BLOGS

Demon Slayer, Alien Killer

By Ronald T. Jones

I remember as a kid walking with my father through a neighborhood that wasn’t exactly friendly to black people. We were returning from a movie. It was the late show. The buses had stopped running and while my dad didn’t show it, I’m sure he was dismayed. He didn’t have a car at the time. So, we had no choice but to walk through a good stretch of this neighborhood to get to a street where the buses still ran.
Needless to say, we were subjected to a barrage racial taunts hurled by bigots in cars and on foot. A pair of ruffians in a slow moving pickup even tossed firecrackers at us. The pop pop of the firecrackers scared the hell out of my eleven-year-old self, but in hindsight, better that than the pop pop of a firearm. All the while, my father was a towering picture of calm as he walked along, seemingly oblivious to the hate flung our way. Me? I was anything but serene. A sick feeling churned in my gut that we weren’t going to survive the night. But something else accompanied that feeling, a weird exhilaration like the kind you get when you’re walking a tightrope with no safety net below. On the one hand I wanted out of KKKville as quickly as possible. On the other, I desired to indulge this tingly, adrenaline-edged excitement.
Fortunately, a sympathetic cab driver picked us up and rode us out of that danger zone free of charge. I would never know what our fate would have been had he not rescued us. But I do know that I wanted more than anything to revisit that exhilaration, bathe in it, taste it, breathe it. I do know that on that night, a warrior was born.

