All Hell Breaks Loose
Chapter 4: The Last Stand of Hartford

June 1st, 2018

6:01 PM

Charles Hartford

It seemed like a normal ass, normal day just over an hour ago. Then we started getting calls over the radio to barricade one side of the Oakland Bay Bridge. People were only allowed out of Oakland, not the other way around. At first, I listened, did what I was told. Then I saw what was actually happening. What I thought were fires, were bombs. What I thought was some crazy, isolated incident, was something far worse.

When we finally crossed over the bridge, I saw why there weren’t many cars leaving the area. A fire truck had been blown up and was blocking the road. A few people were just now starting to run on foot to get out. I don’t know why everyone’s response time was so terribly low, police included. All I knew for certain was that today was going to be the worst or last day for a lot of people.

I didn’t have time to stop and ask for directions, didn’t have time to figure out what was going on. Before I knew it, Hell on Earth was right on top of me. But I didn’t expect an Angel. There was a massive thud as a new crater was drilled into the ground by an Angel falling from the sky and firmly planting his boots into the skull of a giant Demon. I pulled an emergency stop just in front of the rubble and jumped out with guns drawn and a loud voice.

“San Francisco Police! Can you understand me?!” I shouted.

The Angel was a massive, menacing figure. He stood well over seven feet tall and was built so powerfully that it looked like he could pick up Arnie by the hair and use him as a dishrag. His entire figure was glowing from head to toe. His eyes radiated a piercing white light that somehow made things feel warmer, calmer. His wings also appeared to be made of the same light that shone from his eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was less than what I expected, booming and authoritative, but somehow more soft than I thought it would be.

“I understand. State your name and your rank.” The Angel spoke calmly as if he already knew the answer and began approaching us confident that the Demon had died beneath his boots despite its convulsions.

With my weapon still firmly trained on the Angel, I replied. “My name is Sergeant Charles Hartford. I’ve got a lot of questions, but I’ll start with just who the hell are you?”

The Angel ignored my question and continued to approach. Given more normal circumstances I’d command him to stop, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t do that even if I did. “I sense a great deal of discontent centered around the response of your superiors. Hold on to that righteous flame. Let it guide you in the days to come. While it is true that your collective response to the initial invasion has been resoundingly pitiful, I am confident that you can overcome this hellish legion.” He drew a quick breath and his eyes shot skyward and to the south. When he turned his attention back toward us his tone was more rapid, more concerned. “If I may, I wish to bestow a parting gift upon you.”

“What kind of gift?” I asked. The Angel seemed slightly frustrated by my question, but also seemed to expect it at the same time.

“Without the blessing of an Angel, your mortal weapons will have little to no effect against the Demons assaulting your world. I wish to bestow this blessing upon the weapons you currently carry, that they may aid you in the many battles to come. It will only take a moment.”

Part of my instincts cried out in pain as I relinquished my weapon to the Angel. He took my pistol in his hands, muttered some magical mumbo-jumbo and within three seconds the gun was field stripped and the pieces were floating in mid-air. He seemed oddly fascinated by our ‘mortal weapons’ and just as quickly put them back together. Whatever he did caused my gun to glow with a dim, unearthly light the same color as came from the Angel. He went on to touch my tag-along’s gun and the hood of my car. While the car itself didn’t glow, I’m guessing that he somehow knew there was a shotgun in the trunk.

“Although it pains me, I must leave you now. My attention is required elsewhere. Evacuate this city as quickly as possible and summon your earthly military. You will need all the help you can get.” The Angel said. He took off with impossible speed and left me on the ground shouting up at him.

“Wait! What the hell is your name?!” All I could do was grumble and holster my gun as the thunderous roar of a sonic boom signaled the rapid departure of the Angel. I barked at the cadet I was saddled with to get back in the car and shouted at some passing punks for filming instead of running. When I climbed back into the squad car I took a moment to steel myself for the speech no one wanted to hear.

“Attention all units of the San Francisco Police Department. This is a Hostile Takeover! I repeat: Hostile Takeover! The United States is under attack! Inform the military and get us some air support now!” I paused for a brief moment to let that sink in before delivering something more personal. “I know you’ve all got families, kids, pets, or whatever at home. No one’s going to blame you if you leave now to make sure the kids are alright, least of all me. But for the rest of us that aren’t gonna just cut and run, I want you to remember something. This city is your family and right now your family needs help. This is going to be the hardest time of your life. People are going to be looking up to your for help and heroics. Now, we all know that heroes die young in this day and age. The last thing I want to tell you is to go kamikaze and accomplish nothing. At the same time, this city needs saving and we’re the best equipped to deal with it. Do all you can to save your family and do not die trying. Die succeeding! And if you see the end approaching, take out as many of these sons-of-bitches as you can.”

I took a moment to collect myself before I drove into the looming fight. Within five minutes there were air raid sirens blaring from all directions. People were starting to come out of the buildings in droves. The cadet began to mutter something in my general direction.

“Sergeant, I---”

I cut him off with a stern glare. “Are you getting out?” Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The kid sighed while he considered his options. “No, sir.”

“Good,” I replied. “’cause we’ve got a job to do.”

***

June 13th

4:56 PM

Charles Hartford

By now, everyone I was working with was exhausted. I was up front and honest with the dozen or so people I had taken on this mission. They weren’t coming back. This was a suicide mission. We were bait.

