Demon Gate: Beyond the 9th Circle: The Rapture Was Just The Beginning. (7 page)

^{the tanks was unattainable through the
st}
smoldering flames. Down the street where 1
Street met Prince Street, there was another gas
station. It didn’t look like there was any power,
but Spencer knew how to bypass the fuel pumps
and get the fuel moving into his tank.

“You think there’s anything we could
take with us in there?” Gretchen asked, nodding
at the convenience store section of the station.

“It’s worth a look,” Spencer replied. He
reached into the backseat for the compact P-90,
loaded a clip, and escorted Gretchen into the
convenience store. Spencer quickly made a
survey of the store and found that there was
nobody left alive or dead. They went about
gathering what food remained on the shelves.
Most of the drinks had gone flat, the milk was
well on its way to becoming cheese, and most of
the fresh food was growing a putrid layer of
mold. The only choice was water, dried food and
items with high levels of preservatives like
Twinkies and potato chips.

Gretchen spied the ladies room and
handed everything she had to Spencer before
heading in.

Spencer approached the closed door, “We
don’t have time for this.”
“Then meet me out at the car,” Gretchen
said from inside the bathroom.
“Hurry, we really should keep going,”
Spencer said before leaving the store and loading
their haul into the car.
Spencer opened the drivers’ side door to
his car, climbed in and closed the door. He
looked at his watch; it read a quarter to one. They
could have been halfway to Albuquerque by now.
Spencer waited semi-patiently for what seemed
like hours, before he walked back into the store
and found the bathroom door was open and
Gretchen was nowhere in sight.
“Gretchen?” Spencer called, not knowing
who or what else cold be in the area as he
searched the small store. Then he heard a
terrifying sound, like a deep ominous rolling
thunder on the horizon. Spencer headed out the
door and saw a hoard of demons coming. They
were trailed by pure darkness and death. They
were a couple miles distant, but he knew they
would reach them very soon.
Spencer turned and headed back in
shouting for Gretchen; he figured he could have
overlooked something. Looking in the bathroom
he saw it - a window, but it was smashed open.
Spencer checked the men’s room, the
storage room, the office, everywhere he could
think of, growing more frantic by the second
because any minute the entire town would be
overrun my demons. He could kill the queen; he
knew that for sure now. But would he survive
long enough to face her? And what had
happened to Gretchen?
Soon the decision to leave or keep
searching for Gretchen reached a tipping point
and he had no choice but to leave. “I’m sorry,
Gretchen.” Spencer mourned out loud.
Spencer got into his car, started the engine before
speeding away, all the while looking for
Gretchen in his rearview mirror.
But as he passed beyond the city limits he
realized she was gone. He wondered if he would
ever see her alive again. The only hope he could
have was the demons would see his car and come
after him and leave the town alone. Then
Gretchen could try to make her own way to the
safe zone.
Spencer put the pedal to the floor and his
car buried the needle in the red for another two
hours before he stopped and got out of the GTO
and finally started to freak out.
“I LEFT HER TO DIE!” Spencer wailed.
The feelings of attractions, the feeling of being
alone, they all swirled in him while he crouched
on the ground. His mind would not calm down
and he couldn’t move. Finally the horror of his
choice faded enough for him to calm down. Not a
lot, but enough for him to decide he should have
stayed, to feel he made the wrong choice. But it
was too late to go back to look for her. The only
thing that was left was ahead and was what
Spencer hoped would be a safe zone.
It took Spencer a good three hours to
calm himself down enough to get back on the
road, but he never stopped thinking about her or
what might have been. Spencer was in sight of
Albuquerque, which was a fairly large city.
Unfortunately his only way to Arizona was to go
straight through this city, which he did at more
than ninety miles per hour.
As Albuquerque vanished into the
distance, he found himself looking even further
back to Clovis where Gretchen had strangely
vanished. The sun was almost gone when he
arrived at Winslow, Arizona. He expected to find
carnage. But instead he found a ghost town,
eerily similar to Clovis. Spencer got out of his car
to investigate. Looking around he found no
bodies, only streets that were littered with all
manner of debris; several cars in the vicinity
were burnt to a crisp. Signs adorned the streets
proclaiming the end of days and that God’s
judgment was upon them. Wind whipped up the
trash on the ground and old newspapers swirled
around. Spencer caught a page from one; the date
was April 8
^th
.
“So, they attacked everywhere on the
