Howl of the Heavens ch.29&30

        Upon the ridge across from the church Rhuen, Versa, Rish, and Riska sit watching the church. Versa turns to Rhuen and asks, “Why are they holding up in there any way?”

     Rhuen scratches the underside of his jaw and says, “It’s likely a combination of things, seeing as they are in the top floors I would say it’s mostly due to their primate instincts in that respect. Humans are really just big hairless swimming monkeys”

    Rish and Riska interrupt their father and ask in unison, “what’s a monkey?”

    Rhuen answers, “Monkeys are just a generic term and a group of primates, humans are really apes, basically a monkey would be if you shrank a human, covered their entire bodies in hair and gave them tails.”

    “Oh” said the twins together.

    Rhuen continues, “That would be why they are hiding up on the top floor like monkeys hiding high in trees, but as for why they are holding up in there at all. Well I would say it’s a social thing with movies and books, in movies and books when the heroes so to speak are attacked by the monsters which in these humans’ eyes would be us they hide in a big house and arm themselves. Now these Order guys grow up in a world where reality matches fiction; where the monsters they encounter in books and movies are like what they encounter in real life, so they superimpose themselves into the roles of the star characters in the books and movies so they play out what these heroes would do. In other words if their family or friends are attacked by the monsters they all high tail it into a big house and arm themselves. Funny thing is if they had been related to or been friends to that human whose arm you loped off my dear.”

     He nods to Versa before he continued, “Then they would have taken him out of the hospital or where ever they left that human and locked themselves up in that church thinking we were going after all of them.”

    Rhuen turns to Versa and shares his thoughts with her, “Your new Were-Dire (as these humans have named them) has increased the expectations of these humans that they are going to be attacked, and it being a dark and stormy night.”

    He laughed a little at that before continuing, “Let’s not disappoint these humans and deal with them now.”

    Rhuen and Versa hunch over as Rish and Riska back off to see their parents stretch out into their full giant quadruped forms. They turn to the church and are about to leap across the street when they see the human in the sheriff’s uniform the one they had learned from Samantha’s thoughts as she fled the area was named Peter. This human “Peter” had actually left the church and gone out to his police truck where he pulled out a briefcase of some kind from the truck.

    Rhuen says, “Now they think they are safe in that church, so I wander what could be so important for him to risk his life to come out in the open to retrieve it.”

(30)

    Minutes earlier in the church Peter and Mike are covering up the bodies of Father Henry and Jeff Jones when they are surprised by a screeching sound coming from the side room. They look up to see that it is Nick standing in the door way looking on in horror at the sight of his grandfather and great grandfather dead on the floor. With out his tongue and the back of his throat scorched the best he can make is a screeching noise as he attempts to scream.

    Peter gets up and puts his arm around Nick, “Nick you have to be strong, we are getting out of here soon just hold up until then.”

    Nick wipes his eyes with the shirt sleeve of his stubbed arms and nods his head.

    Peter says to everyone there, “We need to get out of here, get to town and get help or get to the station in Brooksville if we can, there is no way we are going to hold them off in here. That Bitch demon of a woman easily cut through a cane that was supposed to fend of such monsters, the sacred silver sword only deflected her instead of killing her like it should have, and she dodged my shots. And she was only a pawn of those demons; they are very likely to be a lot stronger than she was.”

    Peter suddenly stops talking and puts his finger to his mouth to hush every one as he walks over to the broken window. He whispers, “I think I heard a voice.”

   He peers out into the storm and thinks he sees what might be silhouettes on the other ridge across the street.

     Peter turns to Paul and Mike and says, “Something may be up, I need to get something from my truck. Be right back.”

    While Peter is gone Paul notices Nick pointing with his arms and babbling something incomprehensible.

     Mike says, “He’s pointing at our weapons.”

    Nick nods his head.

    Paul asks Nick, “You want a weapon too?”

    Nick nods again.

    Paul says, “In case you haven’t noticed kid you’re missing your hands how the hell do you except to hold a weapon let alone use one?”

   Nick scowls at Paul.

    Mike interjects, “Nick, Paul does have a point, you’re unable to operate a weapon, besides it would be safer for you if you just tried to escape when the time comes instead of fighting. If these things are anything like were-wolves they may go after the injured first, so we will need to provide cover while you escape. Besides we’re not even certain our weapons will work against these demons.”

    Peter makes his way outside and into his truck, pulling out the emergency box from the back. He takes the box back inside with him and upstairs he overhears Mike telling Nick he will need to escape.

    Peter enters and says, “We will all be getting out of here at the same time, Nick I will need you to get in the truck first while we cover you.”

    Peter opens the box and pulls out a large goggle like device.

    Paul asks, “what’s that?”

     Peter answers, “Night vision goggles.”

    Peter puts them on and looks out the window and exclaims, “Holy shit!”

    His jaws drop open and a pale look of horror is upon his face.

    Mike says, “Hand those here.”

    Peter passes them over not taking his eyes away from the window. Mike looks through the night vision goggles and sees two giant four legged creatures bigger than anything he had expected and along side them two smaller ones.

    Mike slowly lowers the goggles with a look of terror on his face and says, “We need to get out of here now!”

    Peter shakes off his feeling of dread taking control of his senses again, turns to Mike and says, “Yes…we need to get the hell out of here now.”

    Paul snatches the goggles and says, “What the hell is so damned scary?”

    He looks off in the distance and says, “What the fu…”

    He is cut short by a sudden violent shaking of the church as though a canon had been fired at it.