To the east and south lay nearly a square mile of empty blacktop so wide open that any attacking force from that direction would be dangerously exposed.
To the west, another fifty yards of parking lot then a grassy patch followed by squat, 1980’s vintage office buildings.
A sour, rotting odor emanated from the walls of The Order’s compound, cast about by blasts of a sharp, cold wind as if the facility caused a storm to brew, yet the white clouds in the afternoon sky suggested otherwise.
Three spider sentries patrolled outside the smelly walls and one inside. Nearly two dozen robbed figures roamed the grounds within the battlements; the Reverend identified them as ‘monks’, the lowliest of The Order’s ranks armed with small swords.
Behind the tree line to the north, Reverend Johnny checked his watch and announced, 'The appointed hour has arrived, my friends,' to Stonewall McAllister, Sanchez, and Simms.
With a helping hand from above, Johnny hauled himself on to the back of Stonewall’s horse while struggling with a heavy M240-B machine gun.
Stonewall remarked, 'Your hands must be endowed with incredible strength.'
'The Lord is my strength. Your hands smell like gasoline.'
'Indeed.'
'Let us begin this work in the name of the Father and deliver vengeance unto-'
'Tallyho!' Stonewall cut the sermon short.
The three horses galloped from cover screaming and whooping as they swerved between abandoned cars and trucks.
Sanchez and Simms fired shots from rifles in the direction of the compound. Stonewall deposited Reverend Johnny among the dead cars of the parking lot.
'But God will smash the heads of His enemies,' the Reverend shouted as he rested the heavy weapon on its tripod atop the hood of a compact car. 'Crushing the skulls of those who love their guilty ways!'
A heavy rat-tat-tat-tat and a rain of jingling shell casings broke the calm afternoon. Johnny took aim at a Spider Sentry near the main gate more than one-hundred yards away. His machine gun-chattering and shaking fiercely-blew apart tires, windshields, and skipped bullets across the pavement.
The Sentry counter-attacked, marching forward on its creepy legs and firing the Gatling-like gun embedded in its faceplate. Streams of hard spores aimed first at the Reverend and then at the other riders who galloped amidst the dozens of dead cars. Those projectiles struck Simms' horse, killing it and sending her tumbling to the pavement behind a burned-out mini van.
Stonewall harshly spurred his steed, tugged the reigns, and came about to her rescue. Shaken but unhurt, Simms climbed aboard his horse.
Sanchez closed on the Sentry and slapped its round head with rifle fire. Then Johnny found his mark as a bullet tore through a leg joint; the sentry wobbled in search of balance. The Reverend finished the creature off with one last burst.
'Feel my wrath, non-believer!'
A strange alarm erupted within the compound; it sounded like someone trying to speak through a mouth full of cotton balls.
As Sanchez incinerated another Spider Sentry with a firebomb, The Order’s main line of defense prepared to engage.
The domes inside the compound rose into the air…ten feet…twenty feet…forty feet…sixty feet high. They resembled building-sized mushrooms. Tendrils drooped from the undercarriage of the caps. A massive red and black eye hovered from a thick tether.
The dome-the mushroom cap above the dangling eye and the bush of tendrils-vibrated and then spun, releasing its own ordnance: a hundred flat discs-like saw blades-flew out from the monstrosity in a swarm of deadly Frisbees.
Stonewall, with Simms on his horse, ducked behind a toppled commercial delivery truck. He heard the sharp discs smack into the opposite side: thwang-thump; thwang-thump.
Sanchez galloped for the cover of an old Ford pickup with massive ‘monster truck’ tires. His horse made it. Sanchez’s body made it. His head did not.
Johnny-not in the creatures' initial target zone-ran into clear view of the two mushroom-like Guardians, some one hundred and fifty yards away inside the compound. He locked onto the solitary, massive eye of the lead monster.
'I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh — the blood of the slaughtered and the captives, and the heads of the enemy leaders!'
He let the machinegun rip, hitting the lead Guardian: it was too big to miss. However, such relatively small projectiles did little damage.
The stems of both the Guardians coiled tight like springs compressing. Johnny dropped his heavy weapon and ran away from the compound as if the devil spit fire on his ass. Stonewall turned his horse and retreated with Simms still sharing the ride.
The first Guardian created the necessary energy and literally sprung through the air.
If it were not so huge…if it were not so hideous in appearance… then perhaps it would have looked humorous; like a person in a potato sack race leaping toward the finish.
And oh, did it leap.
The Guardian ‘jumped’ through the open gate and crashed to the ground a few yards shy of where the Reverend recently stood. Its stem, which had grown a sort of pedestal at the bottom, crushed several parked cars and sent another pin wheeling through the air. The impact caused an earthquake to ripple across the lot. Reverend Johnny stumbled and fell…
…Jon Brewer watched from a damaged office building on the western flank. He said to Shep, who stood at his side, 'Can you handle that thing?'
'Practiced for half an hour this ‘morn,' Shep tipped his head. 'Want me to go get?'
'Haul ass.'
'Seems to me there ain’t any other way to go on these babies…'
…The Revered staggered to his feet and looked up at the massive red eye as it stooped to study its victim. Tendrils reached toward the man.
Jerry Shepherd rode to the rescue on one of the mutant hovercraft bikes. Shepherd zipped in, slowed, used one free arm to hoist Reverend Johnny on board, and swooped from the Guardian's shadow.
The second Guardian leapt from the compound and landed next to the first. The impact, again, shook the earth; more cars tumbled away like kicked matchbox racers.
The eyes of the two mushroom-like monsters searched for targets. They watched as the hovercraft and horse-carrying humans-disappeared into the tree line.
The Guardians bent their 'stems' again.
Something flew overhead: mortar rounds from behind the trees lobbed toward the outpost. The shells fell in front of the gate and exploded not with shrapnel but in white smoke.
The stems of the Guardians released, propelling them forward. The gigantic figures hurled through the air and somehow landed without tumbling at the north end of the parking lot.
Both domes whirled and flung deadly discs into the trees. Sliced evergreen branches fell like rain but the pine trees absorbed the volley.
Their attack frustrated, the Guardians bent their stalks again, waited for energy to build, then hurdled the tree line and landed in a field of dying grass and shrubs.
Reverend Johnny, on the far side of that field, dismounted Shep's hovercraft and steadied his stance as the ground shook. When the tremor calmed, he stared across the field directly at the two large red eyes.
He lit a torch.
A smell of gasoline permeated the field.
Johnny quoted Two Kings: 'If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!'
He dropped the torch.
