"Be sober, be vigilant;
Because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion,
Walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
-1 Peter 5:8
-Ω-
Today would be the day that people died, but they certainly didn't know that.
"The bodies of three soldiers were recovered today after many weeks of searching," boomed a newscaster from the TVs of every home. "Two looked as if they'd been attacked by rabid dogs, while the third suffered from Beelzebub's Print, the first new case since the Northeast fell to the sickness. The military is leaning toward terrorist attacks, though, because the bodies were found hastily buried, almost visible from the rain cleaning them off earlier. People are cautioned to keep a close eye on their children and their family members, especially those living in areas near the Northeast…"
Families were packing up and leaving, off to go live with family out west or farther south, not wanting to be any closer to the site than they had to be, and cars inched along the road, traffic bumper to bumper as everyone scrambled to leave. This particular town was one of the closest towns to the Northeast that hadn't been evacuated, and along the northern border of it, soldiers patrolled to make sure no stupid kids tried to sneak out, risking bringing back Beelzebub's Print when they returned.
Frank and Percy had known that they would be hitting civilization eventually, and they'd made sure to raid as many houses as possible to clean themselves up and look like regular teens rather than harbingers of the Apocalypse. They'd stolen clothes and taken showers in the houses that still had running water, and discarded of most of their supplies. They'd also robbed a ton of people's homes, digging up hidden safes full of cash and taking valuable-looking items to take to the pawn shop.
"I hate to leave these," Frank murmured as he produced the assault rifles from one of the bags and placed it down onto the table. If residents of these suburbs were ever allowed to return home, these people would find themselves equipped with some pretty heavy artillery. They left most of their weapons, and the only reason that they didn't leave all of them was because Frank refused to part with his spiked baseball bat.
"Her name is Gray," Frank snapped when Percy demanded that he leave the bat on the table with everything else. "I'm still deciding whether it's a he or a she, but all I know is that she's my child, even if she's only just the Great Value version of Lucille from The Walking Dead."
"Out of all the weapons you had to fall in love with, why did you have to get attached to that one?" Percy scoffed as Frank stuffed the bat back into a tote bag, burying it under heaps of extra clothing. "It's the most conspicuous out of all of them; some people own assault rifles, so I guess that's a bit normal in America, but no people but criminals have spiked fucking baseball bats."
"Shh, you'll hurt her feelings."
They set off again, with fresh clothes and clean bodies for the first time in months, and cut down a lot on the supplies, abandoning their matches, their rope, their sleeping bags, and their blankets to cut down on the load- they could suck it up sleeping on moth-eaten covers for a while before they could get to civilization and actually rent a motel room.
"I'll miss this," Frank admitted one night as he stared up at the ceiling of a kid's room, wrinkling his nose a bit at the loud pink wallpaper. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting squares of blue-white light onto the fuzzy carpet. "I-I'm not excited to see people, because I know that I'll eventually have to kill them. It'll make me sad if I see them and I talk to them, and then once we meet up with the others and I find my horse, it'll be over."
"Try not to dwell on that," Percy suggested, pulling the covers over his shoulders. "But I'm mostly scared about Blackjack. People will call animal control once they see him."
"So tell him to go around and meet us back out on the road west. I think we've gone south enough," Frank told him, and Percy was silent, his thinking almost tangible as the gears whirred in his head.
"I think I have an idea on how we can get everyone out of our way so we can travel in peace."
-Ω-
Rachel Elizabeth Dare was in desperate need of coffee, and everyone around her seemed to know it. Her messenger bag slung over one shoulder and her jeans still splattered with paint from the studio, she trudged down the street with her destination set at the local Starbucks. People seemed to part for her as she passed, noting the bags under her eyes and the shuffle in her walk, and Rachel was completely fine with it as long as she was able to get where she was going.
It never really got that cold in this town, but today was slightly chillier than usual, the cool breezes flushing Rachel's nose and cheeks red, and she'd even seen it necessary to slip on a windbreaker to keep warm. Stores lined the part of the sidewalk to her right, some of them open, most not.
