Chapter 13
The next morning, the girls again rose early, this time patricia came down with them. When the men later arose, one at a time, they found the girls in their dressing gowns on a sofa with their mother. Marcus arose first, and initially felt that the women had been having some kind of family conversation. When he had first entered, he felt a little like he might be intruding, but the made him welcome instead.
As he entered, Patricia said, "I decided it was time to let the girls know a little more. They will be better prepared that way. I cant have them being shocked, they are too good for that, this way, they may be able to help, or at least know when not to hinder."
Marcus replied with a huge yawn, and a big stretch. Then he spoke, "It seems prudent to with hold the video's themselves, but in regards to the facts, nobody can be prepared without them. You are a strong woman Patricia, and your girls take after you. They are strong too. You will all be fine, if you all trust each other, and us too."
"We need to think again, however. We need to move faster and figure out how to get safe." This was the return of Patricia's practicality.
"Of course. We could do with finding that bigger car Kat asked for!" As he said this, Robert came in, his bright eyes a contrast to the stumbling sleepiness Dean followed him with.
Robert said, "I dont think that Theodore will be with us much today. I think he was up all night, researching again."
"Fair enough," Marcus said, "We will get on without him. He does honestly believe he will find something of use to us, so his efforts may yet prove important."
Dean spoke next, "Where's the coffee?"
Patricia was just in the process of pointing to the kitchen, when a quiet clunking noise was heard, then a whirring noise as all the electrical devices in the house came back on. The group stood still, horror struck for a moment, expecting some kind of disaster. Marcus ordered Robert to get Theodore up, now, and get everyone together. As Robert left the room, the whirring ceased, but the Television in front of the sofa clicked on. On the screen was blackness at first, until it began to appear as a news report, but without the usual text and reporters, just raw footage. There appeared to be some kind of small air vehicle running a camera on a building. After a moment or two, they recognised that the building was in fact the same building the company had used for their headquarters. As the scene unfolded, Theodore arrived, looking extremely tired, but the second he saw the screen, he was completely alert. They watched quietly, as the scene from the six O'clock news repeated in front of them, this time, from a different perspective.
The Big grey building shook itself to pieces, the red bricks of its walls were slowly pulled inwards. Then grey cloud of masonry dust spread, enveloping everything but the shape of a huge red head, from above it was clear the head held a massive pair of black horns sweeping back like hair across the back of it's head. In front of the building like an ant was the cameraman, and as they watched the huge red figure climbed out of the ruined building, and slapped its hand down on the cameraman, the huge hand leaving a small red and black mess on the pavement. This time, however, the video did not cease with the death of the cameraman. It now continued, as the apparition stood erect, and placed its hands on its hips.
As the Devil stood still, the wind picked up, blowing the masonry dust away from his form, and allowing a more clear view. He was around a hundred feet tall with a head that appeared nearly fifteen feet tall alone. His build was that of a body builder, huge slabs of red-skinned muscle moving arms that could dwarf a fire engine. At his waist, a thick growth of grey fur started, and covered his thighs to the knee, on a leg that ended with a cloven hoof. He stood about fifty feet from the building he just left, although his size meant this was but arms reach. He bent to one knee, and reached inside the building before pulling free what at first looked like a huge piece of piping. He then swept his hand along the pavement, snaring and uprooting lamp posts as a child might do to a patch of dandelions. He held the handful of lamp posts to the piece of pipe, and the pieces of metal writhed in his hand like a handful of angry snakes. He then held the huge piece of pipe and the writhing metal together, and they formed, seemingly of their own accord, a seventy five foot metal trident. As the weapon formed itself, it continued to writhe at the point its three prongs met its staff, until it seemed it was adorned with wild snakes of metal.
