Jackson waited until the little pink sphere shot up from behind the garbage cans before he let loose a series of shots from his rifle, plastering the insides of the creature across his garage door. He turned and spotted the faint pink color of an arm or a leg peeking out from behind the thick mailbox post. A series of shots tore the post apart – and the demon who was hiding behind it – scattering wood and tender flesh across the asphalt road.
“Where’s that damn light?” he called out. Waiting for a response from the other side of the garage door, he spotted another demon scurrying up the large pine tree in front of his house like a squirrel. Jackson blew a hole in the foliage, destroying the foul beast before Kara answered him from within the garage.
“Almost there! Just a few more wires to connect.”
“Well hurry up!” he shouted, glancing down at his rifle. He knew he only had a handful of bullets left. After that, he would have to retreat into the garage, grab Kara, and flee into the dark neighborhood. With his house being the only one with power – generated from an electric generator he had purchased on a whim some years back – it was the only lit up spot in the neighborhood. But it left the property looking like a bug light in a dark field. Every manner of evil was closing in on them now. Jackson surmised that if Kara could get the two spotlights in the garage working – souvenirs from the ten years he worked at the Brickstone nightclub before it went out of business – he could use the lights to keep the vermin away long enough to fix the truck so he and Kara could get out of here and flee to the location of the ringing bells emanating from the center of town.
“Done!” Kara shouted. The loud shuffling of the garage door opening up made Jackson nervous. Demons began moving toward his driveway quicker, as if the sound of the garage was enticing them. Jackson shot one, then another, cringing as guts and blood spewed out across his concrete.
He walked backwards until he was at the giant spotlight. Kara’s face was pale under the garage lighting. Her once ruby red lips were doused in purple bruises, and her gorgeous eyes – emerald in color – were black and blue. The disease was taking its toll, and Jackson had to force himself to focus on the task at hand and not on the time that Kara might or might not have left.
He waited until a cluster of the hideous demons were at the entrance to his garage, each one hesitant to step inside for fear of the light that spilled from the lamps overhead. Jackson grinned and then flipped the switch on the spotlight. A bright spark and a loud buzz were followed by the lights going out, leaving them in complete darkness.
Jackson aimed the rifle in front of him, straining his eyes to see the demonic figures in the dark. Kara held tightly to his arm, her grip weaker than he remembered it being. “Just stay calm, sweetcakes.”
“I don’t...” her grip vanished from his arm, and he heard her topple to the floor.
“Kara?” he called out, refusing to lower himself to the ground or lower the weapon. He strained his hearing, listening for the pitter patter of demon feet. They were covering the whole entrance of the garage now. “Kara? We just have to check the circuit breakers, okay? We might have blown a fuse. Kara?”
He heard her coughing, spitting something up. Probably the orange goop she had coughed up earlier.
“Kara, honey, I need you to get to your feet and come with me, okay?”
“Leave me...”
“No, damnit! Get to your feet!”
His vision adapted to the dark, and he could see a multitude of dark shadows, short and brightly colored, gathering at the entrance to his garage. He knew he didn’t have enough ammo in the rifle to kill them all. He could go out the back way...but he didn’t want to leave without Kara.
“Human.” The voice, low and scratchy, definitely originated from a female somewhere amidst the crowd in front of him. He wondered if it might be the witch, Evanescence. “Your time is up.”
“I won’t go down without a fight.”
“But you will go down.”
Jackson finally lowered himself, keeping his rifle steady on his knee with one hand, using the other hand to reach back for Kara, whose body was trembling something fierce. “Are you still with me, Kara?”
“Cold...” she whispered.
Jackson thought he saw one of the demons charge into the garage. He fired a shot, heard flesh splatter, and the raspy voice chuckle. He stood to his feet. “Come at me. What are you waiting for?”
“We don’t wait. We anticipate. You are meal to us.”
He fired another shot, hit another demon. Another shot, another casualty. Four more rounds went out, and the fifth clicked empty in his gun. He held the rifle out in front of him, ready to defend himself to the death. Kara coughed, wheezed, and then went silent. He knew she was gone from this plane. His beloved was dead.
Blue dots suddenly appeared in the distance, behind the gathering unit of demons. Dozens of dots. Then hundreds. Then thousands. Jackson squinted and strained his vision, realizing they weren’t dots but eyes. Blue glowing eyes.
“This victory goes to the Almighty!” a thunderous voice shouted just before Jackson’s eyes were blinded by radiant light.
Other Flash Fiction Friday pieces -
#0 - Valentine
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