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Description
After 6 months of horror, death and destruction, not much remained recognizable in the world. Rachael gazed out from atop the tired, crumpled school bus that served as home into the distance at the wreckage of what had once probably been a bustling city, but was currently reduced to a smoldering shell of its former cheerful self. The road atlas declared the town as Arborville, Maryland. Rachael clasped the ragged trench coat she wore tightly to her slender frame, more out of the feeling of security it brought than actually being cold. She glanced down into the bus at the ragged group of 20 survivors that were relying on her for guidance and leadership. These people were damned just like her, but not to the same degree. If they knew the truth, that Rachael was a half blood, half possessed and getting worse, they would most certainly try to kill her, regardless of all she had done for them. For being a vessel for a demon, even if not completely and most certainly unwillingly, was a most heinous crime. No matter; right now they desperately needed supplies and shelter, for night was about to set on this ash choked land, and that was no time to be out and about. She dropped back down into the bus and gestured for the woman sitting in the driver’s seat to proceed. With a sigh that sounded almost human the brakes disengaged and they rumbled forward. The trip to the city was as bleak and depressing as the rest of their journey had been. The green of plant life was practically nonexistent, and the only sound other than the bus to be heard was an unearthly moan that was ever present in this new era and had driven many survivors mad. Rachael sat in her seat, carefully making sure the tattered trench coat covered her short tail, and watched through a crack in the boarded up windows as haunting images of what had been passed by; a brown yard full of half melted children's toys, a crashed mini-van overflowing with sports gear, and a shredded New England Patriots flag that shuddered in the slight wind. She thought back to the day that this nightmare had become reality, those 6 long months ago.
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It seemed like the paperwork never ended. If it weren't for the satisfaction of helping people, there wasn't much of a positive to running your own urgent care unit. The money was barely livable, the hours were long and of course there were the reams of paperwork. Rachael rubbed her tired eyes and blinked several times to try and refocus them. She glanced over at the patient list that was displayed on her computer screen. A broken ankle, a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a severe sun burn, two near asphyxiations, and three eye injuries due to diesel fuel were just a few of the current patients. She sighed and returned to the payroll forms on her desk. Honestly she would prefer to be the one doing the dirty work, fixing these people up and making them better. That's what she'd done her first four years as an ER doctor, and in in her short career as a medical officer in the army, before the shear amount of red tape and general indifference towards patients drove her to open her own clinic. A strange chill suddenly settled in the room, making Rachael shiver. She got up and walked over to the thermostat; her eyebrow scrunched together in confusion as the dial fell rapidly from seventy degrees down to forty. She was about to call for the janitor when one of her nurses entered the room.
"Doctor McAdams, come quickly! There's something wrong with Ms. Wake, the sunburn victim, and..I ...I don't know what to do!" She said anxiously. Rachael grabbed her white lab coat and followed the nurse. She noted that the lights all seemed to be flickering, and Alan the Janitor was muttering curses as he fiddled around with a breaker panel; maybe this was some electrical quirk that would soon be worked out. Rachael and the nurse approached room eight, which held Ms. Wake. Rachael knocked on the door and it was opened by Alex, one of the orderlies.
"Doc, thank god your here. We were applying ointment and sterile bandages when she started having seizures and coughing up blood. She told us she had no allergies, and we haven't done anything out of the ordinary. She stopped shaking just before you came in, but her breathing is shallow." He said in his usual calm intonation. Rachael looked down at the table at the red skinned form of Ms. Wake. She was wearing a minuscule bikini that barely covered her enormous silicone breasts. The rumor was that she used the insurance money from her husband's mysterious death to pay for the operation. Rachael didn't care about rumors, she would do anything she could to help. She walked over to that table and leaned towards the widow.
"Ms. Wake, can you hear me? This is Doctor McAdams, can you tell me what's wrong?" She asked softly. Ms. Wake's eyes flew open, but her pupils had rolled up into her head. She spoke, but the voice that came out was not hers, and what it said chilled Rachael more than the temperature in the room.