The group was stunned, silenced by sheer volume of shock. As they watched, the Devil stood and began to walk, each foot fall leaving a foot deep impression in the tarmac, some spots causing collapse into the sewers below. The unseen vehicle followed, keeping its camera trained on the Devil. In the background of its view they saw many windows, people staring out of them witless in terror. Occasionally, he would pound the trident vertically into the ground, the incredible weight of the weapon causing it to decimate an area the size of a large house each time it hit the ground. A few times, his journey was intercepted by emergency vehicles, each of which was pounded into a flat mess of metal and blood by the base of the trident, or the sole of a hoof. As he progressed on his journey, he was seen scattering huge groups of people with impunity, crushing those that did not flee fast enough under hoof or staff. The Devil walked with little care, knocking over buildings as he went, his stride occasionally going over the roof of a smaller building, or occasionally just walking straight through a building rather than go round, and demolishing it as he passed.
The Devil walked as the crow flies, straight and direct with little patience for the intervening obstacles. His path left a hundred foot wide swathe of destruction, clearly visible to the flying viewpoint. It appeared he had an idea of where he was going, although the destination was not clear to the observer. He eventually met the center of the town and continued through, now actively demolishing every building he met. He would take his trident and stab it into a building, then work it sideways removing the inner walls and causing the ceiling to drop and collapse the remaining parts of the building below, screams issuing forth from the destroyed remains as people were buried alive. His work continued until the area was a mile wide flat mess of rubble, tumbled so roughly that the roads and paths between what had been buildings were indistinguishable.
The video had continued for a relatively long time, nearly two hours the devil had spent walking and then demolishing, and the light was fading. The edges of the destruction still showed lights at windows and lamp posts at this point, all of which suddenly blinked out in unison, and the group guessed the time on the video to be 8:02pm. The video continued a little longer, as the Devil finally concluded his acts of destruction, and turned towards the long harbour that wound its way almost into the very center of town. The Devil then started to walk deep into the docks, sinking himself until he was but a floating head of magalithic proportions. The Devil continued to walk, but the aerial vehicle did not this time pursue. As the water became deeper, the head disappeared leaving an inverted wake as its only visible aspect. Eventually, even the wake disappeared, and the apparition was gone. A moment later, the video feed was also gone. Now, however, the screen changed, instead of becoming black and empty it changed to another aerial view, similarly moving, of what appeared to be London.
This new aerial view started higher, viewing the taller buildings and skyscrapers, but immediately moving in closer, towards the western edge of the thames, approaching the tower bridge. As the bridge itself grew to fill the whole view, the camera turned towards a service dock on the northern edge of the river. The camera caught sight of a huge black shape climbing out of the water on to the dock, easily twenty foot tall, it was built like an animal and climbed on all fours, heavily but with adequate agility. As it left the water its long black fur hung in heavy lank strands, giving it the look of a wet dog. It stood momentarily on the small dock, and shook itself dry in a massive impression of a family dog. As its fur was shaken dry, its features became less obscured, and it could be seen to have a head shaped like a dog, but with huge jaws full of sharp fangs, fur that obscured all of its face except from its eyes, a luminescent red pair that gave a look of pure evil. It also possessed a pair of thick heavy horns curled on the sides of its head like a daemonic ram and dog hybrid.
The huge creature climbed up from the dock onto the main road coming across the bridge, and began to attack the vehicles attempting to pass, crushing the roofs on some and flipping others over. The drivers began to panic, crashing into walls and each other in their frenzied attempts to escape. As this happened, a second identical creature began to leave the river, following the first up on to the road. The second dog arrived at the road level, and shook itself dry. A car that had been flipped, and come to rest upside down between the two dogs, ejected its occupant out of a smashed side window, who then attempted to run. He managed about five steps before the second creature pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. As this happened the first creature approached. The second lifted the man, screaming, by his legs, and the first silenced him by seizing his head and shoulders and tearing the man in half. The creatures then threw the remains across the nearest buildings, and continued their destruction of cars and people in the vicinity, the creature appearing to behave as a fox inside a chicken coop.
