Angels and Demons part 24

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Angels and Demons part 24
By
Morpheus

“We’ll try providing what air support we can,” Captain Brooks told us over the radio as the helicopter rose back into the air. “But with the heavy tree cover, we’ll only be of limited use.”

“Figures,” Dani said with a scowl, obviously in a bad mood. Of course, all of us angels were in a bad mood at the moment. Our periods were nearly over, but they hadn’t ended quite yet.

Our current deployment location was in a national forest that had large wood areas which would make spotting the demons from the air difficult. According to the briefing, there had been reports of some missing hikers a couple weeks ago, though everyone just assumed that they’d gotten lost. Then earlier this week, a campground had been attacked and half a dozen people had been left dead. It wasn’t until this morning when other hikers had actually seen a demon that we knew where it was. From the direction and speed it had been heading, it would reach a small town in just a couple days and then things would get messy. We knew we had to stop it here and now.

“Let’s find this thing,” Rebecca announced as she left the clearing and went among the trees. Dani, Nicole, and I immediately followed.

The soldiers all began to spread out, sticking together in groups of three. Four of them remained with us, though they held back as usual, letting us take point while they watched our backs.

“Be careful,” Dani warned. “There are a lot of places around here for a demon to hide.”

I nodded at that, feeling nervous looking around carefully for any signs of the demon. The reports had been very clear about where the demon was headed so there was little doubt that it was in this area. I just hoped we were able to find it before it found us.

Half an hour after we’d begun searching among the trees, Captain Brooks came over the radio announcing, “We just received another report of the demon. A park ranger reported seeing a demon around the same time as the hiker…but the description of the demon doesn’t match.” There was a pause before he added, “We may have multiple demons in the area.”

“Damn,” Rebecca muttered with a scowl.

“That is definitely not good,” Nicole added.

Dani just snorted, “No fucking shit.”

“Reminds me of Nebraska,” Pete said from a short distance to the side.

Reese chuckled at that and responded, “Yeah, but this time I’m pretty sure we’re not going to find a bunch of kids in costume. They were damn lucky we didn’t shoot them.”

“I heard the second DSU did that,” Mason commented. “They shot some fucking idiot who was trying to play an April Fools prank on his buddy.”

I scowled, glaring back at the soldiers who were talking. I would have thought that it would be smarter to keep quiet so we could sneak up on the demon rather than warning it where we were. Then again, maybe making noise would draw it out of hiding and straight to us. Either way, I think I would have preferred to keep it quiet.

Then I heard it, a roaring sound in the distance. We all began moving towards the sound, which I thought was a very bad idea. Every horror movie I’d ever seen seemed to suggest that the wisest course of action wasn’t to investigate the weird noises but to run in the opposite direction.

I suddenly noticed a blur of motion from the corner of my eye and snapped around faster than any normal human would have been able to do. Something brown and furry was flying through the air, hitting a tree and then bouncing off. I shot at it, as did my sisters. However, this brown blur seemed to be even faster than we were as we blew holes in several of the trees, right behind the blur.

The furry blur launched itself at one of the soldiers behind us, and a moment later, the soldier’s body was sent flying through the air until he smashed into the side of a tree with a sickening crunch. It was only then that I got a good look at the demon since it was crouched down next to where the solider had been standing.

The demon was a little larger than a normal human but looked something like a cross between a gorilla and a rabbit. Its body was built like a gorilla, with a large upper body and thick powerful arms which it was leaning forward onto. However, its fur was soft and fluffy looking and its head definitely resembled that of a rabbit, especially the two large ears. That resemblance ended at the mouth, which was wide open and full of sharp teeth.

“Fucking thing got Trevor,” Mason exclaimed, opening fire on the demon, which immediately jumped into motion again.

“We’ve engaged the demon,” Rebecca called out over the radio as she opened fire.

The demon jumped up to a tree, bouncing off the trunk and then flying to another tree. One of the shots hit its side, though it wasn’t enough to stop the demon dead. Instead, it took another long leap, right over the top of Mason. A spray of demon blood trailed behind it, splashing all over the soldier’s front.

