Tribulation Read online

  “Did you even try?” she asked and Sam flinched under the accusation.

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t. Do you know how many souls are in Hell? Millions, possibly billions. How was I meant to find you amongst all those other people? Hell is essentially limitless as well. I didn’t even know where to start looking. It was only when I had Yeth that I could.”

  “But you could’ve started looking, couldn’t you? That’s what friends do. I was a friend to you. Kept those succubi off your back so you were free to take on the Antichrist. I sacrificed myself for you and in return, you let me burn in Hell.” Her voice was level but tears were started to streak down her face. “Every second I spent there was torture. They never let up. Sometimes they would leave me for what seemed like hours but that was almost worse. I knew they were coming back and that waiting was the worst part. The only thing that kept me going was thinking you would come for me. Rescue me. I clung to that but as the weeks past, I gave up hope. I realized that you weren’t coming, didn’t care about me and eventually I resigned myself to that. When you did show, I thought it was another trick. A part of me still does. I keep expecting some of your demon pals to show up and drag me back down there.”

  “I won’t let them, Grace. You’re safe with me.”

  “Just like I was before?” she sneered. “Spare me your promises.”

  “I’m…sorry,” he managed, knowing that his words, as usual, were inadequate.

  She tilted her head. “Are you Sam? Are you really?”

  He didn’t know what to say. They lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. Eventually, without a backward glance, Sam stalked out into the night.

  They hardly exchanged words after that. Then, one morning, she awoke with a fever. Intuitively, Sam knew that it was bad.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Grace shook her head weakly. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Nothing good.” She lifted her t-shirt to show him. Dark swollen lumps were clearly visible in her armpits. Not only that, but similar signs were apparent on her neck. Red, inflamed flea bites covered her torso.

  Grace watched his face. Sam had never had much of a poker face. Clearly, she could see his concern.

  “They’re on my groin, too,” she said. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said, trying to conceal the dread he felt in his heart, knowing that she wasn’t going to be fine at all. If Grace didn’t get help, she was going to die.

  “I think I know what this is,” she said. “I saw a documentary once where people died with the same symptoms. You see, I know how you get this disease. You get it from fleas – fleas that live on rats. The same rats we’ve been eating.”

  Sam waited, completely mute, dreading what she would say next.

  “It’s a disease we haven’t really seen since the Middle Ages,” she continued. “They called it the bubonic plague. It’s commonly called the black plague.”

  Sam was lost for words. Of course he’d heard of the black plague and knew it was deadly. But didn’t modern medicine eradicate it?

  “Is there a cure?” he managed to ask.

  Grace smiled, her mouth quivering. “Sure is. An antibiotic will sort it out in no time at all. We’ll just roll up to our local drug store and buy some over the counter.” She tried to laugh but suddenly spluttered and coughed. She covered her mouth with her hand. When she moved it away, it was speckled with blood.

  “We’ll find one,” said Sam, trying to sound confident. All he had to do was find a drug store then. Easier said than done.

  A day later and she was worse. She complained of chills and started bleeding out of her ears. She suffered from terrible muscle cramps. He did what he could for her but knew she was dying. After all she’d been through, after what he’d been through to save her, it seemed it wouldn’t be enough. He cursed the unfairness of it all.

  Another day passed. Her fever worsened. Her lips, nose, fingers and toes started to turn black. Even Sam knew what this was – the onset of gangrene. She didn’t have long. She couldn’t travel any longer and he made her as comfortable as he could on a makeshift mattress in the backroom of a service station. He thought about calling Yeth, knowing that the Hellhound could quench his own fires if the need arose - but he was unsure how Grace would take riding on the back of a demon, even in her barely conscious, feverish state.

  Just when he thought it was all over for her, a miracle happened. He heard voices outside and cautiously moved to investigate, ensuring that his hood was up, concealing his telltale horns.

  In the forecourt of the service station were a group of men in fatigues. Army fatigues. Soldiers.

  “Hi there,” he said quietly, moving slowly so as to not startle them.

  There was hurried movement as several automatic weapons were suddenly leveled in his direction. These soldiers were obviously not taking any chances.

  “Who are you?” demanded one of them – an officer by the looks.

  “Just a survivor. My name’s Sam. I need your help. My friend is sick.”

  The officer looked Sam up and down, appraising, taking in the swords at his hip and back.

  “Lots of people are sick,” he said curtly. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Her,” Sam corrected. “I think she has the plague.”

  The officer didn’t display any surprise. He nodded once. “Wayne – get the medical kit and go see to her.”

  One of the soldiers grabbed his backpack and entered the station. Sam and the officer followed.

  “What’s he going to do?” Sam asked.

  “We’ve seen this a lot. Easily treatable. We’ve got antibiotics.”

  Inside, Wayne knelt down next to Grace. He dispensed some pills while Sam helped her sit up. Using his canteen, Wayne gave her a few sips of precious water.

  Sam breathed out heavily, the worry of the last few days suddenly lessened ever so slightly. “So what happens now?” he asked eventually.

