Keith Laumer - A Plague of Demons

I leaned aside from a grasping hand, chopped him below the point of the shoulder, felt bone snap. He staggered, and I took aim, struck at his head—

I hadn’t even seen the tree that fell on me. I groped my way to my feet, feeling the blood running across my jaw, blinking my vision clear…

The thing shaped like a man came toward me, expressionless, one arm hanging, the other raised, hand flattened for an axblow. I raised my steel arm, took an impact like a trip-hammer, countered with a smashing chestpunch. It was a waste of effort; the thing’s thoracic area was armored like a dinosaur’s skull. It brought its arm around in a swipe that caught me glancingly across the shoulder, sent me reeling.

Joel was between us, huge fists ready; he landed a smashing left that would have felled an ox, followed with a right that struck the cold, smooth face like a cannonball. The creature seemed not to notice. It struck out, and Joel staggered, caught himself—and a second blow sent him skidding. Then the thing was past him, charging for me. Joel’s diversion had given me the time to set myself. I caught the descending arm in a two-handed grip, hauled it around, broke it across my chest. I hurled the alien from me. Then, as it tripped and fell, I aimed a kick that caught it on the kneecap. It went down, and I stood over it breathing hard, as it threshed helplessly, silently, trying to rise on its broken leg.

“Don’t struggle,” I got out between breaths. “That wouldn’t be logical, would it? Now it’s time for you to tell me a few things. Where did you come from? What world?”

It lay still then, a broken toy, no longer needed. “You will die soon,” it said flatly.

“Maybe; meanwhile just call me curious. Where’s your headquarters? Who runs things, you or the dogs? What do you do with the men you steal—or their brains?”

“Information is of no use to the soon-dead,” the flat voice stated indifferently.

Behind me, Joel moaned—a thin, high wail of animal torment. I whirled to him. He lay oddly crumpled at the base of a giant tree, his face white, shocked. Blood ran from his mouth. I went to him, knelt, and tried to ease him to a more comfortable position.

Another cry came from his open mouth—a mindless cry of pure agony. I laid him out on his back, opened his jacket.

The front of his shirt was a sodden mass of bloody fabric. The thing’s blow had smashed his chest as effectively as a falling safe.

“Joel, hold on—I’ll get you to a doctor.” I eased my arms under him, started to lift.

He shrieked, twisted once—then went limp.

My hand went to his wrist, found a pulse, weak, unsteady—but he was alive. His eyelids fluttered, opened.

“I fell down,” he said clearly.

“I’ll get you into the heli.” My voice was choked.

“It hurt my head,” Joel went on. “But now it don’t hurt…” His mouth twitched. His tongue touched his lips. The shadow of a frown came over his face.

“It tickles in my head,” he said. “I don’t like it when it tickles in my head. I don’t want the dogs to come, Jones. I’m afraid.”

“The dogs?” I felt my scalp tighten. I twisted, staring into the forest, saw nothing. “Come on, Joel; I’m going to lift you into the heli.” I put a hand under his back, half-lifted him. He screamed hoarsely. I lowered him again.

“It hurts too bad, Jones,” he gasped out. “I’m sorry.”

“Where are the dogs, Joel?”

“They’re close.” His eyes sought me. His tongue licked his lips again. “I know—you got to go now, Jones. I’m sorry I yelled and all.”

I whirled on the broken man-thing. “How far away are they?” I snapped. “You called them; how long before they’ll be here?”

It looked at me with the one eye that remained in its battered head, and said nothing. I kicked it in the side, sent the limp body skidding two yards.

“Talk, damn you!”

It merely looked at me, as impersonally as a morgue attendant taking inventory. Its gaze went past me; it seemed to be listening…

Then I felt it—the greasy, gray feeling of unreality that meant the demons were closing in. I keened my hearing…

I heard the lope of demonic hands galloping across frozen ground, brushing against brittle, leafless twigs, coming closer.

“You… gotta… hurry… up…” Joel’s voice croaked. “G’bye, Jones. You was… a good friend. I guess… you was… the only friend… I ever had…”

He was dying; I knew nothing I could do would save him. And a few feet away the heli waited, fueled and ready. I wanted to go.

But I couldn’t do it.

“Take it easy, Joel,” I said hoarsely. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying with you.”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

There was a crash of underbrush. As I whirled, a dark dog-shape bounded from the shadow of a giant tree, turned, and charged into the circle of light. I set myself. As it leaped, I threw my weight into a straight-arm blow that met the bony face in midair, drove it back in pulped ruin into the shattered skull. The thing hurtled past me, struck, threshing in its death-fit.

Two more of the beast-things leaped into view, sprang at me side by side. I caught one by the neck, crushed bone and hide together, hurled it aside. I turned to drive a kick into the chest of the second as it rounded on me. I jumped after it, smashed its head with a left and right as it rose up, snapping.

There were more of them around me now. I spun, kicked at one, struck another down with my chromalloy fist, shook a third from my right arm, fended off another… It was a nightmare battle against leaping creatures almost impalpable to my PAPA-reinforced blows; they came at me like bounding ghost-shapes, red-eyed and gape-jawed. I struck, and struck, and struck again.

A white-hot bear-trap closed on my leg. I tried to shake it off. It clung, dragging at me. Jaws snapped an inch from my throat. I hammered at a skull-face, saw it crumble—and another sprang up. One struck me from behind. I stumbled, felt jaws like a saw-edged vise clamp on my thigh. There was one at my left arm now; I heard its teeth break against the steel rods. With my free hand, I struck at it; then two of the things leaped at once, fastened on my good arm—

I twisted away from jaws that lunged for my throat, felt myself falling. Then I was down, and the weight on me was like heaped mattresses set with needles of fire; I was like a man drowning in a sea of piranha—razor teeth stripping the flesh from the living bone…

I was on my back, a cluster of demon faces over me like surgeons over an operating table; teeth snapped, ripped at my throat; I felt the tearing of flesh, the gush of scalding blood. As if in a dream, I heard the gabble of demon voices, the slap of beast hands. Then blackness closed over me. I knew it was death.

Somewhere, I dream in a sunless emptiness where the years arch like ancient elms over the long avenue of time—a path across eternity, without a beginning and without end.

Into the static universe, change comes: a sense of subtle pressures, of energy-fields in transition. An imbalance grows—and with the imbalance a need—and from the need, volition. I sense movement, the slide and turn of intricate components, and the tentative questing of sensors, like raw nerves hesitantly exposed. Light, form, color impinge on delicate instruments. Space takes on dimension, texture.

All around me, a broad plain of shattered rock and black shadows stretches away to a line of fire at the edge of the world, under the glare of a sun that rages purple-white against bottomless silver-black.

A shape moves, small with distance—beyond it, others. I am moving too, driving forward effortlessly over the rough ground, throwing up dust in heavy clouds that drop back with a curious quickness. Rock-chips fly, twinkling as they fall. I sense vibrations; the thunder of my passage, the whine and growl of meshing metal, the oscillation of electrons.