He warned me and I did nothing.
No, I fought our enemy. There is no shame in that. Defeat is a part of war, not the whole. I must ensure we continue to stand tall. We are humanity’s best. We shall survive. I shall lead us.
He knew it in his bones to be true, that this was just a test. Mankind had been given too easy a ride. Now it was being forced to prove its worth. After its eventual victory, it would rise again stronger than ever before. The weak and the lazy were all gone. Mankind had become a warrior race, and forever may it remain so.
Demons congregated in a field ahead, perhaps a dozen or more. Thomas gave the order to fire and his men took them down in a second. The way ahead seemed clear. Portsmouth awaited.
Victory awaited.
Crimolok trembles with power. With each human life extinguished, God’s hold on the universe weakens. The barrier protecting Him weakens. Once this place is cleansed of life, Crimolok will assault his father’s domain and take existence for himself. Lucifer, Michael, and all of the other heavenly brothers will be forced to bow to a new god. A supreme god.
I shall be all and everything.
The massacre in the human town had been glorious. Crimolok himself had killed thousands. His legions had killed thousands more. Some humans managed to flee, scattering into the fields, but it will only prolong the hunt, which is acceptable because Crimolok enjoys the hunt.
The great human city lies ahead. Soon its name will join Sodom and Gomorrah. No human will survive there. No child will ever grow up there. Mankind is at its end. The tipping point is at hand.
Crimolok watches his legions surround a group of humans hiding up in a large tree. To expedite the slaughter, he grabs the tree by its highest branches and uproots it from the earth. Humans fall from the trunk and land amongst the demons, and are forced to choke on their own blood as they are eaten alive. Some still cling to the tree, begging for life. Crimolok swings the tree and releases it, sending it a hundred feet into the air. It comes crashing down to earth in the distance, no human on it left alive.
Crimolok marches on towards Portsmouth.
Alice was losing her mind. She got out of bed and crept outside into one of The Hatchet’s many identical steel corridors. She headed inside the breakroom and switched on the coffee machine. She’d never been allowed to drink the stuff a year ago, but since coming aboard her dead father’s US Coast Guard frigate, no one paid much attention to what she was doing. In fact, they treated her like an adult most of the time, which was one of the few things she liked about the apocalypse. Little else though.
Just when Portsmouth had started to feel like a home, just when life had found a new kind of normal, everything had gone ‘tits up’ – to borrow a phrase from the Brits. Wickstaff died and then Tosco was suddenly on the run for something she didn’t fully understand. Oh, and don’t forget they were all going to go live in some forest like a bunch of elves.
Alice had never known that you could feel so alone surrounded by people. She was trapped on a boat with a hundred sailors, barely able to move without bumping into someone, and yet she felt completely disconnected. While she knew everyone on board, they were all strangers. There wasn’t a person left alive she had known for longer than a few months. Maddy had known her longest, but even that relationship was new. The loneliness was painful, and she hated it, but she couldn’t help but think about all of her friends back home – other kids who were probably all dead. She thought about her brother, Kyle, her mom, and her dad. She thought about her dad especially. He’d sailed across the ocean to find her, only to die the moment he did. She’d watched both her brother and her dad die, and the memories would stay with her forever.
At least I never had to watch Mom die. I wonder what happened to her. Did she stay in Indiana? Did she stay at home?
Alice was used to having a big bedroom full of clothes, books, and stacks of DVDs. Now she slept in a bunk room with three other people. If it wasn’t for all the paperback books she’d brought from Portsmouth, she would have already gone insane aboard The Hatchet. As it was, she remained only mildly unstable – frustrated and bored rather than crazy.
Tosco had left with his team two days ago, the morning before last. The clock on the breakroom wall read five fifteen, which meant the sun would soon come up and start day three. They had arrived at the forest safely because Tosco had radioed in to say so, but then she had heard little else. Lieutenant Michaels was in charge of The Hatchet while Tosco was away, but Alice didn’t like the guy all that much. He seemed irritated by her presence, and seemed to be one of the few sailors who considered Alice a kid. She was fifteen, and while in the old world that might have meant she was still young, in this new world, childhood had been cancelled.
Alice sat down with her coffee and sipped at it. She heard voices from further down the corridor, possibly from one of the other bunk rooms. They were trying to whisper,
