Apocalypse Soldier Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TALON ARRIVED IN Arizona at 2.45pm and he pulled up to the scene of the massacre about an hour later in the Jeep Wrangler Casca had reserved for him. The cross atop the church’s bell tower shimmered in the unforgiving desert heat as he strode toward the structure. The house of God was located five miles south of Tuscon and faced the endless stretch of barren, arid terrain, the back of the building framed by craggy, scrub-covered mountains. Beads of perspiration pearled on his face and his boots trailed dust. He could almost taste the baking heat as it singed his lungs with each successive breath he drew. The temperatures were approaching 100 degrees and for a surreal moment, Talon felt like he was back in the Middle East. The training, the war, his old mission; it all seemed a lifetime away. Where once he dealt with Taliban fighters, insurgents and dangerous hostage situations, his days were now filled with Satanists and occultists. His world had changed and there was no turning back now.

  He’d devoted most of his adult life to protecting civilization from the forces of chaos. But sometimes the greatest dangers came from within. Civilized men could become their own worst enemy by underestimating barbarians and forgetting the hard-earned battles and wars that had made modern society possible.

  Sometimes the same held true for soldiers. Had he become his own worst enemy, oblivious to how this new conflict was affecting his mental state? Casca seemed to believe so, and he was probably right. Talon’s buddy Erik was only one of the many brave men who’d succumbed to battle fatigue and the stress of combat. Most people seemed to think that PTSD was triggered by one single traumatic event, a horrific memory that had to be dealt with. But Talon had seen way too many military personnel suffer from the affliction who had never engaged in direct combat. PTSD was far more insidious and could sneak up on you, the cumulative result of a series of events that could irrevocably shift a person’s worldview.

  Americans in general believed in a civilized, rational universe, a world where good triumphed over evil and people lived meaningful lives and pursued their dreams. War could reveal a different truth. By living in a dark world of constant death and brutality, a new worldview could take over — one where nothing made sense, random violence shaped reality and good people perished while monsters flourished. It was the recognition of this new reality, a loss of meaning and the possibility of an uncaring, indifferent universe that sucked so many cops, soldiers and even medical professionals into its dark vortex. Feelings of helplessness were only compounded by a realization that the world was a far scarier place than they ever imagined.

  Talon had never succumbed to such a shift in perception. Being the son of a diplomat, he’d spent his formative years traveling all over the planet. Witnessing the injustices of the world at a young age opened his eyes. Government policy and ideology shaped reality. Some policies made life better for its citizens; some made it unbearable. Freedom was a precious flame that could easily be extinguished and become a victim of the universal laws of entropy and barbarity. Warriors were the frontline against such forces. Savage violence had to be met with better violence in order to maintain order from the chaos. He never questioned his military mission because he always knew what he was fighting for.

  Or so he thought…

  The last few months had been an eye-opener, forcing him to shift his perceptions and beliefs in a fundamental way. San Francisco and the Omicron cult had exposed him to a different kind of evil, and this new insight coupled with losing Michelle was eating away at him. He’d always known the world could be a dark place, but now that darkness had sprung claws. Instinctively he knew that he couldn’t maintain his current pace. As Casca put it, even soldiers received R&R days, and Talon was overdue.

  As the church drew closer, Talon took note of the police ticker tape that barricaded the entrance. The reporters and news-vans were long gone. The horror of the massacre had already given way to new tragedies. Talon checked the main entrance and found it locked, a wise precaution to keep morbid thrill-seekers from entering the crime scene. He circled the structure and approached a small door on the north side. He was trained in the art of breaking down locks and the back door should prove less challenging to breach than the front entrance. To Talon’s surprise, he found the small door unlocked.

  What did they call the rear entrance of a church again? The Devil’s Door? The thought made him grin. He’d been reading too many of Casca’s books. According to medieval legend, the north face of a church belonged to the Devil. Medieval people believed that baptisms drove out the demons residing inside children and the demonic forces would need a back door to escape the church.

