Archon of the Covenant by David Hanrahan Read Free Book Online Page A

foster son built this ranch. In a later era, Oracle would be overrun by revins, mad with starvation. They erupted in the streets, unable to prepare food in the manner known by who they once were. One revin alone had gone from backyard to backyard, cornering dogs and sinking its thumbs into the soft throats of retrievers and dalmatians. The starvation drove the revins to eat anything – but stores quickly depleted of bread. Canned goods went unopened. When the stores were ransacked, the revins would wander from house to house and bleat out cries of desperation. Pride, civility, and law eroded quickly. Cerebral cognition had all but disappeared. An elderly man, breathing shallow and burnt from the sun, was alone in a wheel-chair outside of a large stucco home on Sycamore Dr. Three revins approached him, circling closer and closer. They bleated and groaned. They barked at each other – louder and louder. One ran up and ran back. The old man, now in the early throes of the PCH himself, stared back – understanding, then not - in the fog of cognition failing him. The revin ran back and pushed the chair over, grabbing the old man’s arm and stepping on his chest – the old man didn’t cry out. The revin pulled the arm out of his socket and the others darted over, giddy with what they’d done. Their jaws thrashed at the gore and soft flesh of the elderly man. It was scenes like this that tipped over the violence in towns across the world. They pounced on the weaker “still thinking” – elderly, disabled, and children. The pack males raped the women and guarded them too. The pack mentality surfaced within this new breed of creature. A new, devolved species of mankind. Homo immemores.
     
    The two families who had escaped High Jinks Ranch had been doomsday soothsayers. The Helwigs and Dolans. They had built underground shelters years before the air spoiled. They had lived in contained bunkers until their own foodstuffs had depleted. On the verge of death, they gathered together above ground wearing a mix of gas masks and SCUBA tanks. They agreed to retreat into the Santa Catalinas, hoping and praying that the air would be pure in the higher elevation. They had packed up what they had and ventured into the foothill basin, coming across the abandoned High Jinks Ranch. Here they stayed, agreeing to hold off their ascent until the air warmed again in the Spring. They had been watched ever since their car engines turned over in the garages outside of their bunkers. The Oracle pack – a violent and structured swarm – was aware of these two families. They saw the children and grandfather get into the passenger doors. They tracked the family – the clean scent of the showered wives wafting into the air, filling the night where the blooms of desert broom had vanished into the ether. One of the wives, Michelle, sat atop stone steps leading up to the main lodge of the ranch, looking into the desert floor during their first evening at the ranch. She had noticed her gas mask was loose. She broke down, sitting on the steps, flinging her mask into the dusk air. She sobbed, rubbing her eyes, then laughed. She laughed at the senselessness and futility of her life. She dried her eyes and took in the horizon of Sonora. She held a pistol in one hand, clicking off the safety. She closed her eyes and pulled the gun to her head – with her eyes closed, she heard a series of distant bleats, and yucca rustling in the still autumn night. She opened her eyes and saw them – hundreds of revins descending upon them from the northern pass. She screamed, running back to the ranch to warn the others.
     
    DDC39 stood in the main entranceway of the lodge. The steps where Michelle had sat were awash in dried blood and bone fragments. Around the ranch, scores of revin bodies were shot through – falling to rest in contorted positions. One sat atop a well, having expired with a gun shot in the chest, seated on the wall of the well - a peaceful look on