Alan Dale - Death Nation's Army 01 (3 page)

Roxanne screamed again.

“
Shut the fuck up!” The one with the name of London planted firmly on his name plate, said.

The other soldier moved toward Roxanne and drove the butt of the rifle into her face knocking her backwards. Both soldiers laughed. They laughed.

Abe struggled to turn to face them.

“
She’s pregnant…please…” Abe coughed. Both soldiers turned toward him, London advanced forward. Abe could see the other two soldiers on the helicopter leave the cockpit. He could also feel the shift of the air from above.

Another dot.

More were coming.

“
Did you say something, grandpa?” London snickered as he approached, automatic trained on Abe’s forehead. He looked over and saw the bleeding, dying body of Darryl.

“
Did you have to shoot the appetizer in the chest, Donovan?! I mean seriously!”

The other soldier cleared his throat. “Sorry. I aimed for his shoulder. He moved.”

Abe kept himself upright on his left hand as he lifted himself further.

What the Hell.

“
No he didn’t,” Abe whispered loudly.

London, not knowing what was said, but knew something had been, crept closer.

“
Come again, Moses?”

“
Your boy over there,” Abe nodded toward Donovan. “Is a lousy shot.”

“
What the Hell?” Donovan moved away from the couple and over to Abe, rifle trained to kill. “Shut your fucking mouth. He moved.”

“
He didn’t.” Abe spat at the ground. “You just suck.”

Donovan seethed and stepped forward, trigger finger ready. London stopped his progress with an arm across the other soldier’s chest.

“
No dumb ass. You already may have ruined one of the appetizers over there,” London looked over at Darryl. “They only go for live ones.” He then looked over at Abe. “Like this one.”

It really happened so fast. Abe being grabbed by the collar and Donovan raising him to his one good foot while the other protested in agony. It really hurt. Abe enjoyed the pain. It meant he was still alive.

Not like those things on the bad side of the wall.

Of course that was about to change.

He could hear the panicked screams from below, the pops from guns above, the scampering, retreating footfalls of those on the good side.

And the growls.

The hungry moans for food. They kept getting louder. Closer. Donovan stopped at the edge of the roof and looked down at the bad side and smiled. He pulled Abe close to him and pointed at the older man. Dozens of scrats reached up hungrily, lustfully.

It was food.

It was survival.

I am now…food.

Abe saw the
the other helicopter landed one roof over and more soldiers stepped out, shooting.

Killing.

“
How can you do this,” his eyes met London’s standing only feet away.

London looked hard at Abe, neither emotion nor reaction of any kind bled through to his face.

“
I don’t think about it really," London admitted. "The real question is why shouldn't I?"

 
“
You can’t do this!”

“
Can’t I?” London asked sounding almost serious. “Will you pay my bills? Will you keep my family alive if I don’t?” Pause. “That’s what I thought.”

Abe began to buckle at the knees. The pain was too much. Of course that would change soon, huh?

“
We are human beings! You are a human being!” Abe pleaded, voice weakening.

London hesitated. He looked over the edge toward the scrats down below. He smiled. It was almost a smile of seeming irony. Was that a frown? Was the soldier sad? London spat at the creatures and looked back at Abe.

“
Tell me…since when did being a human being,” he took a breath either for effect or just because. “Mean much for humanity anymore?”

Abe hesitated. Nothing more to say. Nothing left could be. He was going to die. Just like that.

 
London turned and looked toward the other two soldiers with them.

“
Open the gates.”

Roxanne screamed again.

It was Abe’s turn to join her.

“
And take that one,” pointing at Darryl. “He’s still breathing. Maybe they’ll accept one almost past the due date. You know how they like ‘em.”

“
Warm to warm enough,” Donovan nodded.

Roxanne screamed again.

“
And please offer her up as a main course already!” London added and walked away.

Abe looked at Donovan. The soldier looked ready to do whatever it was he would do next. But part of him, Abe hoped, was not enjoying this. Maybe somewhere, somehow, somebody would stop all this.

Somebody.

A scuffle.

Roxanne’s screams. Dragging of two sets of feet, one furiously fighting, the other submissive. Abe barely could catch it, but he saw Darryl’s body get tossed below -- to the bad side -- and it only took moments for so many of those scrats to get to him.

He was near death and too weak to scream.

His eyes said it all.

His eyes.

His eyes.

His eyes.

The pain he must be feeling. That I soon will be feeling.

