The Azrael: The Reckoning (7 page)

“Who?”  Ethan perked up.

“You’ll see.”  The man noticed that the car was almost to the 32
nd
floor and escaped from behind his collar.  The air was still rancid; he twitched his nose, glanced at Ethan and shook his head.  The doors wouldn’t open fast enough.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slowly opened as before.  The aroma of Ethan poured in and made the other guards gag as it reached them.  A beautiful young girl approached the elevator ignoring the stench and greeted Ethan.

“Hello, my name’s Taliah.”  She reached out her hand to shake his.

“I wouldn’t do that.”  The soldier from the elevator warned.

Ethan wiped his hand off on his shirt, reached out and shook her hand.  She didn’t seem bothered by his smell at all.

“My name is Ethan.  Thank you so much for saving me.”  He wrapped his other hand around hers shaking it vigorously.

“It’s no problem.  I tossed the silverware out the window when I saw the others come.”  She pointed at a broken window that was already covered up in plastic and two other guards were taping it to the wall with duct tape.

“It saved my life.”  He beamed revealing a charming smile behind a brown mask of shit.

“Now it’s time for you to shower.”  Taliah pulled her hand away and pointed at an apartment nearby.  She knew she had been in a horrible state in her, not so distant, past.  She remembered how filthy she was before the shower back at the Paul Simon building.  He shouldn’t be treated with disgust because Mario did the same for her. 

“Oh, that.  Yeah, I’m sorry.  I…” 

“No need explaining.  Shit happens.”  She interrupted.  The smell started to make Taliah’s eyes water.  She kept it cool, smirked and walked away as a few guards escorted her back to her room.

Ethan entered the apartment next door and headed straight for the toilet.  He had unfinished business to attend to.

The moment Mario exited the alley he found a small group of Azrael a hundred yards to the left behind parallel parked cars that lined the street.  As he moved in closer he saw what they were doing.  They were hovered over a couple eating them.  There were five of them.  Mario attached three silver tipped bolts on his crossbow and instructed the others to stay down and wait.  John and Savanna listened.  However, Jason still didn’t know Mario’s plan nor did he know what he was capable of.

“Jason, stay put.”  Savanna whispered towards him.  He ignored her.

Mario noticed Jason continued to follow.  He maintained his move forward watching intently on the small herd feeding ahead.  He aimed at the closest Azrael, focused on its skull and pulled the trigger.  The bolt whizzed past its right ear and struck another in its leg.  The one he shot at stopped feeding and examined the Azrael that grunted from the strike to its leg.

“Shit, forgot to calibrate the sights.”  Mario quickly adjusted his error and shot another bolt at his first intended target severing the head from the spine at the base of its skull. He reloaded and shot another that was feeding nearby in the skull.  It fell grasping at its head.  It attempted to remove the bolt with one hand while holding a string of intestines in the other.  A length of the oily organ was hanging out of its mouth.  It discovered Mario and stopped chewing.  It released a terrifying shriek, spitting out intestine meat on the sidewalk next to the corpses as it howled.   The cadavers of the couple started to move again, coming back from death to join the hunt.  The others stopped what they were doing and spun their heads directly at Mario.  The one with the bolt in its leg calmly rubbed at the injury, but still stood up as if nothing was there hindering its movement.

Another small herd exited an alley to Mario’s right along with a third small group across the street from the first Azrael group feeding on the couple.  It was too many.  Before Mario could react a noisemaker grenade arced over him, struck the group that was feeding and released a looped recording of a woman screaming along with a small mist of urine in the air.  All of the Azrael in the area converged towards the sound in a crazed assault.  At least forty massed up all searching for the source.  They clawed, pushed, pulled and bit each other eager to find a woman to infect.

Mario removed a red tipped bolt, attached it to the crossbow, aimed and shot into the crowd.  As it struck, an explosion blasted fiercely shaking the windows of the buildings nearby and sent Mario and Jason backwards several feet.  They landed on their backs drawing the air out of their lungs.

“Holy Shit.”  Jason exclaimed with a strained voice while pulling himself from the ground.  He took a knee and coughed violently from the sudden pressure that compressed his chest and lungs.

“Didn’t expect that much power.  Gotta be careful with these.”  Mario scowled while taking note the location of each red tipped bolt on his belt.  “Quick thinking tossing the noisemaker.”

“Thanks.  Updated its feature, added a mist release of female urine.  It gets on their clothes and causes a frenzy.  You took care of em’ before it got crazy.”

“Where’d you get woman piss?”

“Hehe, I took donations from some of my neighbors.”

