They were everywhere.
We struggled toward a patch of higher ground. It was only a clump of mud, but it was the most defensive position we had. Milo began to shake horribly, as if he were having a seizure. "Poison," he said through gritted teeth. "Drop me."
"No, you can make it!" I shouted.
"O-O-wen. D-d-drop me," he ordered. His beard was running red with the blood coming from his mouth and staining his teeth. The powerful poison was tearing him apart. I did as I was instructed. Milo fell against a tree, and slid to the ground, pulling up his rifle. "Tell Shawna I l-l-love her," he gasped.
Julie tried to turn back for him, holding out a hand, pleading for her friend. I grabbed her by the arm and continued toward the high ground. There was nothing that we could do. Milo raised his carbine one-handed and fired, keeping the monsters at bay so we could escape. His AR emptied, he tossed it aside, shakily drawing his 1911. We kept moving as the shots echoed behind us. Several fast-moving demons descended upon the red-bearded man, and the last I heard was a thunderous chain of explosions as he detonated the grenades on his vest.
"Bastards!" Julie screamed as she stroked a demon to the ground with the stock of her rifle. I put my boot on its carapace and forced it down, as she put a finishing shot into the struggling thing's throat. We were both sprayed with yellow bile.
I passed Albert Lee's dismembered body, killing the distracted monster that was tearing at his flesh with a single shot to its pulpy brainstem. I loaded a fresh grenade and launched it into the horde following us. It killed four of them and barely made a dent.
I saw Skippy disappear under a pile of the creatures. His brother Edward jumped in to save him, blades singing through the raindrops. I had never seen any living being move with such fluid grace and deadly speed. Claws and heads were severed away in a remarkable dance of destruction, spraying orange fluids high into the air. Edward screamed an unearthly battle cry as he hacked through the beasts, spinning, ducking, always swinging and killing. The severed limbs and twitching corpses began to pile up.
Finally a spine appeared in Edward's back, and then another in his thigh. The orc began to falter. I fired a magazine into the fray, killing a demon with each shot, but it was too little, too late. Edward kicked a monster off of Skippy's body, and stood over his brother protectively. Shouting at the onrushing creatures, he slashed at them until finally he was washed away in a tide of crimson bodies.
The brothers died with great honor.
We reached the high ground. Our Alamo. Our Thermopylae. A twenty-foot pile of mud and sticks. There were only a handful of humans left. I could actually hear Lord Machado's laughter.
But the damned die hard.
CRACK. BOOM!A pile of the thick-set armored demons exploded as Holly's RPG struck amongst them, throwing heavy limbs and bone plates high into the sky. "Take that, you miserable sons a bitches!" she shouted as she tossed the spent launcher aside and pulled a grenade from her vest. She pulled the pin and hurled it into the swamp. At this point the enemy was so thick that we did not need to aim. It erupted in a shower of sparks and fragments.
A nearby Fed was pulled from his desperate hiding place in the crack of a tree trunk. He was dragged screaming into the horde, and violently pulled apart. He spasmodically jerked the trigger of his rifle. The stray bullet struck Holly Newcastle in the forehead, yawed and tumbled violently through her brain tissue, and exited at the base of her skull. She fell to the ground in an instant lifeless heap.
I crawled up onto the mud, shooting the closest demons, blasting a fast mover as it leapt toward us. Julie was still by my side as she struggled to her feet and tossed another frag. I instinctively shot an incoming acid bomb out of the air as if it were a clay pigeon. The remains showered down amongst the creatures. Julie began to pull and toss grenades from my webbing as I kept shooting.
As I reloaded, I saw Trip curled up near the summit. Torn and bloodied from dozens of claw marks, he jerked violently as the poison in his body finally stopped his great heart. I screamed in vain, flipped my shotgun to full-auto and sprayed the onrushing horde. Out of 12-gauge shells, I dropped Abomination and pulled my STI.
Sam Haven stood at the top of the hill, roaring like a berserker, a Fed rifle in each hand, pointing in opposite directions and firing downward into the throng. He was surrounded by a cloud of spent brass and a stream of profanity so creative and vile that it was destined to travel up to the heavens and pervert whole other worlds. The brave cowboy was silenced in the flash of an acid grenade.
Harbinger appeared out of nowhere. He flung his empty tommy gun aside, hard enough to shatter the head of an armored demon. "Julie!" His eyes flashed yellow. Multiple spines had been driven deep into his back and sides. "Julie!" He drew his revolver, dropped six monsters in less than a second, and reloaded another moon clip in a blur of motion. He fought his way toward us, batting aside a leaping demon with a bare fist. "I'm sorry!" he shouted as he reached us, a veritable wall of monsters at his heels.