same day,” Spencer surmised aloud. Then he
began to wonder where the demons were now.
Not that he minded not having to run for his life,
he had been doing that since he left New Jersey.
Then horrified apprehension took over as he read
another article in the paper. “Reports of portals in
Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; London, England
and Moscow, Russia.” “They’re everywhere, in
every country, on every continent and every
major city around the globe.” Spencer mumbled.
He got back into his car and drove to the west
end of town.
He started looking for a place to stay the
night and happened to come to the city cemetery
at the west end.
Hallowed ground. Maybe it
might offer some protection.
Spencer pulled into
the cemetery grounds and parked near the center
of the graveyard. He soon fell asleep. He hadn’t
slept well since fleeing his home, and the added
exhaustion of guilt from being forced to leave
Gretchen wiped him out. It was a deep and
immediate sleep.
Some time in the night a face appeared in
front of him, the face of a girl. “Why did you
leave me behind?” Gretchen asked.
“Gretchen?” Spencer asked. “I’m sorry.”
“Why did you leave me behind?”
Gretchen repeated. She spoke a third time but
with a growl before transforming into a demon,
dark and vicious with eyes as dark as the deepest
levels of hell. The demon paused for split second
before lunging, jaws gaping open and snarling.
Spencer woke up screaming. Then,
realizing that he was just having a nightmare, he
managed to calm himself down. It was not yet
light out, but Spencer figured that the safe zone
was only hours away so he started his car and
drove away. He wouldn’t get back to sleep for
hours, so he may as well travel on.
Leaving the city of Winslow behind him,
he turned his attention to Flagstaff, which was
the path to Prescott and a veritable army of allies
that had survived the onslaught. Or so he hoped.
For more than an hour Spencer drove in silence,
not that he had any other choice. He switched on
the radio hoping to hear an emergency beacon,
something to indicate he wasn’t alone. There
wasn’t much more than silence with the
occasional static burst. The static bursts
continued to grow in frequency never more than
one every twenty five minutes.
Getting to Flagstaff, Spencer turned south
onto I-17 which continued south for another
fifteen miles to state road 169. Smoke on the
horizon left Spencer with a feeling of dread. It
hung in the air like a thick fog. As state road 169
turned into state road 69, the thickening smoke
turned the feeling of dread into a rising panic. A
sign indicating Gurley Street passed on his right
and the city of Prescott fell into view under a
wall of black smoke. Thousands of human bodies
littered the streets; none appeared to be battle
ready. Every last one of them was a civilian that
had been dead for at least two days.
“What the hell?” Spencer began in
disbelief. “Where’s the resistance?” A thought
crossed Spencer’s mind; it was Gretchen’s
question from when they were outside Dallas,
Texas. Spencer felt the need to arm himself with
more than the P-90 that was sitting in the back
seat. The grenade launcher in the trunk offered
the best protection. It was easy enough to load
and arm the weapon.
“HELLO?” Spencer shouted. He guessed
that everybody was dead, but was not willing to
abandon the hope that he was not alone. After
three hours of searching and screaming for
someone, anyone, all he could hear was the
sound of his own voice echoing through the
derelict town of Prescott.
It was noon when Spencer decided to
leave and head back to Flagstaff. His plan would
take him to Vegas; maybe there was something
there he could use for his own protection.
Leaving Prescott behind he headed back to I-17.
As he merged back onto I-17 he saw
something in his rearview
mirror. It looked like someone dressed in an offwhite cloak. The figure’s face was concealed in
the shadows of the hood. In their hand was a type
of weapon, a sword; the blade was about three
feet long, sharp and smooth. Light reflected off
the silvery blade, the ivory white hilt was held
firm in his right hand.
Spencer slammed on his breaks, grabbed
the P-90, got out and pointed it at … nothing.
The strange figure was gone. Now he had a
concern that his sanity was slipping. Was he
hallucinating? Spencer looked around for a
couple seconds before getting back into his GTO,
putting the gun on the seat beside him and
rubbing his eyes and face.
Spencer reached for a bottle of water and
took a swig. He just about did a spit take when he
saw the man right outside the windshield.
Spencer went for the closest weapon at his
disposal, the Glock in his center console.
Looking away for a half a second, when his gaze
rose to look at the man, he was gone. Spencer
looked around for the strange man. When he
didn’t see him he put the gun away, shifted the
car in to gear and sped down the interstate. He
