Chapter Eleven:
The Zombies, Explanations, Attacking Bob and Drusilla
Sam poked her head out of the top of the tank and peered out at the man Riley was walking towards. She didn't have a good feeling about this. Twice she thought of calling to Riley and telling him to leave that man alone. That she had a feeling that something really bad was about to happen. Twice she decided against it.
Just when Riley himself was getting a bad feeling about the man, he saw that there was something very wrong with the thing that was masquerading about as a man in front of him. It wasn't ten meters in front of his nose and he turned around and darted back to the tank. The zombie was going faster, but Riley reached the tank and was climbing up before it could reach him.
"Get inside!" he shouted at the soldiers above him. "Get the hell inside!"
Instead of obeying him, like they should have, they took shots at the thing below him that Riley kept thinking of as a zombie. The zombie screamed as shots hit it, and then tried to run off. "Tried" is the key word there. A bullet blew its heart out all over the street and it fell like so many bricks to the ground.
Riley considered leaving it alone, but he couldn't. They needed to take the body for research. To find out what those things were. He kept thinking of it as a zombie, but he wasn't even remotely certain that that was what it was. Maybe it was a demon that had possessed the body, or a demon that had used the human's skin as a disguise like the alien in "Men in Black". He climbed back down off of the tank--one of the worst decisions he would ever make in his life.
"What are you doing, Riley?" Sam called after him, her fear not staying out of her voice. "Get back here!"
"Radio in to Head Quarters! Tell them we've got something for our scientists to check out!"
"Riley!"
"I'll be right back!"
As Jamie Kennedy stated in "Scream", saying 'I'll be right back' is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed.
Riley stood over the dead body, preparing himself to pick the rotting thing up, and not knowing that he was wasting time. Time, which was, unbeknownst to him, of short supply. Finally he slung the stinking thing over his shoulder, grimacing at the feel and smell of it. Then he started back to the tank.
Three soldiers were coming towards him, wondering if he needed any help. Riley supposed he did, a limp body was quite heavy. One soldier, Jake, took the body's legs and another, Barry, took its arms. The third, Greg, walked back with them. Riley followed.
Apparently shooting out the thing's heart had only momentarily stopped it. That became clear when it brought its head up and bit off Barry's nose. Barry let go of the top half of the zombie and grabbed at the blood spraying hole in his face, screaming louder than he had ever screamed before.
The zombie struggled with Jake to get its legs free and did so before Riley or Greg could shoot it. It got to its feet and leapt on top of Greg, biting into his neck like a vampire. However, unlike a vampire it tore Greg's neck out and ate the meat it had pulled off instead of sucking blood out of two holes.
Greg began screaming then, too.
"Oh, shit!" Greg cried. "It bit me! It bit me!"
Riley shot at the zombie, but only succeeded in hitting its arm as it jumped off of Greg and charged at its nearest target: Jake.
"Get the hell away from me!" Jake hollered and then ran off, dropping the weapon he had drawn in the process. Barry, who was desperately trying to get himself under control, decided to hurl himself at the zombie and trap it under his considerable weight of two-hundred and six pounds so that they could aim at it easier and blow it to hell.
If he had hurled himself at it a split-second earlier he would have succeeded. He missed when he lunged forward and fell onto the ground. The zombie, in effect, turned around and jumped on top of him, tearing his face apart. Barry blacked out at some point as he was mauled by the undead creature on top of him.
Jake, as the only one smart enough to run away, was thrown down by three zombies as they rounded the corner. He was torn apart and eaten as other zombies joined in the frenzied killing.
Riley and the others didn't even notice the new wave of enemies; they were too focused on the zombie that was killing Barry to do so.
Riley aimed, but it was Greg, who was fending off fainting, who shot the thing's head with his nine millimeter--the same gun the others had. Brain matter and blood doused Barry's ravaged face.
Riley looked over at Greg, who was hyperventilating. "Barry…" he breathed. Barry and Greg had been great friends, the type of friends that stuck together through just about everything. Barry was obviously dead and Greg couldn't believe it. "Jesus Christ."
Then Greg's eyes widened as he looked over in the direction of Jake's run. "Oh… God."
Riley followed his gaze and his eyes went wide as dinner plates. "RUN!" he shouted and took off in the direction of the tank. Sam was urging them on.
"Run!" she shouted. "Run!"
Coming down all three streets were dozens of zombies. Each as hungry and eager to bit into human flesh as the next.
Greg tripped before making it to the tank and fell flat on his face. Riley stopped to help him but Greg aimed his gun at Riley, knowing that Riley would not obey him without a little incentive. "Keep going!"
So Riley reluctantly did so. He ignored the gunshots from Greg's last stand against the undead killers. He ignored the horrible screams that followed.
He grabbed onto the tank and began climbing up. He nearly got to the top and grabbed Sam's outstretched hand. Their eyes then met with love instead of fear for the last time.