"Don't worry about it, Earl," she answered with a slight smile as she tossed our last grenade into the alien horde. "I always figured it would be something like this."
Harbinger only nodded. He dodged under a swinging talon, grabbed the demon by its lower jaw and wrenched its head until the twin spinal columns snapped. Hurling the dead thing back into the crowd, he roared for more.
Franks pulled himself up to the top. Blood was streaming down his lacerated face, and his armor was smoking and burning with acid. A spine pierced his bicep. With no display of emotion he grabbed the shard and wrenched it free in a splash of red. The injured arm hung limply at his side. He drew his Glock and nodded at me. "Die with dignity," he stated simply. Behind him the last of his men looked around in panicked bewilderment, put his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Franks cringed as his last charge died. "Not like that." The dark Fed fired into the masses, dropping onrushing demons with unflinching accuracy.
There were only the four of us left.
Lord Machado laughed. His physical body was hundreds of miles away, but his spirit, his presence, his consciousness was there with us. He laughed in triumph. He gloated. His pride swelled at the defeat of his greatest enemies.
We drew back to back at the top of the little mud hill, stepping over the lifeless bodies of our friends. Franks' slide locked back on his Glock. He calmly dropped the magazine, placed it in the crook of his lifeless arm to hold it, grabbed another mag, inserted it, snapped the slide closed, and went back to shooting. A launched spine struck him in the wrist, traveled up his arm, and exploded out his elbow, opening his forearm like a gutted fish. The gun dropped from his deadened hand.
"Oh well," he said, both arms hanging limp, drizzling blood, at his sides. With no hesitation he charged downward into the horde, kicking a monster back with his heavy boot, then shattered another's mandibles with his forehead. He kicked another in its package of eyes, but a lashing claw opened up his inner thigh and femoral artery. He fell on his back and was dragged under the orange horde.
I emptied the STI into the demon wall, sending a beast back to hell with each shot. But for every one that I dispatched, another flaming hole would open in the sky, dropping another creature into the back of the throng.
I am sorry, Boy. This is end.
I speed-reloaded and continued shooting. I felt Julie by my side. She was also down to just her handgun. Time was running out. Acid exploded nearby, and scalding droplets scorched us. I heard an inhuman scream of rage from behind me as Harbinger ripped into the demons with his bare hands, crushing their alien bones, and flinging their husks back into the mass.
"I love you, Julie," I shouted as my slide locked back empty and I went for another mag.
"I love you, Owen," she answered.
Too bad I was about to die.
A demon hunched down directly before us, a subcutaneous membrane opening on its back, spines aligning to launch at Julie's chest. I stepped in front of her.
The alien spear pierced through my armor just above my sternum, shearing through the top of my heart and piercing out the muscles of my back. Incomprehensible pain slammed me, heat and pressure beyond all imagining. I fell to my knees, and rocked backwards in the mud.
I looked upwards at Julie as my life blood flooded out of me and onto the ground. Rain poured down into my unblinking eyes.
My body lay lifeless on the ground, legs bent, arms spread wide, an alien spear protruding from my chest, and a puddle of blood spreading under gravity's power.
I stood above myself. Above the battlefield. Demon horde rampaging against the final two Hunters. My spirit moved between the sluggish raindrops. Time had slowed down, and I watched as the last few seconds of the battle stretched into eternity. Julie was only a few heartbeats from certain death. Earl Harbinger stood at her back, torn asunder with wounds, bristling with spines like a mutant porcupine, bleeding from countless injuries, but still fighting beyond any human capability.
Mordechai Byreika stood by my side. I could feel the Old Man's sorrow.
I am sorry, Boy. You fought much hard. Braver Hunters the world never has seen.
What now?
Is over. Battle is lost. Tomorrow Cursed One destroy world.
Above the battlefield was the presence of Lord Machado. I could see it now. A sprawling evil blackness, roiling in the clouds. His laughter continued.
No.
Is not possible, Boy. You are not stuck. Move on you can. Not like me.
No.
The Cursed One was visible to me now. Of course, I was not bound by the limitations of my human sight. The gash that he had torn into the world was visible. The tear that went to the other place, the rift to the other world. The world that served as a temporary repository for the minions of the Old Ones. The ancient artifact of evil stood above all. It was the key. It was the bridge.
No.
The power was not ready. It was not time yet. Lord Machado would not be able to unlock the full power of the artifact until tomorrow at the zenith of the full moon. The demon army standing below was just a partial example of what the artifact could do.
You can go on. There is good place waiting for you. Move on, Boy. Is over.
No.
I watched in slow motion as Earl Harbinger tore the head from one of the demons. In the view that I had now, I could see the demon's contorted spirit disappear from that animated physical body, denied access from this plane of existence. At that exact moment, a rift appeared to the other world, and the same spirit dropped through, cloaked again in a new physical body.