“Didn’t they think it was weird?”

“Why do I care what they think?  Besides, they know what I do.”

“Well, in any case it worked pretty well.  We should relocate before more come.  Maybe next time we can lead with the noisemakers.”

“Only two more piss-mist noisemakers left.  They were prototypes.  Actually the first field test.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out.  Let’s move.”  Mario gestured for the other two to follow and headed away from the burning Azrael that still moved slightly.  He didn’t think they had enough time to make sure all were dead.  More would come; lots more.  The breeze carried the air of the freshly killed Azrael towards John and Savanna.

“What smells like piss?”  She asked.

“Smells like a Port-O-John at the end of a Nascar race.  Good memories there.”  John sighed and took in the aroma.

“Somehow you find new ways to gross me out.  Well done John.”  Savanna grimaced at him.

“I try my best.”  John blushed, reached out to Savanna and helped her up.  “We should get going.”

The two caught up to Mario and Jason.  They were in an alley hiding behind a dumpster several blocks from the explosion.

“What’s up?”  Savanna asked.

“Over there, see?”  Mario whispered while pointing at a large group of Azrael beating on the back door of a food truck at the end of the alley.  They probably drove in the alley to escape the Azrael and thought that it went all the way through.  Instead it dead ended to the back of a large high rise.  Groans, grunts and raspy wails drowned out the faint sounds of women screaming.  The aluminum back door was showing signs of wear.  In time the Azrael will break through.

“What are we going to do?”  She asked.

“Well, we need to draw them away.  I’d hate to waste two noisemakers to do so.  If you could lure…”

“Wait, what?”  Savanna interrupted.

“Lure them away so Jason can use one piss-mist noisemaker.”  Mario continued.

“The name’s a keeper.”  Jason interrupted.

“Piss-mist noisemaker?  What the fuck Jason?”  She turned up her nose and shook her head repulsed at the invention.

“It screams and releases a mist of urine that coats nearby Azrael causing a frenzy while drawing them all together, like the last encounter.  Difference is the screaming food truck may pull their attention away.”  Jason explained.

“So why not use another noisemaker?”

“Only have two more piss-mist and that still might not be enough.  An easier, visually stimulating target would yield better results.”

“I’m not an easy target, visually stimulating, but not easy.  Why don’t you do it?  Or you?  Or you?”  Savanna pointed at each one of them.

“We’ll cover you.  Don’t worry.”  John added and gave her the thumbs up.

“Fuck you John.  Fine, I’ll do it.”  She glared at John.

“We got you covered Savanna.  They won’t get close.”  Mario assured while adding a red tip bolt carefully to his crossbow, along with one more silver tip to top it off.

Savanna took in a deep breath, glowered at John once more and exited the cover of the dumpster.  There was about fifty feet from building to building of alley space.  The concrete formed a ‘v’ in the middle where a grated storm drain sat thirty feet from the next one.  Three of them were separating her from the Azrael horde harassing the food truck occupants.

“HEY!  LOOK OVER HERE.  I’M AN EASY TARGET.  I’M SOOOO HELPLESS.”  Savanna hollered towards the Azrael with extreme sarcasm.  All of their heads popped up and turned around.  An Azrael pushed through the herd and howled.  The mass grunted and groaned as they followed the Alpha towards Savanna.  She turned to run and her shoe got caught in the grate.  Her foot was wedged in the drain’s grill.

“SHIT!”  Savanna yelled as she struggled to jerk her foot free. 

The Alpha was closing fast.  Mario shot the Alpha at its head with a silver tipped bolt and it missed.  Seems like all three tiers needed to be calibrated.  He fired off the other silver tip and it connected, snapping its head back and causing it to strike the two on its heels.  The herd slowed and paused.  Jason tossed the piss-mist noisemaker at the front of the herd as John ran out and attempted to get Savanna’s shoe unstuck.

The noisemaker caked several in piss and screamed.  The herd began to pool their attention on the front row of Azrael, building into a frenzy.  Mario added two more silver tips to the crossbow and calibrated the other bows.  However, the women in the food truck pushed the doors open and started running for the back door of the high rise.  It was locked.  They screamed and hollered trying to get the attention of anyone inside.  The only attention they received was from the Azrael of the herd closest to them.  Four growled and hissed as they broke free from the herd that was attacking each other in search of the phantom screamer.  They were forty feet away from Savanna but Mario had to take the shot.  He fired the red tipped bolt.