"That bitch is dead and damned. You will have the honor of witnessing the ascension of Hell! All are damned, and damned be all!" Ms Wake's body suddenly began twisting and contorting in such unnatural ways that Rachael heard the nurse behind her retch. Ms
Wake's arms, previously almost unhealthily skinny, suddenly began bloating with writhing muscle, causing the skin to rupture and weep crimson blood all over the table. Her face split vertically down the middle, turning into a gaping maw full of teeth and multiple forked tongues. Rachael found herself frozen in horror as she beheld this horrifying transformation. She felt a strong hand on her shoulder begin to pull her to the door.
"Come on, Doc! Let's get the hell out of here!” Rachael numbly obeyed noting that the nurse was lying in a pool of blood and vomit, and that her body was similarly being wracked with horrific mutations. All down the hallway she heard cries of pain, surprise and horror as similar scenes were probably taking place throughout the building. Those that could were running towards the exit, many covered in various bodily fluids. Rachael stumbled along for a few steps before she managed to shake her head and clear her thoughts. These were her patients and employees, her responsibility. They looked to her for guidance and direction, it was her job to protect them.
"Alex, make sure everyone gets outside and have them gather at the clinic van. Make sure that the injured are cared for. Alan, if the phone still works call 911 and ask for police and medical. Afterwards, get outside with the others," she said with as much authority as she could muster. She then pointed at a pair of orderlies that didn't look too shaken or injured. "You two come with me, we're going to make sure we save everyone we can." The three took off and began checking rooms. It was fairly easy, though hard to explain, which rooms were beyond help; there was a feeling of evil, an invisible, dirty black cloud that seemed to emanate from them. The squelching of mutating flesh and snapping of bones was also very prevalent, along with dark voices speaking some hideous tongue that hurt to listen to. It became readily apparent that anyone who was not already outside was beyond help. They turned to head back out to join the others when they heard a for crash open behind them. They turned and watched in stunned horror as some... thing stepped out. It had been a young man with a broken ankle, but Rachael only knew that because of the roster; what stood before them in no way resembled that ragged youth. It stooped to avoid hitting the ceiling with its horned head, a long tongue flicked in and out of a small hole where the mouth should be, and his eyes were pure black. He appeared to have no skin, pure muscle glistening in the flickering lights; small spikes of bone protruded randomly across his body, his fingers ended in long claws, and his legs now had one too many joins and had talons. It slowly turned its hideous head towards them, and stared. For several long seconds no one moved. Then one of the orderlies turned and took off running, with Rachael and the other orderly quickly following suit. A deep gurgling laugh echoed down the hallway, and Rachael could hear the creatures lumbering steps quickly gaining. The orderly running next to her was suddenly tripped by a tentacle protruding from under a door, letting out a startled yelp. Rachael skidded to a halt and turned to try and help when the creature quickly fell upon him and began shredding the orderly with razor sharp claws. Rachael quickly ran off, the man’s pain filled screams echoing behind her.
She quickly exited the building and ran to the group huddled by the clinic’s van.
"Where-where are the cops?" She panted. Alan shook his head.
"The lines were all busy. Listen to all the sirens going off; this can't just be happening here." Alan said worriedly. Rachael took several deep breaths to calm herself then listened; sure enough, there were police sirens and screams coming from everywhere, and columns of greasy black smoke were beginning to crawl into the sky. She clenched her eyes closed and tried to convince herself this wasn't happening, that this was some twisted nightmare. But she opened her eyes to the same sights and was now greeted with the scent of burning flesh wafting across the parking lot. A police car screeched to a halt next to then and a visibly stressed-out cop climbed out.
"Is everyone here okay? Are there any active duty military members here?" He called out.
Rachael shook her head.
"None of us are military, and we have several injured people. What's going on?"
She replied. The cop wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand.
"Damn if I know. It's like hell itself has been unleashed. We have reports of monsters and mass casualties coming from everywhere; I don't think there's a single quadrant that's clear." He said. He gestured them towards the clinic's van sitting in the parking lot. "All if you load up in that van and follow me. I will try to find a safe place for you all to stay."
