Fusion ba-5, page 41
part #5 of Beyong Armageddon Series
Worse, from his vantage point he spied about twenty Mutants on hover-bikes moving among the homes on Lindbergh Drive a quarter mile south as if to flank his forward positions. A Humvee hurried to intercept; its. 50 caliber mounted gun fired furiously. The Mutants returned fire with their oversized and very loud flintlock-style fire arms.
“Listen, Bear,” Duda transmitted. “We’re going to have to fall back real soon unless you can send us some reinforcements-hold on sec…”
The Mutants trying to flank Duda’s troops to the south stopped advancing and not merely because the Humvee killed several of their number. In fact, the bikers turned and sped off from whence they came as if their asses had suddenly caught on fire.
Duda gave his attention to the highway. The minefield had stopped exploding. The Ghouls passing through halted their advance and also fled west.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he mumbled.
Had their defense spooked the invaders? Had their resolve forced Voggoth to rethink his line of attack?
“No,” he said aloud as the truth hit him. “All 4 ^ th Mech units and anyone in the vicinity of Richmond Heights, take cover. I repeat, take cover. Big Bad Wolf is knocking at the door.”
The skyscraper-tall Leviathan stepped forward. Its right foot-something like a clawed elephant’s foot-smashed down on the ultra-modern Civic Center built just off the interstate. Swarms of Ghouls at the front of the advance withdrew west to either side of the gigantic monster where the rest of the St. Louis-bound army waited.
Its slug-like body shimmied and a sound similar to a forlorn air raid siren came from the innards of the Leviathan. The miserable black clouds twisted and turned as the monstrosity gulped air at a rapid pace. As it did, sacs popped up all along its sick skin like boils. The tendons holding the main body to the legs stretched as its belly filled.
Duda raced from the roof with his command staff and descended the stairwells of City Hall. All across the front his soldiers broke for the cover of basements, storm drains, and pre-built shelters. The Bradleys on the Interstate drove east as fast as their engines could go.
The siren-sound stopped. The Leviathan bent forward; stooped, it seemed. A brilliant flash of lightning danced through the heavens chased by a magnificent clap of thunder.
The Leviathan fired a blast of supersonic wind that outraced its own sound. The deadly gust projected out in a cone with Interstate 64 at its center. Every manmade structure-almost exclusively residential homes-between Ethel Avenue a thousand feet to the north and Arlington Drive to the south evaporated into tiny pieces.
Benny Duda-huddled in a restroom in the basement of City Hall-felt the entire building above fall apart like a sand castle in a hurricane. The pressure burst one of his ear drums and would have sucked him away if not for his death-grip on a drain pipe. Two of the other four soldiers huddled with him in the basement fared worse. They went aloft and broke apart into bits before they could even scream.
The sound of the blast came just as the worst of the wind passed; a low howl so deep it made the ground vibrate and played a dull hum on the pipes in the ceiling-less bathroom.
Then it stopped.
Duda-his right hand planted firmly on his burst ear-staggered to what remained of the stairwell. He knew the Ghouls and Mutants would come next, sweeping in and ripping apart the survivors. He had little time to escape and, with his equipment destroyed, could only hope that any of his men who survived the wind would be smart enough to retreat downtown.
As he reached the top of the stairs he paused.
The land had been swept clean. Nothing higher than foundation-level remained of Richmond Heights. The explosive gust covered everything in a dune of dirt like a brown snowdrift. With the exception of a handful of stumps, every tree had been uprooted with an efficiency the most talented landscapers would envy. Slabs of concrete had actually peeled away from the highway.
He glanced east and saw the remains of the wind dying down like a dust storm losing steam. Pieces of Richmond Heights settled over the St. Louis suburbs a mile to the east.
Duda turned his attention west. And froze.
Contrary to past encounters, the Leviathan did not return to standing position. Instead, the massive maw remained fixed on the battleground as if admiring the destruction. With the landscape laid flat, Benny could see the Ghouls, Mutants, warped-Feranites, and Roachbots of the force holding in check.