"RILEY!" Sam shrieked and pointed with her left hand beneath him. Riley looked down and saw as the zombie jumped up at him with outstretched hands. Riley's hand gripped Sam's hard enough to make her grit her teeth in pain, and then he let go. The zombie had landed on his back and forced him forward hard. In shock he let go of the tank.
He then plummeted down to the street and the mob of hungry zombies below. Halfway down he hit something hard that broke his leg and then snapped off of the tank to fall with him.
He had never stopped loving Buffy. His thoughts went to her first. Then to the rest of the Scoobies. Xander, Dawn, Willow, Anya, Giles, and Tara. Then he thought of how he had met Sam. How beautiful she had been, how beautiful she still was. She was perfect for him. He had known from the start.
Too bad it had to end like it did.
Riley tried not to scream as he was eviscerated.
The tank's turret began spinning to the threat of the zombies. A shell was fired and over twenty zombies were either incinerated or blown up.
Sam was sobbing and crying, trying to deny the death of Riley. It was to no avail. The soldiers pulled her inside with use of great force and sat her down on the floor next to Ashley.
"NO!" she shrieked. "RILEY!"
She didn't try to get back to the hatchway. She knew that it would do no good.
Another shell was fired.
"Get us out of here!" the second-in-charge, Matt, ordered the driver.
"It won't start back up!" the driver replied. "We're stuck!"
Matt looked around at the other soldiers. He had no idea what to do. He had never been in charge of a situation like this before. He knew that the only chance they would have would be to get out and make a run for it. That, however, would mean a drastic amount of casualties, leaving the little girl behind… and Sam, the woman who was his friend. He didn't want to admit it, but they did have to get out and make a run for it. Otherwise they would be stuck in there for a long time before anyone came for them--their radio antennae had been knocked off by Riley as he fell. They stood a much better chance of suffering one-hundred percent casualties by staying. So he finally gave the order.
"Alright soldiers!" he began. "I am now in charge of this situation now that Riley is… deceased. The tank is down and our radio antennae is gone. I'm sorry to say that we'll have to make a run for it."
Matt didn't want to run, and from the looks of it neither did anyone else. But they would.
Outside there were several bumps and clanks as the zombies scaled the tank. Matt grabbed an M-16 and popped open the hatch. He peered out and saw that two zombies had reached the top. He shot them both off and then blew off three more. He climbed out of the hole and another soldier came up, followed by another and another. They were all firing as the zombies climbed up to them.
They lost two before they could get down the side of the tank facing an area that was not infested with zombies. Three more fell as the zombies came around after them or jumped off of the tank on top of them.
Five out of the seven left were lost a few moments later. Sam and Ashley were still inside of the tank, Sam hugging her knees and crying uncontrollably. Ashley was beginning to wake up.
Matt and the last soldier left were picked off after Ashley stood up in a great panic.
"What's going on?" Ashley asked in a shrill voice. She was looking at the sobbing Sam. "What's happening?"
"He's dead! He's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead."
"Who's dead?"
A zombie dropped into the tank and glared at them with glazed, dead, hungry eyes before Sam could answer.
It took two running steps forward before Sam blasted it away with her nine millimeter. "BASTARD! You killed him!"
Zombies then began falling into the tank continuously. Six made it in and Four survived to kill Sam, who had just run out of ammo.
They tore her neck out and nibbled on her arms and legs. More kept coming. Ashley wondered if they would be able to make it back out and hoped bitterly that they wouldn't, that they would starve to… a second death… in the tank.
When the first one reached her, something happened.
She closed her eyes and a blinding light filled the tank. It seeped out into the surrounding street. Then it began to look like an explosion. A sphere expanded to enclose five surrounding city blocks. An explosion of green light filled the sphere.
Across the city, Angel, Illyria, Buffy, Xander, and Willow saw the tall sphere as they left the medical tent after visiting Gunn and Monique. Gunn was still unconscious and the doctors were working hard to let him regain consciousness again. Monique hadn't been hurt much and was able to tell them that it was a horrible, short monster. Buffy had already known this, but Monique had insisted on giving a description.
The green sphere then began to suck itself back in. Wind flew out over the city hard enough to knock over a few buildings. The five city blocks that had been enclosed in the sphere were gone. The bottom of the sphere had dug into the ground and left a huge crater near the edge of the city. Water gushed out of demolished sewer pipes and telephone poll wires swung in the breeze from where they had been disconnected. The bottom of a street light protruded from the ground with a curve cut into the top of it where the rest of the street light would normally be located.
In the middle of that crater was Ashley, the only survivor of that wave of zombies. She looked around her at the destruction she had just caused somehow.
"What the hell just happened?"
Then she saw Joey in the same clothes he had been in when she had first seen him. He was looking at her grimly. "That was you unleashing your power… filtered. Just wait until you unleash it COMPLETELY. That's gonna blow your mind!"
Meanwhile…
"What's that?" Oz asked and pointed out towards a dome of green light barely visible over the building tops. Toby and Lorne looked at it.