“FUCK,” Mason screamed in horror. I glanced to Mason, who was still wearing his gloves and plastic face mask, which was a good thing since several drops of blood were on the mask.

The demon continued running, so I called out to my sisters, “You guys get little bunny foo foo… I’ll catch up.” Then I grabbed Mason’s shoulder and ordered, “You stay here…”

I was already wearing gloves so didn’t hesitate to start removing the parts of Mason’s uniform and gear that had been hit with the demon blood and tossing them aside. He stood there, looking like he was in shock but not fighting me as I did this. The final piece was his mask, which joined the rest of the gear which would need to be decontaminated or destroyed.

“I don’t think you actually touched any of the blood,” I told Mason grimly, “so you might have escaped infection. Run back to the helicopter and have them spray you down with the sterilization foam just to be safe.”

“Thanks,” he stammered before rushing off, wearing nothing but his underwear and socks.

I turned my attention to Trevor, the soldier who’d been thrown into the tree. I checked his pulse and wasn’t at all surprised to see that he was dead. The angle his head was resting at had been a clear indication of that already. Since there was nothing I could do for him, I left his body where it was and went to catch up with the others.

I followed the sound of gunfire to where my sisters were still chasing big bunny foo foo. They’d managed to hit the demon again, slowing it down enough so that it was no longer able to bounce through the trees. Instead, it was staggering on the ground a short distance ahead of us. Then it turned and snarled at us.

“Time to put this bunny down,” Dani said as she took aim at the creature.

Suddenly, Reese screamed and I snapped around to see that the stump he was standing next to was moving. It was doing more than just moving…it was getting up and revealing that it was really a demon that had been crouched down and hiding. The demon’s skin was brown and wrinkled, looking almost exactly like tree bark which was how we’d missed it. I’d heard that would sometimes adapt to their environments, but was the first time I’d seen it.

Reese was still screaming from where he was curled up on the ground, clutching his hand…or at least the stump where he used to have a hand. The tree demon snarled, and while we were distracted by this demon, bunny foo foo jumped right at Rebecca.

“Look out,” Dani cried out a warning.

Rebecca immediately dove to the side, dodging the evil bunny demon. It snarled and swung large fists at her, but she dodged those as well. Then Nicole jumped at the demon, firing several shots and catching it in the side. The demon was thrown back while Rebecca and Nicole both continued shooting at it.

I remained focused on the tree demon, which slowly advanced on Pete. Pete opened fire on the demon as he backed away. I fired several shots as well, causing the tree demon to finally stop and then fall over. I was just thankful that the tree wasn’t nearly as fast as the rabbit.

“Are you okay?” I demanded as I rushed to Reese’s side.

“Do I look okay?” he snarled in pain. “I just had my fucking hand bitten off by a demon.”

Without another word, I removed my back pack and went to work. I gave Reese a shot for the pain and then put on a tourniquet in order to staunch the bleeding. I even bandaged Reese’s arm up, though the truth was he needed more medical attention than I could provide here.

But even as I was working on Reese, I knew that it was ultimately useless. After being bit by a demon, he was almost certainly infected with the demon strain. From the look of terror in Reese’s eyes, he was aware of this fact as well. Still, I had to do the best I could for him and hope that he had somehow escaped that curse.

“Damn it,” Pete said, watching Reese with a worried look on his face though he was also keeping his distance. “I’m sorry man…”

“Not your fault,” Reese said quietly, sounding groggy dues to a mixture of the shock, pain, and the shot I’d given him.

“At least we got both of the demons,” Nicole said, though she was giving Reese a worried look as well.

“I’ve notified the cleanup crew,” Rebecca told us grimly.

Just then, I heard a low rumbling growl from the side. I snapped around, gulping at the sight of a third demon stepping out from around a tree a short distance away. This one was wide and stocky, with thick gray skin that almost looked like it was made of stone.

“I’ve got this one,” Dani said quietly as she raised her weapon.

“Um…guys,” Nicole said nervously.

I looked to where Nicole was pointing and gasped at the sight of another demon, crouched down on a thick tree branch and looking down at us with a hungry expression. However, my eyes didn’t stay there. There were other growls and snarls from around us as well and I felt a cold chill run down my spine. Two more demons had appeared, leaving us surrounded by four of the rabid creatures.