Rachael thanked him and began directing her group into the van. Now that she had calmed down a little, she was shocked at how few had made it out of the clinic. Only Alex, Alan, the other orderly, a nurse and three patients remained from the original 48 people in the clinic. Why had so many died? Why was this happening? She was about to climb into the van herself when she heard an explosion come from the clinic, she whipped around and for the third time in the span of a few minutes found herself frozen with fear. A hulking figure was emerging from the smoke, approaching with a gorilla like motion by walking on massively over sized knuckles. Even from a distance she could tell that it was the creature that Ms Wake had been turning into; it's huge sideways maw was drooling streamers of bloody saliva, and it's multitude of tongues slithered about in multiple directions. It had to be at least eight feet tall and was all muscle, each lumbering stride causing ripples to flow through its raw flesh. She became dimly aware of the cop yelling at her to get in the van, along with the remains of her patients and employees, which shook her out of her stupor. She hurried inside and started the engine she look out of the window as she pulled away and watched as the lone cop reached into his patrol car and pulled out a shotgun. He began marching towards the creature and the other monstrosities that were emerging behind it, firing at them while spewing expletive laden challenges. He soon emptied the weapon and threw it on the ground before drawing his side arm and continuing to fire; his efforts had little effect, just drawing spurts of blood and ichor. The cop soon was out of ammo for that weapon as well; he then hurled the useless firearm at the beasts and drew his baton. There was a sudden blast of blinding golden light, which forced Rachael to slam on the brakes so she didn't hit anything. By the time her vision had cleared enough to see, she beheld the cop still standing though no longer moving. She followed his gaze and felt her heart jump into her mouth. A tall glowing figure in gilded golden armor with huge white wings was cutting a bloody swath through the horde of nightmarish creatures with a shiny silver saber. There was only one thing it could be; an angel, a guardian of mankind. The howling beasts seemed to forgotten the humans and were throwing themselves at the golden figure with reckless abandon, clawing and scratching at its armor. The angel cleaved a multi-limbed monstrosity in half before skewering two smaller beasts with a reverse thrust. The giant that once was Ms Wake landed a thunderous blow on the angel's helm, knocking it flying. The angel responded by lopping off one of the monsters arms, causing it to roar in pain and collapse as it couldn't support its own prodigious bulk. The angel removed its hideous head with a broad swipe before quickly dispatched the remaining beasts with artful swings of its saber. It stood for several seconds amongst the piles of bodies, severed limbs and blood. With a dexterous motion it swung it's blade, instantly slinging all the gore from its surface, leaving it gleaming again. Rachael swung the van back around to the cop who was just now coming to grips with what had occurred himself. The angel strode up to them, allowing Rachael to get a better look at it. Despite its armor being dented, mangled, and being covered in blood, it managed to still look majestic. Unlike any artwork Rachael could think of, this angel had the regal head of an eagle, which was regarding the cop and herself with piercing yellow eyes. What little area the armor didn't cover showed more white feathers, and the angels hands were scaly and had sharp talons, like the claws of a bird. It sheathed its saber and began wiping blood from its feathers and armor. The angel stepped up the cop and placed a hand on his shoulder; the officer collapsed like a discarded puppet, and very briefly Rachael saw a beam of soft white light that speared up into the smoky sky. Rachael ran up to the prone form and found no pulse and that he was not breathing.
"What did you do to him?" She said, looking up and the angel in concern and confusion. "I thought angels we'd supposed to protect us!"
"I have." The angel said in a surprisingly soft and soothing voice that made
Rachael's racing heart slow down, and left her feeling calm again. "His soul has been returned to the high realm to wait out the desolation of the middle realm." The angel walked over to the group of remaining patients and staff; several more beams of light were produced, followed by the remaining nurse and two of the patients falling dead to the ground. The angel then walked toward an open area of the parking lot, spread its great white wings and began flapping them. Alan the janitor ran toward it yelling.
"Wait! What about us? Why aren't you saving us?"
"Because your souls are not pure enough to be worth saving. Yet you are not tainted enough to allow demons to fully possess you." It replied calmly. "Prove your purity, and we may return for you."
"Not pure enough? What did I do wrong? I go to church every Sunday, I volunteer and
donate to charity, I even don't eat meat!" Alex exclaimed.
"Your religions do not equal purity of the soul, though they provide good guidelines. You all know what you have done to deserve this fate." The angel said, it tone taking on a slightly more menacing quality. "Contain and expel the demons inside you, and there may yet be hope." With several powerful beats of its glorious wings, the angel lifted into the sky and flew off towards the smoky horizon. Rachael and the survivors watched it disappear into the distance in shock. Alan was the first to speak after several seconds of stunned silence.