As the carnage on the north side of the river continued, the aerial view turned its gaze towards the south side, to see another three of the creatures performing similar acts of destruction and wanton violence. The view appeared to be climbing, and reached a height that made the huge creatures appear small, and they looked around to see around twenty of the creatures spread along the river, destroying vehicles and killing people in violent and disturbing ways, throwing dismembered corpses all around. The creatures spent a long time attending to the destruction of the individuals and their cars, slowly working their way towards each other.
Once the group had consolidated their position, some climbing the bridges across the river, others Jumping into the water adn swimming to the main group, they began to attack buildings directly. One of the creatures would sprint at the wall, and smash its horned head against the corner walls, taking out the bricks and walls systematically. A huge stampede of people exited nearby buildings and ran for their lives all around them. Occasionally one of the creatures would sprint into the horde of people, crushing them as it bounded and snapping at them, tearing people apart and reveling in the murder, before returning to the buildings.
The creatures slowly neared the taller skyscrapers towards the middle of the huge city, and began to continue their destruction against these as well. The first they neared had every piece of concrete from the lowest floor of the structure smashed loose by huge horned skulls. They then sprinted back once the buildings steel structure began to buckle under the unsupported weight. The building was forty floors of concrete, steel, office furniture, and scared people, all tilted similarly to a felled tree as the lumberjack calls timber. The building's near edge steel supports had collapsed completely, dropping thousands of tonnes of weight into the street and tearing through the surface tarmac into the hollow tunnels and sewers below. It destroyed a space two hundred meters long and nearly fifty meters wide directly, and peppered over a square mile in fragments of masonry. The creatures themselves had lost one of their number to the crushing building, and they momentarily gathered around their fallen comrade, yelping and mewling in a strangely soft display of grief, before returning to their destructive rampage with a renewed ferocity.
So far, the group had sat before the television for three straight hours, and saving for gasps and fearful moans from the assemblage, there was not a single word uttered. The group had heard of the destruction, altho not the full extent, of their own city, and then had chosen to prepare for the worst, and had been subconsciously hoping it would prove to be a false alarm. Now, they had seen that in fact the destruction they had known was but the tip of the iceberg, and that their initial response, tho it had seemed an over reaction at the time, was in fact a grave underestimation of the dangers they were now possibly to become subject to. The group had been stuck, staring at the screen, dangerously absorbed into the view of their capital city's destruction, and at this point, Marcus stood and approached the screen. As he reached out for the power button, and flicked it, he was surprised to find it did not respond. The screen continued to show its story of heart wrenching destruction and death, as the group watched and bled their hearts in pain. Marcus chose a different tactic, and turned the television on its wheeled stand, and turned the volume knob until it was silent, altho the only sounds had been an electronic whirring and the occasional dull thuds of the buildings destruction, deadened by the distance of flight.
The group sat around the room, on sofas and chairs, and Robert on the floor, each had the red eyes of emotional upset, and each had the odd tear, saving the two younger girls, whose face's had come into possession of twin rivers of sorrow.
"Yesterday morning, we beheld our first proof that something strange was afoot. Now, it seems we have been shown, for whatever reason, that our world as we know it is at an end." Marcus stated the obvious, but attempted to do so in a way that would minimise the painful ramifications felt by his friends and companions.
Theodore spoke next. His words were slow, methodical, and each one had the feeling of careful choice, and meaning, "We cannot give up, and we cannot let the despair take over. The destruction may be real, but they are not real monsters, they are illusions! Phantasms created to dole out fear to the unsuspecting. The creatures are not devil spawned, and the Devil does not walk amongst us!"
Patricia spoke next, "I don't know how somebody can do this, but what really bothers me is why. If what you boys tell me is true, then we may be the only people in existence to have the knowledge of this. We alone know that these apparitions are just that, apparitions! So, what do we do?"
Next Dean came up with, "We need to think strategically, and we need to arm ourselves. We also need to become much more combatant. We cannot afford to continue as we have been, admittedly only so far allowed as we had no comprehension of our danger."
Marcus spoke next, "I think we have a lot to be thankful for. We have a large vehicle with many useful amenities. We have knowledge of our enemy's illusionary weapons, and we have the research they used to design them."