I gulped, suddenly having a VERY bad feeling about this. However, it was Dani who verbalized what every one of us was thinking. “We are so fucked.”

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Comments

Eek!

We've got them just where they want us! I had a bad feeling with them running after Foo-Bunny, but Demons are stupid right? No way they would be able to think about drawing the Angels into a ambush.

The new development is very bad.

Now I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for more!
Grover

Well they were humans once...

Well they were humans once... I wouldn't be too surprised if they kept their smarts. Or even got smarter if totally aggressive an vicious. That is not surprising, but very worrysome. This reaches the point where the US might not care about a nuclear war. Better than to be replaced by homo demonis :)

Morpheus, does it hit the fan

Morpheus my man you know how to bring the mess to the fan brother. Never a dull moment with you. Great chapter and I am truly glad to see that you are keeping Monica in character about being a medic/EMT first and a fighter second. This is truly turning out to be a great story.

SDom

Men should be Men and the rest should be as feminine as they can be

Need bigger guns.

This had to come up. Perhaps the Nuclear option?

Unless one of the Angels suddenly manifests super lethal power, I agree, they are finished.

Gwendolyn

Yep!

Why haven't they got a flamethrower or two? Seems a natural fit, kills the demon and sterilizes the area at the same time. And very useful in a multiple target situation, spray and sweep.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Flamethrowers dont kill quickly.

You know what is more scary than a demon that is trying to tear you apart/eat you etc?

a demon that is trying to do that whilst ON FIRE!.

Could she save the soldier by deliberately infecting him

woth her blood? She has a quick and reeady source, one of her tampons.

IE could a large dose of the angel strain overwhelm the demon strain if he has not yet turned?

John in Wauwatosa

BTW the demons usually don't cooperate so maybe they can trick them into attacking each other?

John in Wauwatosa

cliffhanger!

bad, very bad!

DogSig.png

yikes

Kalkin62's picture

My .... that IS a cliffhanger.

As far as deliberately infecting a soldier with the Angel strain ... that might be an ethical-moral discussion to have first with the other Angels first, and then (if they agreed) with the soldiers in the unit that was accompanying them. That is to say, if they'd taken Reese's arm off at the shoulder RIGHT AWAY, and then intentionally infected him with the Angel strain, it might potentially have worked given what we've been told.

However, everyone probably would have had to agree ahead of time that it was a good idea in the event it became necessary, and was deemed possible.

From what we've seen so far, Rebecca and the others aren't all that keen on just anyone becoming an Angel. The soldiers who provide them with backup would probably be high on the potential list, but ... it still seems like a discussion that should have taken place ahead of time.

And then there's the whole four-demons-at-once thing, who knows if they'll survive.

It's always darkest

before things get really bad! LOL

What a place to stop! Morpheus you've got all of us on the edge our our seats waiting to see what happens next. Great job drawing us all in and and then just as the tension reaches a crescendo . . . stopping! Argh.

Very well written story. I'm really enjoying it.

Cheers
Zapper

I'd say

That last line was pretty well accurate. What a mess.

Maggie

Been thinking about this

gpoetx's picture

Been thinking about this since last night. Either Monica or one of them is dreaming right? Nothing can be this bad and logic tells me the don't mutate with plants only animals and that part is sketchy at best...

Mutation and the Demon Virus...

Sammi's picture

What we do know about the Angel and Demon viri.

  1. Not many survived the Distruction of the Lab where the Angel and Demon virui were developed (3 of the survivors are Angels)
  2. Not much data on either virus, if any, survived that destruction.
  3. The Viri incorporate and change DNA.
    A. Incoroporate - The Rat/Human Hybrid Demon (you know the one with the green slimey
    thing about the size of a football).
    B. Change - The Angels.

All Living things have DNA, Plants, Animals, Insects and Humans, thus Logicaly and theoreicaly the Demon Virus could Mutate with anything that has DNA.

What we don't know is at what point in the Demon Viruses gestation process does the mutation occur, and how the mutations occur.


"REMEMBER, No matter where you go, There you are."

Sammi xxx