An explosion of Azrael body parts scattered everywhere as blood caked both walls of the buildings that encased the alley.  The five that broke free from the herd were thrown towards the food truck striking the side of it with force.  They were not killed, only momentarily dazed.  Mario ran through the red lake of blood that drained into the storm drain grates and cautiously stepped over mangled Azrael bodies.

John struggled to get up after the explosion knocked him off of his feet and dazed him.  Savanna was knocked unconscious by a rocketing pink shoe that still contained a foot in it.  It struck her in the head producing a nasty welt.  John noticed her condition and began to shake her until she awoke.

“Babe, you okay?”  He asked when she opened her eyes.

“Fuck, what happened?”  She asked rubbing the knot that was on her forehead above her right eye.

“An explosion of Azrael.  I think a shoe hit you from one of its feet.  Let’s get your foot out of the grate, okay?”

“Okay…shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My foot, I think it’s broken.”

John examined her foot and noticed it dangling limp within the grate.  “Fuck.  We gotta get you to the doc.”  John ordered and started to gently remove her foot from the shoe.

“John watch out!  Savanna!”  Jason yelled as a slow crawling Azrael quietly managed to pull itself towards Savanna, drawn to her uninfected blood and bit her right arm she was using to brace herself.

“Arghh.  FUCK!”  Savanna cried out.  John stood up, kicked its head and it rolled away tearing a mouthful of flesh from Savanna’s arm.

“She’s bit.  Damn it.”  Jason muttered as he scanned for any more crawlers approaching.  A few were moving towards them but they moved much slower than the other one and were a good forty yards away.

“I didn’t see it Sweetie.  I didn’t see it.  I’m so sorry.  Fuck!  I didn’t see it.”  He belted and walked over to the Azrael, now pulling itself back on its elbows and dragging itself towards Savanna again while still chewing on her arm meat.  In a fit of rage John kicked it in the chest and it took a few feet of air before rolling into the wall of the building next to it.  He moved towards and mounted the legless Azrael.  His weight held it in place as he placed his left elbow in its throat holding it against the concrete.  He punched its head with his right fist over and over until he crushed its skull.  In a moment of clarity he stopped, hopped off and stood to his feet.  The Azrael still reached, grasped and held onto his shirt.  He swatted its grip from his collar, stretching it out and it landed on its back on the ground.  He finished it off with his right boot instead stomping it until it only twitched.  His knuckles were a bloodied mess.  He wiped the blood off and didn’t notice any cuts.  Nights of conditioning his fists punching the heavy bag formed a thick layer of calloused skin on them.  He turned to Savanna and wondered when the virus would take root.  He knew he didn’t have the courage to put her down.  However, he knew that of anybody he had the right to do so.  Jason reached for his pistol and started to take aim at her.  She gawked at him.

“No, no don’t.  Wait!”  Savanna shouted placing her hand up to stop him.  She leaned on her left elbow and held her bitten arm up.  It was bleeding badly and dripped quickly into a pool beside her.

“You’re gonna turn Savanna.”  Jason removed the safety.  Savanna heard it click.

“I’m not.”  She protested.

“It’s denial.  We all have it.  I’m sorry Savanna.”  Jason brought in a deep breath and prepared to shoot his friend.

“I’ve been bit before.  I’m immune!  I’m immune!”  She explained holding her hand up.  She turned away and closed her eyes fearing what was to come.

“You’ve what?”  Jason responded.  He deactivated the safety.  The clicking noise verified it and calmed Savanna slightly.  She opened her eyes, lowered her hand and attempted to control her breathing.  Her heartbeat was still thumping out of her chest.

“News to me.  What the fuck are you sayin’ Savanna?”  John walked over to see what she was talking about.  He noticed Jason still pointing his gun at her.  He gave him a stern look and he lowered the weapon.

“It was before I joined.  Remember finding me at Sports King?”

“Yeah, you were all alone holed up in the back room.”  John remembered.

“Yes, well.  Fuck, it hurts.  Can I get a bandage, a shirt, towel or something?  Shit!”  Savanna inquired as the pool of blood next to her started to get her pants wet.

“Sure.”  John pulled out a shirt from his backpack, ripped it and wrapped it around her arm.

“Thanks, I’d like to tell you more but I think we should get somewhere a bit more safe.”  Savanna insisted making eye contact with a small group of amputated Azrael that dragged themselves towards her.  Their skin had already scabbed up.

“That’s a good idea.  She would have started turnin’ by now.”  John glanced at an imaginary watch and stared at Jason.  He was still wary but nodded in agreeance.  John picked Savanna up and tossed her over his shoulder.  She exhaled a small yelp as her stomach hit his shoulder.