The Cursed One could only control a limited number of spirits.
His powers were still limited.
No.
I headed directly toward the evil blackness, passing into the realm of the dark one. I aimed my spirit at the artifact. The artifact was the key. The artifact was the key to control the power of time and space.
Boy! Wait. Do not face Cursed One like this. You will become stuck like me!
No.
Lord Machado regarded me idly. I could see the link back to his physical body. His slime-coated form knelt in a dark cavern, surrounded by his sleeping vampire minions and a fresh host of undead servants.
YOU HAVE FAILED, HUNTER.
No.
THIS WORLD IS MINE NOW.
I willed myself to approach the artifact. With the veil removed from my eyes I could see the true evil of the ancient thing. It dwarfed Lord Machado. It dwarfed us all. Its power was incredible. Incredible and dark and old and unspeakably evil. I could see the legions of dark forces waiting to move hungrily into this world should its power be unleashed. Black glistening octopus things, bigger than skyscrapers. Ancient triangular crustaceans the size of freighters, floating weightless through the void. Pale saucer eyes searching for a fresh world to plunder and intelligent souls to enslave.
No.
And I looked upon the glory of the legions of goodness and light that stood ready to do battle against them. A vast host of the noble and great ones. I could have given up and moved on and joined them. They urged me silently onward.
YOU HAVE THE STRONGEST MORTAL SPIRIT I HAVE EVER BEHELD.
I ignored him. I continued toward the artifact. I had to reach it.
YOU SHALL BE A FINE SLAVE.
No.
TOMORROW I SHALL RAISE MY QUEEN. YOU WILL BE HER SERVANT.
My consciousness strained against the evil barrier, pushing onwards toward the horrid power. Far below my surviving friends battled onward. More spines and claws pierced Harbinger, but still he fought on, rolling and splashing down into the ranks of the evil minions, smashing them, tearing them with his teeth and claws, more holes opening in the sky as the spirits of the alien warriors were recycled. Julie stood alone, blade in one hand, alien spine wielded as a club in the other. They fought on.
I reached the artifact. It glowed before me like a black sun, epic and deadly. Finally Lord Machado realized what I was doing.
YOU ARE MAD. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE POWER OF THE OLD ONES. ONLY I MAY DO SO. YOU WILL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED.
I knew that he spoke the truth. He was not just talking about losing my life, but losing what I really was. The artifact was that powerful. Below me, my love fell to the claws of the alien army.
No.
I touched the artifact. Stretching across a thousand billion years of space and reality, time, matter, imagination, power. I put my will against the meager hold the Cursed One had upon it.
NO.
He rose to battle me, but he had been unprepared for a challenge. I focused my will upon the dark object as it assaulted my mind and my sanity, bombarding me with strange images and alien memories of a thousand dead worlds. I wrested it from the tentacles of the Cursed One.
The tenuous link across the rift was severed. The tunnel from the world of the Old Ones to an obscure swamp in Mississippi was destroyed. The alien army disappeared in a flash of light and fire.
NO!
The Cursed One screamed at me. We drew face to face for the first time, or as much as was possible since neither one of us currently had a face. His power surged against me, forcing me away, striving to ensnare my spirit and destroy me forever.
The carnage of the epic battle was strewn below. The remains of dead Hunters were spread across the fetid swamp. The dark spirits of the blighted region wandered amongst the bodies, celebrating the victory. My brave friends had been scattered and killed, the life ripped from their bodies. Only the changed Harbinger remained alive, and only barely, and even he would succumb to the lethal poisons shortly.
Trip, Holly, Milo, Sam, Lee, Skippy, Edward, even Franks and his men.
And Julie.
Her body lay still, and from my vantage I could see that her time was up.
I wished that I could turn back time.
Yes.
Lord Machado screamed in rage. Wrath crackled across the universe as his will was subverted.
NOOOOOOO…
The power of the Old Ones was tapped. Ancient wells of evil were utilized, and for the first time in eons, the true power of their ancient artifact was unleashed. Incomprehensible energies were set free, battering the foundations of time and space, subverting natural order, and crackling across the universe.
For five minutes, linear time was broken.
My spirit was reunited violently with my body and the breath of life filled my lungs. I gasped in pain and confusion. The horrible cleaving pain in my chest was gone. I choked, and the sour swamp gas smell of Natchy Bottom was in my mouth. I watched as concentric rings of water moved backward upon the surface, formed globules of water, and reversed themselves against gravity and rose into the air. As time stabilized, the raindrops froze, and then fell like normal.