"I can't believe it left us. How are we not pure enough?" He whispered.
Alex began pacing back and forth, hands running through his hair.
"First people turn into demons, then an angel that won't save us? This really is the end." He said nervously. The patient, a middle aged gas station employee who had a bandage over his eyes after being soaked in diesel fuel, asked a slightly more chilling question.
"What did it mean by 'control the demons inside you?' Are we already possessed?" He asked with a trembling voice. Rachael felt her heart stop at the thought that she might suddenly start transforming into a monster. As if on cue, Rachael felt a sudden weight in side her, though not like it was a physical one. She felt bigger, like she was too big for her own skin, like she didn't belong in this form. Blood started running out of her nose, but she found she couldn't move her hands to wipe it away. And as suddenly as it had appeared, all the strange sensations disappeared. Rachael blinked and began looking herself over, waiting for horrific and painful mutations to start showing up. Sure enough, her back arched as new vertebrae began branching off, pushing out from under her lab coat in the form of a 3 foot long tail; there was also a lingering sense of something, or someone, else residing in her body. She looked at the others to see what had happened, and was horrified at what she saw. Alan the janitor was curled up into a ball in the ground, whimpering as a long set of horns slowly grew out from the back of his head. Alex was shaking as his skin gained a sickly green pallor, and one of his arms slowly morphed into a sucker covered tentacle. The last patient was slowly growing taller, until he towered over them and his clothing looked childish. In all her years in the field of medicine, she had never come across anything that truly horrified her, not even the worst of bomb blast survivors had been this bad. Soon the others had finished their mutations and took stock of their new forms. Alan was running his shaking hands over the horns on his head, Alan was vainly trying to shake off his tentacle arm, and the patient was blindly running off into the woods, wailing and crashing into cars and signs. After watching him disappear, Alan and Alex turned their attention to her.
Something in their eyes didn't look right, there was now something behind them. Alex spoke first, in a low growl.
"Alright doc, so what's your mystery cure? Got something in your bag of tricks to fix us up?" He took a shaky step towards her, pointing a finger on his remaining arm accusingly.
"You don't look like you've changed. How is that fair? Think your better than us somehow?" Rachael took a step back, her mind reeling in fear. Alan looked sheepishly at Alex and shook his head.
"Hey, this ain't her fault, and look, she grew a tail! Let's just calm down and think this through, eh?" He said with a nervous chuckle. Alex wrapped his tentacle around Alan's neck and threw him to the side.
"Shut the fuck up, trash man! This wash-up has been the boss for too long! It's time to do things my way!" Alex roared. He kept advancing towards her, each step bringing more mutations. His green skin began to sag and bloat, breaking in places and releasing clouds of flies and fouls smelling gas. His face similarly began twisting until he was no longer recognizable, and several more tentacles burst from his back. Rachael soon found herself with her back up against a car, with Alex quickly bearing down on her. He pulled his now abnormally jointed fist back and flung it at her face. Rachael closed her eyes and raised her hands up in a futile attempt to protect herself, when she felt the other inside her suddenly stir; the blow she was expecting didn't happen. She cautiously opened her eyes and found Alex still standing in front of her, his fist frozen mere inches from her outstretched hands. Her amazement quickly morphed into a flaming anger, and she made a pushing motion with her hands; Alex's fist was flung back and he was thrown off balance. His now rust red eyes looked at her in stunned amazement, but quickly regained his composure and charged again with a wheezing roar. Rachael channeled the hot feeling inside her and felt the other comply; she raised her hand at Alex and clenched it into a fist. Alex's head imploded with a messy scrunch, but he still kept running forward. Rachael then raised both hands and brought them together in a loud clap, which resulted in Alex being smashed like a soda can into a bloody, stinky mess which collapsed to the ground. Panting, Rachael felt the other subside, the fiery anger receding with it. A strange itchy feeling slowly developed on her stomach, and when she lifted her shirt up to look, there were patches of small, shiny blue scales; her tail was now covered in them too, and a bony ridge had formed along the top and ran part way up her spine. Suddenly overcome with what had happened, Rachael collapsed against the car and slid the ground, sobbing. A hand on her shoulder startled her, but when she looked up, it was Alan, who was crouched down beside her. He didn't say anything, and neither did she; they just sat there together and tried to come to terms with this awful new world.