just wanted to get the hell out of there. He caught
himself stealing a glance in his rearview mirror
shortly after leaving; checking to see if maybe
the man was still there.
After an hour, Spencer merged onto I-40
and continued his trek west. His brain was
running over time. That was strange, who was
that man? Where did he come from? And where
did he go? Was he real? Was he a projection of
Spencer wishing for divine help?
Spencer glanced down at the
speedometer, which read ninety-seven miles per
hour as he shot down I-40 past a sign for
Kingman, AZ. An advertisement for a truck stop
flashed by. His first impression was to bypass the
truck stop and keep heading for the Nevada
border but at the last second, he veered off the
interstate and onto the off ramp. Pulling onto
Blake Ranch Road Spencer saw a series of gas
pumps to his right so he pulled over stopped his
car and began to fill up. It was now second nature
to always top off the gas tank at any opportunity.
The truck stop was being powered by a
series of solar panels that looked very new, as if
they had been installed in the last few months. It
wasn’t enough to fully power the truck stop, but
the pumps had fuel and power and there were
flickering lights in the plaza. Then he noticed the
bodies no less than three dozen horned creatures,
the hive queen lay dead among a cluster of other
demons, not a single one of them was human.
That’s when he saw a shape inside, so he grabbed
the P-90 checked the magazine and left his car to
investigate.
Walking in the door he got the barrel of a
shotgun in his face.
“Whoa!” Spencer shouted and the gun
was retracted.
“Sorry, I thought they had sent more.”
The man apologized, “You scared the hell out of
me.”
“You almost scared something else out of
me.” Spencer said. “Wait. Are you expecting
more?”
“One of the demons got away, he
probably just went for backup.” The man
explained he was wearing a black tee shirt, black
jeans and black boots that resembled modern
cowboy boots.
“When was that?” Spencer shot back.
“An hour and a half ago, maybe more.”
“Why the hell are you still here?”
“I wouldn’t make it half a mile before the
tore my head off…literally.”
Spencer glanced out the door to his car fueling
up.
“Well good news, I have a muscle car on
steroids crossed with a Prius.” Spencer began, “I
was just getting gas.”
“Really, ‘cause the burritos are on the
next aisle over.”
“Smartass. I like your humor though.”
“Thanks, it’s all I’ve got left.”
“Great.” Spencer commented. “Let’s load
up what we can into the trunk of my car and get
the hell out of here.”
“By the way, my name is Vince Masters.”
Spencer and Vince grabbed what they
could before heading out to the car. Thunder
rumbled on the horizon, the thunder of a
thousand demons drawing near.
“So, we’re supposed to fight off these
demons with food and water?” Vince asked.
“And guns, big ones.” Spencer said
closing the trunk and heading for the gas pumps.
“What the hell are you doing?” Vince
asked as Spencer started to spread gasoline
everywhere.
“I’m hoping that I can send some of them
back to Hell.”
“That’s brilliant. Remind me to buy you a
drink later.”
“Buy? Humanity has fallen, money has
no value. We’ll just get one when we get to
Vegas.” Spencer corrected.
“Let’s hope we get out of this in one
piece,” Vince said with a tinge of
disappointment. “You do realize this won’t kill
them until we kill the queen?”
“
This
won’t.” Spencer said succinctly
then pointed to a large propane tank next to the
plaza. The tank was glistening white and was
nearly twenty feet long and six feet high.
Vince caught sight of the huge propane
tank and then glanced at Spencer.
“You’re insane.” Vince commented.
“The end of the world does have that
effect.” Spencer replied. “Grab another nozzle
and start pumping more gas.”
It took an hour, but Spencer and Vince
drowned the station in gas before getting in the
car. The sun was minutes away from vanishing
behind the horizon.
“What now?” Vince asked.
“We wait. But when I tell you, light and
throw this,” Spencer said handing Vince a flare,
but in the diminished light it looked more like a
stick of TNT.
“What if I miss?” Vince asked.
Spencer looked around before he replied.
“I’d rather you didn’t, you might spoil my
surprise,” Spencer said.
They didn’t have to wait long. The
thundering noise of the oncoming demons grew
louder, like a million roaring engines. And then
they appeared on the horizon, moving in from the
northeast like a rogue wave, cold and seemingly
unstoppable. Spencer and Vince were sitting in
their secluded car on the west end of the lot; they
were waiting for all hell to break loose.
Finally the first demon set foot into the
pond of gasoline. Spencer put his hand on
Vince’s arm and shook his head. Vince
squirmed, ready to toss the slow burning flare but
Spencer kept him in check until the advance
guard of the horde had reached the building.
They saw the men and the car now and just as
they leapt forward to charge…