Roxanne was next. She went down fast. She fell hard into the group of savages. She never stopped screaming. Well not at least until Abe saw the one bald scrat with a gash the size of a magazine in the side of his torso, grab her neck and rip it out, disconnecting the head from body. She stopped screaming then even if the blood only flowed harder.

The poor baby…

It really happened so fast.

Donovan looking below, smiling -- or was it a grimace -- and looking over at Abe.

“
I have my orders…”

That was before he gave that little, death, push.

Abe fell.

 
It took so long really.

Or was he just hoping it was taking so long? Maybe he just wanted things to take as long as possible just so they wouldn’t go as fast as they really should. As fast as they really did. By the time he hit the mass of rotting bodies below, Abe realized he wanted the sands to run out soon, fast.

Now!

Many would go into the shock at the sight of seeing their blown out lower leg get ripped off the rest of his body by what looked like a teenager with ferocious acne and half a face missing.

Shocking, really.

It really happened so fast.

Really it did.

The growls came louder. The wet sounds of his flesh being pulled off of his body, his bones, off of him, came quickly and rapidly.

It really happened so fast.

Really it did.

He could still faintly hear the screams from the good side, not so good anymore, as the soldiers were obviously readying to open the Heavenly Gates to those who weren’t busy eating him.

Or Darryl.

Or Roxanne.

Or the baby.

The Heavenly Gates…no longer.

Is that where I am now due? Or do I come back in a body, a host of Hell?

It really happened so fast.

Really it did.

Abe’s stomach was peeled open and he was dying because of a monster.

Problem was the monster wasn’t the one eating him. This one still possessed a pulse.

A pulse that with each beat there is death.

Now it was Abe's turn to die.

It really happened so fast.

Really it did.

His liver.

Really. It did.

His intestines.

Really.

So fast…

So fast…

So fast…

His eyes.

Really it did?

Please…

A hand.

Reaching.

Fumbling.

It nervously gra
sped for the heavy padlock which long separated
The Heavenly Gates
from a dance with the undead and a false sense of security.

The gun pointed at the thin, obviously hungry, middle-aged man, didn’t help his need for calm. Rotted, decayed hands reached through the bars as the man struggled to get the key into the lock. One turn. One pull. One entry.

So many sentenced to death.

The man, a father, a husband – or at least he used to be – took one look back over his shoulder at the NWO soldier, rifle aimed steady, inches away from his impending death by teeth.

By chewing.

“
Open the fucking lock,” the soldier demanded.

Clarity. Realization. Fear of his maker.

Whatever.

The man – at first bent over, hovering over the lock, hands from the bad side swiping through the gate, attempting to get to their next meal – stopped.

He stood. The man stood. Gun in his face, the man stood. Raising his left arm, keys in hand, directly in front of him.

Cling, cling.

The drop of the keys to the ground. A forlorn smile of knowing. Pride, whatever was left, remaining intact for those last seconds the man had left on this earth.

“
You want to serve us up?” the man looked down at the keys, voice shaking. “You invite the guests then.”

Solider becomes unhappy.

Man doesn’t care. He even smiles, even if it’s only a little one.

“
You coward,” he tells the soldier.

Explosion of a gunshot and the man falls backward into the gate. He can’t bounce forward as the searching hands grab a hold through the gate holding on to their next meal. Their reprieve from dying a death so delayed.

The man started to look down and saw the bullet hole in this left thigh, the blood flowing, and the sound of the scrats going into the frenzy associated with fresh kill.

That kill, is me. I am the trophy.

The soldier nudged him aside and approached the gate, bent down, and picked up the keys.

Not able to look at his leg anymore – at least two scrats grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back up against the bars – the man saw the NWO hellion walk, so close, so close, to the gate.

Why aren’t they reaching for him too? Why not him? Why just me?

Me…

The click, the turn, the tug, the snap.

In a moment the gates would open.

They were all going to die.

The man felt the need, the overflowing hunger of the scrats.
Were those teeth against my back?
They were trying to bite him through the bars, they could not wait.

Once the gates opened their sense of survival will be magnified.

We…are all going to die.

As the gate slowly swung open the man looked up, ahead, yards in the distance he could see. The soldiers held at least a dozen of
The Heavenly Gates
residents in a small, human circle. All of them wounded. Bullet holes in their legs, arms, lower torso. Rendered too weak to move, too defeated to run.

There were more of them, the occasional pop of a rifle told him some of those within
The Heavenly Gates
were going to go down with a fight.