"I have no idea," Lorne replied after a moment of silent staring.
"It's gone now," Toby stated. The dome had shrunk out of sight below the buildings.
"The question isn't entirely what it was, either," Lorne said. "It's what made it. Or what's going on where it was."
"Green guy's got a point," Oz said. "I'm hoping that whoever or whatever did that is with us."
For a while longer they drove on in silence. It was a few minutes later that they drove right into the base.
There was some surprise that followed this and some soldiers stopped them with their guns raised demanding to know who they were. It was good for them that Angel was there to identify Lorne, who had just taken off his hood per order from one of the gunmen, otherwise they might've been imprisoned.
"Hey Angelface," Lorne greeted Angel enthusiastically. He averted Angel's eyes, knowing that he had failed the mission Angel had sent him to do. "I need to tell you something."
"You killed Lindsey," Angel said.
Lorne looked at him shamefully. "No. He got awa--"
"No, you DID kill Lindsey."
"…Huh?"
"He's still up and walking around, sure, but he IS dead. His body's at room temperature and his heart's not beating."
"…What?"
"We don't know why or how yet. We've got Giles working on it."
"Is Wesley on it, too?" Lorne asked. He was trying to remember who Giles was. He was also dealing with the rush of mixed emotions that had come with the news of Lindsey's condition. He was more surprised that he had actually succeeded in killing Lindsey than Lindsey still walking around and controlling his dead body. He had never thought that he could take another being's life.
Then Angel looked away from him gravely. Lorne knew what had happened just from that simple motion. "Oh, no."
"We buried him two or three days ago."
Oz looked from Lorne to Angel. The news of Wesley's death was strange to him. He remembered Wes as a bookworm and a wimp. He wondered if Wes had died in battle. Probably had. Oz fought back the urge to laugh at the image of the bookworm fighting demons with ease.
Angel then caught sight of Oz for the first time. "Oz?" he said.
"Hey Angel."
Angel then looked at Toby. "Who're you?"
"Angel?"
"Yeah. That's me. Who are you?"
"Toby Manlilker. I've traveled from all the way up in New York to see you."
"Uh-huh… why?"
"To deliver this werewolf to you."
Oz didn't show his disapproval of being referred to as 'werewolf' and bit his tongue.
"I have to ask this again: why?"
Toby looked around at them. "You'll think I'm crazy."
"I'm a vampire and that is actually Lorne's skin you're looking at and not make-up."
Toby shifted his eyes between them. "Okay then."
Toby then filled them all in on his experience with Richard--whom he continuously referred to as 'Dick'.
After he was finished, which was about a half hour later, Oz raised an eyebrow. "So… I'm supposed to put a stop to an 'Agent of the Apocalypse'?"
"That's what Dick said."
Lorne looked confused. "Is that actually his name?"
Toby grinned slightly. "Yeah."
That made Lorne even more confused as to why anyone would keep the name of Dick.
"Did he saw anything else about me?" Oz inquired. He sounded a bit urgent. That was quite unlike the Oz that Angel had known. He wondered what was wrong with Oz.
Before he could say anything, Toby then told them about the Jarlkarlones. Lorne's eyes widened in alarm.
"How many did you see?" he asked hurriedly.
"I don't kno--"
"HOW MANY?" Lorne shouted, worry in his eyes.
"More than ten! There were a bunch of them. Maybe even more than twenty! God!"
"What's wrong Lorne?" Angel asked.
"This is bad. This is very, very bad. Jarlkarlones made a name for themselves as the most terrifying demon in my home dimension. Just one of them could wipe out most of a village before getting killed. If there are more than twenty of them… we are in serious danger."
"ANGEL!" Buffy called from behind them. Angel turned around and saw her running at them. The soldiers that had been pointing guns before were now going about their business. She stopped in front of Angel. She hadn't seen Oz yet. "We just lost contact with one of our scouting tanks--the one that Riley and Sam were in. Last time we heard from them they were across the city. Around the area that the green light was."
Angel turned to Lorne. "Can Jarlkarlones cause a giant burst of green light?"
"No," Lorne replied without a moment's hesitation. "They don't have any magic in 'em. They just mutilate with their claws… or their tails."
"Oz?" Buffy had just spotted Oz.
"Hey Buffy."
"What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you, too."
"Sorry."
"I'm here to fulfill a prophecy."
"Buffy?" Angel had turned back to her. "Send another scout tank to check on Riley's tank. Their orders are to rescue any survivors and to bring the tank back if it's in good driving condition."
Buffy nodded and began to run off when Angel called her back. "Tell them to get the hell out of there if there's any threat at all. We can't lose another tank. They're in short supply."
"Alright Angel."
Buffy then ran off and was not called back. The four watched her run until she was out of sight.
"When did they all come here?" Lorne asked, just realizing that he was standing in a military base. Call him slow if you want; things had just happened too fast for him to even care about that before.