Description
After 6 months of horror, death and destruction, not much remained recognizable in the world. Rachael gazed out from atop the tired, crumpled school bus that served as home into the distance at the wreckage of what had once probably been a bustling city, but was currently reduced to a smoldering shell of its former cheerful self. The road atlas declared the town as Arborville, Maryland. Rachael clasped the ragged trench coat she wore tightly to her slender frame, more out of the feeling of security it brought than actually being cold. She glanced down into the bus at the ragged group of 20 survivors that were relying on her for guidance and leadership. These people were damned just like her, but not to the same degree. If they knew the truth, that Rachael was a half blood, half possessed and getting worse, they would most certainly try to kill her, regardless of all she had done for them. For being a vessel for a demon, even if not completely and most certainly unwillingly, was a most heinous crime. No matter; right now they desperately needed supplies and shelter, for night was about to set on this ash choked land, and that was no time to be out and about. She dropped back down into the bus and gestured for the woman sitting in the driver’s seat to proceed. With a sigh that sounded almost human the brakes disengaged and they rumbled forward. The trip to the city was as bleak and depressing as the rest of their journey had been. The green of plant life was practically nonexistent, and the only sound other than the bus to be heard was an unearthly moan that was ever present in this new era and had driven many survivors mad. Rachael sat in her seat, carefully making sure the tattered trench coat covered her short tail, and watched through a crack in the boarded up windows as haunting images of what had been passed by; a brown yard full of half melted children's toys, a crashed mini-van overflowing with sports gear, and a shredded New England Patriots flag that shuddered in the slight wind. She thought back to the day that this nightmare had become reality, those 6 long months ago.
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It seemed like the paperwork never ended. If it weren't for the satisfaction of helping people, there wasn't much of a positive to running your own urgent care unit. The money was barely livable, the hours were long and of course there were the reams of paperwork. Rachael rubbed her tired eyes and blinked several times to try and refocus them. She glanced over at the patient list that was displayed on her computer screen. A broken ankle, a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a severe sun burn, two near asphyxiations, and three eye injuries due to diesel fuel were just a few of the current patients. She sighed and returned to the payroll forms on her desk. Honestly she would prefer to be the one doing the dirty work, fixing these people up and making them better. That's what she'd done her first four years as an ER doctor, and in in her short career as a medical officer in the army, before the shear amount of red tape and general indifference towards patients drove her to open her own clinic. A strange chill suddenly settled in the room, making Rachael shiver. She got up and walked over to the thermostat; her eyebrow scrunched together in confusion as the dial fell rapidly from seventy degrees down to forty. She was about to call for the janitor when one of her nurses entered the room.
"Doctor McAdams, come quickly! There's something wrong with Ms. Wake, the sunburn victim, and..I ...I don't know what to do!" She said anxiously. Rachael grabbed her white lab coat and followed the nurse. She noted that the lights all seemed to be flickering, and Alan the Janitor was muttering curses as he fiddled around with a breaker panel; maybe this was some electrical quirk that would soon be worked out. Rachael and the nurse approached room eight, which held Ms. Wake. Rachael knocked on the door and it was opened by Alex, one of the orderlies.
"Doc, thank god your here. We were applying ointment and sterile bandages when she started having seizures and coughing up blood. She told us she had no allergies, and we haven't done anything out of the ordinary. She stopped shaking just before you came in, but her breathing is shallow." He said in his usual calm intonation. Rachael looked down at the table at the red skinned form of Ms. Wake. She was wearing a minuscule bikini that barely covered her enormous silicone breasts. The rumor was that she used the insurance money from her husband's mysterious death to pay for the operation. Rachael didn't care about rumors, she would do anything she could to help. She walked over to that table and leaned towards the widow.
"Ms. Wake, can you hear me? This is Doctor McAdams, can you tell me what's wrong?" She asked softly. Ms. Wake's eyes flew open, but her pupils had rolled up into her head. She spoke, but the voice that came out was not hers, and what it said chilled Rachael more than the temperature in the room.
