Legion (An Apocalyptic Horror Novel) (Hell on Earth Book 2) (14 page)

“That’s it,” said Maddy. “Drink as much as you can. It will give you a little boost.”

Daniel took another glug, but then started choking.

“Easy,” said Maddy, patting his back. It didn’t help. Daniel continued choking so violently that he almost tumbled out of the wheelbarrow. Rick rushed over and grabbed his arm to keep him from thrashing. 

“Hey, it’s okay. Calm down.”

Daniel opened both eyes and gasped for air.

“What was in that bottle?” asked Keith. “Poison?”

“No, it was a vitamin drink.” She held it up in front of her.

Rick read the label and groaned.
With added iron.
“It
is
poison. At least it is to him.”

Keith stared at him. “What do you mean?”

Rick found himself in a hole and decided the only way out was to tell the truth. “Daniel is one of them. He came through the gates.”

Keith backed away from the wheelbarrow and raised his iron poker. “You mean he’s a demon?”

“No, he’s an angel. One of the Fallen. He was trapped in Hell and escaped with everything else, but he isn’t one of the bad guys. He saved my life. He’s been trying to help us.”

“Like hell he has. He’s a goddamn spy!”

Rick snarled. “Then how come we’re still alive?”

“Beats me, but we need to deal with him right now.”

All the while, Daniel continued to choke.

Maddy pointed at Diane. “Get me some water. Now!”

“What are you doing?” Keith spun to face her.

“Trying to stop him choking.”

“Let the bastard choke.”

Maddy pointed a finger in his face. “No! I trust Rick, and I haven’t seen Daniel do anything to harm us. I would at least like to help him survive long enough for him to answer my questions.”

Diane hurried back with the water. It was peach flavoured.

Maddy shoved the bottleneck into Daniel’s mouth and upended it. Daniel gagged on the new liquid, but some of it went down okay. After a few moments, he drank voluntarily. The choking and hitching subsided.

Daniel was lucid.

Rick peered at him, eyes wide. “Daniel, you’re awake?”

“S-so I am. What’s that… that terrible taste in my mouth?”

“That might be the iron we just gave you.”

“T-the what?”

Rick shrugged. “Sorry. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

Daniel blinked, his eyes droopy and like he could fall back to sleep any moment. Despite that, he glanced around. “Where?”

“We’re at a petrol station. We decided to make a break for the south coast. There might be help there.”

“Rick says you’re a demon,” said Keith, looming over Daniel.

Daniel didn’t seem ashamed of the fact—maybe he was too out of it—and nodded slightly. “One word for me, I… suppose.”

“You’re one of them.”

Daniel shook his head adamantly despite his weakness. “No.”

Keith nodded, just as adamant. “Yes.”

“I’m not one of them.”

“Then help us,” said Maddy.

“Too… weak.”

“You see?” Keith pointed a finger. “He’s working to bring us down.”

Rick knocked his brother’s pointed finger downwards. “Yeah, because Hell would really send a Fallen Angel to bring down an accountant and a fading pop star. I’m telling you, he’s on our side. He…”

“He what?” Keith had grown red in the face, the collar of his dirty shirt seeming to grow tighter around his fleshy neck. “What were you going to say, Rick?”

“He… He brought me back to life. I was dead—my skull crushed—but he fixed me. Brought me back from the dead.”

Keith burst out laughing. “You’ve lost it. You’ve bloody well lost it.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m telling you!”

Keith looked at Rick, and the smile slipped away. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you haven’t lost it. Maybe Daniel has got to you. Maybe you’re determined to screw us all over.”

“Keith!” Maddy put her hand on her hips. “He’s your brother!”

“Is he? Came back from the dead, apparently. Isn’t that what demons do? Wouldn’t that make him a zombie? Doesn’t sound like my brother to me.” He prodded Rick in the chest.

“Back off,” Rick snarled.

Keith prodded him again. “I want to know what the hell is going on here. I won’t die. Marcy and Maxwell are still out there somewhere, and I intend on getting to them.”