"About four days ago."
Lorne then remembered the military vehicles he had seen after killing Lindsey. Four days? It felt more like four years.
"Is Willow here?" Oz asked suddenly. He had mixed feelings about seeing Willow again. He had left to get his wolf under control, and Willow had gone all lesbian on him while he was gone.
"She's here."
"With Tara?"
"Tara's dead."
"Oh…" Oz felt a pang of sorrow for Willow.
"She's here with another girl, though. Kennedy, I think."
Oz had no reply to that. If Willow's girlfriend had been dead long enough for her to get over it and get another girlfriend… that meant he had been gone way too long. He hated that sense of time slipping through your fingers. He had to admit that his Eskimo girl had come a long way. He would have known that she definitely had if he had known about her evil streak from a couple of years back.
"You all probably need food and water," Angel said. "Come with me." He then led the trio to the mess hall tent.
Meanwhile…
Drusilla was nude and sleeping next to Bob after a half hour of "playing" in the bed. Bob was holding a television remote and trying to flip through channels, but the power was out. All he could see by was candlelight.
Bob reluctantly dropped the remote and laid back down. He wasn't unsettled by the lack of breathing on Drusilla's part, or the lack of body-warmth; that had bought him a few minutes.
He was almost asleep when Connor called out from the next room over. Bob suddenly felt like a parent to the teenager. He got up and walked across the room, not covering himself up, and the doors all opened before him.
He walked into the dark kitchen and turned right. He then walked into a pitch, dark room. Connor was calling out for food. Connor walked over to Bob with his food dish out.
"Food… please…"
"Fine," Bob said after sighing. Suddenly a gourmet meal appeared in Connor's dish--not that either of them could see it. Connor shouted in joy and then dug in with his hands, which Bob kept clean with his mind. Connor would be able to go if he wanted to, but Bob kept him from knowing that.
Bob then turned around and walked back to Drusilla. All of the doors closed behind him. Bob sat down in bed and then the TV turned on. Bob smiled as "Family Guy" played across the screen. Screw remotes; mind control on TV is the best! Bob could just see the commercials. "Control your TV… WITH YOUR MIND!" he whispered and then chuckled. The blankets pulled themselves over him and his pillow became fluffier and more comfortable.
That's when he first noticed something was wrong with the air. It was warmer than normal. Much warmer than his mind was trying to make it.
He looked at the window and saw three mouths piled up on top of each other outside of it. All of the mouths were connected to a perfectly spherical head.
They were on the third floor and the thing's head was taking up more than the window could show! Bob knew what it was, but couldn't believe that the Apocalypse had advanced so much so quickly.
"You're not supposed to be here yet," Bob stated. "Not until the zombies come. And not until the Undead Human comes to be!"
He then knew that the Undead Human had already come to be, and that the zombies had already made their first move in the Apocalypse. Had he really been out of the game for that long?
Drusilla jolted awake at Bob's mind's bidding.
"How much is the puppy in the window?" Drusilla asked.
"One hell of a lot of trouble," Bob replied. Suddenly the Venacklondage shoved its eight foot arm through the wall and grabbed at Bob. It then retracted its hand screeching in pain that Bob had put into its mind. "Let's get out of here!"
Drusilla and Bob burst out of the room and ran down the stairs. Connor followed them, staying far enough behind so that he wouldn't be noticed. He knew that his mind was finally freed, he just wanted to keep it free. He also knew that something was going on that was pretty bad… bad enough to scare off the most powerful human being on Earth.
He had no idea that he might just be wrong about that.
Connor charged down the dark stairs, only being able to see where he was stepping by the light that had been powered to life thanks to Bob's mind.
When he got outside his mind was imprisoned again as Bob faced the Venacklondage.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you liked this. To DZ Dillinger: Gunn isn't really a huge Christian in this story, just one because his up bringers had drilled the religion into his brain at a young age. And Monique does believe in the hell dimensions, just not the actual Hell that Christians believe in. She doesn't really believe in a Heaven either. Or a God. And yes… I suppose I do have a bone to pick with some of my relatives (the comparison of God and Hell to a Judge and jail was one of my uncle's that annoyed me, and my cousin, uncle, and grandmother continuously preach to me, in fact, I was dragged to watch a preacher by my uncle). Thanks for giving a thought-filled review. I appreciate it. Zaerintoleran is the last demon with a long name that I will introduce, considering it was getting annoying for me to think up long names, so you don't have to be besieged by anymore demons with long names.
Please review. Sorry to Riley fans about Riley's death. I just wanted to get you readers to understand that anyone can die in this final Apocalypse. Illyria, Spike, Dawn, etcetera will be written about more. Be patient.
This, along with my AN, is the longest chapter of this story. And this story has broken past 100 pages with size 14, Sylfaen font and about thirty-five lines per full page. That's about average for a story. See you next chapter.