"That bitch is dead and damned. You will have the honor of witnessing the ascension of Hell! All are damned, and damned be all!" Ms Wake's body suddenly began twisting and contorting in such unnatural ways that Rachael heard the nurse behind her retch. Ms
Wake's arms, previously almost unhealthily skinny, suddenly began bloating with writhing muscle, causing the skin to rupture and weep crimson blood all over the table. Her face split vertically down the middle, turning into a gaping maw full of teeth and multiple forked tongues. Rachael found herself frozen in horror as she beheld this horrifying transformation. She felt a strong hand on her shoulder begin to pull her to the door.
"Come on, Doc! Let's get the hell out of here!” Rachael numbly obeyed noting that the nurse was lying in a pool of blood and vomit, and that her body was similarly being wracked with horrific mutations. All down the hallway she heard cries of pain, surprise and horror as similar scenes were probably taking place throughout the building. Those that could were running towards the exit, many covered in various bodily fluids. Rachael stumbled along for a few steps before she managed to shake her head and clear her thoughts. These were her patients and employees, her responsibility. They looked to her for guidance and direction, it was her job to protect them.
"Alex, make sure everyone gets outside and have them gather at the clinic van. Make sure that the injured are cared for. Alan, if the phone still works call 911 and ask for police and medical. Afterwards, get outside with the others," she said with as much authority as she could muster. She then pointed at a pair of orderlies that didn't look too shaken or injured. "You two come with me, we're going to make sure we save everyone we can." The three took off and began checking rooms. It was fairly easy, though hard to explain, which rooms were beyond help; there was a feeling of evil, an invisible, dirty black cloud that seemed to emanate from them. The squelching of mutating flesh and snapping of bones was also very prevalent, along with dark voices speaking some hideous tongue that hurt to listen to. It became readily apparent that anyone who was not already outside was beyond help. They turned to head back out to join the others when they heard a for crash open behind them. They turned and watched in stunned horror as some... thing stepped out. It had been a young man with a broken ankle, but Rachael only knew that because of the roster; what stood before them in no way resembled that ragged youth. It stooped to avoid hitting the ceiling with its horned head, a long tongue flicked in and out of a small hole where the mouth should be, and his eyes were pure black. He appeared to have no skin, pure muscle glistening in the flickering lights; small spikes of bone protruded randomly across his body, his fingers ended in long claws, and his legs now had one too many joins and had talons. It slowly turned its hideous head towards them, and stared. For several long seconds no one moved. Then one of the orderlies turned and took off running, with Rachael and the other orderly quickly following suit. A deep gurgling laugh echoed down the hallway, and Rachael could hear the creatures lumbering steps quickly gaining. The orderly running next to her was suddenly tripped by a tentacle protruding from under a door, letting out a startled yelp. Rachael skidded to a halt and turned to try and help when the creature quickly fell upon him and began shredding the orderly with razor sharp claws. Rachael quickly ran off, the man’s pain filled screams echoing behind her.
She quickly exited the building and ran to the group huddled by the clinic’s van.
"Where-where are the cops?" She panted. Alan shook his head.
"The lines were all busy. Listen to all the sirens going off; this can't just be happening here." Alan said worriedly. Rachael took several deep breaths to calm herself then listened; sure enough, there were police sirens and screams coming from everywhere, and columns of greasy black smoke were beginning to crawl into the sky. She clenched her eyes closed and tried to convince herself this wasn't happening, that this was some twisted nightmare. But she opened her eyes to the same sights and was now greeted with the scent of burning flesh wafting across the parking lot. A police car screeched to a halt next to then and a visibly stressed-out cop climbed out.
"Is everyone here okay? Are there any active duty military members here?" He called out.
Rachael shook her head.
"None of us are military, and we have several injured people. What's going on?"
She replied. The cop wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand.
"Damn if I know. It's like hell itself has been unleashed. We have reports of monsters and mass casualties coming from everywhere; I don't think there's a single quadrant that's clear." He said. He gestured them towards the clinic's van sitting in the parking lot. "All if you load up in that van and follow me. I will try to find a safe place for you all to stay."