Decades later…

I was running late. That’s what saved my life. The reason I ran late was because aliens tried to kill me earlier in the day. Vrondak agents caught me slipping at my local grocery store. I had a day off from work. Another cover job, this time as a janitor at a downtown high rise. Contact had detected Hell portal activity somewhere in the building. He sent me to pinpoint it.
Up until that morning, demons were my only concern. Yes, I knew the Vrondak were looking for humans allied with Contact. I was forced to relocate because they discovered where I lived a month ago. But for some lame ass reason, I never thought they would actually find me.
Good thing I had my mini-blaster. It was half the size of the gun I normally used for missions, but just as effective.
I caught the woman staring at me in the bread aisle. She appeared early thirtyish, blond, good looking, nice body. I felt flattered. Not to sell myself short, but I wasn’t used to attractive women giving me that kind of overt attention.
Dressed in a loose t-shirt and jeans, I wasn’t sporting my best look. After all, I was in a grocery store. Of course, I didn’t let that bother me.
She approached me, her gaze unwavering. That’s when I took closer notice of her. The woman’s face was void of any expression…inhumanly so.
My miniblaster was tucked in my waistband at the small of my back. My hand drifted in that direction. A hopeful part of me waved off a nibbling suspicion. A demon? No way. Just a woman who’s clearly interested in me. Yet I couldn’t just do away with my misgivings. And rightly so.
When the woman came within five feet of me, her right arm morphed into a long metallic blade. She leapt toward me, blade raised high.
Drawing on quick reflexes, I dove sideways. A blade stroke meant to cleave me in half collided with the floor. I whipped out my mini-blaster and sprayed my attacker with plasma bolts. Directed energy slammed into her chest, burning away her tight fitting blouse. The impacts knocked her into the bread shelf, sending loaves tumbling to the floor. She rebounded from that pummeling and came at me again. Realizing what I was up against, I reached in my pocket and took out a Dollar charge.
My opponent wasn’t a demon. I was fighting a Vrondak and not just any Vrondak, but a tactical biomech. An assassin cyborg configured to look like a human. Contact had briefed me on biomechs. They were swift, deadly and possessed a highly durable outer shell that made them impervious to most small arms fire. Damn! I wished I were fighting a demon.
I flung the Dollar at the biomech and dropped to the floor in a fetal position. A loud clap followed by a small shock wave washed over me. Smoke filled the aisle.
I jumped to my feet, blaster aimed in the direction of where I tossed the charge. The smoke dissipated enough for me to spot the biomech sprawled on the floor several yards away with a crater in her torso. I rushed to the prone assassin and fired multiple bursts into her body in case she wasn’t dead. The biomech’s mechanical components could be salvaged. I tried to inflict irreparable damage on her biological side.
Shouts and screams of panic rang out in the store. People scrambled to wherever they could find safety in the wake of the explosion I caused
I rushed to join the crowd, hoping to blend in.
But I knew the danger wasn’t over. There had to be other Vrondak nearby.
Shoppers streamed out of the store’s two exits. I was among them, hopeful that I could I slip out unmolested and report to Contact.
Not happening.
I spotted six large men (or Vrondak disguised as men) with dark glasses and crew cuts standing in the parking lot facing the exits. They were armed with large barreled weapons resembling chrome pipes. They raised those weapons and opened fire on the shoppers.
Bright crimson beams pulsed forth in searing, rippling currants, raking through the crowd. Screams grew louder, intermingled with cries of injury and the hissing sizzle of scorching energy striking flesh.
I hit the ground. Energy beams streaked above me, close enough to give me sunburns.
Bodies riddled with horribly fatal wounds dropped around me. A patch of concrete a few feet from my head erupted in a plume of hot gravel from a beam impact.
I felt more irked than alarmed by this situation. The biomech failed to take me out, so now her handlers resort to wholesale massacre of innocents just to eliminate one human? I was pissed.
I jumped to my feet and dashed back into the store, but not before loosing some return fire. I targeted the nearest Vrondak and downed him with a beam that took off his forehead. His companions turned their guns on me, sending concentrated energy blazing in my direction. I ran swiftly down an aisle amid a storm of enemy fire. Shelves shattered, soup cans burst, splattering me in a chicken noodle, cream of mushroom flavored rain.