  The officer shrugged. “It should work. It’ll take a couple of days before the antibiotics kick in. In the meantime, you guys can come with us. We’ve got a truck.”

  “To where?” Sam hadn’t really thought about it. Of course, these soldiers must have come from some military base.

  “We’re a long range squad from Kansas. The CO sent us out looking for people like you.”

  “Had much luck?” Sam asked.

  The officer looked sour. “None. You’re the first people we’ve seen since we came out on this patrol. Alive, that is. Let’s hope the other squads have more success. You’re lucky we came with antibiotics though. The plague has been breaking out all over the place and our supplies are getting a bit low.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam, feeling suddenly moved.

  The officer shrugged. “Hey, just doing my job. Glad we could help.”

  They loaded Grace into the back of the truck, Sam making her as comfortable as he could. Two days travel saw a huge improvement in Grace’s condition. It also saw them back at the base. Thankfully, Grace made a full recovery – physically at least.

  From there, the two of them traveled from base to base, state to state until arriving in Ohio, making a semi-permanent home at the army base they found there. Grace had fully recovered her strength but had lost something in the process. Things between them were never the same again. Every time he saw her after some mission, the gap between them continued to widen, almost to the point where they could no longer talk. It pained him but there was little he could do about it. Grace had suffered terrible mental and physical torture in Hell. It had changed her forever.

  He deliberately stayed away from the base for longer and longer periods, just to avoid coming back and seeing what she had become. She never spoke of her experience and he never asked. Some things were best forgotten. But other things could never be.

  Book 2

  Heaven and Earth

  Three and a half years into the Tribulation

  “Man's days are determ
ined; you have decreed the number of his months and

  have set limits he cannot exceed.” Job 14:5

  Chapter Seven

  Greetings from Hell

  “For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.” Romans: 18

  Had the thing just spoken? It couldn’t be … but Sam was sure it had just told him that it brought greetings from his father.

  So stunned was Sam that he relaxed his grip on the Lemure’s hair. Immediately, with one swift, savage movement, the Lemure yanked its head forward. The razor sharp blade lying against its neck easily sliced through demon flesh, almost severing the head completely.

  Sam held the body until he was sure it was quite dead, still in a state of shook. Finally, he let the body topple to the ground, still struggling to absorb the words he had just heard uttered.

  “Your father sends his greetings.”

  What the Hell was that supposed to mean?

  The last time he’d seen his father had been three years ago, in Hell. Sure, he got that feeling that someone was watching him from time to time and he mostly assumed it was his father because, let’s face it, who else was it likely to be? And then there were the dreams of his mother. He wasn’t so naïve to think that the dreams were only a product of his overactive subconscious. His father was playing his usual games. Occasionally, he thought he caught glimpses of the sharply dressed, debonair demon who was Satan, ruler of Hell, his father, the father of lies. But when he looked again or tried to move closer, whatever it was had disappeared. So why now? Why would his father send his greetings now? Sam knew with absolute certainty that Satan was up to something. He never did anything without it serving some purpose, or having some intrinsic value or calculated risk. But what was it?

  It was only then that Sam realized that the Lemure was still lying at his feet. It hadn’t disintegrated into a pile of ash like all Lemure did. Some greater demons, Sam knew, had more resistance to iron than others but when struck a killing blow, all dissolved into dust eventually. Lemure weren’t greater demons though. In fact, they were the least of their kind, were highly susceptible to iron and always, always became powder upon death.

  Not this Lemure, apparently.

  Sam crouched down next to the body. A dark fluid was leaking out of the horrendous neck wound. That wasn’t right – Lemure didn’t bleed. Then he noticed the other differences – minor ones that weren’t immediately apparent. The arms weren’t as long as normal Lemure; the horns at elbow and knees were absent. The skin of the creature was, for lack of a better word, more human looking. It was still yellow with an unhealthy pallor, but still, much healthier and anthropomorphic than regular Lemure.

  So – it wasn’t a Lemure then. At least not a pure Lemure. It was part Lemure and part something else. And then it struck Sam – struck him so hard that he staggered backwards.

  This Lemure was like him – it was part demon and part human. This creature at his feet, this demonic thing, was more kin to him than any other living creature other than his father, his presumably-dead twin brother and possibly other demon Princes and Princesses in Hell. The thought made him feel vaguely nauseous.

  His father was sending him a message – not just with words. This creature was a message in itself. What was his father trying to tell him? That the world was destined to be inherited by half human, half-demon hybrids? Cambions. That was the name for his kind. Not a word used lightly. In fact, the word was often associated with the worst forms of evil and whispered hurriedly amongst those who knew of their existence.

  Sam’s brother had proven to Sam that he was not the only Cambion, but now it seemed that there were more. He shuddered to think what the consequences would be of breeding an Astaroth or a Horned demon with a human. What about Succubi? Surely these would be deadly foes. Game changers, in fact. Did his father really think he could change the outcome of the final battle? Was this what he was trying to tell Sam: that his half-breed kind was the future? Sam didn’t know and a part of him no longer cared. At the end of the Tribulation, in just over three years’ time, Christ would return at the head of an army and throw the anti-Christ and Satan into a bottomless pit for a thousand years. Sam’s brother and father. Essentially, his only blood relatives.