Theodore cut in here, "I think we need more sophisticated computers to finish dealing with that data, however."
Marcus heard Theodore's comment, but did not respond. Instead, he stepped forward, and turned to look at each of them in turn, including the girls. He spoke again, this time in a strong voice, that of certainty, and of determination, "What we have is an advantage. We know what they are up to, if not why, but we can find out. We have our safety, and we have our chance to prepare. We are the small fry, but we are also the unseen and unforeseen enemy. We will end this, or die trying." As he spoke Marcus' anger was clear. He spoke not for himself, and not for his companions, but for all those torn and painful deaths he had witnessed, indignation for the destruction of the progress of men, and downright fury towards the man who had allowed himself the delusions of grandeur that had led to them destroying indiscriminately.
Marcus continued, more quietly now, but with a cold fury in his voice that said more than his words, "I am a gentle man, not prone to violence, nor to reciprocation of violence. But the man in control of this will die, at my hand. I swear it."
Kat stood, wide eyed and still a little tearful, and approached Marcus. She looked up at him, her small dainty form lost in the shadow of the much taller man she looked up too, and she reached forward and took his hand in hers, "I will help you Marcus. If someone made this happen, they are mean, and they should be told off. And i will help."
Laurel stood and followed her sister, looking to Marcus' eyes, and giving a gentle nod to agree, then she knelt low and wrapped her arms around Marcus and Kat, as Patricia closely followed, on her cheeks tears were mingling, some tasted of fear and despair, and other new ones tasted of a fierce pride for her children. Soon, each of the group had risen and approached Marcus, silently nodding to him and giving their support and agreement, before wrapping their arms together to hold each other tight, and seal their group decision to fell this unknown enemy. They stood that way for a few minutes, silently, each taking reassurance in their closeness with the others, before they started to separate as Marcus spoke again.
"Thankyou all, if we are together on this, we may even succeed. However, we cannot allow ourselves to waste any time. We must prepare, and do so now. This means we need more than just basic supplies. We need arms and armor. And we need it now."
They separated and Marcus left the room, the others following. As he left the front door going towards the Van, he told Patricia to return to the house, and bring every food item that could survive outside of a cold environment, and bring it to the Van, and also to bring anything she did not want to leave behind. The girls went to help. Next he turned to Dean and Robert and told them to begin emptying everything unimportant from the Van, and to Pack the supplies. Theodore was taken to one side.
"Theodore, we need a correlation of information from the television, we need to know everything it can tell us. But i would not ask anyone to watch that horrible screen. If you feel you can, please do so, if you cannot do it, i will not hold it against you. I have another job to do myself."
"What's that?" Theodore wondered.
"I need to find out if we are alone."
"How?"
"I was hoping Robert might let me use his motorcycle." Said Marcus, before wandering off to find Robert inside the Van.
"Hey there Robert. Any chance i can ask a small favour?"
"Sure, Shoot?"
"Can i use your motorcycle? I want to go have a look in the local areas, see if i can find any other survivors. I can do it a lot faster on a bike than i can a car or the Van, so it seems the best way."
"Sure, but if you damage it, ill feed you to them big dogs myself." Robert joked.
Between them, they lifted the motorcycle off the rack on the back of the Van, it was a large powerful motorcycle, the kind of machine that looked very much deserving of Roberts enthusiastically protective behaviour, and could often be heard coming from a long distance away. It was a heavy hotrod style bike, with a bright red fuel tank and more chrome than seemed possible, all of which had been kept clean and sparkling by the love of a fanatic. This had been part of the reason, aside from the additional speed, that Marcus had decided the motorcycle would be better. In the search for people, it might help for them to hear you coming.
It was around twenty minutes or so until the motorcycle was ready to depart. Marcus had readied himself a small lunch and a drink, and put it in one of the pannier bags on the back. He removed the pistol from his rear waistband, chambered a round, and replaced it, then he unceremoniously kicked the starter, and pulled away. The reverberations of the engine's roar bounced off the surrounding hills, and decimated the quiet empty atmosphere that surrounded them.