Pausing briefly, I whipped out my cell phone and tapped an emergency code on the touch screen. I needed Contact to send reinforcements. I’d probably be dead by the time help arrived on the scene, but it didn’t hurt to make the call. After hitting the transmit key, I sprinted toward the storage room. Once inside, I looked for the dock. Chances were I could escape my attackers through a back exit.
There it was, twenty feet to my left a receiving dock with a truck backed in. I passed a couple of abandoned forklifts with crate loads of produce still resting on the prongs. The workers back here obviously wasted no time getting out of Dodge when the raucous started.
I opened the door next to the dock and peeked outside. A Series 12 Pacification Unit hovered above the docked tractor-trailer. PUs were Vrondak drones. Shaped like horizontal teardrops, they were semi-sentient like their biomech cousins.
I tried to duck back inside before the Unit spotted me. Too late. Its narrow end swung toward me spitting gouts of brilliant energy in rapid-fire bursts. I dove to the floor as the dock door was ripped to shards by a drone-delivered fusillade. As I scrambled to put distance between myself and the obliterated door, a Vrondak burst into the storage area. I pumped over a dozen shots into the assailant’s chest. He fell backwards without so much as a murmur.
I ran to the far end of the vast room, searching for other exits. Suddenly, a swathe of wall caved in behind me. A cyclone of explosive pressure yanked me off my feet. I crashed shoulder first into a stack of palettes filled with tomatoes. I shook off a bout of wooziness and forced myself to stand…or tried to. No way in hell was I going to drift into unconsciousness. My right shoulder throbbed in protest. I winced in pain. The Unit had fired a missile. I glanced behind me, saw more Vrondak entering the storage area and redoubled my efforts to rise. At that second, I realized I didn’t have my mini-blaster. I lost it in the blast.
The Vrondak assassins scurried cautiously into the room, wary of being picked off. If they knew I was unarmed their caution would very quickly transition to boldness.
If I didn’t find my gun I was SOL. I was SOL either way. I was trapped with no escape route in sight.
The drone Unit floated through the massive hole it created and maintained a holding pattern twenty yards from my position. Now I was really, truly SOL. Even though I was hidden amid a pile of broken tomato-smeared crates, my body heat would have shown up on its sensor like mud on alabaster. Plus, it wouldn’t have made the slightest iota of difference to the Unit if I were armed. My little blaster would’ve been as effective against its superhardened hull as spitballs hurled against a brick.
The drone settled its emitter squarely on my position. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing I’d bought the farm…
A second explosion shook the storage room. I opened my eyes in time to see the drone enveloped in a blanket of flame, hot fragments spewing in every direction. A piece of the drone rocketed inches past me, embedding itself in a stack of boxes.
Something jumped through the hole in the wall so fast I barely caught it. No…not something, someone!
A woman, attractive, athletic build, wearing stretch pants and a tank top. She bore a strong resemblance to Serena Williams, but what she held her hands was no tennis racket. It was a portable launcher of some kind. She landed effortlessly on her feet, swung the launcher on the Vrondak assassins and released a glowing projectile. Whatever that projectile was, it struck the ground in front of the lead Vrondak and erupted in a burning flash of light.
I hunkered down in my cover.
A moment or two may have passed when I decided to risk a peek…
“Darren Skye.”
I flinched at the voice and whirled about to find my rescuer standing behind me. Her unblemished beauty caught me off guard more than the abruptness of her appearance. I tagged her as a biomech from the vacancy in her dark eyes and complete lack of expression. I never knew Contact had biomechs in his inventory…assuming he had more than one. I was thankful the one in front of me was on my side.
The biomech wielded her launcher in one hand. She reached her other hand out to me and I took it, allowing her to pull me to my feet. I stared at her, feeling awkward. What does one say to an alien cyborg in a situation like this? I settled for a simple ‘thanks.’
“We must leave this place immediately,” the biomech said with perfect inflection. “I will take you to a safe house where you will be debriefed.”
“Good thing you were nearby,” I replied for lack of anything substantive to say. “Lead the way.”