Rachael thanked him and began directing her group into the van. Now that she had calmed down a little, she was shocked at how few had made it out of the clinic. Only Alex, Alan, the other orderly, a nurse and three patients remained from the original 48 people in the clinic. Why had so many died? Why was this happening? She was about to climb into the van herself when she heard an explosion come from the clinic, she whipped around and for the third time in the span of a few minutes found herself frozen with fear. A hulking figure was emerging from the smoke, approaching with a gorilla like motion by walking on massively over sized knuckles. Even from a distance she could tell that it was the creature that Ms Wake had been turning into; it's huge sideways maw was drooling streamers of bloody saliva, and it's multitude of tongues slithered about in multiple directions. It had to be at least eight feet tall and was all muscle, each lumbering stride causing ripples to flow through its raw flesh. She became dimly aware of the cop yelling at her to get in the van, along with the remains of her patients and employees, which shook her out of her stupor. She hurried inside and started the engine she look out of the window as she pulled away and watched as the lone cop reached into his patrol car and pulled out a shotgun. He began marching towards the creature and the other monstrosities that were emerging behind it, firing at them while spewing expletive laden challenges. He soon emptied the weapon and threw it on the ground before drawing his side arm and continuing to fire; his efforts had little effect, just drawing spurts of blood and ichor. The cop soon was out of ammo for that weapon as well; he then hurled the useless firearm at the beasts and drew his baton. There was a sudden blast of blinding golden light, which forced Rachael to slam on the brakes so she didn't hit anything. By the time her vision had cleared enough to see, she beheld the cop still standing though no longer moving. She followed his gaze and felt her heart jump into her mouth. A tall glowing figure in gilded golden armor with huge white wings was cutting a bloody swath through the horde of nightmarish creatures with a shiny silver saber. There was only one thing it could be; an angel, a guardian of mankind. The howling beasts seemed to forgotten the humans and were throwing themselves at the golden figure with reckless abandon, clawing and scratching at its armor. The angel cleaved a multi-limbed monstrosity in half before skewering two smaller beasts with a reverse thrust. The giant that once was Ms Wake landed a thunderous blow on the angel's helm, knocking it flying. The angel responded by lopping off one of the monsters arms, causing it to roar in pain and collapse as it couldn't support its own prodigious bulk. The angel removed its hideous head with a broad swipe before quickly dispatched the remaining beasts with artful swings of its saber. It stood for several seconds amongst the piles of bodies, severed limbs and blood. With a dexterous motion it swung it's blade, instantly slinging all the gore from its surface, leaving it gleaming again. Rachael swung the van back around to the cop who was just now coming to grips with what had occurred himself. The angel strode up to them, allowing Rachael to get a better look at it. Despite its armor being dented, mangled, and being covered in blood, it managed to still look majestic. Unlike any artwork Rachael could think of, this angel had the regal head of an eagle, which was regarding the cop and herself with piercing yellow eyes. What little area the armor didn't cover showed more white feathers, and the angels hands were scaly and had sharp talons, like the claws of a bird. It sheathed its saber and began wiping blood from its feathers and armor. The angel stepped up the cop and placed a hand on his shoulder; the officer collapsed like a discarded puppet, and very briefly Rachael saw a beam of soft white light that speared up into the smoky sky. Rachael ran up to the prone form and found no pulse and that he was not breathing.
"What did you do to him?" She said, looking up and the angel in concern and confusion. "I thought angels we'd supposed to protect us!"
"I have." The angel said in a surprisingly soft and soothing voice that made
Rachael's racing heart slow down, and left her feeling calm again. "His soul has been returned to the high realm to wait out the desolation of the middle realm." The angel walked over to the group of remaining patients and staff; several more beams of light were produced, followed by the remaining nurse and two of the patients falling dead to the ground. The angel then walked toward an open area of the parking lot, spread its great white wings and began flapping them. Alan the janitor ran toward it yelling.
"Wait! What about us? Why aren't you saving us?"
"Because your souls are not pure enough to be worth saving. Yet you are not tainted enough to allow demons to fully possess you." It replied calmly. "Prove your purity, and we may return for you."
"Not pure enough? What did I do wrong? I go to church every Sunday, I volunteer and
donate to charity, I even don't eat meat!" Alex exclaimed.
"Your religions do not equal purity of the soul, though they provide good guidelines. You all know what you have done to deserve this fate." The angel said, it tone taking on a slightly more menacing quality. "Contain and expel the demons inside you, and there may yet be hope." With several powerful beats of its glorious wings, the angel lifted into the sky and flew off towards the smoky horizon. Rachael and the survivors watched it disappear into the distance in shock. Alan was the first to speak after several seconds of stunned silence.