"I see dead people." - Cole "The Sixth Sense" (Too commonly used, but a classic nonetheless)
The Zombies, Explanations, Attacking Bob and Drusilla
Sam poked her head out of the top of the tank and peered out at the man Riley was walking towards. She didn't have a good feeling about this. Twice she thought of calling to Riley and telling him to leave that man alone. That she had a feeling that something really bad was about to happen. Twice she decided against it.
Just when Riley himself was getting a bad feeling about the man, he saw that there was something very wrong with the thing that was masquerading about as a man in front of him. It wasn't ten meters in front of his nose and he turned around and darted back to the tank. The zombie was going faster, but Riley reached the tank and was climbing up before it could reach him.
"Get inside!" he shouted at the soldiers above him. "Get the hell inside!"
Instead of obeying him, like they should have, they took shots at the thing below him that Riley kept thinking of as a zombie. The zombie screamed as shots hit it, and then tried to run off. "Tried" is the key word there. A bullet blew its heart out all over the street and it fell like so many bricks to the ground.
Riley considered leaving it alone, but he couldn't. They needed to take the body for research. To find out what those things were. He kept thinking of it as a zombie, but he wasn't even remotely certain that that was what it was. Maybe it was a demon that had possessed the body, or a demon that had used the human's skin as a disguise like the alien in "Men in Black". He climbed back down off of the tank--one of the worst decisions he would ever make in his life.
"What are you doing, Riley?" Sam called after him, her fear not staying out of her voice. "Get back here!"
"Radio in to Head Quarters! Tell them we've got something for our scientists to check out!"
"Riley!"
"I'll be right back!"
As Jamie Kennedy stated in "Scream", saying 'I'll be right back' is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed.
Riley stood over the dead body, preparing himself to pick the rotting thing up, and not knowing that he was wasting time. Time, which was, unbeknownst to him, of short supply. Finally he slung the stinking thing over his shoulder, grimacing at the feel and smell of it. Then he started back to the tank.
Three soldiers were coming towards him, wondering if he needed any help. Riley supposed he did, a limp body was quite heavy. One soldier, Jake, took the body's legs and another, Barry, took its arms. The third, Greg, walked back with them. Riley followed.
Apparently shooting out the thing's heart had only momentarily stopped it. That became clear when it brought its head up and bit off Barry's nose. Barry let go of the top half of the zombie and grabbed at the blood spraying hole in his face, screaming louder than he had ever screamed before.
The zombie struggled with Jake to get its legs free and did so before Riley or Greg could shoot it. It got to its feet and leapt on top of Greg, biting into his neck like a vampire. However, unlike a vampire it tore Greg's neck out and ate the meat it had pulled off instead of sucking blood out of two holes.
Greg began screaming then, too.
"Oh, shit!" Greg cried. "It bit me! It bit me!"
Riley shot at the zombie, but only succeeded in hitting its arm as it jumped off of Greg and charged at its nearest target: Jake.
"Get the hell away from me!" Jake hollered and then ran off, dropping the weapon he had drawn in the process. Barry, who was desperately trying to get himself under control, decided to hurl himself at the zombie and trap it under his considerable weight of two-hundred and six pounds so that they could aim at it easier and blow it to hell.
If he had hurled himself at it a split-second earlier he would have succeeded. He missed when he lunged forward and fell onto the ground. The zombie, in effect, turned around and jumped on top of him, tearing his face apart. Barry blacked out at some point as he was mauled by the undead creature on top of him.
Jake, as the only one smart enough to run away, was thrown down by three zombies as they rounded the corner. He was torn apart and eaten as other zombies joined in the frenzied killing.
Riley and the others didn't even notice the new wave of enemies; they were too focused on the zombie that was killing Barry to do so.
Riley aimed, but it was Greg, who was fending off fainting, who shot the thing's head with his nine millimeter--the same gun the others had. Brain matter and blood doused Barry's ravaged face.
Riley looked over at Greg, who was hyperventilating. "Barry…" he breathed. Barry and Greg had been great friends, the type of friends that stuck together through just about everything. Barry was obviously dead and Greg couldn't believe it. "Jesus Christ."
Then Greg's eyes widened as he looked over in the direction of Jake's run. "Oh… God."
Riley followed his gaze and his eyes went wide as dinner plates. "RUN!" he shouted and took off in the direction of the tank. Sam was urging them on.
"Run!" she shouted. "Run!"
Coming down all three streets were dozens of zombies. Each as hungry and eager to bit into human flesh as the next.
Greg tripped before making it to the tank and fell flat on his face. Riley stopped to help him but Greg aimed his gun at Riley, knowing that Riley would not obey him without a little incentive. "Keep going!"
So Riley reluctantly did so. He ignored the gunshots from Greg's last stand against the undead killers. He ignored the horrible screams that followed.
He grabbed onto the tank and began climbing up. He nearly got to the top and grabbed Sam's outstretched hand. Their eyes then met with love instead of fear for the last time.
