Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (73 page)

With their pursuers dodging fire, John and Alex ran north on
East 12
^th
Street toward Lake Erie. John turned at the first alley on
his right and sprinted down it.

“Make sure it’s open at the other end,” Alex said, a step or
two behind John.

Two blocks down the alley, it opened up behind the Greyhound
bus depot. They ran as fast as they could through the narrow alley. When they
got to the end, still more deadly insects buzzed the air above their heads. John
turned to see their pursuers entering the alley at the other end.

John found a door into the bus depot and threw his shoulder
into it, to no avail. Alex crouched down and fired back at the attackers. They
stopped advancing and returned fire from behind dumpsters and stacks of
pallets. John looked down the block and saw a door hanging open.

“This way,” he shouted to Alex.

Both men’s ears rang from the exchange of gunfire.

They swung the door open and jumped inside. John sprinted
through a mechanic’s garage where a tow truck sat in the opposite corner. A
garage door faced Superior, and old windows bordered it on each side, allowing
sufficient light to illuminate the garage. John ran to the truck while Alex
moved as many fifty-five gallon drums as he could in front of the door. Alex
wiped the greasy residue from his hands, casting a hopeful glance at the wall
of drums.

John pulled the door of the tow truck open and spotted a
filthy keychain dangling from the ignition. He climbed into the driver’s seat,
and turned the key. At first the engine coughed and protested, refusing to
awaken from its comfortable slumber. John tried it two more times, spewing
fumes into the air. He hesitated, fearful of flooding the carburetor. On the
final attempt, the truck came to life. John revved the engine. He turned on the
headlights, nearly blinding Alex as he sprinted toward the passenger side. The
gas-gauge needle vibrated along with the powerful engine, hovering near the
quarter-tank mark.

Alex jumped in the passenger seat. Light appeared around the
edges of the back door as the soldiers pushed the drums of oil back into the
garage. John pushed the clutch to the floor and threw the stick into first
gear. The torque of the transmission in low gear startled the men. John drove
forward, pushing the barrels of oil hard into the door.

John looked over his shoulder as he put the truck in reverse.
He swung it around and slammed the accelerator to the floor, heading right for
the garage door. Alex ducked below the dash as John drove the truck straight
through the flimsy, rolling garage door. He turned a hard left on to what he
hoped was Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the detached
garage door still covering the windshield. It slid down toward the front
like a sheet of snow melting off the roof. The truck rumbled and shook as it
chewed over the door and spat it out behind the rear wheels. Soldiers scrambled
into Euclid Avenue, firing their guns at the fleeing tow truck. John put a
hundred yards between them and the soldiers as bullets kissed the exterior of
the truck, but none found their mortal mark.

Alex sat up and looked out the passenger window. They heard
it before they saw it. A military helicopter circled high above Lake Erie. It
fell into a beeline toward their newfound transportation.

“They see us,” Alex said.

John shifted from second to third gear, pushing the truck
toward fifty miles per hour. Although it was not designed as a getaway vehicle,
the tow truck handled well. It raced down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard,
through the Cleveland State campus, and into Midtown. Several deserted and
dilapidated buildings towered over the area, a tribute to the once-mighty
industrial power of the Rust Belt. Before the copter could zero in on their
exact location, John jumped the curb and shoved the truck down into first gear,
the transmission of the vehicle crying in pain. He drove it through the open garage
bay of one of the towering brick dinosaurs. John killed the engine. Both men
sat in silence. Looking over their shoulders and through the back window, they
heard the copter overhead.

John climbed out first. He crouched down and slithered
toward the open garage bay. The helicopter circled back over Euclid Avenue,
searching like a bird of prey.

“They didn’t see us duck in here,” he said to Alex.

Alex appeared next to John, his rifle pointing out toward
the street.

“We gotta roll the dice. Do we wait here or keep moving?”

“If they didn’t see us, we might be safe here temporarily. But,
it’s a matter of time before they canvass the area.”