“What the hell?”
Then it started again. That siren sound. Except this time the Leviathan did not draw breath from the heavens. Instead, a great suction swept from east to west and into the maw of the titan as if racing to fill a great vacuum.
Another dust storm formed, this one churning toward Voggoth’s pet with incredible force. The shards of shattered houses, the twisted remains of guard rails, crushed cars, overturned armored military vehicles, chunks of concrete, the remains of the 4 ^ th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, and Captain Benny Duda flew through the air as the Leviathan gulped them like a musket loading shot.
The sound stopped. Then the Leviathan fired again with not only wind, but the shrapnel of people and things. Yet nothing remained to destroy; nothing for the supersonic gust to knock over.
Once the wind slowed and the fine grains of debris that had been a town and its defenders drifted to earth in a coating of brown, black, and red dust, the army of Voggoth marched forward once more. A wave of mechanical Roachbots joined the Ghouls and Mutants at the front of the army aimed at down town St. Louis.
23. Time Redux
Voggoth filled the chamber, rising between the two containment orbs where the Nix squirmed and boiled sending energy bolts between them. The universe’s original monster towered above father and son. The threats and words of discouragement spoken through the lips of Danny Washburn gone; replaced by a gigantic writhing mountain of venom and anger.
Trevor retreated a step, shocked by the creature in the temple that came as close to Voggoth’s true form as the physical universe would allow. The surface of the thing shimmied as if liquid, yet held together as if solid. He could not comprehend its composition except knowing with a certainty in his soul that the being before him was comprised as much of hatred as any form of matter.
In an instant, Trevor knew he had miscalculated. Too horrible. Too powerful. Too alien in every sense of the word. His instincts screamed run, run, run! but the image of Voggoth so disorientated his puny human mind that he could not move. His body locked in inaction; his thoughts scrambled with fear and revulsion.
Voggoth did-nothing.
The mountainous mass postured as if preparing to roll over the petty humans-tendrils sprouted, uncurled and threatened to strike-but did not.
The skin-if that’s what it could be called-of the devil rolled and bubbled; faces of countless victims pushed from beneath as if begging release. But the master of Armageddon did not strike.
Jorgie Benjamin Stone-the nine year old boy holding a stuffed animal-stepped toward Voggoth.
Trevor found an anchor to reality in his son. He squinted his eyes and focused on JB, ignoring everything else in the chamber as best he could. And while the synapses of his mind continued to misfire, Trevor managed to see what happened with enough clarity to understand.
“You-are-empty,” the child said in a plain, matter-of-fact voice that resonated in Trevor’s thought process like a huge stone splashing into a stream of confusion.
“Jorgie,” Trevor mumbled with the aim of telling his son to ‘stay back’. But he stopped the warning as he saw the false-God tremble at the boy’s approach.
That current of disorientation inside Trevor’s head abated. The confusion-the fear-the revulsion dissipated because they were never real. Just another parlor trick from the master manipulator: the only cards Voggoth could play in the universe of the living.
JB dropped his plush bunny. The rabbit and its tightly-wrapped blanket fell to the temple floor. With both arms free, Jorgie lunged at Voggoth, reaching with open hands.
“I am life,” he said with an obstinate tone worthy of the most stubborn child.
His human flesh touched the abomination. Life collided with anti-life. The energy of the living rushed to fill the void. The giant shivered. A flash came from the point of contact. Jagged bolts of power engulfed the massive entity and conducted across its being and merged with the forces emanating from the captive Nyx.
Trevor stepped toward his son as those waves of energy engulfed the boy. But while Voggoth shriveled and thrashed as if trying to escape, Jorgie basked in the light of the discharge. The touch had released a power within. A power that overwhelmed the monster and engulfed the orbs above.
An image of perfect black-of someplace devoid of light-formed in the vortex between the contained Nyx. The false-god collapsed upon itself, spinning and shrinking and finally slipping out of the universe, chased from the world of the living by the touch of a child.