I was lying in the mud, shotgun readied before me. The others were spread out over the same patch of ground that we had been defending five minutes before.
"Aarrrgghhh!" Sam shouted, continuing the noise that he had been making when the acid bomb had killed him. Holly aimed at the spot of ground that the first alien had jumped from and wildly emptied her rifle into the water, splashing mud, wood bits and water, but no monster. She dropped the rifle and grabbed her forehead, finding no hole. She then probed under the back of her helmet looking for the exit wound.
Harbinger stood up and looked around in confusion. Gradually the others did the same thing until the whole group was standing, bewildered and confused. Except for me, of course. I lay in the mud and wept, my cheek pressed into the stock of my weapon.
In the distance some of the Feds panicked and detonated their claymore mines against the empty swamp. Shouts of confusion echoed through the trees.
The Hunters checked themselves for extra holes, and found none. Milo walked a few feet away, set the flamethrower down, and then fell to his knees and folded his arms to pray silently. Trip did the same, crying while he did so. Skippy and Edward removed their hoods, revealing their tusked faces to everyone. They both took small, dried-lizard necklaces from inside their clothing and began to bat them with their foreheads and gesture toward the sky.
Julie flopped down next to me. She grabbed the drag strap on the back of my armor and tugged hard. I pushed myself up. She grabbed my face in her hands and kissed me passionately. I responded. She tasted like swamp mud, but it was still great. It was good to be alive.
"I would be mighty appreciative if somebody could tell me what in the hell just happened?" Sam said.
"I died," Lee stated quietly. "I got bit in the neck." He pulled his glove off and ran one hand over his throat. "I left my body."
"Me too," Holly added. "I don't know what got me."
"Fed shot you in the head," I answered.
"Stupid bastard," she said coldly.
"It was an accident. He was getting eaten."
"Still…"
"All of us died." I slowly stood up, searching for the words to explain what I had seen, what I had done. "I… When I got killed…" I stabbed my thumb to my chest. "I saw the Cursed One. I fought him for control of the artifact. I made a wish…"
"You did this?" Julie asked, stunned. She ran one hand down my filthy face. "How?"
"I just don't know." I was way out of my league on this one.
Harbinger had not said anything yet. He slowly sat down on a stump and scowled, deep in thought.
"You seriously made a wish? Like Aladdin and the magic lamp or whatever? And brought us back from the dead? And made all of those things go away?" Sam said.
"I guess."
"Bullshit," he spat, "just ain't no way."
"He didn't bring us back from the dead," Milo said, still kneeling, his back toward us. "We never died."
"I don't know about you, Milo, but I got my damned brains blown out," Holly said.
Milo stood and faced us. "Not what I mean. Yes, we died, but that was erased. That has not happened yet. It would be happening shortly, but it got reversed. Turned back to right now. What we just went through never happened."
"Sure it did," Sam said. "It just happened."
"When?" Milo held up his watch.
"Uh… in the future?"
"Right. So it has not happened."
Sam thought about it for a moment, head cocked sideways as he stroked his walrus mustache. "Screw it. I need a drink."
Franks drifted into our area, his crack federal agents following slowly behind him. They were not moving swiftly now. Rather, they looked as shell-shocked and confused as we did. None of them even reacted at the sight of the unmasked orcs. Compared to what they had just gone through, what were a couple of tusk-faced humanoids?
"Hey, guys," Milo said cheerfully. "Let me guess, you all got killed by orange monster insect demon things too?"
"Yep," Franks answered.
"Oh good, at least we're all on the same page."
The dark Fed just held up his thick arms, looking down at where they had been pierced and shredded by whistling spines. He made a fist and cracked his knuckles, then slowly lowered them.
Harbinger finally spoke. "See, Franks, I told you we should have stayed put."
Franks shrugged. He keyed his radio. No longer disrupted by the unnatural rift in the area, we made immediate radio contact. Myers' voice sounded shaken.
"What's going on out there?" the radio shrieked.
Franks scowled as his straightforward brain tried to figure out how to explain our situation. Harbinger keyed his mike and interrupted.
"It was a trap. Ray Shackleford set us up. We were ambushed by a horde of trans-dimensional demons. We all got killed. Then time ran backwards. We all woke up alive. And the monsters are gone. Request immediate evac…" He let that hang for a moment. "Over."
"Uh, yeah," Franks concurred.
"Air evac is on the way. What caused the time effect?"
Harbinger looked at me through squinted eyes, but did not betray my secret to the Feds. "Unknown. Suspect it was caused by the Cursed One's artifact. We went back in time approximately five minutes."
"I know," Myers responded. "It wasn't just you. We felt it too. It was 2:39, and then it was 2:34."
"How widespread was the effect?"
"Hold on…" The radio went dead.