Rick shoved his brother hard in the shoulders, rocking him back. “You mean the wife and son you cheated on? Screw you, Keith. You’re not the boss of anything, and you don’t decide what happens. Daniel is with us, and I am fine.”

“Rick?” Maddy was staring at him. Keith backed away cautiously, his poker held up in front of him.

“Oh God,” Diane put a hand to her mouth.

Rick shook his head. “What? What is it?”

“Just… look in the mirror,” said Maddy.

Look in the mirror? What was she talking about? There was one of those curved mirrors at the end of the aisle which allowed the sales assistant to glance around the corner. Rick went over to it. It was dark, so when he looked up, he couldn’t see himself clearly. He only saw his own eyes.

His eyes were glowing red.

Rick staggered backwards in shock, colliding with a shelfful of cleaning supplies behind him. “What’s wrong with me?”

Maddy came up behind and grabbed him. “Just sit down. On the floor, now.”

He allowed himself to be lowered and pulled his knees up while he sat there in stunned silence. Maddy rubbed at his back.

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked again, realising he was shivering.

“Shh, take deep breaths. Everything is okay.”

Rick realised his heart was thudding like a tambourine, but slowly, gradually, he calmed down. “Am I… Am I normal again?”

Maddy looked into his eyes. She nodded. “Yes.”

“I told you; he came back wrong,” said Keith.

Maddy glared at him. “Enough, Keith. Nothing’s changed. We’re all heading south to find safety.”

“You’re insane. He’s one of them now.”

“Can we stop fighting?” said Diane. “Let’s get what we need and go. I don’t like being stuck inside here. It’s too cramped. When I was twelve, I got locked in a cleaning cupboard at school for a whole hour. Tight spaces have freaked me out ever since.”

Keith ran a hand through his slicked-back hair and exhaled. “Fine, let’s get what we can in our packs and get back on the road. Let’s just forget about the facts Daniel is a demon and my brother is possessed. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Maybe that old man sweeping Rick saw was Jesus, come to whisk us all to safety. Everything is sodding hunky dory.”

“What did you just say?” Daniel struggled to lift himself up out of the wheelbarrow. “What was that you said?”

Keith didn’t even bother to look at him. “I’m not talking to you, demon. You’re a spy.”

“What did you say about a man sweeping?” The force in Daniel’s voice shocked them.

Frowning, Keith broke his own assertion and turned to Daniel. “It was a joke. Rick was seeing things. Thought he saw an old man sweeping. Not surprised, seeing as you supposedly knitted his brain back together.”

Daniel groaned. “The Caretaker. We need to leave here. Right now!”

“Wait, you mean he’s real?” said Rick. “I really saw him?”

Daniel gritted his teeth as he struggled to climb out of the wheelbarrow. He gained an inch before falling back down. “The Caretaker is very real. If you saw him, we are all in very serious danger.”

“Who is he?” Diane’s hands bunched up against her mouth.

“Hell is a place full of monsters,” said Daniel, “but even Hell has its bogeymen. They say the Caretaker was the slave who used to clean up the blood at the Roman Colosseum after Christians were put to death there. The Romans saw the blood as tainted and sent only the lowliest servants to deal with it. For decades, the slave watched while devout men were put to death, fed to lions, hanged, or stabbed. Over time, he became numb to their suffering—to all suffering. He became amoral. Near the end of the slave’s life, the gladiatorial combats stopped, and killing in the Colosseum ceased. The slave found himself without purpose. After a lifetime of cleaning up the blood of Martyrs, he had developed a need for its scent, for the tackiness against his fingers. For its taste.”

Diane groaned. “Oh God.”

Daniel continued, his strength returned as he told the story. Maybe it was fear giving him a boost. “Eventually, the slave could rest no longer. He needed to spill blood himself, to continue his life’s work. He started with his master, causing a minor slave revolt. First, he bathed in the blood, before cleansing it from his skin and from the floor. He left his former master on the dirt outside his home, mimicking the thousands of Christians who had perished on the sands of the arena. For another ten years, the slave continued his quest for blood, drinking from his victim’s necks as they bled out. It was the cleanest way to remove the liquid. No blood on the ground. It was his job to keep the ground clean. It had always been his job.”

