Rapture (24 page)

He spent the rest of the night wandering the streets aimlessly, unwilling to go home to an empty house just yet. Here and there, he saw someone who had not been taken by the Rapture. They looked confused and lost and all but ignored him. He did the same, too wrapped up in his own misery to consider the needs of others.

The clouds were still rolling angrily above him, a solid unbroken mass. Ash fell relentlessly as did the occasional larger burning fragment. Dawn came and went, with not one opportunity for the sun to break through. Everything about him was grey, as if the Tribulation had sucked all colour out of the world.

He was walking along one of the streets around midday when a dishevelled woman ran towards him. She seemed oblivious to the swords that jutted from Sam’s hip and shoulder.

“Have you seen them?” she asked, her eyes wide and constantly moving.

“Seen who?” asked Sam calmly.

“My husband and my children.” She grabbed him by the arm and looked him in the eye. Something in his eyes

-possibly the blackness - seemed to unsettle her and she

quickly took her hands off him as if she’d been stung.

“What are you?”

“Someone like yourself,” he replied. “Lost and alone.”

Madness seemed to reassert itself suddenly. “Have you seen them?” she asked again.

He shook his head sadly. “No. Sorry, ma’am.”

“They were right here with me,” she sobbed. “My little boy was in my arms but I couldn’t stop him. He just went and there was nothing I could do. Please tell me how to get them back.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sam. “I don’t know how.”

She screamed and suddenly launched herself at him. He grabbed her arms as she flailed about helplessly. Eventually, she became exhausted and stopped struggling, and Sam released her hands. She looked at him strangely for a moment and then wandered off down the street. Sam saw her approach one of the other few people on the street and begin questioning them.

Saddened beyond measure, he turned away.

In the afternoon, he began investigating the shops along Main Street. He’d never been into many of them before despite the fact that they were not far from his own house. Under different circumstances, he would have looked forward to it.

The camping and outdoor supply stores that catered to the needs of tourists were his obvious targets. One had already burnt down. Another one nearby had been severely damaged by the earthquake, making it a highly risky proposition. It looked like it was about to fall down any second. The third one he checked out was reasonably intact. Inside was a different story. Much of the equipment had fallen off the shelves, creating a jumbled pile of assorted goods on the floor.

He tensed when he heard the tell-tale scrape of a boot against the floor. Two men emerged from behind a shelf. One carried a baseball bat, the other a high-calibre hunting rifle.

“What do you want here?” asked the larger of the two.

“I just need some supplies,” said Sam.

“Well, you can’t have them,” said the bigger man. “They’re ours.”

Sam nodded. “You own the store then?”

The men turned and grinned at each other. The big man looked back at Sam, still grinning. “Nope, but with the recent developments around here, I’d say that whoever had the biggest gun got the biggest share of everything.” He tapped his rifle meaningfully.

“I don’t need much,” said Sam reasonably. “Just a few tins of food. Maybe a gas cooker and a pack.”

“You don’t listen very well, do you, young fella?” growled the big man. “I said all this stuff belongs to us. Go and find your own store.”

Trying desperately to control his temper, Sam said in a low voice, “This is the last camping store standing.”

“Well, that’s just bad luck for you. Get,” he said, lowering his rifle and pointing it in Sam’s direction.

“Look,” he said, “I can see a cooker right here.”

He bent down, reaching for the portable gas device. There was a great roar in his ears and then it felt like a giant had punched him. Suddenly he was sprawled on his back, lying amongst the jumble of camping supplies. His chest hurt.

“Now, why did you have to go and do that for, Jed,” Sam heard the other man say through the ringing in his ears. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Yes, I did,” Jed replied vehemently. “He was trying to take our stuff.”

Sam touched the point on his chest where it hurt, feeling the hole in his hoodie where the bullet had passed through. He lifted his fingers up to his eyes, expecting blood, but his fingers were clean. There was no wound, just a dull ache where the bullet had bounced off.

Though he was surprised, Sam realized he should have expected this. Hikari and he had conducted various experiments using non-iron weapons. Sure, he could be hit by them and even bruised, but he couldn’t be cut or pierced. Knives, axes and other blades simply bounced off him. If it wasn’t iron, it couldn’t kill him. They’d never tried it with a high-powered rifle though, Hikari being too nervous to risk the chance that he might be wrong. Sam hadn’t been that keen to test the theory either. He was glad he hadn’t; that rifle had the kick of a mule. It wasn’t something that he was keen to experience again in a hurry. Lately, everyone seemed to be having a turn at kicking him around.

For the second time in a few hours, he groaned and sat up.

The expressions on the faces of the two men were comical. Sam had never seen two men more surprised in his entire life. Sam could understand their confusion. By rights, a rifle of the calibre held in the hands of the bigger man should’ve punched a hole clean through him and probably through the wall of the shop as well. Especially at close range. Any other man – even one wearing a bullet proof vest – would be dead.

“But … but,” stammered Jed, “You were dead.”

Both men could clearly see that all Sam was wearing was a light hooded sweatshirt. Pale skin gleamed through the large bullet hole in the front, easily visible.