  A few months earlier Talon would’ve shaken his head at a bit of superstition like that, but he wasn’t laughing any longer. Devils were real. Casca called it the darkness, an evil force coursing through the universe in direct opposition with the light.

  Legend and culture determined how this darkness manifested itself. Zagan had called up a cybernetic monster back in San Francisco, but a devout Catholic might conjure Lucifer or one of his minions. Each culture tried to grasp the darkness as best they could, but this was a mystery not one single religion or mythology could fully define. This trippy New Age conceit almost made sense if one could accept the possibility that evil forces do exist.

  Talon pushed the door open. Rank air greeted him as he entered the building. A narrow corridor extended into the darkness and he switched on his cellphone’s flashlight. Light lanced the dusty blackness. Talon navigated the corridor, which led him straight into the sanctuary. The wasteland of shredded pews and broken saints offered a grim testimony of the atrocities committed here. Dark stains scarred the floor. The blood of innocents had flowed freely.

  Inhaling sharply, he noticed a stale, cloying heaviness to the air that made breathing difficult. It was almost as if the souls of the murdered congregants still lingered in the air, weighing it down with their tormented presence. On a logical level, Talon knew that the atmospheric conditions were a consequence of the doors being sealed while desert heat beat down on the building. But that didn’t stop his mind from playing tricks on him.

  Enough sunlight shafted through the stained-glass windows for him to navigate the church, and he turned off his light. It had been years since he set foot in a place of worship and he felt like an intruder. In the last decade, he’d said his fair share of prayers over the graves of fallen comrades. But with each year of combat, the words of those prayers only seemed emptier. War had shaken his trust in an all-loving God. After the events in San Francisco, he didn’t know what to believe.

  Talon walked away from the windows and approached the altar. The inverted cross loomed like the flagpole of some conquering army; the cult had claimed this holy ground for their own unholy purposes. He approached the demonic sigils spray-painted on the walls. Inspecting the area, he counted seven different symbols.

  Talon had brushed up on the subject on the flight over here, so he knew that each sigil represented a different demon. Nevertheless, his knowledge was pretty limited – this was Casca’s area of expertise. Talon took pictures of the sigils with his phone and sent the images to Casca. Hopefully the billionaire could make sense of it all.

  Talon was about to leave the church when the sound of sobbing suddenly gave him pause. He peered into the dim surroundings, dust motes dancing in the gloomy light. It didn’t take him long to identify the source of the sound. A lone figure sat in one of the perforated pews, hands steepled in silent prayer. The figure was masked by shadows, but a muffled sob gave away the woman’s presence. As he approached, she stared at Talon with big eyes.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  When Talon didn’t respond, she said, “My husband was here when it happened. I was feeling sick that morning and decided to sleep in…”

  She broke off. Talon understood. The woman must’ve entered the church the same way he did, seeking some form of communion with her deceased husband. Talon knew ghosts were real because they existed in the hearts an
d minds of those who’ve lost someone. What he did next surprised him. He knelt next to the grieving woman and, blocking out the panorama of destruction around them, joined the woman in prayer. He hadn’t prayed in months, yet the words flowed easily from his lips.

  Talon prayed for the dead.

  Prayed for Michelle.

  Once done, he made a silent promise to himself. He’d make the monsters responsible for this slaughter regret the day they ever set foot inside the church.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FATHER CABRERA STEELED himself for the worst as he followed the two strong-looking male orderlies through the stark psychiatric wing of the Oasis Behavioral Health Treatment Center. Sunlight shafted through a lone window at the far end of the sterile corridor, painting shadows over the oppressive walls. The teen patients remained hidden from view behind the doors that lined the hallway. The overpowering scent of Lysol permeated the ward, almost as if the cleaning staff believed their efforts could both scrub out stains and cleanse the ward’s troubled inmates of their demons.

