ARMAGEDDON

1: Nightmares

I had a dream once. No, a nightmare. I had it when I was 19. The world smelled of brimstone and fire, all I see is absolute decimation. A man who looks like a younger version of my grandfather wearing Army fatigues is running with his rifle in his hands.

It's raining fire at this point. People who are supposed to be human with glowing red eyes were chasing him. Has this all happened before? It feels like past, present, and future are all here in one huge melting pot of timeless insanity. What was happening?

A grotesque beast was after him. It easily stood eight feet tall, with powerful legs that it used to leap from wall to wall. My grand father was tackled by the hairless creature. He grabbed the thing's arm, and pulled, tearing apart flesh, bone, and sinew. The creature screeched in fear, but it's cries were cut short when my grandfather hit the thing with its own arm, immediately snapping the creature's neck.

A gigantic fiery gate appeared, and started to be bashed open by something large and fearsome.

My grandfather looked straight at me and said "Jason? You've got to get out of here!"

I snapped out of my nightmare again. I've been having the same nightmare since I was five years old. I am now 19 years old. I've been graduated from high school for a full year now, and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.

My father keeps pressuring me to be a stock broker like him, but I've always wanted to join the Army, just like grandfather. Only instead of Nazis, it would be terrorists that I would be fighting. Dad is against it of course, but he's against anything that might resemble my grandfather.

The idea I get from the two of them is that my grandfather was always too busy to help raise my dad, leaving my deceased grandmother to do the job. I got up off my bed, and started to dig through some high school things. I found my diploma, awarded to a "Jason Maxwell Archer", which would happen to be my full name.

What I never understood is why I keep having the same nightmare over and over for years now. Was it something about my grandfather's past that I don't know? But things like demons don't exist. Maybe I should ask him about it. Yeah, I'll do that.

I threw on a pair of faded jeans, and a simple long sleeve shirt. I grabbed my wallet and car keys, and headed out the door. It was eight in the morning, my parents wouldn't be up, but my grandfather would be. Unlike most geezers, he's an early riser.

I tried to call him up on my cell phone, but he wasn't answering. On the third call, he finally did answer.

"Hey, you mind if I come over and ask you abou-"

"No Jason, you shouldn't be coming over here! Where's the goddamn key? They're getting closer and I need my goddamn guns!"

He sounded frantic, like something was really wrong. Maybe he was having a dementia episode. My dad was always afraid of my grandfather having an armory large enough to supply a small militia. So he rounded up all the guns, put them in a weapons locker, and hid the key from him.

"Don't worry, I'll be right over there!" I said.

I heard him start to protest but I hung up on him. I quickly pulled out of the driveway, and floored it. The car I was driving was a really beaten and battered Crown Vic. The only good thing about it is that it has a V8 engine, and speed is all I need right now.

My grandfather owns his own land out in the country, all by himself. We've tried to put him into a retirement home, but he fought such things violently, like it was his religion to stay out of the damn things. It takes about 30 minutes to get to his house.

When I finally did get there, what I saw was surprising to say the least. Corpses of weird creatures littered the front yard in front of the gargantuan brick house. I quickly got out of the car and went up to the front door, where I saw that both the door and the frame for the door was completely torn off. There was a trail of bodies and blood that led me to the huge backyard, where I saw a pile of the grotesque corpses.

My grandfather was on the ground, still and unmoving. When I got to him, he had an ugly gash in his stomach, the poor old man trying to keep his guts inside of him. He was choking on his blood. My grandfather grabbed my hand tightly and said

"Jason, you need to find Daniel...he's underneath Tokyo. Do you understand?"

Before I could say anything, he let out a huge exhale, and I knew that he was now dead. Too much was happening all at once, and I could feel my head spinning. I tried to call my mom, dad, even my sister. None of them were picking up.

A sick feeling started to form in my stomach.