The towers of downtown Los Angeles smoked in the background as the Dark Army marched behind armoured vehicles. The strategic placement of burning vehicles cleared the freeways.
Fires raged across San Francisco and people flowed out of the city across the bridges as the hordes rampaged through the streets. Gun battles ensued between the police, who were hopelessly outnumbered, and the invaders.
After the Dark Army crossed the bridges to the north and the east they blew them to pieces.
Heading East with many new recruits the swarm stretched across the country from North to South.
Nowhere escaped the demonic ravage.
“Now I know why I came into this world at this time,” roared Rudi Meyer as he tramped away from a burning gas station in Nevada. He was surrounded by laughing vampires, blood dribbling out of the sides of their mouths.
Captured US Army tanks rumbled along empty freeways, the white star on the sides obliterated by a single black paint brush stroke.
In New Mexico the sun was setting causing shadows to lengthen as Ali Efron approached Malden Maximum Security Prison surrounded by the dark. Gunfire erupted from officers who had been told to sit tight with the inmates until help arrived.
Efron leapt over the perimeter fence and attacked the fearful officers. The Dark Army knocked the fence down and swept through the prison.
“I'm going to enjoy this,” growled Efron as he kicked open the secure doors of the building which contained the death row cells.
Bullets pinged round him as he flew through a passageway breaking the necks of officers as he passed. He pulled an iron bar gate off its fixing and threw it away. Then, destroying a digital panel, he shouted: “you're free now brothers,” as the doors of the cells opened.
At first, a few heads peered round the open doors, then men appeared warily in the passageway.
“Come on, you're free,” rasped Efron.
“Who are you?” An inmate with a shaven head and tattoos covering both arms asked.
“I'm your liberator. I'm part of the Dark Army. Once I was like you: on death row, but they came and freed me!”
“Yeah but, you don't look or sound... human,” said another prisoner with red hair and beard.
“That's because I'm undead. Now I'm going. You can join us alive or dead, or just go. There's no more law and order.”
Efron left the building and fused with the dark wave heading east. All the death row prisoners followed him and were absorbed by the dark.
66
Chapter Thirty-Nine Ron Scrimgeour walked into the Oval Office and watched as President John Cavendish sat on the phone gazing out of the window at the White House gardens.
The President turned and waved for Ron to sit on one seat by the front of his desk. “Ron, thanks for coming. What are we going to do about this… this disease spreading across the country?” he asked replacing the receiver.
“Well Mr President, I have enlisted the help of two, eh… agents who have the power to deal with the leader of the Dark Army.”
“I can’t believe this is happening on American soil, and we’re helpless to stop it because American citizens and soldiers are making up a large part of this so-called Dark Army,” said Cavendish watching his Vice President Bob Laverty come into the room.
“Mr President–you realize that this is the biblical Book of Revelation?”
“Oh, come now Ron!”
“He’s right Mr President,” said Laverty laying a piece of paper in front of Cavendish.
“And what of the Inner Sanctum?” Cavendish asked looking up after reading.
“Half of them can’t be trusted.” Scrimgeour answered looking from Cavendish to Laverty who had sat in a seat next to the CIA man at the instruction of the President.
“Why so?” the President asked.
“Well, the ones I’m talking about are descended from fallen angels... Satanic blood line, or they are a weird hybrid thing I don't understand!”
“What? And this lot have been ruling the Earth for ages!”
“Sir, the world is Satan’s, and now he’s back to claim what is his and throw God’s people to the wind.”
“So, what do us good Christians do Mr Scrimgeour?” Laverty asked.
“Well, there’s no guarantee that this will go down as prophesied. The entity now known as the Devil is much more powerful than the one in the Bible.”
“Why is this?” Cavendish asked as he leant forward.
“What I’ve learned is that he draws power from evil individuals who have been killed or die. He broke out of where he was being held–the Dark Realm–by absorbing dark power from the entities.”
Scrimgeour looked from one man to the other.
“He then gained power in this dimension by absorbing power from the death of evil prisoners in high security prisons–killed by taking poisoned drugs supplied from, wait for it... vampires.”
“So, how do we take him down?” Laverty asked.
“That’s just it. The answer is… with difficulty, and I'm not sure he is the whole problem!”
“Send in a team!” Cavendish said.
“Sir, we’d never see them again. Anyway, we never know where he is.”
“What, like here?” Thomson said, suddenly standing with a pistol against the president’s head.
“Or here!” he said as he held the pistol, in a flash, against the head of the vice president.
“No! Stop!” Scrimgeour shouted.
“It’s okay, I have no real physical power in this world,” said Thomson removing the gun from Laverty’s head. I can however control humans by implanting thoughts into their minds.
“What… you’re the Devil?” Cavendish uttered.
“Why yes Mr President–I am.” Thomson said as he circled the three men.
“So, you can mentally control people?” Bob Laverty asked.
“In a manner of speaking–yes. What you saw just now–I planted in your minds.”
“We can conjure you up?” The president asked as armed men appeared at the windows.
The doors burst open and black-suited men rushed in with weapons drawn.
“Stand down!” Scrimgeour screamed.
The men looked from face to face at the three men in the office and then lowered their weapons.
67