As he entered, Patricia said, "I decided it was time to let the girls know a little more. They will be better prepared that way. I cant have them being shocked, they are too good for that, this way, they may be able to help, or at least know when not to hinder."
Marcus replied with a huge yawn, and a big stretch. Then he spoke, "It seems prudent to with hold the video's themselves, but in regards to the facts, nobody can be prepared without them. You are a strong woman Patricia, and your girls take after you. They are strong too. You will all be fine, if you all trust each other, and us too."
"We need to think again, however. We need to move faster and figure out how to get safe." This was the return of Patricia's practicality.
"Of course. We could do with finding that bigger car Kat asked for!" As he said this, Robert came in, his bright eyes a contrast to the stumbling sleepiness Dean followed him with.
Robert said, "I dont think that Theodore will be with us much today. I think he was up all night, researching again."
"Fair enough," Marcus said, "We will get on without him. He does honestly believe he will find something of use to us, so his efforts may yet prove important."
Dean spoke next, "Where's the coffee?"
Patricia was just in the process of pointing to the kitchen, when a quiet clunking noise was heard, then a whirring noise as all the electrical devices in the house came back on. The group stood still, horror struck for a moment, expecting some kind of disaster. Marcus ordered Robert to get Theodore up, now, and get everyone together. As Robert left the room, the whirring ceased, but the Television in front of the sofa clicked on. On the screen was blackness at first, until it began to appear as a news report, but without the usual text and reporters, just raw footage. There appeared to be some kind of small air vehicle running a camera on a building. After a moment or two, they recognised that the building was in fact the same building the company had used for their headquarters. As the scene unfolded, Theodore arrived, looking extremely tired, but the second he saw the screen, he was completely alert. They watched quietly, as the scene from the six O'clock news repeated in front of them, this time, from a different perspective.
The Big grey building shook itself to pieces, the red bricks of its walls were slowly pulled inwards. Then grey cloud of masonry dust spread, enveloping everything but the shape of a huge red head, from above it was clear the head held a massive pair of black horns sweeping back like hair across the back of it's head. In front of the building like an ant was the cameraman, and as they watched the huge red figure climbed out of the ruined building, and slapped its hand down on the cameraman, the huge hand leaving a small red and black mess on the pavement. This time, however, the video did not cease with the death of the cameraman. It now continued, as the apparition stood erect, and placed its hands on its hips.
As the Devil stood still, the wind picked up, blowing the masonry dust away from his form, and allowing a more clear view. He was around a hundred feet tall with a head that appeared nearly fifteen feet tall alone. His build was that of a body builder, huge slabs of red-skinned muscle moving arms that could dwarf a fire engine. At his waist, a thick growth of grey fur started, and covered his thighs to the knee, on a leg that ended with a cloven hoof. He stood about fifty feet from the building he just left, although his size meant this was but arms reach. He bent to one knee, and reached inside the building before pulling free what at first looked like a huge piece of piping. He then swept his hand along the pavement, snaring and uprooting lamp posts as a child might do to a patch of dandelions. He held the handful of lamp posts to the piece of pipe, and the pieces of metal writhed in his hand like a handful of angry snakes. He then held the huge piece of pipe and the writhing metal together, and they formed, seemingly of their own accord, a seventy five foot metal trident. As the weapon formed itself, it continued to writhe at the point its three prongs met its staff, until it seemed it was adorned with wild snakes of metal.