“And now I’m not,” said Sam, getting to his feet slowly. His chest still hurt but it was nothing like the pain the demon had inflicted on him hours earlier. Oddly, he didn’t feel angry; just slightly disappointed somehow.

“But that’s impossible,” exclaimed the smaller of the two.

He walked up to the two men and took their weapons from their uncomplaining grasps.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” said Sam. “Some people coming in here might not be what they seem. From now on, I want you to give anyone who walks in that door exactly what they want. If I hear that you’ve given them trouble – any trouble at all – I’ll come right back.”

The two men nodded dumbly.

“Now, if you’d excuse me, I have some supplies to pick out.”

Out on the street, he found the woman who had confronted him earlier slumped on the sidewalk. She didn’t respond to anything he said or did. Wordlessly, he took a few tins of food out of his new backpack and left them at her feet, trying to tell her that there was more available inside the camping store. She ignored him, or perhaps didn’t see him at all, lost inside her own private nightmare. At one point, he tried to lift her to her feet but she screamed at him and scratched him with her nails. He had no choice but to leave her where she was.

Walking home, he saw a few others in the same state, utterly confused and traumatized by what had happened. He tried to help them, offering directions to the camping store but, by and large, he got the same response as he had earlier with the woman. There was nothing else he could do for them. He would have to be leaving on his journey shortly and he couldn’t possibly take them with him. They would have to pull themselves together and get on with their lives despite their obvious suffering. It hurt him to leave them to their fate but he really did have no other choice.

At home, he tried to cook himself a meal only to find that the power had gone out. He used his portable gas cooker instead, boiling up some noodles that he ate absentmindedly from the same pot he cooked them in. He wasn’t really hungry – it just gave him something to do. It was odd to sit at the table in the darkness without Aimi’s happy banter and Hikari’s amused tolerance to fill the silence. He tried not to think about it.

He lit some candles and inventoried the food supplies he had in the house. There was quite a lot; enough for a week or two which meant he didn’t have to touch the food reserves he had for the trip to Los Angeles. The house next door was empty. He ransacked their food supplies too.

Water could be a problem. Grey, ash stained water trickled out of the tap, obviously unfit for drinking. The rain water barrel out the back was a better option. He disconnected the rain gutter leading from the roof to the barrel to avoid further contamination and made sure that it was securely covered. There was enough in the barrel for several days.

He tried the TV. Nothing but grey static. The emergency broadcast warning was looping on the radio. There was absolutely no internet connection. He was effectively cut off from the rest of the world.

Eventually, he decided to meditate. He wasn’t about to risk sleeping now that using the pentacle was out of the question. He could easily draw it around himself but then he would be trapped, with no-one to break the protective line of chalk.

That night, for the first time, the demons came.

He was taken completely by surprise. Deep in a meditative trance, they were almost in the house before he realized. He had sensed them earlier but just put it down to the lurking presence of the smiling traitor that seemed to haunt him on a regular basis.

It was the demonic screaming that awoke him to the danger he was in. His eyes sprung open in shock. Without being consciously aware of it, his swords were suddenly in his hands. He raced downstairs in time to meet their charge.

The Lemure streamed in through the open front door. There were only about ten of them and his swords went to work with a will, seemingly moving of their own accord. His training had been so intense that he cut and parried instinctively, even though a part of his mind was recoiling in terror.

It was over in seconds, his swords continuing to move even as the ashen remains of the last destroyed demon fluttered slowly to the floor. The encounter had left him completely unscathed.

He stopped and listened, his mind still not quite registering what had happened. Outside, he could still hear the demons screaming. Through the dreadful clamour, he heard something else. It was screaming but it wasn’t a demon. It was most definitely human.

He raced outside and looked both ways down Main Street. The street lights were off and there was no moon. Even though, his sharp demon eyes took in everything clearly.

At the far end of the street, two hundred feet in the distance, he could see a large pack of Lemure surrounding the woman he had tried to help earlier. They had forced her to her feet; she was struggling and screaming but it made no difference to the Lemure. Hoisting her between them, they hurried her along down the street. They were coming directly for him.

He charged at them. A dozen or so broke off from the pack and intercepted him before he could reach the group that held the woman. He fought his way through them but they were persistent. More appeared out of the shadows and soon he was being forced backwards. Over the tops of their heads, he could see the woman being carried further and further away. He renewed his attack but it was no use, as more demons appeared to replace those that had fallen. He continued to fight. Demons surrounded him but he cut them down so quickly most did not even have an opportunity to strike at him.

Suddenly, the demons broke off the attack, melting back into the shadows. Sam sucked in a large breath of air and looked around him. All the demons had gone. Of the woman, there was no sign.

He sunk down on to his knees in utter despair. He had been tasked with helping the survivors but he was worse than useless. He hadn’t been able to save even one poor woman. How was he possibly meant to defend the innocent against such overwhelming odds?

Hikari, Father Rainey and even the Archangel Gabriel were wrong. How could he save others when he had already failed so spectacularly? Not only that, but he was expected to confront and defeat the Antichrist. It was all just a bit too much to take.