The media described the event that occurred at the supermarket as a terrorist attack. Twenty-two dead, thirty-six wounded, massive property damage. The biggest question was, who were the perpetrators? A Vrondak clean up crew must have arrived in the immediate aftermath, because the news mentioned no alien bodies or pieces of that drone. Unless, government investigators discovered the bodies and put a clamp on the media.
And then there was the matter of my picture plastered on every news channel. Store surveillance video evidently captured my scrap with the biomech assassin. Strangely enough, the biomech’s picture was not on the news. So who retrieved the body? The Vrondak or the government?
Either way, my unwanted publicity was sure to cramp my demon hunting lifestyle.

My new biomech friend set me up in a small house on the north side of town. She was nice enough to stop at my apartment and pick up a few of essential items: clothes, weapons, books, my original Star Trek series DVD collection. I asked to go with her, but the biomech didn’t want to chance me getting hurt or killed in case Vrondak assassins were scoping out my place. She also obtained a new car for me. Authorities would be searching for a black male, mid 30s, driving a gray Ford Taurus with a dent on the passenger side rear door. My new vehicle was a shiny black Lexus, definitely a step up. I didn’t ask where or how she got the car.
After corresponding with Contact about the incident and settling into new surroundings…again…I hopped in my car and rode to the state border. About thirty of my fellow demon slayers were meeting in a cabin tucked away well off the beaten path of civilization. We all worked alone for the most part. But every two months we met to discuss missions, provide updates on demon activity and otherwise talk shop.
Boy did I have a story to tell my peers. They would have seen the news reports and assumed that the unknown terrorists who attacked the grocery store were demons. I needed to warn them that Vrondak agents were on the ground. I needed to tell my fellow slayers to watch their backs. A new front had just opened up in our war against the enemies of humanity.
That chance never came.
Four hours later, I drove on a narrow, winding forested path leading to the cabin. My scanner picked up a whiff of Hell portal activity. I stopped the car and got out. Opening the trunk, I removed a blaster and a mag rifle. I clipped grenades on my belt and added an extra combat blade to supplement my trusty Shiva knife. The enemy wasn’t going to catch me flat footed twice in a day.
I hiked about a forth of a mile through the forest until I reached the clearing where the cabin was located. I gasped. The outside of the cabin looked a wreck as if a tornado had passed by, gobbled it up and spat it back out. The ground was blackened and pitted with holes clearly gouged by explosive impacts. A battle was fought here. My scanner all but screamed residual sulfur readings. Even though, the scanner detected no demons near or far, I waited in the trees a few minutes longer, surveying the scene with my eyes. Then I dashed toward the cabin.
Its windows were shattered and the door torn off the hinges.
I eased up to the entrance, chilled by the absolute silence I encountered. A foreboding absence of noise.
I had to overcome a ton of reluctance before I dared peek inside the cabin. When I did the horror of what I beheld froze every function in my body. A full minute must have floated by before I remembered to breathe.
My fellow slayers, friends, comrades, brothers and sisters in arms, lay in pieces…literal pieces…piled in the middle of the floor. Blood and gore was everywhere, floor, walls, ceiling. The smell…I backed out, sickened, enraged.
I spotted something on the blood-pooled floor and picked it up. A sickle sword with intricate geometric symbols etched into the blade. A demon weapon, more powerful than any man-made cutting implement. Its Hell forged blade could slice through a slab of steel in a single stroke. Demons normally were unarmed when on Earth. They depended on their superior physical strength to victimize helpless humans.
The attack on the cabin was clearly a planned assault, which explained why the demons were armed. They were out to annihilate a group of slayers and they succeeded. I couldn’t tell how many demons died in this battle. The demons retrieved their dead. The slayers must have killed hundreds of the bastards before they were overrun. I held on to the sword and stalked to the back of the cabin.
That’s when I saw an intact body lying on the ground. I walked briskly toward the body, my stomach twisting in revulsion the nearer I approached. The victim was a man and he’d been skinned from waist to neck. His exposed flesh glistened reddish pink. His left hand had been hacked off an inch or two past the wrist. That was probably a consequence of close quarter combat. The severed hand lay several yards away still enfolding a blaster’s grip. His missing left eye may have been removed as part of the horrific torture his demon captors inflicted on him.
I recognized him. Frank Calhoun, former Green Beret. A big strapping, vigorous fellow, reduced to a mutilated carcass. I heard a moan.
I knelt down on both knees. Frank was still alive…barely. I shouldn’t have been surprised given his toughness.
I started to put a hand on his shoulder, but refrained. Even the gentlest touch would’ve aggravated his suffering. “Frank,” I said.
His good eye opened partially, settled on me and focused. “Darren…” He raised his head. “You…missed the party.” He managed a shaky smile.
“What the hell happened here?” I knew what happened, but I wanted details.
“Little less than an hour ago…portals opened up…twenty, thirty portals…” Frank paused and swallowed. “Demons came rushing out…like a goddamn flood…so many of them. They were armed with swords and some type of bow that fired explosive flame…we had no…warning…no warning…we fought them hard…took them out in droves…but they overran us…butchered us…tried to call Contact to send help, but the demons jammed our signal…”
Frank struggled to raise his body. He pinned me with a fierce gaze. “Let…Contact know that the demons are…are…becoming sophisticated…tell him we need to…recalibrate our hell portal detectors.”
“I forced a grin. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.” I took out my cell phone. “You’ll be the one filing that report. In the meantime let’s see about getting your injuries treated.”
I sent a transmission to Contact. My signal went through.
“A dose of advanced alien medicine will make you good as…” I stopped talking when I noticed how still Frank had become. He was no longer breathing.

So, Vrondak hit teams were active and the demons had upgraded their technology. It was foolish of us to think that we could operate so freely and not expect our enemies to respond in any way other than defensive.
I went back to the safe house later that afternoon, mourned my fallen comrades, and spent the evening reading intelligence updates on demon activity.
The next day I embarked on a mission. Contact reported an active hell portal on the south side…inside a church of all places.
You ask if it was too soon for me to go on a mission after my horrendous ordeal the previous day?
No. Not too soon at all.
When an opponent hits me hard, my first inclination is to hit back harder. The sooner the better. That’s what I was anxious to do. I wanted payback.
I’m going to slaughter every demon I can get my hands on. And if a Vrondak assassin crosses paths with me that son of a bitch is going to get the same treatment.
Demon slayer, alien killer. That’s what I am, what I was born to be.
Darren Skye…signing off.