The group was stunned, silenced by sheer volume of shock. As they watched, the Devil stood and began to walk, each foot fall leaving a foot deep impression in the tarmac, some spots causing collapse into the sewers below. The unseen vehicle followed, keeping its camera trained on the Devil. In the background of its view they saw many windows, people staring out of them witless in terror. Occasionally, he would pound the trident vertically into the ground, the incredible weight of the weapon causing it to decimate an area the size of a large house each time it hit the ground. A few times, his journey was intercepted by emergency vehicles, each of which was pounded into a flat mess of metal and blood by the base of the trident, or the sole of a hoof. As he progressed on his journey, he was seen scattering huge groups of people with impunity, crushing those that did not flee fast enough under hoof or staff. The Devil walked with little care, knocking over buildings as he went, his stride occasionally going over the roof of a smaller building, or occasionally just walking straight through a building rather than go round, and demolishing it as he passed.
The Devil walked as the crow flies, straight and direct with little patience for the intervening obstacles. His path left a hundred foot wide swathe of destruction, clearly visible to the flying viewpoint. It appeared he had an idea of where he was going, although the destination was not clear to the observer. He eventually met the center of the town and continued through, now actively demolishing every building he met. He would take his trident and stab it into a building, then work it sideways removing the inner walls and causing the ceiling to drop and collapse the remaining parts of the building below, screams issuing forth from the destroyed remains as people were buried alive. His work continued until the area was a mile wide flat mess of rubble, tumbled so roughly that the roads and paths between what had been buildings were indistinguishable.
The video had continued for a relatively long time, nearly two hours the devil had spent walking and then demolishing, and the light was fading. The edges of the destruction still showed lights at windows and lamp posts at this point, all of which suddenly blinked out in unison, and the group guessed the time on the video to be 8:02pm. The video continued a little longer, as the Devil finally concluded his acts of destruction, and turned towards the long harbour that wound its way almost into the very center of town. The Devil then started to walk deep into the docks, sinking himself until he was but a floating head of magalithic proportions. The Devil continued to walk, but the aerial vehicle did not this time pursue. As the water became deeper, the head disappeared leaving an inverted wake as its only visible aspect. Eventually, even the wake disappeared, and the apparition was gone. A moment later, the video feed was also gone. Now, however, the screen changed, instead of becoming black and empty it changed to another aerial view, similarly moving, of what appeared to be London.
This new aerial view started higher, viewing the taller buildings and skyscrapers, but immediately moving in closer, towards the western edge of the thames, approaching the tower bridge. As the bridge itself grew to fill the whole view, the camera turned towards a service dock on the northern edge of the river. The camera caught sight of a huge black shape climbing out of the water on to the dock, easily twenty foot tall, it was built like an animal and climbed on all fours, heavily but with adequate agility. As it left the water its long black fur hung in heavy lank strands, giving it the look of a wet dog. It stood momentarily on the small dock, and shook itself dry in a massive impression of a family dog. As its fur was shaken dry, its features became less obscured, and it could be seen to have a head shaped like a dog, but with huge jaws full of sharp fangs, fur that obscured all of its face except from its eyes, a luminescent red pair that gave a look of pure evil. It also possessed a pair of thick heavy horns curled on the sides of its head like a daemonic ram and dog hybrid.
The huge creature climbed up from the dock onto the main road coming across the bridge, and began to attack the vehicles attempting to pass, crushing the roofs on some and flipping others over. The drivers began to panic, crashing into walls and each other in their frenzied attempts to escape. As this happened, a second identical creature began to leave the river, following the first up on to the road. The second dog arrived at the road level, and shook itself dry. A car that had been flipped, and come to rest upside down between the two dogs, ejected its occupant out of a smashed side window, who then attempted to run. He managed about five steps before the second creature pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. As this happened the first creature approached. The second lifted the man, screaming, by his legs, and the first silenced him by seizing his head and shoulders and tearing the man in half. The creatures then threw the remains across the nearest buildings, and continued their destruction of cars and people in the vicinity, the creature appearing to behave as a fox inside a chicken coop.
As the carnage on the north side of the river continued, the aerial view turned its gaze towards the south side, to see another three of the creatures performing similar acts of destruction and wanton violence. The view appeared to be climbing, and reached a height that made the huge creatures appear small, and they looked around to see around twenty of the creatures spread along the river, destroying vehicles and killing people in violent and disturbing ways, throwing dismembered corpses all around. The creatures spent a long time attending to the destruction of the individuals and their cars, slowly working their way towards each other.