"RILEY!" Sam shrieked and pointed with her left hand beneath him. Riley looked down and saw as the zombie jumped up at him with outstretched hands. Riley's hand gripped Sam's hard enough to make her grit her teeth in pain, and then he let go. The zombie had landed on his back and forced him forward hard. In shock he let go of the tank.
He then plummeted down to the street and the mob of hungry zombies below. Halfway down he hit something hard that broke his leg and then snapped off of the tank to fall with him.
He had never stopped loving Buffy. His thoughts went to her first. Then to the rest of the Scoobies. Xander, Dawn, Willow, Anya, Giles, and Tara. Then he thought of how he had met Sam. How beautiful she had been, how beautiful she still was. She was perfect for him. He had known from the start.
Too bad it had to end like it did.
Riley tried not to scream as he was eviscerated.
The tank's turret began spinning to the threat of the zombies. A shell was fired and over twenty zombies were either incinerated or blown up.
Sam was sobbing and crying, trying to deny the death of Riley. It was to no avail. The soldiers pulled her inside with use of great force and sat her down on the floor next to Ashley.
"NO!" she shrieked. "RILEY!"
She didn't try to get back to the hatchway. She knew that it would do no good.
Another shell was fired.
"Get us out of here!" the second-in-charge, Matt, ordered the driver.
"It won't start back up!" the driver replied. "We're stuck!"
Matt looked around at the other soldiers. He had no idea what to do. He had never been in charge of a situation like this before. He knew that the only chance they would have would be to get out and make a run for it. That, however, would mean a drastic amount of casualties, leaving the little girl behind… and Sam, the woman who was his friend. He didn't want to admit it, but they did have to get out and make a run for it. Otherwise they would be stuck in there for a long time before anyone came for them--their radio antennae had been knocked off by Riley as he fell. They stood a much better chance of suffering one-hundred percent casualties by staying. So he finally gave the order.
"Alright soldiers!" he began. "I am now in charge of this situation now that Riley is… deceased. The tank is down and our radio antennae is gone. I'm sorry to say that we'll have to make a run for it."
Matt didn't want to run, and from the looks of it neither did anyone else. But they would.
Outside there were several bumps and clanks as the zombies scaled the tank. Matt grabbed an M-16 and popped open the hatch. He peered out and saw that two zombies had reached the top. He shot them both off and then blew off three more. He climbed out of the hole and another soldier came up, followed by another and another. They were all firing as the zombies climbed up to them.
They lost two before they could get down the side of the tank facing an area that was not infested with zombies. Three more fell as the zombies came around after them or jumped off of the tank on top of them.
Five out of the seven left were lost a few moments later. Sam and Ashley were still inside of the tank, Sam hugging her knees and crying uncontrollably. Ashley was beginning to wake up.
Matt and the last soldier left were picked off after Ashley stood up in a great panic.
"What's going on?" Ashley asked in a shrill voice. She was looking at the sobbing Sam. "What's happening?"
"He's dead! He's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead."
"Who's dead?"
A zombie dropped into the tank and glared at them with glazed, dead, hungry eyes before Sam could answer.
It took two running steps forward before Sam blasted it away with her nine millimeter. "BASTARD! You killed him!"
Zombies then began falling into the tank continuously. Six made it in and Four survived to kill Sam, who had just run out of ammo.
They tore her neck out and nibbled on her arms and legs. More kept coming. Ashley wondered if they would be able to make it back out and hoped bitterly that they wouldn't, that they would starve to… a second death… in the tank.
When the first one reached her, something happened.
She closed her eyes and a blinding light filled the tank. It seeped out into the surrounding street. Then it began to look like an explosion. A sphere expanded to enclose five surrounding city blocks. An explosion of green light filled the sphere.
Across the city, Angel, Illyria, Buffy, Xander, and Willow saw the tall sphere as they left the medical tent after visiting Gunn and Monique. Gunn was still unconscious and the doctors were working hard to let him regain consciousness again. Monique hadn't been hurt much and was able to tell them that it was a horrible, short monster. Buffy had already known this, but Monique had insisted on giving a description.
The green sphere then began to suck itself back in. Wind flew out over the city hard enough to knock over a few buildings. The five city blocks that had been enclosed in the sphere were gone. The bottom of the sphere had dug into the ground and left a huge crater near the edge of the city. Water gushed out of demolished sewer pipes and telephone poll wires swung in the breeze from where they had been disconnected. The bottom of a street light protruded from the ground with a curve cut into the top of it where the rest of the street light would normally be located.
In the middle of that crater was Ashley, the only survivor of that wave of zombies. She looked around her at the destruction she had just caused somehow.
"What the hell just happened?"
Then she saw Joey in the same clothes he had been in when she had first seen him. He was looking at her grimly. "That was you unleashing your power… filtered. Just wait until you unleash it COMPLETELY. That's gonna blow your mind!"
Meanwhile…
"What's that?" Oz asked and pointed out towards a dome of green light barely visible over the building tops. Toby and Lorne looked at it.