  And that’s why Cabrera was here today, decked out in his full vestments and carrying an exorcism kit.

  Demons.

  Her name was Nicole Robertson, age fifteen. A month earlier, she’d made a terrifying splash on the Internet when she slit her dog’s throat and painted demonic symbols on her body. She filmed the horror with her brand new iPhone 1 and uploaded the video on an increasingly popular new website called YouTube. Within hours of the footage hitting the Web, the police arrived at her house and she was committed to the Center.

  Nicole wasn’t responding to medication, and her madness had only deepened since arriving at her new home. Nicole’s desperate parents contacted the Church for help. They believed that sinister forces were at work within their daughter.

  Cabrera’s first instinct in such cases was to look for a psychological explanation of the problem. Abuse, a stressful living situation, bullying at school; any of these factors could push an impressionable teen to the edge. But after talking with Nicole’s parents, he concluded he was dealing with good, loving people at wit’s end. Nicole was a popular, well-adjusted, attractive young lady whose behavior had transformed overnight.

  Her parents’ despair, coupled with the savage, occult undertones of the YouTube video, convinced Cabrera to check in on the girl. After visiting her three times over the last week, he’d concluded that a demonic entity was indeed responsible for her shocking behavior.

  The orderlies stopped in front of Nicole’s room. One unlocked the door, his keys rattling in the silent hallway. The lock turned with a rasp and the door swung open. The cell beckoned. As Cabrera stepped into the padded room, a wave of cold air hit him. There had to be at least a ten-degree difference between Nicole’s room and the rest of the ward. Eyes still adjusting in the dim light, he heard Nicole’s voice before he saw her.

  “Father Cabrera, please forgive me, for I have sinned.” The words were followed by a guttural, amused cackle.

  The straitjacket-wearing young woman crouched in the far corner and snarled mockingly at Cabrera. Unwashed hair caked her forehead, slitted eyes hinting at a malevolent cunning. He knew from reports that terrible scars defiled Nicole’s body but her white sweats and restraints hid the marks of the beast.

  The occult symbols weren’t restricted to the canvas of her body, but extended to every available surface of the padded room. Etched in blood and excrement, the blasphemous messages made Cabrera shudder. At first the orderlies had hosed down the walls, but the unholy graffiti kept returning and they’d finally given up. Even putting Nicole in a straitjacket hadn’t put an end to the phenomenon. A terrible supernatural force was at work here.

  “My sins are many, where should we begin…?”

  Cabrera didn’t verbally engage the entity. The time for words was over. Tonight he would be going to war with the demon. He opened his leather satchel and nodded at the two orderlies to close the door. They would remain at his side in case something should go wrong. Their eyes flitted nervously around the dark, foul-smelling cell, perspiration beading their faces.

  This is definitely their first exorcism, Cabrera thought. Not that anyone could ever get used to what lay ahead.

  He removed a Bible, vials of holy water and a golden cross, which contained bone fragments from nine different saints. These were essential weapons in the arsenal he’d bring against the vile creature residing within Nicole.

  “I see you came prepared today, Father. Finally convinced yourself you aren’t dealing with some head-case with daddy issues?”

  “There is no sanctuary for you here.”

  Cabrera flipped open his Bible and began to read. Nicole squirmed and writhed on the padded floor.

  As Cabrera’s voice picked up in speed and volume, he splashed Nicole with holy water. A monstrous howl exploded from her throat and the orderlies backed away, their terror growing.

  “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…”

  Nicole’s seizures gained in intensity. “The child belongs to me,” the inhuman voice proclaimed.

  “…Deliver us from the evil one.”

  Cabrera held up the cross and Nicole reared back. Her hissing ceased and gave way to a nerve-shredding bellowing sound, more animal than human.

  Words of prayer flowing from his lips, Cabrera approached the writhing young woman on the floor. This was the most dangerous part of the ritual. It necessitated direct contact. Timing and focus would be crucial. One single misstep, and the exorcism would falter.

