Sunday, November 2, 2008

Purgatory

We were the four guardians. Two women and two men charged with the duty of rehabilitating the eternally damned in a prison called Hell's Sanctuary which was home to some of the sickest and perverse minds to ever walk the Earth.

We were poorly equipped to keep thousands of psychotic prisoners in line. I had dual Desert Eagle pistols at my side. Rachel carried a crossbow and was a crack-shot. Sarah had two katanas slung across her back and was deadly with any blade. Michael's right hand was covered by a huge iron guantlet. Beyond these basic implements as guardians we were imbued with some supernatural powers, speed, strength, and other heightened abilities.

As long as we stood the walls of this prison stood.

This was our God-given duty or perhaps it was our punishment...

An armored car rolled up to the gates. We were there to meet it. Out stepped the driver, an old man with dark eyes dressed in a bland grey suit. A faded nametag on his shirt read Bob, along with the company logo a smiling delivery man with the words Delightful Delivery beneath it.

He hobbled to the back of the truck and unlocked the doors then handed me a clipboard and some forms to sign.

"Right here on the line" he said in an uninterested monotone.

I handed him the forms back and he rolled out our new ward encased in a heavy steel coffin.
I handed the forms to Rachel for filing and rolled him out to the yard. The other inmates were waiting in the yard for the fresh bait but as he lumbered out of the coffin they all drew back.

He stood over eight feet tall and weighed about 300 pounds of solidly packed muscle. His eyes were dark cavernous holes and he behind his dumb grin were what looked like a row of shark teeth. His entire body looked Frankenstein-ish and was covered in scars.

The other prisoners eyed the new arrival nervously and kept their distance. They were going to have to learn to play nice sooner or later.

Outside the gates some sort of commotion had started. I locked down the yard and turned back to join my fellow guardians. An incensed mob of protestors were rushing against the prison gates. They were demanding the release of our new prisoner. We were near the lawless outland and these were its dregs. They were ghouls and fiends, not human at all. They were rushing at us with scavenged weapons and bloody claws.

The walls of the prison were imbued with our life-force and the powers of Heaven itself. As long as we stood our ground no one got in or out without our say. But there was a limit to even our powers.


They were rushing towards the gates and pounding on the walls. My felow guardians were already outside the wall. I planted my feet firmly then leapt straight into the air, vaulting myself over the wall. We could move past the wall freely but our inmates could not.

There were ghouls everywhere at least a hundred of them. It seemed hopeless but we had no choice. We had to fight. I unholstered the Eagles from my side and charged towards them spewing out blessed bullets that never missed their mark. Sarah wasn't far from me standing with her crossbow and taking them down like a sniper. Rachel was in the midst of them mowing them down with her katanas. Michael stood at the front gate with a faceful of metal of fist for anyone who got too close for comfort.

Click. Click. My clips were out. I re-holstered my Eagles. The clips would recharge themselves automatically but it would take a little time. Until then fists would work too. One of the fiends leapt at me. We grappled and I spun him around and pinned him down on the ground. It struggled and hissed at me,

"Release him! Release the Lord of Plagues!"

I grabbed a hold of it's head and flung it like a ragdoll. These were not people. These things...were already dead but fortunately they could die again.

If what the fiend had said was true then we had some bigger problems brewing. A plague lord wasn't easy to contain and we had just released one into the general prison population.

Inside the prison a massive riot was going down. The few remaining fiends broke off and retreated. The prison was a now a scene of mass carnage. Blood and body parts spewn everywhere. Above the guard towers the prison lights began to flicker as a dark mass rose above the prison and began pounding against the walls. Millions of them...locusts...

We regrouped and turned back towards the prison. The gates would hold for now but I didn't know for how long. Our new ward was going to have to go into solitary and it didn't look like he would go willingly. I gritted my teeth as I jammed fresh clips into my Eagles. There was work to do...