Once the group had consolidated their position, some climbing the bridges across the river, others Jumping into the water adn swimming to the main group, they began to attack buildings directly. One of the creatures would sprint at the wall, and smash its horned head against the corner walls, taking out the bricks and walls systematically. A huge stampede of people exited nearby buildings and ran for their lives all around them. Occasionally one of the creatures would sprint into the horde of people, crushing them as it bounded and snapping at them, tearing people apart and reveling in the murder, before returning to the buildings.
The creatures slowly neared the taller skyscrapers towards the middle of the huge city, and began to continue their destruction against these as well. The first they neared had every piece of concrete from the lowest floor of the structure smashed loose by huge horned skulls. They then sprinted back once the buildings steel structure began to buckle under the unsupported weight. The building was forty floors of concrete, steel, office furniture, and scared people, all tilted similarly to a felled tree as the lumberjack calls timber. The building's near edge steel supports had collapsed completely, dropping thousands of tonnes of weight into the street and tearing through the surface tarmac into the hollow tunnels and sewers below. It destroyed a space two hundred meters long and nearly fifty meters wide directly, and peppered over a square mile in fragments of masonry. The creatures themselves had lost one of their number to the crushing building, and they momentarily gathered around their fallen comrade, yelping and mewling in a strangely soft display of grief, before returning to their destructive rampage with a renewed ferocity.
So far, the group had sat before the television for three straight hours, and saving for gasps and fearful moans from the assemblage, there was not a single word uttered. The group had heard of the destruction, altho not the full extent, of their own city, and then had chosen to prepare for the worst, and had been subconsciously hoping it would prove to be a false alarm. Now, they had seen that in fact the destruction they had known was but the tip of the iceberg, and that their initial response, tho it had seemed an over reaction at the time, was in fact a grave underestimation of the dangers they were now possibly to become subject to. The group had been stuck, staring at the screen, dangerously absorbed into the view of their capital city's destruction, and at this point, Marcus stood and approached the screen. As he reached out for the power button, and flicked it, he was surprised to find it did not respond. The screen continued to show its story of heart wrenching destruction and death, as the group watched and bled their hearts in pain. Marcus chose a different tactic, and turned the television on its wheeled stand, and turned the volume knob until it was silent, altho the only sounds had been an electronic whirring and the occasional dull thuds of the buildings destruction, deadened by the distance of flight.
The group sat around the room, on sofas and chairs, and Robert on the floor, each had the red eyes of emotional upset, and each had the odd tear, saving the two younger girls, whose face's had come into possession of twin rivers of sorrow.
"Yesterday morning, we beheld our first proof that something strange was afoot. Now, it seems we have been shown, for whatever reason, that our world as we know it is at an end." Marcus stated the obvious, but attempted to do so in a way that would minimise the painful ramifications felt by his friends and companions.
Theodore spoke next. His words were slow, methodical, and each one had the feeling of careful choice, and meaning, "We cannot give up, and we cannot let the despair take over. The destruction may be real, but they are not real monsters, they are illusions! Phantasms created to dole out fear to the unsuspecting. The creatures are not devil spawned, and the Devil does not walk amongst us!"
Patricia spoke next, "I don't know how somebody can do this, but what really bothers me is why. If what you boys tell me is true, then we may be the only people in existence to have the knowledge of this. We alone know that these apparitions are just that, apparitions! So, what do we do?"
Next Dean came up with, "We need to think strategically, and we need to arm ourselves. We also need to become much more combatant. We cannot afford to continue as we have been, admittedly only so far allowed as we had no comprehension of our danger."
Marcus spoke next, "I think we have a lot to be thankful for. We have a large vehicle with many useful amenities. We have knowledge of our enemy's illusionary weapons, and we have the research they used to design them."
Theodore cut in here, "I think we need more sophisticated computers to finish dealing with that data, however."