“He sounds like a vampire,” said Maddy.

Daniel nodded. “Perhaps where the myth was born. Rome was deathly afraid of the old man who stalked its shadows, cleansing citizens of their blood. Roman Emperor Honorius promised a captured Gaul his freedom if the man hunted down the monster and slew it. The Gaul, once a druid of his clan, tracked the murderous slave down by butchering a dozen sows and draining their blood into a vat at the edge of the Rubicon River. The sickly scent drew the old man out of Rome, as desired, the very first night. The moon was full, and now, truly a monster, the murderous slave’s teeth were stained permanently red from the blood. The Gaulish druid ambushed the slave and drowned him in the great vat of blood, bringing a poetic end to the creature who had stalked the streets of Rome. The emperor decreed that the vat be sealed and buried with the old man’s corpse inside, forever to be soiled by the clotted blood of pigs.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Diane, still covering her mouth.

“I know nothing for sure,” Daniel admitted. “The Caretaker has become a myth throughout the hallways of Hell, his story whispered between the damned. The old slave has swept the burning halls for so long that I no longer remember when he first appeared. What I do know is that he wasn’t amongst the Fallen.”

“What does that mean?” asked Rick.

“I mean that the original inhabitants of Hell are the Fallen Angels. Lucifer created Hell to be his own kingdom and started claiming damned souls to serve him after that. In other words, aside from the original Fallen Angels, every single soul ever sent to Hell was once a man. The Caretaker walked this earth as a human being once. Then, one day, he ended up in the fiery abyss for his sins. For hundreds of years, he has swept the infernal hallways and kept them clean of blood. But blood is never ending in Hell. It flows like air. The Caretaker grew even more mad than he had been as a man. Eventually, just looking upon him as he went about his business would curse you to misery. To gaze upon the Caretaker is to invite him upon your soul. He will drain you of everything you are and leave madness in its place. He is feared, even by those in Hell. Even by Lucifer.”

“And I looked upon him,” said Rick.

Daniel nodded. “That is why we need to leave.”

But it was too late. The petrol station’s front window shattered, and something terrible came inside.

* * *

T
he windows burst
in a hail-storm of glass. Rick grabbed Maddy and pulled her into the aisle. Diane and Keith scattered too, leaving Daniel stranded like an upturned terrapin in his wheelbarrow. The Fallen Angel was straining to get up.

Demons filled the petrol station—burnt monsters and ungodly primates. An infernal gang from the pits of hell. Who and what had they been in life?

Rick cursed himself as the demons came closer. He had left his poker next to the fridges when he’d grabbed a sausage roll. Now he was defenceless. At least Maddy still held her hockey stick. She had kept it the whole time inside the petrol station and also had hold of a knife. She handed the blade to Rick.

Rick took the knife silently, crouching low in the aisle and trying to see his attackers in the dark. They were spread out, moving to all corners of the room.

“There’s no way out,” he said, strangely numb to the fact they were probably all about to die.

“So we fight,” said Maddy.

“Hey,” Rick hissed after her as she broke into the aisle. “Get back.”

The sound of sweeping.

The pitter-patter of blood.

“Get back,” came a shaky voice. “Go back to Hell, you big shit!”

Rick frowned. Was that Daniel? What was he doing? Unable to leave his companion to face the enemy alone, he hurried after Maddy to face their possible deaths.

Out on the main floor, Daniel had stood, yet kept one hand on the wheelbarrow as though he might stumble back in. He had his other hand up in front of him, a fist clenched at the demons amassed before him. They were seemingly held in place, unable to close in on him.

They cowered.

Sweep!

Maddy moved up beside Daniel. Rick joined her.

Sweep!

Daniel glanced sideways at them. “Thanks for abandoning me, buddies.”

“Sorry,” said Rick. “It happened so fast.”