“Jorgie! Jorgie!”
Energy crackled around JB, stretching to the temple heights in continuous bolts and surrounding the pair of spheres up there. Those spheres splintered and fell apart. The oily-black Nyx escaped, stretching toward the boy like predators leaping at prey.
Trevor’s son kept his hands aloft. Energy filled the temple, forcing his father to drop to the ground and cover his head. That energy stopped the diving Nyx in mid-air. The cloud-creatures froze in place, captured again not by a physical barrier but by the force radiating from Jorgie.
“Father! I can feel it, Father! I am-I am becoming whole…”
Trevor took to a knee and gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the power his son wielded. The energy strands between the creatures formed a bridge again, and once more images of the past played.
“It’s still open, Father.”
Jorgie did not appear in pain, but a look of stress draped over the boy’s face, as if he held aloft a great weight but one supported by his mind, not muscles.
The Nyx struggled against these new bonds but could not gain freedom.
“He was taking from before, Father-reaching back and bringing his monsters here-he was cheating, Father. He was breaking the rules!”
The portal in the buzzing lines of energy opened to a waterfront of shops and restaurants and the baseball stadium named Camden Yards. The city of Baltimore. Those storefronts and parks teemed with monsters from the void. Trevor remembered Reverend Johnny finding and exterminating one of The Order’s outposts in that city.
Trevor realized-given another moment Voggoth would have pulled those monsters from Baltimore and deposited them outside the temple as reinforcements for the ongoing battle. Shepherd and Johnny would have found nothing; just like his Generals had found empty cities in Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Grand Forks when they had expected to find hordes of Voggoth’s forces.
The history they lived when finding those empty cities came from Voggoth’s action in the here and now; in the temple: what the Gods of Armageddon had referred to as ‘local linear time’ on this Earth-humanity’s host world-when Trevor eavesdropped on their gathering last year.
He understood.
“Jorgie, listen,” he spoke calm but firmly to his son; a difficult task given the chamber full of energy, the Nyx trying to pounce, and his son’s fascination with the power surge. “You’re a link in the chain! You have already done this. You have to do it now or everything will change.”
The image morphed to a view of the present. Outside the temple, lines of European infantry slowly retreated before the horde protecting the structure. Armand’s FAMAS rifle fired round after round slaughtering monsters wholesale but too many remained. Artillery positions on the ridge were overrun-motorcycle cavalry charged desperately into the advance but could not stem the tide.
“I don’t understand.”
“You have to do what Voggoth did. You can go back, Jorgie. You are the ark!”
The boy absorbed what his father said and as he did his eyes widened with a revelation and with fear.
“Father-he said he went looking for Mother. That bad Missionary Man-he said he went looking for Mother to kill her and me while I was in her belly.”
Trevor stood. He felt pinpricks against his skin and the hairs on his arms stood straight like needles.
“Then save her, JB. You have to go back and save her or you will never exist and none of this will have happened.”
“I don’t-I don’t know if I can.”
“You are in control, JB. Concentrate and use your mind to go back-farther than Voggoth went-go back to the beginning.”
His son’s face contorted with concentration and frustration.
“Easy, Jorgie.”
“I can’t reach it-it’s there but I can’t reach it-it’s like I’m being blocked!”
Trevor glanced up at the rumbling black clouds. They struggled in the grip of the energy field-and against the child’s will.
Trevor narrowed his eyes and urged, “Take it from them, Jorgie. It’s time to be strong-stronger than them. If they won’t let go- hurt them.”
Jorgie’s eyes found the pair of cloud-creatures suspended in the air above as if encased by another pair of spheres but these of energy.
“I want to go back,” he growled at them and stuck out his lip. “I want to GO BACK!”
The clouds twisted and a nightmarish moan escaped from a chorus of vaporous faces forming one after another in the inky mists. Flashes-the smell of something foul burning-the storm of energy raged in the space between the two paralyzed Nyx. Images came and went one after another after another. Between the bright flashes and the speed of change, Trevor struggled to identify the images.