"I can't believe it left us. How are we not pure enough?" He whispered.
Alex began pacing back and forth, hands running through his hair.
"First people turn into demons, then an angel that won't save us? This really is the end." He said nervously. The patient, a middle aged gas station employee who had a bandage over his eyes after being soaked in diesel fuel, asked a slightly more chilling question.
"What did it mean by 'control the demons inside you?' Are we already possessed?" He asked with a trembling voice. Rachael felt her heart stop at the thought that she might suddenly start transforming into a monster. As if on cue, Rachael felt a sudden weight in side her, though not like it was a physical one. She felt bigger, like she was too big for her own skin, like she didn't belong in this form. Blood started running out of her nose, but she found she couldn't move her hands to wipe it away. And as suddenly as it had appeared, all the strange sensations disappeared. Rachael blinked and began looking herself over, waiting for horrific and painful mutations to start showing up. Sure enough, her back arched as new vertebrae began branching off, pushing out from under her lab coat in the form of a 3 foot long tail; there was also a lingering sense of something, or someone, else residing in her body. She looked at the others to see what had happened, and was horrified at what she saw. Alan the janitor was curled up into a ball in the ground, whimpering as a long set of horns slowly grew out from the back of his head. Alex was shaking as his skin gained a sickly green pallor, and one of his arms slowly morphed into a sucker covered tentacle. The last patient was slowly growing taller, until he towered over them and his clothing looked childish. In all her years in the field of medicine, she had never come across anything that truly horrified her, not even the worst of bomb blast survivors had been this bad. Soon the others had finished their mutations and took stock of their new forms. Alan was running his shaking hands over the horns on his head, Alan was vainly trying to shake off his tentacle arm, and the patient was blindly running off into the woods, wailing and crashing into cars and signs. After watching him disappear, Alan and Alex turned their attention to her.
Something in their eyes didn't look right, there was now something behind them. Alex spoke first, in a low growl.
"Alright doc, so what's your mystery cure? Got something in your bag of tricks to fix us up?" He took a shaky step towards her, pointing a finger on his remaining arm accusingly.
"You don't look like you've changed. How is that fair? Think your better than us somehow?" Rachael took a step back, her mind reeling in fear. Alan looked sheepishly at Alex and shook his head.
"Hey, this ain't her fault, and look, she grew a tail! Let's just calm down and think this through, eh?" He said with a nervous chuckle. Alex wrapped his tentacle around Alan's neck and threw him to the side.
"Shut the fuck up, trash man! This wash-up has been the boss for too long! It's time to do things my way!" Alex roared. He kept advancing towards her, each step bringing more mutations. His green skin began to sag and bloat, breaking in places and releasing clouds of flies and fouls smelling gas. His face similarly began twisting until he was no longer recognizable, and several more tentacles burst from his back. Rachael soon found herself with her back up against a car, with Alex quickly bearing down on her. He pulled his now abnormally jointed fist back and flung it at her face. Rachael closed her eyes and raised her hands up in a futile attempt to protect herself, when she felt the other inside her suddenly stir; the blow she was expecting didn't happen. She cautiously opened her eyes and found Alex still standing in front of her, his fist frozen mere inches from her outstretched hands. Her amazement quickly morphed into a flaming anger, and she made a pushing motion with her hands; Alex's fist was flung back and he was thrown off balance. His now rust red eyes looked at her in stunned amazement, but quickly regained his composure and charged again with a wheezing roar. Rachael channeled the hot feeling inside her and felt the other comply; she raised her hand at Alex and clenched it into a fist. Alex's head imploded with a messy scrunch, but he still kept running forward. Rachael then raised both hands and brought them together in a loud clap, which resulted in Alex being smashed like a soda can into a bloody, stinky mess which collapsed to the ground. Panting, Rachael felt the other subside, the fiery anger receding with it. A strange itchy feeling slowly developed on her stomach, and when she lifted her shirt up to look, there were patches of small, shiny blue scales; her tail was now covered in them too, and a bony ridge had formed along the top and ran part way up her spine. Suddenly overcome with what had happened, Rachael collapsed against the car and slid the ground, sobbing. A hand on her shoulder startled her, but when she looked up, it was Alan, who was crouched down beside her. He didn't say anything, and neither did she; they just sat there together and tried to come to terms with this awful new world.