For the past several days now, a lot of us had been holed up at Fort Point trying to lay low and evacuate the city. Going over the Golden Gate Bridge was certain death. Too many cars were piled up, so you couldn’t drive over it. At the same time, no one was fast enough to sprint across the entire bridge before some winged Demons came down from the sky and tore you apart. The only real hope came when a coast guard vessel docked in the nearby Torpedo Wharf and an old veteran at least twenty years my senior offered to help. If we could get them fuel and manage to climb down the rocks, they could speed us across the water to Kirby Cove. From there we were on our own.

There were a few problems with the plan. The Demons had posted sentries on top of the bridge looking down at Fort Point. They looked human from far away, so it was next to impossible to tell if it was some suicidal nutjob trying to break Usain Bolt’s records or if it was actually someone trying to get us killed. If we didn’t have our own sentries up top to watch the skies, no boat could make it across without being swarmed. The second problem was more subtle, Angel-touched weapons. Not a lot of people actually had them, but you could tell when they did. It was less than every one out of a thousand people that came through who actually had a genuine Angel-touched weapon. The people carrying the guns all had the same look about them. They were survivors. They had all met an Angel within the first few hours of the invasion or they had scavenged or been given the weapon by someone long dead. It didn’t matter if they were cops, soldiers, EMTs, or just plain good Samaritans. If they had a magic gun, everyone could tell and that meant the Demons could too.

Eventually we made the rule: No Angel-touched weapons were allowed on boats, because if the Demons figured out there was a single gun that could hurt them trying to escape the city, that boat wouldn’t get far. Most people didn’t take issue with this rule. If they did, the only option they had was to leave their gun a few miles down the road and take the next boat out of San Francisco. More often than not, their hero complex would take over. They would agree to lead people back to Fort Point in exchange for food, water, and ammo, so these people were the perfect candidates for the suicide mission.

The Demons have been growing wise to our little operation. The skies were heavily patrolled and they’ve been fighting non-stop to take control of the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Demons were predictable. If a single sniper with an Angel-touched rifle took a potshot at one of the flying Demons, every Demon in the sky would desperately start trying to kill that one sniper. That’s when the plan started coming together.

The biggest problem facing the evacuation was the Demons raining hell from the sky. If we could draw enough of them away, the boats and the people fleeing might actually have a chance at getting away. The people I took on this mission had two qualifications: Angel-touched weapons and a lot of dead friends and family. The second one was just for me. I knew that most if not all of us would never come back from this mission. I took people who were willing, but who weren’t leaving anyone behind. I guess I just felt less sad about it that way.

We fought tooth and nail to get to city hall. By the time we got there the twenty-odd people I originally brought were down to a baker’s dozen. The plan was still achievable even with just one person, but it was going to be tough. There was still a fair number of people with Angel-touched weapons staying behind at the fort and on the bridge picking off any stragglers that didn’t come our way.

When we were finally on the steps, I set off a signal flare hoping that it would draw in more Demons, but also to give the boats a clue as to when they should start moving. We did what we could to barricade ourselves in the front of city hall, but there wasn’t much left to build a barricade with. The smell of dozens of burnt corpses was so suffocatingly thick that we couldn’t bear going much further in.

Every waking moment we spent in the main lobby was hell. We had to take shots at any Demon passing by for the plan to work which meant that we were swamped within a matter of minutes. A lot of the younger folks were oddly excited to be doing this. They knew what the end-game was, but for some stupid reason they felt proud to be dying defending what they called ‘The Hot Gates of Hell’ and making sure that other people would live, if only for a little while. I shut them up as best I could and made sure that they wouldn’t die too soon or the plan wouldn’t work.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Demons came from all angles. The building itself wasn’t actually safe. There were still plenty of Demons and Hell-spawn inside city hall by the time we got there. We were completely surrounded, but on the bright side the people I took on this mission were long-time survivors for a reason. For every one of our people that fell, it felt like at least twenty Demons were going down with them. We were pretty spread out in the lobby. Some of the Demons could spit or throw fire at us and if that happened, we’d all burn to a crisp.

What felt like hours was probably only a few minutes. The plan was working almost too well. We had no idea what was happening with the boats, but at some point that didn’t matter. One massive Demon eventually came crashing down from the sky. It was one of the big ones; Twelve feet tall with a sword the size of a truck. I’d heard plenty of people calling these ones Overlords. The name fit. These types seemed to be the kingpins of the whole invasion. With luck we’d actually be able to kill it, but the pitiful amount of bullets we had said otherwise. We were actually able to kill two earlier today which hopefully meant that there were none hassling the evacuation.

With one swing of the Overlord’s massive sword, the barricade was down and so was half of the entryway. The Angel-touched bullets we had didn’t pack enough of a punch to get through the armor he was wearing. Lucky for us, Demons were cocky morons. Every Overlord I’ve seen leaves their head exposed for shock value. Most people can’t handle seeing what looks like the Devil himself grinning ear to ear before he bites you in half. He was well aware of the one weakness we could take advantage of and was holding an armored hand in front of his face for protection while wildly swinging his sword at anyone close. We did what little we could to take him out but with a few swings we were down from thirteen to ten. Ten to nine. Nine to seven. Seven to three.

What people were left were making their last stand. When it was just down to me, the Overlord resumed his cocky posture. He grabbed me and decided to gloat a little before killing me.

“Pitiful mortals! You have nothing left to save in this world! Why do you choose to continue this fight? What hope do you have?” Shouted the Overlord. The heat of the fire inside his gullet felt like it was just about to give me a bad sunburn. He had brought me up to his level. I hoped that it would be his last mistake.

I mustered all the remaining energy I had to fight through his choking grasp and make one last use of my gun. They say you never hear the shot that kills you.

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