No, Caligula chided himself. The invasion is not a failure. The war is not yet concluded. My duty is done, my obligations fulfilled. As general of northern Britannia, I succeeded. Lord Amon and the others though...
Damn them.
Damn them back to Hell.
Caligula would continue this war alone if need be, for he was the earthly incarnation of Jupiter himself. These lands were his. If no other lords remained, then so be it. It meant he would be favoured amongst the Red Lord’s servants.
Caligula watched with glee as a human threw himself out of a window, fire singeing the flesh from his back. He staggered in agonised confusion, flesh bubbling on his bones, eyes melting in his head. Caligula’s troops tore his flesh apart hungrily.
Burnt flesh and glory.
3
TED
Ted wiped dirt from the truck’s petrol gauge with the cuff of his grimy blue jumper but succeeded only in adding more grime. He needed to find diesel soon, but the prospect made him groan. It was getting harder and harder. The pumps at the petrol stations and supermarkets needed power to run, and the National Grid had kicked the bucket over a month ago now. The last time he’d refuelled, he’d pried open a manhole cover and ferried up the diesel with a bucket on a rope, but most fuel tanks were more secure than that. Easiest way to get diesel these days was to syphon it from other vehicles or scavenge it from garages and sheds, but it was a time-consuming chore. Two petrol cans in his truck’s flatbed were the last of his reserves, about another three-hundred miles. That might seem a lot, but when you spent your entire day driving, the road rolled up fast.
Just keep heading north, he told himself. If he lost that purpose….
Just keep heading north.
Ted had started his journey a month ago in Colchester, and it had been hard going every inch of the way. At first, he’d considered heading south, after hearing rumours of the Army gaining a foothold there, but if there was a fight going on, he wanted no piece of it. So he headed the other way, his only plan to head north until the land fell away to the sea. That was his first and last destination.
But right now, something was attempting to get in his way.
A pack of demons presented itself in the middle of the road a hundred-metres ahead of him. They saw him coming and spread out to block his path. It would be impractical to try to run them down. Ted had seen enough wreckages to know flesh and bone did not yield the way it did in the movies. Windscreens shattered, axles snapped, and tyres punctured. He couldn’t hope to drive around them either. The demons were remorseless monsters, but they weren’t stupid. Often, if they saw you turning to avoid them, they would throw debris in your path and try to make you veer off the road or into a tree. They didn’t fear being run over, they feared their prey getting away.
So Ted never tried to avoid them anymore. He never tried to run the demons over or go around. Not anymore. Not since…
He slowed and came to a stop, switching off the engine. The demons approached cautiously, twenty-feet from the nose of his truck now. His stopping had made them wary, burnt faces betraying their confusion, and when he stared at them defiantly, they became even more puzzled.
Ted climbed out of his truck and stepped out onto the road. The demons hesitated, still confused by what they were seeing. Ted went around to the side of his truck’s flatbed and pulled out his 5KG sledgehammer. Blue-handled and copper-headed, the sight of the weapon was enough to incite the demons to launch their attack, but Ted stood his ground and taunted them. Their screeching hurt his ears, made his temples pound with blood, his heart beat faster.
Bring it on.
The bunched-up muscles in his middle-aged back flexed in unison, and he swung the hammer horizontally, striking the nearest demon in the ribs and folding it in half. Then he threw a kick to keep another demon from getting too close while he readied his next swing. The demon tumbled backwards into its pack-mates and gave Ted the space to thrust his hammer. The heavy copper mallet shattered the demon’s face. Next, he swung it overhead and crushed another demon’s skull flat like a stamped-on Coke can.
More demons threw themselves at Ted, forcing him to stop swinging and use the hammer for defence. He held it with the shaft across his chest and thrust it out laterally, checking any demons in front of him.
They spread out around him.
Ted took several steps backwards towards his truck, trying to keep from being overwhelmed. But while the truck gave him cover, it also made it easier for the enemy to trap him. The more they surrounded him, the harder it was to wield his hammer—or make a run for it.
He just needed to get himself a yard of space.
He swung his hammer in another massive arc, striking the bodies of two demons and knocking them away. Then he took his chance, reaching into the truck’s flatbed and retrieving the gas-powered nail gun he kept there. It was his back-up weapon, running on a battery that wouldn’t last forever, but when he used it, Christ, did it do the business. Having to move fast, he yanked the trigger and released a stream of 1-inch brad nails into the air at head-height. His jaw locked in a maniacal grin as demon skulls spat blood from dozens of tiny holes opened by the whizzing nails. Demons were resilient creatures though, and not all fell to the sudden onslaught. Some took nails to the eyes and neck and merely hissed
