Aftermath, Chapter Eight: Sweet Dreams

The air was choked with dust and smelled of cordite, shit and blood.  Lightning flashed and thunder roared all around me. In the flashes of light I saw corpses, bloodied by gunfire, laying limply across the rubble strewn floor.

I heard screaming ahead of me.  Screams containing all the rage and pain a person can stand was echoing from a man in the darkness.  His soul was tearing itself apart as he lashed out against unseen enemies, cutting a swath of death in his wake.  My feet followed those pain-filled cries, blood splashing to up to color my rescue rated field boot in a vibrant crimson.

Shapes moved toward me, filled with menace and spite.  I brought my sliver gun up and felt it cough out death at my touch.  I stepped over the broken bodies of gangers sporting neon faux-hawks, my trigger finger keeping pace with the hammering of my heart.  The gun ran dry, the magazine fell away into the crimson muck I plod through as I slammed a new one home.

Heart beat, fire, heart beat fire, over and over as I advanced over the twisted and deformed corpses of ghouls.  Survivors cried out, their flesh torn and faces malformed as the virus overtook them.  The gun tracked over them sparing a round to the head for each, the cough of the silenced weapon kept time.

The second magazine fell away and was replaced. Lighting continued to flash and thunder roared only to be drowned out by the anguished screams of rage ahead. My boots crushed fanged skulls as a thin figure blurred forward.  I saw a fanged maw open and shoved the pistol into the vampire's mouth, blowing the top of its head away in time with my own racing heart.  I leaped over the falling corpse and tried to catch up to the screams ahead of me.

Lightning ripped across the heavens, dazzling my eyes and revealing corpses rising as far as I could see.  Pools of liquid darkness shone with the malevolence of the spirits riding the corpses.  I felt the cold hands of fear and panic claw down my spine.  The sliver gun fell, lost in a pool of ichor, my hands took on a reddened glow as the words of the spell rang out of my mouth "Et si ambulavero in valle umbrae mortis, non timebo mala creo ignis magicae!"  Blood red flames erupted in a firestorm that swept over the corpses and rendered them to ash.

I ran through the smoldering ruins, chasing the lightning and screams.

Hideous monsters rose from cracks in the earth.  Terrible beasts, forever trapped beneath Lac Assal, rose before me.  My hand lifted my Smith and Wesson, the big revolver roared as it blew the head from one of the beasts.  Its companions fell upon it, tearing at the corpse with fangs and teeth.  I ran, blood and ichor splashing up my legs in ribbons of ebon black and vibrant crimson.

Lightning tore the heavens and the thunder battered the heavy revolver from my hands.  The ringing in my ears couldn't conceal the anguished cries I heard so clearly.  I opened my eyes and saw a figure wreathed in fire, kneeling in the skeleton of some great winged beast. The agony in those screams made my soul want to weep.  I didn't recognize the voice but the pain was somehow familiar.

I took a step toward the figure and the lightning and thunder ceased.  I saw the burnt corpses of winged elves laying among the bones. "NOOOO!" he screamed.

One step closer, then another.

I stretched out my hand thru the flames and they died away.

Two small corpses lay charred before him. He turned, screaming into the darkness all about us.

I saw my own face, my daughters laying dead all about me.  My hands covered in blood and ash I knelt alone in the skeletal remains of the dragon, screaming out my impotent rage as my soul rent itself with a pain I had only ever experienced in Hell.

I jolted upright, screaming in fear.  The fire alarm blared in Ratchet's garage as I jumped up from the sleeping bag that had erupted in flames beneath me.

Ratchet came running with a fire extinguisher, spraying foam across my legs and boots before turning it against the blazing fabric of my sleeping bag.

I crumbled to the floor, my throat raw from smoke and screams. I sobbed and cried, the pain of the nightmare eating at heart and soul.

Angel put a hand on my shoulder, holding fast as I sobbed and screamed wordless sounds against a fear I couldn't name.  I don't how long I sat there, crying until I ran out of tears.  I heard Ratchet ask Crank if they should tranq me, but I didn't care.  After a very long time, I looked up at a worried Angel.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I need to go home." I replied.

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Thank you for reading my fan fiction.  I hope you are enjoying Aftermath.

As of this writing I am funding my comic book, 47 Furious Tails Issue One on KickStarter.  I hope you'll check it out, support the project if you can and help me to bring that title to print.




I hope you'll join me next time as "Aftermath" continues with Chapter Nine