Chapter Nineteen

Viata mea este futut.

There’s a moment you know, you’re fucked. If I’m being honest, the whole being trapped with two psychos and two hostages should’ve given me clear warning about my future. Or the visions.  Really, looking back, it seems like my whole life had a neon sign pointing at it saying, “You’re so fucked!” Unfortunately, my situation doesn’t seem like it’s going to be improving anytime soon.

Basically, this moment right now, is when it really hit me just how far down my life has gone. Stuck by a broken down hearse, a fucked up psychopath and a vaguely familiar pissy blond girl (Who, I should mention, is a hostage). With f*****g angels literally coming to kill them. Not only that, they’re relying on Blaze’s ambiguous, “We’ll go find some help!” What help?! What the f**k is going to help us?!

This is just one of the many moments in my life where I honestly wish I was sleeping. And I have some really s****y dreams.

I awkwardly glance at Ripper and Coral. Then around us. I think we’re in Quebec? I mean, I was running, screaming or sleeping this entire time. Keeping track of where we’re driving or what town we passed is pretty unimportant.

“F**k- Look!” Coral points to a figure outlined in the thick fog. It’s obvious what it is.

“That’s our cue.” I mutter softly. Time to get this s**t on the road. I turn my head to see Ripper vibrating with anticipation. Or something else. Who knows with that kid.

I jog to the back seat of the hearse, ripping the door open and reaching in for the stolen loot. I pull the bag out and quickly pick a short range pistol. Not really what I’m used to, but any rifle would take far too long to set up right now. I’m hoping for a CZ 75 or anything I’m used to using in a combat situation. But Jesus, I don’t have time to be picky.

I pick the reliable Beretta M9 and shove a Glock at Coral. She looks at it in dismay.

Ripper eyes the revolver, I zip the bag up quickly.

“We have no cover here.” I look around. Unfortunately it seems like rural Quebec wasn’t built for superhuman combat. I groan in annoyance.

“We should go behind one of these houses,” Coral says, squinting at the hint of houses in the fog. Honestly, is Ripper doing that?

“We can only go if you give me a gun.” Ripper says, eyes filled with delight.

“Nope.” I turn to Coral, “Let’s go. Ripper, give us cover.”

“Give me a gun.” His eyes aren’t delighted anymore. No, even I can tell he looks dangerous. The weird fashion can’t hide just how unpredictable he is. In Romania we’d call him, ‘Dus cu pluta.’ Or ‘gone with the raft’. Which just means he’s f*****g loco.

“Do you want to die here?” Coral says, looking around nervously.

“Is that a threat?” He smiles. I grit my teeth in disgust.

“Shut the f**k up Ripper, we have to go.” The feeling of being watched crawls over me. Being out in the open next to a broken car is the worst possible place to be right now. I pull the bag of guns closer to me. Ripper can suck it up. If he wants one, he has to go through me. Ripper with a gun is asking for trouble. For everyone involved.

Ripper’s lips turn up, like a pout. His moods are violent, but this time. It’s a good thing. I ignore him. The fog gets even thicker and I hope the shapes in it are just my hyper active imagination.

The fog gets thicker around us as Ripper shelters our path. I grab Coral and we run through the thickest of the fog towards one of the houses. If we’re not so exposed we can get a game plan together and hope we won’t die.

A silhouette in the fog is a little too close for comfort. Their eerie inactive bodies make it feel like they’re just observing what we’ll do when panicked. Like an experiment. I curl my lip and bring up my left hand, complete with a gun. I shoot, not aiming perfectly, but I manipulate the bullet. Curving it toward the body and-

The creature disappears. I curse under my breath. These fuckers are playing games with us.

A sharp pain explodes in my head. I see myself falling to the ground. I don’t feel the pain of my body hitting the ground. My name is called out.

Then black. Just the abyss; a common ally. There are no angels or demons here. Not here.

But I hear a distant cackling. It sounds like my voice. But I don’t have a voice. Or a body. I’m a vessel. One for communication and guidance. Or deceit and sin. It changes, the friendly blackness shifts into a red liquid. Blood.

The blood is more vibrant than in reality and it suffocates me. It’s almost an ocean, salty and red and each drop of it holds someone’s pain. A clap of black.

It’s not blood anymore. It’s fire. Blaze is screaming. There are more angels then we’ve ever seen before. Pain is exploding.

I hear myself cry out. I’m crawling away from a cloaked creature, I’m trying to teleport, my body flickers in and out of existence. The angel’s deformed hand holds onto a finely detailed sword. It inhumanly chuckles at my attempt at escape.

Suddenly it’s beside my body. It stabs the sword into my torso. Everything goes black again.

“STOP!” Someone yells. I yell.

