city hall and before you ask...” He shot a tired glare at me to interrupt any questions I might have. “It’s on a ‘need to know’ basis and you don’t need to know.”

I stopped the officer from leaving and leaned in closer to whisper. “Before you go, I have one more question.” I glanced over in Evan’s direction . He was offering food and water to one of the injured soldiers. His back was turned and I was confident that he was out of earshot. “Have you seen him around here before?”

Officer Hartford turned to look at Evan. “Yeah, a couple times in the last few days. He offered to help us out, but he’s too headstrong. Kept running off at the smallest sounds to see what was the matter. If he had more discipline, I think he would’ve made a good cop if this hadn’t all happened.”

“Have you been noticing anything strange about him, though?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“Strange?” Hartford turned toward me with a befuddled look on his face. “No. If you’re referring to that...” He pointed at the gigantic demon behind him. “He’s gotten that lucky before. More often than not, his gun jams or he misses by a country mile. Honestly, he’s just young, dumb, and brave. It’ll probably get him killed sooner or later. I don’t know how it hasn’t already...” He trailed off and checked his watch. “Pack it up!” He shouted at his squad. “We ain’t got time for this. Civilians best clear the area. Head for Fort Point and stay clear of Golden Gate Park.”

He started helping a wounded soldier limp along before delegating the responsibility to someone younger. The rag-tag team started moving as quickly as they could in the direction of city hall. I turned my attention to the massive Demon lying dead on the ground a few feet away. The thing was over twelve feet tall and wearing incredibly heavy looking medieval armor. It had horns that would put a bull to shame, several rows of razor sharp teeth like a shark, and a pair of large bat-like wings sprouting from its back. Its body was tremendously hot to the touch like a stove burner that had just been turned off after nearly setting a house on fire.

“Any funny names for this one?” Smalls piped up.

Evan turned and gave Smalls a wry smile. “Not really. These big ones seem to command the tiny Imps every once in a while, so I started calling them Overlords. That sounds sufficiently demonic, right?”

Smalls shrugged and said. “Yeah, I think that fits. So, we headed to Fort Point?”

Evan nodded in agreement. “That sounds like the plan. We shouldn’t be too far away now.”

I made a last few mental notes about the corpse before following Evan down the road. It was surrounded by dozens of flattened bullets that had apparently bounced off its armor. There were a fair few holes on its face and wings left by the soldiers but none of the wounds seemed very deep, all except for Evan’s. His shot was the only one to have a substantial exit wound going quite cleanly through the Demon’s eye and out the back of its skull. I started gathering a few fragments of the skull in the hopes that I might be able to do some very basic tests on them later.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Almost like he had eyes in the back of his head, Evan turned to face me. “The Demons seem to be able to tell if you’ve taken trophies. Maybe they can smell it or something, but they will come from miles away if you take those bits and pieces.”

I dropped the skull fragments, stood up, and brushed myself off. “That’s fine,” I said, “but I have a question for you. Why is your shot the only one that looks like it did anything more than piss the Demon off?”

“Wait, are we doing this now?” Interjected Smalls. “I thought we’d---”

Evan cut him off. “You’re right, Smalls. It is a little bit too early for me to answer that question. You are clever. I’ll give you that much, Mariah.” His demeanor and his attitude had changed slightly. It seemed like he was trying to intimidate me. Not very hard, but just enough to get the point across. His normally plucky expression was cold and focused. It didn’t look like he was planning on using his gun any time soon, and I’d be hard pressed to say he’d want to. “Most people will just accept the answer of ‘Dumb Luck’ but I get the feeling that’s not good enough for you. I’ll make you a deal, if we get to Fort Point, I’ll set the story straight. You’ll hear as much of the truth as you can handle. No more, no less. But right now that shot and the dozens of shots from the soldiers are attracting a lot of attention and we need to leave.”

I pondered for a moment. I never liked it when people withheld information for reasons they didn’t want to explain. However, given the current situation, I doubted that he was going to be willing to talk outside of relative safety. I didn’t have much choice except to accept.