Marcus heard Theodore's comment, but did not respond. Instead, he stepped forward, and turned to look at each of them in turn, including the girls. He spoke again, this time in a strong voice, that of certainty, and of determination, "What we have is an advantage. We know what they are up to, if not why, but we can find out. We have our safety, and we have our chance to prepare. We are the small fry, but we are also the unseen and unforeseen enemy. We will end this, or die trying." As he spoke Marcus' anger was clear. He spoke not for himself, and not for his companions, but for all those torn and painful deaths he had witnessed, indignation for the destruction of the progress of men, and downright fury towards the man who had allowed himself the delusions of grandeur that had led to them destroying indiscriminately.
Marcus continued, more quietly now, but with a cold fury in his voice that said more than his words, "I am a gentle man, not prone to violence, nor to reciprocation of violence. But the man in control of this will die, at my hand. I swear it."
Kat stood, wide eyed and still a little tearful, and approached Marcus. She looked up at him, her small dainty form lost in the shadow of the much taller man she looked up too, and she reached forward and took his hand in hers, "I will help you Marcus. If someone made this happen, they are mean, and they should be told off. And i will help."
Laurel stood and followed her sister, looking to Marcus' eyes, and giving a gentle nod to agree, then she knelt low and wrapped her arms around Marcus and Kat, as Patricia closely followed, on her cheeks tears were mingling, some tasted of fear and despair, and other new ones tasted of a fierce pride for her children. Soon, each of the group had risen and approached Marcus, silently nodding to him and giving their support and agreement, before wrapping their arms together to hold each other tight, and seal their group decision to fell this unknown enemy. They stood that way for a few minutes, silently, each taking reassurance in their closeness with the others, before they started to separate as Marcus spoke again.
"Thankyou all, if we are together on this, we may even succeed. However, we cannot allow ourselves to waste any time. We must prepare, and do so now. This means we need more than just basic supplies. We need arms and armor. And we need it now."
They separated and Marcus left the room, the others following. As he left the front door going towards the Van, he told Patricia to return to the house, and bring every food item that could survive outside of a cold environment, and bring it to the Van, and also to bring anything she did not want to leave behind. The girls went to help. Next he turned to Dean and Robert and told them to begin emptying everything unimportant from the Van, and to Pack the supplies. Theodore was taken to one side.
"Theodore, we need a correlation of information from the television, we need to know everything it can tell us. But i would not ask anyone to watch that horrible screen. If you feel you can, please do so, if you cannot do it, i will not hold it against you. I have another job to do myself."
"What's that?" Theodore wondered.
"I need to find out if we are alone."
"How?"
"I was hoping Robert might let me use his motorcycle." Said Marcus, before wandering off to find Robert inside the Van.
"Hey there Robert. Any chance i can ask a small favour?"
"Sure, Shoot?"
"Can i use your motorcycle? I want to go have a look in the local areas, see if i can find any other survivors. I can do it a lot faster on a bike than i can a car or the Van, so it seems the best way."
"Sure, but if you damage it, ill feed you to them big dogs myself." Robert joked.
Between them, they lifted the motorcycle off the rack on the back of the Van, it was a large powerful motorcycle, the kind of machine that looked very much deserving of Roberts enthusiastically protective behaviour, and could often be heard coming from a long distance away. It was a heavy hotrod style bike, with a bright red fuel tank and more chrome than seemed possible, all of which had been kept clean and sparkling by the love of a fanatic. This had been part of the reason, aside from the additional speed, that Marcus had decided the motorcycle would be better. In the search for people, it might help for them to hear you coming.
It was around twenty minutes or so until the motorcycle was ready to depart. Marcus had readied himself a small lunch and a drink, and put it in one of the pannier bags on the back. He removed the pistol from his rear waistband, chambered a round, and replaced it, then he unceremoniously kicked the starter, and pulled away. The reverberations of the engine's roar bounced off the surrounding hills, and decimated the quiet empty atmosphere that surrounded them.