Thursday Clip
From Hell Hounds
(It's like Jaws set in hell - only with more blood and teeth)
*************
“Come then, Satan, and face us,” the First called into the
night, “bring your harbingers and show us your quality . . . if you dare?”
The Seven waited.
A resounding silence was the only answer to their challenge.
Stamping forward, the First of the Seven reversed his blade
and stabbed its tip into the ground. Splinters radiated away from him across
the tarmac like fingers of asphalt lightning. Lengthening, they spawned a
series of fissures that rent the earth in one place after another, spilling
conveyances and smaller buildings alike into widening chasms. The primary
archway leading onto the bridge shuddered as bricks—stressed by unexpected
shearing—exploded, showering fleeing denizens in a volley of lethal shrapnel.
Small craft moored along nearby havens smashed together in freak swells, and
damned souls cried their last as each hungry abyss silenced their protests in a
final crushing embrace.
In that brief opening gambit, more than a thousand of the
unworthy perished without recourse. Burst pipes spewed water and effluent onto
sidewalks already slick with rain. Snapped cables lashed out blindly, spitting
sparks and flames onto those too slow or injured to care. Nodding in apparent
satisfaction, the First resumed his place.
The Second now strode forward to circle his brothers.
Surveying the carnage about them, he cast his refulgent gaze upon those fools
in the distance who thought they were safe. His eyes crackled with energy and
suddenly, fleeing wretches were encompassed within a skein of electrified intent.
Spinning like marionettes, they were helpless to resist the charged commands of
their puppet-master and danced and jerked, coiled and writhed, until eventually
they blackened and fell, gums bared in a rictus of death.
Erra noticed the moment his second cut the strings, for
scores of spent bodies flopped limply to the ground; their final expirations
marked only by wisps of oily gray smoke curling idly from lips crisped to ash.
Clutching his sword to his chest, the Third of the Seven
stepped back into the center of the ring. He took a deep breath and exhaled a
freezing haar high into the sky. The rain was instantly transformed; each drop
becoming an icy splinter of death, cruel and sharp. Shards heavy enough to
puncture steel and pierce flesh hammered down onto the arrested flow of
traffic. Muted cries echoed out from those still trapped in their vehicles as
each was impaled, again and again, by a verglas fusillade that gave no quarter.
The Third breathed once more, and those wails cut off as shocked casualties
were coated in a rime that frosted their blood lilac, then blue, and finally,
unsullied white.
In conclusion, the Third waved his dazzling sword in an arc
through the air. Even the river succumbed to his might as a glaze of ice
clenched its way from one bank of the river to the other. Without waiting for
the transformation to run its course, the Third turned on his heel and nodded
to the next enforcer in line.
The Fourth didn’t even bother to lower his blade. Instead,
he merely pointed with one finger toward those hiding in doorways or cowering
within the ruined shells of the nearest buildings. Where his hand passed, boils
broke forth, covering faces and exposed skin in a sea of blisters that swelled
and popped as if the flesh on which they festered were melting. People fell to
their knees, gagging and retching, helpless to prevent congealing fluids
drowning them from the inside out. Eventually, they weakened, only to expire in
a pool of their own filth.
His work done, the Fourth smiled, lowered his weapon to the
ground, and ran that same finger of destruction across the pommel of his weapon
with loving care.
So great was the press of those clamoring to get free across
the bridge that people were hard-pressed to make headway. Tight packed, they
pushed and they shoved and they jostled—falling more often than not—only to be
trampled into a bloody pulp by those in too much of a panic to care about
anyone but themselves.
Spotting their dilemma, the Fifth of Seven broke into a run.
As he moved, his cloak fell away, revealing a churning, tumbling matrix of
flickering death. Honed and needle sharp, he tore into the milling throng like
a razor-edged tornado, lopping limbs and shredding sinews left, right and
center. Having cut a swath through the main body of the crush, he whirled in a
haphazard fashion from side to side, spilling guts and opening throats, and
putting those who still possessed legs to rout.
As abruptly as it began, the whirling dervish stopped and a
glowing Titan stood forth; sword shining, knee deep in severed heads, torn
torsos and the spilth of intestines.
“It is fitting,” he declared, though to whom, Erra could not
discern.
Now the Sixth moved forward to face the River Tombs
directly. Taking position, the enforcer thrust his blade toward the heavens.
The falling torrents turned into a deluge of biblical proportions, its leaden
weight flattening anything that moved and knocking breath from the lungs of
victims desperate to cling to whatever measure of unlife they had left.
When it came, respite was as sudden as it was unexpected,
for a squall blew in from the west that swept all signs of the storm away and
out toward the sea. Even from his position high in the cloud mass, Erra could
hear the cries of release from those who thought the nightmare was over.
Their relief was short-lived.
Down below, the ground began to tremble and a distant growl
lifted itself above the background din of a city under siege. A dark mass
appeared on the horizon, roaring closer and higher with every passing second.
In less than a minute it had clarified into a foaming frothing wave-cap of
malevolence. Amazingly, the towering cliff seemed content to restrict itself to
the confines of the frosted Tombs. But there was a reason for that. The Sixth
reached out with one hand as if inviting an embrace from a long lost friend.
Then he clenched his fist and the crest broke like an avalanche, thundering
down out of the night sky to smash the ice apart and scour the banks clean of
any sign of life. Jetties, docks, wharfs and quays; waterside developments,
walkways and ornamental gardens. Anything and everything that once identified
the river’s course as part of a throbbing metropolis disappeared amid turgid
currents that scourged one of Olde London Town’s greatest landmarks raw.
And still it came.
The weight of a mountain struck Black Tower Bridge square
on. Ancient stones thrummed and metal girders squealed. And as the ninety-foot
high wall of glacial water sped by, the one thousand ton leaves of the center
span went with it, tumbling over and over in an aquatic blender that gradually
pulverized the tempered steel into scrap.
Only then did the breaker begin to subside.
Taking his time, the Seventh marked those that yet remained
alive and shrugged his mantle free. Heroic in form, he looked magnificent as he
hefted his sword in blazing arcs that fried the air and blistered concrete.
Feral glee scarred his countenance and an abrupt concentration of incendiary
focus caused all those within his sight to howl in pain. Some dived for cover
behind walls and ramparts. Others threw themselves into exposed sewers or the
river itself. Regardless, no matter where they stood or cowered, stragglers
recoiled in panic as embers kindled deep inside their bodies.
That heat grew exponentially, sparking an expanding eruption
that rushed through organs and airways alike until it burst from every orifice
and exploded from every extremity.
Denizens ignited, careering hither and thither like
phosphorous flares until they could stand no more. Flesh seared and cracked.
Ululating screams choked off. Carbonized bones crumbled and fell.
And suddenly, all was still.
*************
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And Remember:
Hell Hounds is now available to buy
Hell Hounds is now available to buy