Waiting until this whole thing blows over! read one sign for a restaurant, whose windows were boarded up and whose door was tightly closed. Rachel looked around to find that many people walking had suitcases with them, their expressions grim as they stared down at their phones and toted their luggage with them.
Some people carried newspapers, and every single one of them had a front page emblazoned with the words:
THREE MISSING SOLDIERS FOUND DEAD WHILE STATIONED IN THE NORTHEAST: TWO MAULED AND ONE HAVING CONTRACTED BEELZEBUB'S PRINT.
Possible link to the murder of three students in Texas? one newspaper asked.
Terrorists still out there? another wondered.
Nobody is safe! a third declared.
People were leaving town; this news scared them out of their wits, as it should, but what really drove the point home was the fact that they lived in one of towns closest to the Northeast that hadn't been evacuated. Rachel's family members were more stubborn than mules, but everyone else actually had a sense of self-preservation and were packing their things and going off to live with relatives for the time being.
Taxis and Ubers and a whole host of other things crowded the street, holding up traffic as the passengers loaded their things into them, and Rachel couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. Could this be the end? Could this be the batch of terrorists that takes down America?
Dogs strained against their leashes, jumpy and sensing the tension, and police officers were stationed at every corner to make sure that the evacuation remained calm and peaceful.
Rachel squeezed through the tightly packed cars to cross the street, and ducked into the Starbucks, which was still going strong despite the clear lack of customers that was coming in and out. If everyone left and Rachel was the only person left, the Starbucks could count on her to keep coming in daily. She was so absorbed with her thoughts that she almost didn't notice the fact that there were other people in the Starbucks, which was a rarity now-a-days.
As she ordered her caramel Frappuccino, she decided that these two boys were just stopping for a bite to eat in the mad dash out of town, and in no way had come from home, because that would've been a bit ridiculous.
She pulled out her phone and took a seat in the booth behind the boys', checking Tumblr and trying to ignore all of the posts popping up on her dash about the terrorist attacks.
I was evacuated from my home because of Beelzebub's Print! Nowhere else to go! Please help!
Captioned gifs covering the news stories about the latest discovery of the three missing soldiers.
Pictures of Annabeth Chase with empowering quotes about women underneath.
Long posts to honor Grover and Juniper, as well as their love for nature.
People panicking about the murder of the three teens in Houston.
She pursed her lips and swiped away the app, running her hands through her hair and wishing for this to end. All of her friends had left, and her classes at NYU had, unsurprisingly, ceased once Beelzebub's Print hit. She was stranded here, and there was no amount of sweet-talking that could get her parents to abandon the family mansion and get the hell out.
"…the Apocalypse."
Rachel's eyes narrowed as she picked up the last snippet of the boys' conversation. Judging from the deep baritone of it, it had come from the beefy Asian guy.
"You'll be fine. The first step of being a Horseman is to have fun and be yourself," the green-eyed boy replied cheerfully, and when Rachel turned subtly to regard them, she saw that he was munching away on a blueberry muffin.
"I can't be myself. My self doesn't kill people."
Rachel's heart stopped in her chest, and her grip tightened on her coffee, her nails digging indents into the Styrofoam.
"It will soon," the green-eyed boy replied. "Once we find your horse and meet up with the others, you'll be fine, I promise."
"I'm not sure about that. Did you see the article about the three students in Houston? Do you think that was them?" the Asian kid asked nervously, drumming his fingers onto the table.
"Absolutely, and they're not fucking around," the green-eyed boy replied firmly. "They're doing the jobs that were assigned to them."
With trembling fingers, Rachel pulled up the phone app. She was just about to dial 911 when an all too familiar voice asked, "Are you alright, miss? You're breathing pretty hard." She turned to find both of the boys staring at her, their eyes zeroed in on her face and their expressions schooled.