“True, but it would take them a helluva long time to search
every one of these abandoned factories.”

They stopped talking and listened as the copter’s blades
echoed off in the distance, fading away from their hidden location. Several Humvees
raced down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard toward East Cleveland, past the
wounded buildings.

John set his gun up against the wall and pulled a bottle of
water from his bag.

“How’s your head?” he asked Alex.

“I’ll be fine. Nice job with the driving, man.”

“Thanks. You going to show me how to shoot like that?”

“Not unless you want to invite all of those fuckers to
watch.”

John smiled.

“I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea, would it Rambo?”

“Rambo was a Green Beret, asshole.”

Alex sighed and the men shared a quick laugh. They heard
water dripping in the distance, pooling on the cement floor.

“Oh, and by the way,” John said, “how come
you
were
asking
me
back at the Jigsaw about how to shoot a goddamn gun?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know exactly how much I could trust
you yet, to be honest, John. I wanted to know how much you knew about weapons.
I apologize.”

“Yeah, alright. Forget it. As long as you keep knocking
those fuckers over like shooting-gallery ducks.”

Alex nodded.

After a few minutes, John’s adrenaline subsided. He closed
his eyes, and thought about his city.

Cleveland, along with Buffalo and Pittsburgh, had once been
a crown jewel in America’s industrial corridor. Millions of dollars of
manufactured goods crossed Lake Erie or floated down the Ohio River. Raw
materials flowed west, headed to the Big Three automakers in Detroit. Although
a dirty, cutthroat, and dangerous industry, the citizens of the Rust Belt
prospered. A solid middle class established the classic suburban lifestyle,
complete with a car and disposable income.

The decline of the domestic steel industry changed all that.
Japanese factories processed the resources twice as fast, at half the cost. The
effect over the next fifteen years proved to be deadly. Shipping lanes dried
up, factories shut their doors, and families fell into poverty.

The stretch of rotting buildings along Martin Luther King
Jr. Boulevard became a sore reminder of bygone days of
prosperity. Spray-painted tags covered the walls of an industrial giant.
Weeds and junk trees climbed through the brick, reclaiming the land like the
overgrown temples of the ancient Maya. The smokestacks and chemical dumps stopped
polluting the environment years ago, but they continued to pollute the minds
and memory of the citizens of the dying metropolis.

John sat on the floor, staring through the broken windows of
a fallen king.

Chapter
24

The cold stone of the church could not keep the warmth
contained. Generators provided electricity, but the boiler broke down every
hour. As more people took their seats in the pews, the temperature climbed, one
degree at a time. A mix of white robes, camouflage, field gear, and civilians
filled St. Michael’s on the first Sunday since the beginning of the First
Cleansing.

Father peered out, from the back room behind the altar,
across the sea of pious faces. He smiled and turned to make the final adjustments
on his vestments.

A murmur brewed before the start of Mass, but dissipated
when the altar boys took their positions at the back of the church. The
organist, high in the mezzanine, struck a bellowing chord and began the
processional hymn. Father appeared and stood between two altar boys. A third
held the crucifix high above his shoulders and began the steady march toward
the altar.

The congregation sang along with the organ, bellowing the
hymns of the Book. The faithful beamed at Father as he proceeded toward the
altar. Aware of the attention, he took a luxurious pace to his destination.

The boy holding the crucifix stood at attention, riveted to
the stone floor. Father and the servers flanking him bent at the waist in
reverence of the crucifix hanging above the altar. They walked to the right and
turned to face the church members. All four stood in front of their designated
chairs.

Once the Mass began, Father fell into an ingrained routine
of song, prayer, and reflection. His fingers caressed worn rosary beads as the
words fell mindlessly from his lips. A young woman performed the first reading
and led the church in the responsorial psalm.

