Humanity's Bane Read online

  After she finished bandaging the wound, she stood up and said, "Let’s get him back to the infirmary where I can clean the wound and get him stitched up."

  Mike stepped forward and helped Simon to his feet and then asked Dean to accompany them back to the infirmary. After they left, Steve went into the open room and came back out with a blanket. He covered Calvin’s body and picked up the pistol, sticking it in his belt.

  I hadn’t said a word since the shots were fired and I was still wondering what I could even say. Mike looked at me and could see I was a bit conflicted.

  "You think I shouldn’t have shot him, don’t you?"

  I snapped out of it and looked at him.

  "No Mike, I think you did what had to be done. I’m just worried about what the rest of the people will think when they hear that Calvin was shot and killed by one of us."

  "I can tell you exactly what they will think," said Randy. "They will think good riddance. He and Simon were a couple of tyrants and nobody wanted to have anything to do with them."

  "It’s still a shame he had to die," said Michelle. "I didn’t like him at all, but I didn’t wish him to be dead."

  "I wouldn’t worry about it, boss," said Mike. "I’m the one that shot him and I’m the one they will look at if they want to get mad."

  "Alright," I said, "we need to …"

  I was cut off by the sound of 50-caliber machine gun fire coming from the front tunnels. From the sounds of it, all four guns were firing.

  2

  "Oh great," said Mike as we all started hoofing it back to the A tunnel.

  In the two minutes or so that it took us to run from the farthest reaches of the tunnel system to the entrance, the guns never stopped firing. We could hear some screaming and the sounds of metal clashing with metal.

  "Damn it!" yelled Mike. "It sounds like they got inside."

  As we rounded the final corner, we could see the gate was pushed open a few feet and demons were battling their way inside. A quick count told me there were at least four or five that had made it inside.

  Mike fired and killed two demons in rapid succession and I did my best to do my part. It took a few extra rounds, but I took down the other two demons nearest me. There were bodies of three humans laying near the gate, people who had given their lives trying to keep the demons out.

  I looked back toward the infirmary and saw a demon attacking Ariel and Simon. They were backed up against a wall and Dean was firing and trying to keep the demon away from them. The demon slashed at him with his blade and caught Dean on the shoulder, bringing a yelp of pain from the man.

  "Hey!"

  The demon stopped for a second and turned to see who had yelled and caught Randy’s huge right hand in the jaw. Randy hit him so hard we all heard the demon’s neck snap and it went down in a heap. Randy stomped on its head and then reached down and picked up the demon blade.

  Michelle and Steve finally caught up with the rest of us and she reached into his belt and pulled the pistol. After arming herself, he helped his brother up and they pushed their way into the infirmary along with Ariel and Simon. After getting them all inside, Michelle turned to head back out and see what she could do. Steve grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her back into the room.

  "Stay in here," he said to her as he went out the door.

  "Oh, the hell I will," she yelled as she followed him out the door. She only stopped long enough to push the door closed and set the latch.

  Mike made his way to the scaffolding and climbed the right side to get an idea of what was outside. The guys manning the top gun were laying down a blistering barrage that was causing a nice pile of demon bodies outside the gate.

  I climbed the left side and could feel Michelle climbing up behind me. Looking down over the inside of the scaffolding, I could see a group of five men firing rifles point blank into the faces of demons trying to get in the gate. It took a few more seconds for them to get the gates closed and locked.

  Looking through one of the peepholes I could see there were two dozen or more demons moving through the tunnel toward the gate. The gun crews were doing their best to bring the demons down, but there were far too many of them. We had never seen an attack this large and I was beginning to think we might not hold them off.

  Mike was looking down from his side of the gate and I could see him look at me and shake his head. Then he jumped down to the crosswalk over the gates and ran to the center. He opened an ammo can that was attached to the fencing and pulled out a mess of wires and a trigger.

  He looked over the gate one more time to check to see if he had the trigger for the best mine and then yelled at the top of his lungs.

  "Claymore!"

  I saw everyone nearest the gate stick their fingers in their ears just as he pressed the hand trigger. An explosion ripped the outside world in front of the gate and we could hear the ball bearings ricocheting off the walls and tearing up the demons.

  Mike looked over the fence and did a quick assessment and reached into the ammo can and pulled out another trigger.

  "Claymore!"

  This explosion came from the opposite side of the tunnel from the first one and I could feel it rock the scaffolding I was standing on. It only took a few seconds for the echo to die down and then there was complete silence.

  I jumped down to the crosswalk and moved to the spot next to Mike and we both looked over the top of the gate. There was no movement at all on the ground below us. We could see the bodies of demons littered across the ground.

  A bit of movement caught our eyes and we could see a demon struggling to stand up. Mike raised his weapon and was getting ready to fire when I placed a hand on his arm.

  "Is it possible we could capture one alive?"

  "You’re kidding me? You want one of these things alive?"

  I looked at him and kind of cocked my head.

  Then he said, "I guess we could learn a lot more from a live one than from a dead one."

