Free Demon Gate: Beyond the 9th Circle: The Rapture Was Just The Beginning. by Joel Heath

parking garage where Spencer found
more of that fine dust on the ground. Spencer’s
GTO was only thirty feet away, and yet
something screamed in his mind. Again a
warning, something helping me?
“Weren’t there two hives?” Spencer
asked.
Spencer decided to err on the side of caution and
retrieve the sword from his nearly empty trunk.
As he closed the trunk, the tip of a darkened
sword appeared in the middle of Major Walters’
chest then protruded more than twelve inches
further, the tip of a hive queen’s sword.
Realizing death was here with no escape
now, Major Walters grabbed the tip of the sword
and held fast trying to give Spencer a few extra
seconds to grip the sword well and rush forward
to kill the second hive queen. Spencer took those
extra seconds and used them well. Dodging
around the doomed Major Walters, Spencer
swung his sword and decapitated the hive queen.
The hive queen crumpled to the ground
pulling the sword out of Walters’ back. Spencer
caught the major, who then stared with
frightening intensity into Spencer’s eyes.
“Get out of here; get out while you still
can.” Pushing Spencer away, the major fell to the
ground where his life quickly slipped away,
blood oozing out into a halo around his body.
Spencer retreated to the exterior wall of
the parking garage and looked around. Most of
the demons were breaching the hospital; they had
one slim chance to get away. The demons
gathered around the dead queens, giving the
couple precious moments in which their run for
the highway went unnoticed.
Spencer and Gretchen got into the GTO
and sped along Louisville Avenue and up to 19 th Street where he had direct access to the Marsha
Sharp Freeway and the Texas Tech Parkway,
which merged onto Highway 84 heading for the
New Mexico border. They crossed into New
Mexico at about eleven in the morning. The heat
of the desert made them wonder if Hell was
coming to earth or if they were just unlucky
enough to be trapped in a million acre sauna.
They passed a sign indicating the small
town of Clovis and they decided the town was
small enough that there would be minimal
danger. They pulled off of Highway 60 to look
around. The town was much like all the others
they passed though, except there was no sign of
occupation, nor were the streets littered with
corpses of humans or demons, there was nothing
but quiet and undisturbed buildings. It seemed
like a good sign.
Spencer and Gretchen agreed not to stay
too long, so they opened up a couple MRE’s and
ate what they could washing it down with stale
water from the large canister. Spencer realized
that there would be a long drive ahead so he
looked for a gas station.
There were a series of gas stations along
East 1 st Street. The first one they came to was not
viable, as the gas station had been burning for
some time, possibly several days. Any fuel still in
    the tanks was unattainable through the
st smoldering flames. Down the street where 1
Street met Prince Street, there was another gas
station. It didn’t look like there was any power,
but Spencer knew how to bypass the fuel pumps
and get the fuel moving into his tank.
    “You think there’s anything we could
take with us in there?” Gretchen asked, nodding
at the convenience store section of the station.
    “It’s worth a look,” Spencer replied. He
reached into the backseat for the compact P-90,
loaded a clip, and escorted Gretchen into the
convenience store. Spencer quickly made a
survey of the store and found that there was
nobody left alive or dead. They went about
gathering what food remained on the shelves.
Most of the drinks had gone flat, the milk was
well on its way to becoming cheese, and most of
the fresh food was growing a putrid layer of
mold. The only choice was water, dried food and
items with high levels of preservatives like
Twinkies and potato chips.
    Gretchen spied the ladies room and
handed everything she had to Spencer before
heading in.
    Spencer approached the closed door, “We
don’t