"I-I-I'm fine," she stammered, turning back to her phone, but the boys didn't seem to want to take that for an answer. They slid in on the booth across from her, and she clenched her jaw. If she had to beat these guys senseless, she would, but there was something about them that wasn't right. Something about their eyes.
"You sure you're okay? You seem a little panicked," the Asian guy grunted.
"It's alright. I'm okay. You can go back to your own table now." Rachel tried for a smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace, because the Asian guy frowned, exchanging a look with his friend.
"Is it because of the terrorist attacks?" the green-eyed boy asked, his brows knitting. "Are you scared? Do you need help?"
"I can handle myself on my own, thank you very much," Rachel snapped, and the boys seemed taken aback. The Asian guy's bicep flexed, and Rachel swore he was clenching his fists under the table. Her heart jackhammered in her chest even faster, and her fingers had almost gone through the Styrofoam of her cup. "Now please, go away." The green-eyed boy raised his hands in surrender, but the Asian guy was still bristling, his face contorting into something that wasn't entirely human.
"Come on, Frank," the green-eyed boy insisted, shoving at his beefy friend and forcing him to rise to his feet. "Frank, calm down. What's the matter?"
"Nothing, Percy, I'm fine," the Asian guy, Frank, murmured, trudging back to the booth.
Then Percy made a mistake.
"Sometimes you just have to lay off of people, dude." It was a harmless comment, meant to be a joke, but that must've been Frank's breaking point. The boy let out an inhuman bellow that scared Rachel out of her skin, and with one hand he grabbed Percy by the neck, raised him into the air, and tossed him across the room.
Rachel was dialing 911 in no time.
"911 what is your emergency?"
"Yes, this is Rachel Elizabeth Dare and I'm at the local Starbucks-" Frank roared again and suddenly the two baristas were screaming as well, tearing at each other with their fingernails. Rachel thought she might throw up as they began to tear chunks of flesh off of each other with their teeth, glimpses of bone starting to gleam in the light. "There's a fight breaking out, and I think that there are terrorists here-"
People on the streets had begun to notice, and a few heroic bystanders barged into the store, running at Frank and clawing at the man's shirt to try and get him off Percy, whose face Frank was trying to rearrange with his fists. The boy was hardly fazed, and threw the people off as if they were ragdolls. One of the baristas had ripped her coworker's throat out, and he lay dead on the floor as she began to dig in, tearing at the soft flesh of his stomach and eating his flesh raw.
Rachel vomited right then and there, the acid burning in her throat as more people streamed in, including cops. Once they locked eyes with Frank, though, they began to attack each other, and eventually the Starbucks was brimming with people tearing each other apart, blood and bodies beginning to slick the floor.
This was it. This was the end.
Tears were streaming down her face, and her phone had dropped onto the floor during the frenzy, trampled by the writhing mass of people-but-not-really people. She was pretty sure she heard a horse whinnying outside.
"Percy?" she heard off to her right, and she whirled to see that Frank and Percy had reconciled and were now standing side by side, watching the chaos unfold. Frank's eyes burned a blood red, and his face was contorted with an emotion that Rachel could only describe as sick amusement. She felt bile rising up in her throat as Percy's broken jaw corrected itself right in front of her eyes, the bruises blossoming over his face fading.
"Yes, Frank?"
"I think I know how to clear out towns so we don't see anyone on our travels."
Rachel let out a broken sob, and both boys turned to her simultaneously, their expressions serene despite the bloodbath going on not two feet away.
"And here's the girl who started it all. The one that just couldn't keep her mouth shut," Percy growled, and suddenly there was a hand clamping down on her wrist, the fingers gripping so tightly that she thought her hand would come right off.
She was dead on the ground before she could even draw breath to scream.
-Ω-
(A/N) Hello everyone! I'm so sorry for killing off all your favorite characters! (Ha not really)
PLEASE REVIEW IT MAKES MY DAY WHENEVER I SEE IN MY INBOX THAT SOMEONE REVIEW
The chapter title is from the song "Tear in My Heart" by Twenty One Pilots