  "There you go."

  Mike called out and ordered the gun crews to hold their fire and we climbed down from the scaffolding. Randy was at the bottom of the gate, looking through the peephole. When we reached the ground, he looked at us.

  "You serious about bringing that thing in here alive?"

  "Randy, we need to find out where these things come from and why they’re here."

  He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Okay, cover me."

  I hadn’t thought of sending him out there, but after seeing what he did to the demon that was attacking Ariel and Dean, I couldn’t argue with the fact he was the most capable for this mission.

  We checked the peephole again and the demon was staggering around like it didn’t know where it was. Mike looked up to the closest gun crew.

  "If, by chance, that thing kills Randy and me, you light it up like it’s the Fourth of July."

  "Yes sir!"

  Randy reached up and unlatched the gate and pulled it open. He stuck his head out and looked both ways to make sure there weren’t any other demons ready to take his head off as soon as he showed it. Then he stepped through the gate and Mike followed him.

  When I went to follow Mike through, he looked at me and shook his head.

  "You stay here. No need for all three of us to be complete idiots."

  I nodded and took up a position at the open gate, ready to offer any supporting fire I could from my completely useless position. No matter how I looked at it, Mike and Randy were going to be right in the middle of my field of fire if I needed to shoot. Not exactly textbook for this situation.

  They both moved slowly through the bodies of the dead demons and they both stopped for a second to look down and shake their heads. I looked at what they saw and could see it was a couple of our own. They had obviously been outside the gate when the attack started, though I couldn’t figure out why.

  I watched as they began moving again toward the demon, who was just standing there looking at them, while swaying back and forth o
n his feet. It brought its blade up and pointed it at the two of them, signaling it was ready to fight.

  Randy raised the blade he had taken off the other demon and pointed it right back at this new demon. It had the effect he was hoping for. Though the demon didn’t lower its blade or turn and run, we could see the tip of his blade waver.

  Mike and Randy moved apart, looking to come at the demon from different sides and it gave me a clear shot if I needed one. Mike had his AR pointed right at the demon’s head and it was clear the monster knew exactly what it meant. The laser dot from the sight, disappeared into the darkness of the hood. The demon backed away from Mike, never taking its red eyes off him.

  As they got closer, I could see this demon was actually smaller than the others we had seen. Most of them stood almost as tall as Mike, who stood just over six feet tall. We won’t talk about Randy because he’d be a giant in any land.

  This demon was clearly less than five feet tall and the way it moved, it gave the impression of being young. I began to wonder if the demons had lives like ours. Were there young and old demons? Did they actually have children and was this one of them?

  "Sup, friend?" asked Randy.

  The demon shifted his attention from Mike to Randy, who still had his blade raised in readiness to kill the demon at the first sign of trouble. His clawed hand shook with the weight of the blade and it became apparent this demon was actually feeling fear at its predicament.

  Randy stepped closer and the demon tried to back away, but tripped over the body of another and fell onto its back. The big guy moved forward quickly and placed the point of his blade at the demon’s throat.

  "Drop it!"

  Then came the biggest surprise to all of us.

  The demon dropped his blade.

  I even heard Michelle gasp from her perch at the top of the gate.

  Feeling the need to be up close and personal, I walked through the gate and moved to a spot next to Randy, which I could tell didn’t make Mike too happy. He didn’t think it wise for all three of us to be outside the gate like this, especially with demon bodies laying all around us. At that moment, I didn’t care what he thought.

  "So, you understand us?" I asked.

  The demon nodded slightly, still very much afraid of Randy’s blade.

  "Get up," I said and the demon slowly got to its feet.

  I kept my rifle pointed right at the demon’s head while Mike moved behind it and began handcuffing its wrists. Then he reached up and pulled the hood off the demon’s head and we got our very first look at an intact face. We had never seen one before, what with the "shoot them in the head" part about killing them. It never seemed to leave any of their pretty faces in one piece.

  Well, pretty faces is a bit of a stretch. This demon had a face that would be the picture perfect definition of a demon face. His skin was a very dark blue, almost purple in color and very close to being pitch black. The skin over his skull was stretched thin, leaving his head looking very much like a black skull.

  He had no whites in his eyes and didn’t even have eyes as we would know them. They were just red orbs stuck inside the skull and they glowed from inside.

  As we had seen from the others, his fingers, all three of them, were nothing more than claws, resembling the black claws of a bird. His feet were very much the same.

  The biggest surprise of all came when I asked, "What is your name? I don’t want to keep calling you demon."

  "We have no names."

  The fact they had no names wasn’t what shocked us. It was the sound of the demon’s voice. It was raspy, sounding like it had been dragged over ten miles of gravel road and sounded more like a growl than anything.

  Oh, and it had a decidedly feminine quality to it.

  "You’re a female?" asked Randy.

  She looked up at him, still holding the blade at her throat and tried to back away from him, but ran up against Mike.

  I reached over and had Randy lower his blade and she began to relax immediately.