Father climbed to the pulpit. It rose four feet from the
altar in a turret of red-veined marble. Latin phrases in golden borders lined
the top and spread in an arch above the altar. St. Michael, the archangel, sat
atop the marble canopy, ready to battle Satan’s minions. Built in the late
1800s, with Cleveland a burgeoning industrial giant of the Midwest, St.
Michael’s proved to be the most populated and profitable of all the local
churches. It stretched majestically into the air, overlooking the main railroad
line leading to the Erie Canal. However, in the past three decades, the church
and its parishioners fell into destitution and despair. Population loss and
unemployment forced the diocese to consolidate many parishes. St. Michael’s
held out the longest, but could not stem the tide of the economic downturn. By
1995, the number of parishioners dropped below one hundred, a staggering
decline from over four thousand in the 1940s.

A vision took Father back to a time when men removed their
hats and placed them in the clips on the back of each pew. In his mind, Father
heard the rumbling freight train as it passed through the valley.

Father looked up and realized he had been standing silently
in front of the congregation. He finished the gospel reading and the members of
the church waited for the sermon. Nobody shuffled or moved, as if awaiting
their shepherd’s command.

“God created all things. Through the agency of your parents
He created you. Thus, you came from God. You hope by living a decent life to
return to God. From birth unto death, or from God to God, you travel through
this world over a path known as God's will. Thus, in all the eventualities of
life — misfortune, war, disappointment, disillusionment, sickness, and death –
you hear God-fearing people exclaim: ‘Thy will be done.’ No matter what your
vocation or job; whether you are a professional man, tradesman, defense worker,
soldier, sailor, aviator, or nurse, the same way must be traveled, and that is
the way of God's will.

“Therefore, we intend to present the lives of Saints who
happened to be servicemen, soldiers, to show that even they, amid all the
perils, and despite all the temptations they met as soldiers, could, with their
eyes on God and His will, live good, moral lives, even to the extent of
becoming perfect.

“We are all soldiers in this fight against the Infidels. Every
one of us can rise up and beat Satan’s forces to Hell. Many evils will tempt you
from His perfection. Remember, ‘Thy will be done.’ The Holy Covenant will
prevail. The First Cleansing required the Holy Spirit to guide God’s hand in
the same way the Spirit guided the waters of the Great Flood. Before we can
heal, we must excise our sickness.

“I call on each and every one of you to serve His will. Whether
it be with gun or Bible, volunteer work or prayer, you must all do your part. Satan
will not surrender. He will not lay down in front of the glory of the Lord. And
he will not provide mercy. Continue to alert our soldiers, the chosen Warriors
of Christ, of the location of any Infidel. They may be your neighbor or your
brother, but they are also the concubine of Lucifer. God before all, so: ‘Thy
will be done.’ Bow your heads and pray for God’s blessing.”

Father sat and leaned back on his chair while the
congregation held his gaze in rapture. He read the visions of an Earthly garden
in their eyes, and heard their hearts banishing the serpent and sin. The
thought of the Thousand Year Peace allowed him to sleepwalk through the rest of
the Mass.

As was custom, the parishioners shook his hand as they filed
out the back doors of St. Michael’s. Many commented on the beautiful, holy
sermon just delivered, and they spoke of the richness of a full church. Father
shook hands with men. He hugged women, and lifted little children in the air.

God’s love will triumph
, he thought.

***

“Just us?” asked Commander Byron.

“Is my conversation alone not adequate?” asked Father.

The general laughed. He arranged his beret to cover a
receding hairline. The medals on his chest clinked together with every
movement. Commander Byron’s olive-green jacket had pressure on the lower
buttons. His cane sat across his lap, and an eye patch hung in place.

“Of course it is, Father. A brandy or cigar would make our
discussion quite enjoyable.”

Father reached for the decanter before Byron even finished
asking for it. Byron chuckled under his breath and followed the comfortable
ritual of their friendship.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Father.”

Father poured a two-finger dose of brandy into a paper cup
and handed it to the commander.

“As you can imagine, we may need to make adjustments,
Commander, until the Covenant has secured the region.”