“I can reach out-I’m looking for Mommy.”
“Concentrate, Jorgie! Make them take you where you want to go.”
An oil platform in the North Sea. Workers in yellow hardhats battling strong winds and raucous waves-gone in an instant leaving behind empty decks.
“It’s not easy, Father,” the boy pleaded in frustration. “Everything keeps spinning and moving. I reach out for her and then-and then she’s gone and it’s someone else…”
Calmer waters-that same platform off in the distance-dozens of green coffins burst into existence in a different time and sink beneath the waves to a watery grave.
“Father! I killed them! They’re gone-I can’t do this!”
“You already have. Keep trying!”
A magnificent temple dominated by a Kmer-style tower with two sets of steep steps leading to terraces. Four smaller prangs surrounded the main tower, each decorated in seashells and porcelain. Tourists dressed in a variety of colorful, warm-weather clothing swarmed the grounds moving between somber-looking Buddhists. Then, in an instant, they vanished.
“I can grab them, Father, but it’s like scooping sand. What I do grab feels like it’s slipping through my hands.”
Jorgie’s eyes closed and he concentrated his will on the task. Trevor saw fatigue and aggravation battering his son. He wanted to grab him, pull him from the energy field, and comfort him in his arms. But he knew he could not. His son had a role to play; a power that needed to bloom if humanity were to survive the day. No matter how hard-no matter the pain-no matter the number of failures, Trevor knew he must let his son try.
The tourists and worshippers re-appeared along the banks of the Chao Phraya, not far from the temple at a time after the armies of Armageddon had descended upon the Earth. The cluster of emerald sarcophagi appeared in the midst of a pack of monstrous Jaw-Wolves playing with the bones of victims in a riverside park.
“Jorgie-Jorgie listen to me,” Trevor took a deep breath, held his hands palm-up in a calming manner, and spoke to his son in his best father’s voice. “Think of a place first, Jorgie. Don’t worry about time or where to go, think of place. Think about home, JB.”
“I-yes, okay, Father, I understand.”
Trevor understood. Voggoth had created this gateway by enslaving the powers of the Nyx. Jorgie jumped in mid-stream, commandeering the mechanism but without any real control. It amazed him that JB could do so much with no preparation. Yet if history were to be fulfilled, he would need to do more. Trevor could not fathom what would happen if he pulled Jorgie from the energy pool before he completed his task, but he had to believe that the world outside the temple would change drastically. All their success to date might be wiped clean and any chance at saving humanity would vanish as quickly as the ‘ark riders’ had vanished in the days before the invasion.
“You’re starting in the right ‘when’, Jorgie,” Trevor said as he remembered disappearances in Norway and Thailand during those early days. “But you’ve put them back too early.”
“I can’t control this.”
“Yes, you can. The same way you controlled Voggoth’s machines on the island last year. I have confidence in you.”
JB-his eyes still closed-muttered, “I’m in the right when…”
A spinning globe stopped on the savannahs of Africa. An entire village vanished.
“I can’t hold them for long.”
“Can you move them somewhere, Jorgie? Can you take them to a different ‘where’?”
”I’m trying-I’m trying…”
The villagers re-appeared in cases of green in a wooded patch not far from the remains of burned and collapsed huts and buildings; something had come through and destroyed their homes. Before the image changed, Trevor saw a reason for hope: he saw a group of camouflage-wearing African troops riding in Jeeps approach the still-steaming vessels. If this was a scene in the time since Armageddon’s start, then perhaps these soldiers were survivors, too.
“Jorgie! That’s it! You did it! You pulled them forward through time to when they would be safe. But think about places closer to home. Think about your mother.”
Flashes of cities, mountain towns, seaside villas, campgrounds-they came and went in quick succession.
Wrigley field-thousands of fans and two baseball teams ceased to exist in the summer of the invasion-and reappeared in the streets of the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago; a neighborhood teeming with alien wildlife.
