Angel Virus [ONC 2022]

Chapter 13. Of Grass and Cattle.

Its top-heavy bulk loomed next to the near-beer and the string cheese. Only the merest ghost of its human illusion clung to its monstrous form. The heavy claws on its hands could never attempt embroidery or teacup sipping, but they reached for a metallic lump strapped to its thigh. The object strongly resembled a gun whose ominous flared bore could swallow a ping-pong ball.

The monster leered. "Happy to announce, humans, no more kidnapping attempts." He raised his blunderbuss and aimed it at Trixie.

My heart compressed into a steely knot. Operating on instinct alone, I launched into the air. As I porpoised between the gun and Trixie, it flashed.

A hammer hit me in the chest, and I crashed into the juice cooler with a glassy shatter.

Despite the noise, I heard Trixie gasp. Her angel radiance flared, and the silhouette of Father Brent wheeled through it, a dagger in each hand.

As for me, I felt relatively peppy for a recently deceased person. "Don't worry about me!" I roared (sort of — actually, my voice broke, but I think my point got across). Pushing out of the sticky citrus splash, I joined the fray.

And Kezzias could not cope. I think Trixie's light blinded him, and it certainly caused his chitinous outer shell to smoke. Father Brent's daggers flashed, and droplets of purple-black blood flew. Flailing, I latched onto the claw that held the blunderbuss. The straining arm buffeted me, and the monster's other set of claws raked across me at least once, but a vision of rightness flooded my body and I rejected anything so unseemly as physical damage.

The brute gargled in rage, but its legs collapsed. In a trice, Father Brent held a dagger to the neckless crease between its head and shoulders. I prized the massive gun away and it clattered to rest among broken container glass and spilled juice. Trixie hovered a foot off the floor, composed of divine light.

The Speedystop cashier chose this moment to investigate the noise. Upon entering the cooler, his mouth fell open in a rictus of horror, his eyes locked to the prone monster. He stumbled out, and the glass door flapped back and forth.

Kezzias smelled like formaldehyde and sounded like a power tool whose broken bearings were about to tear their motor apart. "Kill me," it said. "It's too late to matter."

Father Brent's face gleamed with sweat, and his chest heaved as he gulped air. But his hands and voice stayed steady. "Talk more," he said. "What are you? What do you want?"

I shifted to kneel on Kezzias's forearm. Trixie alighted, but her light still shone, and Kezzias's carapace smoked from it. Its yellow eyes were mere slits. Its mouth pulled wide in what seemed like a grimace of pain. "Does it matter? We are not meant to be seen by humans, but you have seen us."

"So we can see you. So what?" Trixie said in her annoyed voice.

"Sssss!" the creature hissed. It squirmed, but apparently not to escape. It was more like an involuntary shudder of horror. "Ignorant human. Our secrets are not for you. But I will tell you this much: if you can see the retches and the blechths, we will die. All of Vhoor's people."

"I don't get it," I said.

"Why should we kill you," Father Brent said, "unless you do us harm, first?"

"You twist my words," Kezzias said. "You will not, cannot kill us with war. We will die because you will rid yourselves of the blechths. Do you know the word?"

"Yeah," I said. "Those are the parasites I see on people."

Kezzias squeezed its eyes shut. "That light. I cannot bear it. Yes, those are the blechths. They are our food source."

"How, now?" Brent said.

"Ignorant human. Why do we talk so much? Just kill me. It's in your best interests. If you let me live, I will kill you tomorrow. Oh, no, ha-ha." Its mockery of laughter sounded artificial and insincere. "For you, there will be no tomorrow. How could I forget?"

Father Brent commanded, "Tell us and skip the bullshit."

"Much more light, and I will die," Kezzias moaned. "But, fine, here is analogy. Humans eat cattle and cattle eat grass. Well we eat blechth secretions, and blechths eat of you. They are very gentle. They eat of you and you do not die. We eat of blechths, and they do not die. You are not so kind to your cattle. Now, do you understand?"

"I'm starting to clue in," said Father Brent.

I wouldn't have said the same right them, but Kezzias cleared it up for me. He rasped, "You humans are the grass. The blechth are the cattle. We eat of the cattle. If you can see the blechths, you will rid yourselves of them. Don't you see? Whether you intend to or not, you will kill us. You will kill us all."

"Whoa," Trixie said.

Father Brent hadn't moved. His daggers still poked at what passed for Kezzias's throat. "Now get back to this 'no tomorrow' business."

Kezzias stayed silent for a few seconds. I heard drips of juice mixed with the hum of the refrigerators, and Kezzias really stank. He said, "You can figure it out for yourself, so, why not? The virus caused all this, right?"

Nobody answered.

"The virus is spreading so rapidly that tomorrow may be too late for us. Now, it is contained to one city. Tomorrow, it may spread. If not tomorrow, then the next day. The mass starvation will begin."

My head began to spin, but Father Brent still sounded more like an army sergeant than a former man of the cloth. "So you're going to try to kill everybody that's infected with the virus?"

"Not quite," Kezzias said. I heard police sirens. The cashier must've called 911.

Brent replied with heat, pressing forward with his daggers, "What do you mean 'not quite?'"

"We're going to kill everybody. Clean sweep. It's the only safe thing to do."