  Where would Sam fit into all this? He didn’t know. No-one had told him. Would he be banished to the deepest parts of Hell along with his blood family or would he get to be reunited with Aimi and his foster-father, Hikari? He wished he knew. In the meantime, however, he still had a job to do - one that he was unlikely to stop doing, despite that fact that no one, on either Earth or in Heaven, seemed to appreciate it.

  He sucked in a deep, sulfur-tinged breath and let it out with a huge sigh. This half-breed creature in front of him was a problem for another day. He’d think about it later. Right now, he still had some humans to deal with. Whether they would be saved or punished, he would soon find out.

  There were still about two hours ‘til dawn when Sam finally made his move. He’d watched the humans from a nearby rooftop for a few hours, noting their numbers, their weapons and when they changed the guard. He’d observed them before, of course, but Hikari had told him never to assume. Things might have changed since the previous evening. Depressingly, they hadn’t. Demons, mostly Lemure but also the hulking Horned Demon, prowled the streets in numbers. Above him, Sam had noted the huge flying presence of at least five Astaroth. Tellingly, the demons completely ignored the humans on guard outside the two-storied warehouse. Without a doubt, those humans were in league with the demons. If that hadn’t been proof enough, then what he had observed an hour ago certainly was.

  Three other humans had appeared on the street below Sam dragging two others between them. The contrast between the captors and their captives was stark. The three captors were grown men, well fed, glossy and bloated, dressed in expensive if dirty hunting gear. All three carried weapons: two had hunting rifles while the third was armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

  Their two captives were an altogether different story. One male and one female. Probably both in their teens. They were skinny and undernourished, clad in scraps of clothing and smeared head to toe in dirty ash. They were also patently terrified, the whites of their eyes clearly visible to Sam from his vantage point above. Still struggling, the two teenagers had been dragged into the warehouse. The three men emerged some minutes later to smoke with the two guards, their crass laughter drifting up to Sam’s ears. If what he hadn’t seen earlier wasn’t enough to confirm his suspicions, then what he saw next erased any doubts he might have had. As one of the men raised a cigarette to his lips, the sleeve of his jacket slid up to reveal his wrist. Even from that distance, Sam knew what it was: a tattoo of a stylized outline of a horned face. He couldn’t see the details but he knew what was tattooed inside the face. The name Abaddon and the number 666. The name of his father. The mark of the beast. There could be no doubt. They were in league with Satan.

  The three men had gone back inside at least half an hour earlier, leaving only the two guards outside. Sam hadn’t seen anymore movement either inside or out. The amount of demons around was also decreasing as dawn approached. It was a sleepy time of night, when human and demon consciousness was at a low ebb. Sam could sense it, and knew that the time had come.

  With cat-like stealth, he moved to the edge of the building he was perched upon. The gap between his building and the warehouse of the humans yawned in front of him. The distance was at least fifteen feet – too far for a normal human. In fact, almost too far for Sam. It was at the very limit of his leaping abilities but he thought he could probably do it. He’d have to do it; it was either this or go in the front entrance, waking every single human in the building and bringing every demon in the vicinity running, flying and stomping down upon him.

  Problem was, there wasn’t much room for a run-up. Probably five feet. Edging backwards, Sam sighed and adjusted his swords slightly. It wo
uld have to do. With a last glance upwards to ensure his movement wasn’t observed by an Astaroth, he sprinted towards the edge and leapt, eerily silent, just another flying shadow moving through the night sky. He made it – but only just. If the distance had been a single foot more, he would’ve eaten the side of the building and tumbled to the ground. The very tip of his leading foot scraped the parapet that marked the boundary of the warehouse roof and then he was over it, desperately rolling to avoid any sound of impact.

  At the end of his roll, he froze, listening to see if his intrusion had been noted, nervously watching the ash he had disturbed slowly fluttering about him. When there was no sound or movement forthcoming, he relaxed, exhaling with a long tiny hiss.

  He stood up and moved towards the skylight that he had scouted out two nights previously. It was as he’d left it – still slightly ajar, unnoticeable from casual inspection. He eased it open, wincing at the slight noise, his heart fluttering nervously as some ash from the rooftop drifted through the gap.

  Unstrapping both swords from back and hip, he placed them on the rooftop before sliding through the gap. About seven feet directly below was an old wooden walkway, probably only used to gain access to these windows and provide some ventilation in the warehouse. He let himself hang by the window ledge before dropping. Bracing his legs, he landed catlike, crouched with arms outstretched. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have made the slightest noise but the walkway was old and it was inevitable that his 6’3’’, 220lb frame would have some effect.

  It creaked - a very slight noise, but alarmingly loud in Sam’s ears. He froze again, listening to see if his presence had been noticed this time. Beneath him, he could sense humans moving about. There was certainly no outcry and he could detect no alarm in their minds. He registered curiosity in one person’s mind, but they were looking in the direction of the walkway.