"I have no idea," Lorne replied after a moment of silent staring.
"It's gone now," Toby stated. The dome had shrunk out of sight below the buildings.
"The question isn't entirely what it was, either," Lorne said. "It's what made it. Or what's going on where it was."
"Green guy's got a point," Oz said. "I'm hoping that whoever or whatever did that is with us."
For a while longer they drove on in silence. It was a few minutes later that they drove right into the base.
There was some surprise that followed this and some soldiers stopped them with their guns raised demanding to know who they were. It was good for them that Angel was there to identify Lorne, who had just taken off his hood per order from one of the gunmen, otherwise they might've been imprisoned.
"Hey Angelface," Lorne greeted Angel enthusiastically. He averted Angel's eyes, knowing that he had failed the mission Angel had sent him to do. "I need to tell you something."
"You killed Lindsey," Angel said.
Lorne looked at him shamefully. "No. He got awa--"
"No, you DID kill Lindsey."
"…Huh?"
"He's still up and walking around, sure, but he IS dead. His body's at room temperature and his heart's not beating."
"…What?"
"We don't know why or how yet. We've got Giles working on it."
"Is Wesley on it, too?" Lorne asked. He was trying to remember who Giles was. He was also dealing with the rush of mixed emotions that had come with the news of Lindsey's condition. He was more surprised that he had actually succeeded in killing Lindsey than Lindsey still walking around and controlling his dead body. He had never thought that he could take another being's life.
Then Angel looked away from him gravely. Lorne knew what had happened just from that simple motion. "Oh, no."
"We buried him two or three days ago."
Oz looked from Lorne to Angel. The news of Wesley's death was strange to him. He remembered Wes as a bookworm and a wimp. He wondered if Wes had died in battle. Probably had. Oz fought back the urge to laugh at the image of the bookworm fighting demons with ease.
Angel then caught sight of Oz for the first time. "Oz?" he said.
"Hey Angel."
Angel then looked at Toby. "Who're you?"
"Angel?"
"Yeah. That's me. Who are you?"
"Toby Manlilker. I've traveled from all the way up in New York to see you."
"Uh-huh… why?"
"To deliver this werewolf to you."
Oz didn't show his disapproval of being referred to as 'werewolf' and bit his tongue.
"I have to ask this again: why?"
Toby looked around at them. "You'll think I'm crazy."
"I'm a vampire and that is actually Lorne's skin you're looking at and not make-up."
Toby shifted his eyes between them. "Okay then."
Toby then filled them all in on his experience with Richard--whom he continuously referred to as 'Dick'.
After he was finished, which was about a half hour later, Oz raised an eyebrow. "So… I'm supposed to put a stop to an 'Agent of the Apocalypse'?"
"That's what Dick said."
Lorne looked confused. "Is that actually his name?"
Toby grinned slightly. "Yeah."
That made Lorne even more confused as to why anyone would keep the name of Dick.
"Did he saw anything else about me?" Oz inquired. He sounded a bit urgent. That was quite unlike the Oz that Angel had known. He wondered what was wrong with Oz.
Before he could say anything, Toby then told them about the Jarlkarlones. Lorne's eyes widened in alarm.
"How many did you see?" he asked hurriedly.
"I don't kno--"
"HOW MANY?" Lorne shouted, worry in his eyes.
"More than ten! There were a bunch of them. Maybe even more than twenty! God!"
"What's wrong Lorne?" Angel asked.
"This is bad. This is very, very bad. Jarlkarlones made a name for themselves as the most terrifying demon in my home dimension. Just one of them could wipe out most of a village before getting killed. If there are more than twenty of them… we are in serious danger."
"ANGEL!" Buffy called from behind them. Angel turned around and saw her running at them. The soldiers that had been pointing guns before were now going about their business. She stopped in front of Angel. She hadn't seen Oz yet. "We just lost contact with one of our scouting tanks--the one that Riley and Sam were in. Last time we heard from them they were across the city. Around the area that the green light was."
Angel turned to Lorne. "Can Jarlkarlones cause a giant burst of green light?"
"No," Lorne replied without a moment's hesitation. "They don't have any magic in 'em. They just mutilate with their claws… or their tails."
"Oz?" Buffy had just spotted Oz.
"Hey Buffy."
"What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you, too."
"Sorry."
"I'm here to fulfill a prophecy."
"Buffy?" Angel had turned back to her. "Send another scout tank to check on Riley's tank. Their orders are to rescue any survivors and to bring the tank back if it's in good driving condition."
Buffy nodded and began to run off when Angel called her back. "Tell them to get the hell out of there if there's any threat at all. We can't lose another tank. They're in short supply."
"Alright Angel."
Buffy then ran off and was not called back. The four watched her run until she was out of sight.
"When did they all come here?" Lorne asked, just realizing that he was standing in a military base. Call him slow if you want; things had just happened too fast for him to even care about that before.