  He raised the cross, which was his most powerful weapon against the inflicted, and pinned it to Nicole’s forehead. There was no sizzling flesh, as the movies would have the public believe, but the contact triggered a violent reaction in the possessed. Nicole began to snarl and spit, nostrils flaring. Her eyes rolled back, revealing black sclera.

  “The power of the Almighty commands you!”

  Nicole’s head reared back, accompanied by the cracking of bones. Her mouth widened and something dark and inhuman slithered from between her bloody lips.

  Cabrera fought back revulsion as he watched a black scorpion crawl from Nicole’s open mouth and slither up the wall of the padded cell. A shrill scream exploded from Nicole’s throat and she slumped forward, completely spent.

  Cabrera’s heart hammered as the fast-moving scorpion scurried away from Nicole. He couldn’t let the demon escape. Even though he was in his mid-forties, Cabrera kept himself in peak physical condition. Running and boxing were part of his daily regimen. He depressed a switch on the cross and a blade snapped out at the bottom. Moving with the speed of a man half his age, he drove the blessed blade into the escaping scorpion. The entity squirmed but couldn’t resist the crossblade’s holy power for long. Stinger flailing helplessly, it dissolved into thin air.

  It was over. Once again he’d racked up a victory against the forces of darkness…

  Sudden movement behind him made him wheel toward the two orderlies. They glared back at him, their faces now transformed into snarling, demonic masks.

  A powerful pair of hands sprouting claws snapped out at him and closed around his collar, squeezing. A choked garble escaped from his lips as this vise-like grip cut off his oxygen supply. The world grew dark around the edges, reduced to the two red-skinned devils with obsidian eyes.

  Like the soldier in the church…

  Cabrera screamed.

  ***

  His eyes snapped open and he awoke inside a hospital bedroom that only vaguely recalled the padded cell from his nightmare. A narrow beam of sunlight trickled through a curtained window to his right. A clock informed him that it was around five thirty and he spent most of the day asleep. His throat felt parched and he reached for the water bottle resting on the nightstand.

  “Father Cabrera, we have to talk.” The male voice startled the priest and he almost dropped the water bottle. Cabrera turned toward the stranger, who cut a dark silhouette in the dimly illuminated hospital room. Thoug
h he wore scrubs, the steel in the stranger’s eyes didn’t promise a good bedside manner. Cabrera’s instincts told him this man was no healer.

  Weirdly enough, he didn’t feel afraid. After witnessing the massacre in his church the other day, his capacity for fear had changed. Like a captain insisting to go down with his ship, he’d wanted to join his congregants in death. But the demonic soldier had let him live. One lone survivor to spread the dark tale of what had happened that day, forced to carry the guilt of having been spared when others perished.

  Cabrera hadn’t talked with anyone yet about what had happened back at the church. He’d been in and out of consciousness ever since they brought him to the hospital. The last time he woke, an FBI agent had dropped by to check in on him but he’d still been too groggy to talk. The agent – what was his name again, Doyle? - had promised to return later but the man standing in his room wasn’t him.

  “Who are you?” Cabrera asked.

  The stranger took a step toward the bed. The sneakers of nurses would squeak on the rubber floor but the stranger made no sound as he closed in, displaying an almost preternatural economy of movement. He eased from the shadows and rough-hewn features complemented by a lean, wiry build came into focus. The gray eyes were those of a killer, even though Cabrera sensed that the man hadn’t come for that purpose. If the stranger wished him ill, he never would have awoken from his slumber.

  Cabrera wondered for a second if the man might be another FBI agent who worked with Doyle, but a special agent wouldn’t wear scrubs. Only one reason explained his attire. The stranger was trying to blend in and avoid undue attention from the hospital staff. Requesting a formal visit would have meant answering questions, and this man looked like he cherished his privacy.

  “I’m sorry about what happened at the church.”

  “Thank you, but you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”