  "Of course, I’m female. Do I not look female?"

  "Lady," he said, "right now I don’t know what you look like."

  Mike looked at me and said, "We need to get back inside."

  "Yes we do," I said as I turned and motioned for her to start walking toward the gate.

  At first, she was hesitant, but Mike put a hand under her arm and got her moving. Rather forcibly.

  When we reached the gate, there was a small group of people beginning to gather and I could see the rage and fear in their eyes. The enemy was walking into their midst and most of them didn’t know how they felt about it. I didn’t want any trouble and told everyone the back off.

  "She’s one of them!" yelled a woman from the back.

  "Yes, she is," I said, "and we need her alive. So move back."

  I turned to Mike and told him to put her in the cell where Simon and Calvin had been kept. Looking around, I found a couple of men I trusted and told them to go with him and to stand guard over the cell for the time being.

  After the four of them left, I turned to the crowd.

  "Folks, I know it’s uncomfortable having her inside the gates, but this is the first chance we have to find out who they really are and why they are here. We need her alive to find out those things."

  "What if she gets loose?" asked the same woman.

  "Did you even look at her?" I asked. "She is no more a warrior than our children are. She is scared to death and is not a threat to us."

  "How can you be so sure?" asked another woman.

  I looked at her and could feel the answer but wasn’t sure how they would take it.

  "Many years of wearing a military uniform and being face-to-face with the enemy. She may look like the enemy, but she isn’t a threat to us. Let’s take the time to find out what she’s all about."

  I could feel the heat of Randy’s body standing right behind me and I knew, without even looking, he had his arms crossed over his chest and daring anyone to try something stupid.

  Michelle climbed down from the scaffolding and stood next to me, just staring at the crowd.

  One of the men said, "If she gets loose and kills some of us …"

  "Then that’s on me," I said.

  I turned to Michelle and whispered in her ear and she left the group, heading for the dining hall.

  "Look people, I’m fighting in the blind just as all of you are. Here’s our chance to find out who we’re really fighting. Let’s take it and see if there is any way we can end this attack on our world."

  I could see that line of logic had won them over. They didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives living in these tunnels anymore than I did.

  "Please go back to your lives. Go check on the rest of the people in the tunnels and make sure everyone is accounted for. And please, let them know the danger is over for now."

  I walked away and headed toward the cross tunnel. About that time, Michelle came out of the dining hall with a bag of energy bars and some canteens I assumed were water. She went to hand me the bag, but I waved her off.

  "Let’s go talk to our new friend," I said.

  "You want me to go with you?" she said, not sure she wanted to be there.

  "Yes, I’d like you to be there. She’s going to be scared and reluctant to talk to all of us men. She might be a little more comfortable with you around."

  She bit her lip and said, "Okay, but if I get hurt Randy is going to be pissed."

  I laughed and said, "I don’t think you have anything to worry about."

  We headed down the tunnel toward the holding cell. We found the two men standing guard outside and when I stepped inside the room, Mike was standing in the center of the room and the demon was standing in the far, back corner, looking like she wanted to get as far away from him as she could.

  "Hey Mike, why don’t you go check on Dean and make sure he’s okay."

  "You got it, boss."

  He turned to leave and I stopped him and asked for the keys
to the handcuffs. At first, he hesitated, but then handed them over.

  After he left, I pulled the door to the cell closed and it was just the three of us in there. I motioned for Michelle to sit down at the table and walked over to the demon, who was still cowering in the corner.

  "Turn around, please," I said and she did it.

  I reached down and unlocked the handcuffs and put them in my pocket.

  "Come on over and sit down."

  I walked to the table and sat down next to Michelle and we watched. It took a few seconds for the demon to trust us enough to move to the table, but she finally did and took a seat across from us.

  "I have no idea what you eat or drink, but we brought some food in case you’re hungry."

  I emptied the bag closer to her and she looked at the pile and then back at me. She had a look on her face that said she didn’t trust me and that I was trying to harm her with this.

  "I assure you, you can eat and nothing bad will happen to you."

  She picked up a canteen and shook it and then asked, "What is this?"

  "It’s water," I said.

  "Water?"

  She shook the canteen again and looked at it from different angles. Michelle reached across the table and held out her hand for the canteen.

  "Here, let me."

  She handed the canteen over and Michelle twisted the top off it and handed it back to her. When she brought the open canteen up to her nose and sniffed, we could have sworn she actually smiled.

  She tipped the canteen back a little too much, but ended up with a lot of water spilling out over her face. She shook her head and looked surprised by it.

  "No, like this," said Michelle as she opened another canteen and proceeded to take a drink. The demon watched her and then imitated her.

  She drained the canteen in about five swallows. When it was empty she looked at the third and last canteen sitting on the table.

  "Go ahead," I said.

  She picked up the canteen, unscrewed the cap like she had seen Michelle do and drank it down. She was obviously thirsty because it was gone in a few seconds.

  "Haven’t had enough water, have you?" Michelle asked.