"About four days ago."
Lorne then remembered the military vehicles he had seen after killing Lindsey. Four days? It felt more like four years.
"Is Willow here?" Oz asked suddenly. He had mixed feelings about seeing Willow again. He had left to get his wolf under control, and Willow had gone all lesbian on him while he was gone.
"She's here."
"With Tara?"
"Tara's dead."
"Oh…" Oz felt a pang of sorrow for Willow.
"She's here with another girl, though. Kennedy, I think."
Oz had no reply to that. If Willow's girlfriend had been dead long enough for her to get over it and get another girlfriend… that meant he had been gone way too long. He hated that sense of time slipping through your fingers. He had to admit that his Eskimo girl had come a long way. He would have known that she definitely had if he had known about her evil streak from a couple of years back.
"You all probably need food and water," Angel said. "Come with me." He then led the trio to the mess hall tent.
Meanwhile…
Drusilla was nude and sleeping next to Bob after a half hour of "playing" in the bed. Bob was holding a television remote and trying to flip through channels, but the power was out. All he could see by was candlelight.
Bob reluctantly dropped the remote and laid back down. He wasn't unsettled by the lack of breathing on Drusilla's part, or the lack of body-warmth; that had bought him a few minutes.
He was almost asleep when Connor called out from the next room over. Bob suddenly felt like a parent to the teenager. He got up and walked across the room, not covering himself up, and the doors all opened before him.
He walked into the dark kitchen and turned right. He then walked into a pitch, dark room. Connor was calling out for food. Connor walked over to Bob with his food dish out.
"Food… please…"
"Fine," Bob said after sighing. Suddenly a gourmet meal appeared in Connor's dish--not that either of them could see it. Connor shouted in joy and then dug in with his hands, which Bob kept clean with his mind. Connor would be able to go if he wanted to, but Bob kept him from knowing that.
Bob then turned around and walked back to Drusilla. All of the doors closed behind him. Bob sat down in bed and then the TV turned on. Bob smiled as "Family Guy" played across the screen. Screw remotes; mind control on TV is the best! Bob could just see the commercials. "Control your TV… WITH YOUR MIND!" he whispered and then chuckled. The blankets pulled themselves over him and his pillow became fluffier and more comfortable.
That's when he first noticed something was wrong with the air. It was warmer than normal. Much warmer than his mind was trying to make it.
He looked at the window and saw three mouths piled up on top of each other outside of it. All of the mouths were connected to a perfectly spherical head.
They were on the third floor and the thing's head was taking up more than the window could show! Bob knew what it was, but couldn't believe that the Apocalypse had advanced so much so quickly.
"You're not supposed to be here yet," Bob stated. "Not until the zombies come. And not until the Undead Human comes to be!"
He then knew that the Undead Human had already come to be, and that the zombies had already made their first move in the Apocalypse. Had he really been out of the game for that long?
Drusilla jolted awake at Bob's mind's bidding.
"How much is the puppy in the window?" Drusilla asked.
"One hell of a lot of trouble," Bob replied. Suddenly the Venacklondage shoved its eight foot arm through the wall and grabbed at Bob. It then retracted its hand screeching in pain that Bob had put into its mind. "Let's get out of here!"
Drusilla and Bob burst out of the room and ran down the stairs. Connor followed them, staying far enough behind so that he wouldn't be noticed. He knew that his mind was finally freed, he just wanted to keep it free. He also knew that something was going on that was pretty bad… bad enough to scare off the most powerful human being on Earth.
He had no idea that he might just be wrong about that.
Connor charged down the dark stairs, only being able to see where he was stepping by the light that had been powered to life thanks to Bob's mind.
When he got outside his mind was imprisoned again as Bob faced the Venacklondage.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you liked this. To DZ Dillinger: Gunn isn't really a huge Christian in this story, just one because his up bringers had drilled the religion into his brain at a young age. And Monique does believe in the hell dimensions, just not the actual Hell that Christians believe in. She doesn't really believe in a Heaven either. Or a God. And yes… I suppose I do have a bone to pick with some of my relatives (the comparison of God and Hell to a Judge and jail was one of my uncle's that annoyed me, and my cousin, uncle, and grandmother continuously preach to me, in fact, I was dragged to watch a preacher by my uncle). Thanks for giving a thought-filled review. I appreciate it. Zaerintoleran is the last demon with a long name that I will introduce, considering it was getting annoying for me to think up long names, so you don't have to be besieged by anymore demons with long names.
Please review. Sorry to Riley fans about Riley's death. I just wanted to get you readers to understand that anyone can die in this final Apocalypse. Illyria, Spike, Dawn, etcetera will be written about more. Be patient.
This, along with my AN, is the longest chapter of this story. And this story has broken past 100 pages with size 14, Sylfaen font and about thirty-five lines per full page. That's about average for a story. See you next chapter.
"I see dead people." - Cole "The Sixth Sense" (Too commonly used, but a classic nonetheless)