Gun fire goes off around me. I open my eyes quickly. Wetness is on my cheeks, wincing, I wipe it off and look around. Well, this is interesting… Chaos is around me. Wind whips across my skin and it’s difficult to see. I’m not too sure how I ended up here, but if I can do anything, I can roll with the punches.

A short blond girl is standing in front of me. Like she’s protecting me. Ha, cute. But she’s holding the Glock wrong, and is shooting at random. She definitely doesn’t have an eye for this stuff.

I stand up, chuckling. Walking over to her, I tap her shoulder.

She turns wildly, “Fabian, you’re awake!” A shock of Lightning strikes close to us, I jump. Laughter echoes around the space, she sighs, “F**k. Do something.”

I purse my lips, “I don’t think you know how to use that, honey.” She narrows her eyes at me. Alright then. “Here give it to me.” I offer, kindly.  

She stares at me with a weird look in her eyes, “Just use yours.” She points to the Beretta on the ground. I sigh. What a boring gun, really.

I slip closer to her, and reach my arm around her shoulders. She should know how to shoot straight at least. I put my hand over hers on the gun, straightening the aim. I pull her other hand onto it.

“Like this.” I pull away. She’s not my type. Too small.

She looks at me weirdly again, but gets distracted by one of the creatures coming toward us after getting away from the lightning guy.

I pull a different gun from the bag, the first machine gun that catches my eye. I turn it towards the vague shapes. 

I’m pretty sure I know what I’m supposed to be shooting at.

I click my teeth as the rebound hits my body. I’m gonna be sore tomorrow. That’s how I like it.

They don’t seem to be outwardly attacking us. I have a hunch that would be a little more intense. A hunch.

I close my eyes. Imagining myself within the madness. The eye of the storm. When I open my eyes, I know I’m there. Whirls of action surround me, the fog is denser and the lightning is brighter. I see a guy who’s probably having a little too much fun.  

He looks insane. The insane ones are the most fun. I wonder distantly how he can fight anything wearing those clothes. But he certainly seems interesting. I’ve always liked interesting. His eyes reflect the intensity of the storm waging around him. Sometimes he hits them, sometimes he doesn’t. His arm looks injured, but he’s smiling.

A creature gets away from the storm and comes towards me. I mentally grip a chunk of the empty house close to us and slam it into its body. It goes down. I raise my gun and keep shooting. It only seems like they’re multiplying faster and stronger every time one disappears. It feels like a f**k fest of creepy a*s creatures and just the 3 of us. It almost feels like they might overwhelm us soon.

The crazy guy is losing speed, they just keep coming quicker. It starts to rain. Thick and heavy around us.

“Yo! Do you really need the rain?!” I yell at him as I shoot another ‘thing’. I bring my hand to my hair and sigh pitifully.

At least I haven’t run out of bullets. That would be a s**t show. I shoot off another few rounds into the vague body parts of a creature too close for comfort.

I pull the trigger again. The familiar click of an empty gun answers me.

I ran out of bullets.

S**t.

I could teleport out of here. But there’s so many of them I can’t see an escape. So I teleport around in the space I can see, hoping I can evade the majority of them.

The rain thickens the inability to see and I stumble. A searing pain comes down on my leg. Something just went through my leg.

“S**t,” I pant. I need to get out of here.

“WE’RE BACK!” Heat surrounds us. And a significant number of the creatures disappear.

"MARKY BABY!" The weird guy screams, and eases up on the rain. The space clears.

I manage to see an out. I take it last minute. It feels like my body is being dragged through a tight space. When I open my eyes I'm close to a car...A hearse? An ordinary kid looking panicked is behind the hood, doing something to it. I put pressure on the gross slice on my thigh, it’s uneven and choppy.

When I turn I see the origin of the heat. Which is actually intense fire. It's burning the bodies quickly, enough to give the other guy leeway.

“I…I think it’s done?” His voice is quiet and squeaky, obviously he didn’t notice me yet.

“You gonna tell them that?” I say.

He jumps. Really high actually, maybe he’s just easily startled.

“Uh, are you-“

“Mark! Are you done?” The hotter (literally) girl yells across the makeshift battlefield.

He nods, then realizes they can’t see him, “Yeah! C’mon!”

The blonde one makes her way over first, carrying the bag of weapons. She shoots at a wayward creature on her way. Her aim’s way off. I manipulate the bullet into the creature’s body for her.

Eventually everyone gets away, the fire girl sends a last burst of flame into their bodies. Then hurries into the hearse.

The nervous guy (Mark? What an ugly name.) is in the driver’s seat, “Please work, please work, please w-” The engine roars to life. Everyone whoops with joy.

Fire girl turns to me once the panic leaves the Hearse’s atmosphere, her eyes widen at the blood around my leg, 

“Are you alright, Fabian?”

I wink at her, “Just a paper cut, cutie.”  

A few eyes turn to look at me weirdly. I smile awkwardly at this group of familiar strangers I just joined.

“So, where are we headed next?”