All Hell Breaks Loose
Chapter 5: A Desperate Escape

June 13th

3:07 PM

Mariah Adams

The last few hours spent walking to Fort Point were tense, but grew calmer as time wore on. Whatever that cop was doing at city hall, he was making a lot of noise as he went. We saw dozens upon dozens of flying Demons heading in his direction as we were walking. Every time we did see something flying directly overhead, we’d take cover and hope that it would continue onward instead of diving straight for us. Lucky for us, the Demons seemed more interested in a fight or maybe they just didn’t see us.

When we finally arrived at the fort, we were greeted by a pair of armed strangers. Neither of them looked particularly beefy or intimidating, but they were both carrying assault rifles that they probably scavenged from the plethora of military corpses seen throughout the city.

Evan seemed right at home in this situation. The guards also seemed to recognize him for that matter. With the muted chirp of a walkie-talkie, the guards radioed ahead to let someone in charge know that more survivors were on their way. We were pointed down the road and let into the fort while the guards stayed behind to watch the skies. At the guards’ request, Evan also had to surrender his gun over some nonsensical rule about ‘no Angel-touched weapons allowed in the fort.’

The man who appeared to be in charge was an old, heavyset sailor. It looked like he was trying to keep up his appearance during these past couple weeks, but his handlebar mustache was getting ragged and unkempt and five o’clock shadow only accentuated his haggard look.

“Evan,” He spoke with a charming, gravelly voice. “Good to see you buddy. Are these folks here for the boats or the bridge? I’m guessing boats.” He trailed off slightly while glancing at Smalls.

Smalls only looked mildly offended and quickly retorted, “Well that depends on which one is more wheelchair accessible!”

The sailor chuckled, “No offense meant, my boy, but unless you’d like to sit up on the bridge and cover our escape, we’re making the last evacuation runs by boat today.” He motioned for us to follow him through the fort. We passed by a lot of people who all had the same tired, haggard, but hopeful look. “My name’s Malcolm, by the way, and welcome to Fort Point.” He stopped by a window looking out over the water and glared nervously down at the rocks below. “When everything kicks off, we’ll have to make a quick run over to Torpedo Wharf. There’s about half a dozen little yachts there that are still serviceable. We can only take about a hundred people across the water at a time, so we’re going to be making several trips.” Smalls started to grumble something, but Malcolm ignored it and continued speaking. “So tell me about yourselves. What did you do before all of this shit happened?”

I glanced down at the dirty scrubs I’d been wearing for the past too many days and guessed he already had an answer in mind. “I was an ER nurse in the San Francisco General Hospital. My name is Mariah Adams. Smalls here was one of my last patients.”

Malcolm nodded. “Good. We could always use more medical professionals. Nurses, doctors, vets, you name it. And what about you, Smalls?”

“I worked at Seven-Eleven.” Smalls replied.

“Well that must’ve been tough,” Malcolm assumed, “Going from being robbed and shot to Demons trying to kill ya every two steps.”

“Yeah, it’s been tough.” Smalls nodded. A gut feeling told me that Smalls wasn’t being entirely honest. I don’t really know why he’d lie about that sort of thing, but I wasn’t going to press the issue.

I decided to change the subject to a slightly more important matter. “When are we starting the evacuation?”

Malcolm chuckled, “That eager to leave, eh? We’re just waiting on a signal from a group headin’ to city hall. You might’ve passed ’em on the way here. They were led by a burly looking cop about this tall.” Malcolm held up a hand a few inches below his eye line. His guess was accurate. “What was his name again?” Malcolm mumbled.

“Hartford,” I said. Malcolm snapped his fingers and nodded in agreement. He looked like he was about to say something else, but I cut him off. “Okay, second question: How much longer do you think we have until that signal pops up and what happens if it doesn’t?”

Malcolm sighed. He didn’t seem disappointed, just puzzled. “It shouldn’t be too long now before they give us the all-clear. If they don’t give us a signal within the next hour or so, we’ll just have to make a break for it and hope for the best. It’s been pretty quiet since they left, but that could just be the calm before the storm. Anyways, Evan, are you coming down to the boats with us?”

Evan shook his head, “I’ll be going up to the bridge soon. I just wanted to discuss the last details of the plan before I leave.”

Malcolm nodded and waved a very large hand in my direction,“Well, you two best be off then. Make any last minute checks you need and feel free to help yourself to whatever medicines and things you need. If you could maybe take a look around and see if anyone needs your help, that would be much appreciated too.”

Evan held up a hand to stop us from leaving too soon, not that we were going anywhere without getting some answers from him first, “Actually, Malcolm, I’d like them to hear what I have to say as well. They’ve noticed a lot of the same things you have.”

Malcolm’s eyes lit up as he turned toward us, “You’ve seen it too? No one else seems to notice that this kid,” He jerked a thumb back at Evan, “seems to land every shot he takes and he almost always gets the killing shots too!”

“Well, yes,” I nodded, “I have noticed that. Do most people not notice these things?”

“No!” Malcolm could barely contain himself. “Most people think he’s just lucky! No one seems to question him when he says ‘Oh, I’m such a terrible shot. Wow! How did I hit the twelfth one in a row from fifty yards away?’ Not many other people have noticed except you, the cop, and a few other people up on the bridge.” Malcolm turned excitedly back to Evan. “So, what’s your explanation, boy?”

Evan waited a moment and held up a hand to try and calm Malcolm down. “It might sound insane, but I’m guessing you’ve all seen plenty of crazy things in the last few days. Despite the obviously human appearance, I am actually an Angel. You were one of the first people to notice, Malcolm, that every weapon I held was seemingly an Angel-touched weapon. And you, Smalls and Mariah, noticed something else that often goes overlooked: Nearly a dozen people each with Angel-touched weapons can empty their magazines into an Overlord and nothing will happen, but I can take a single shot and fell the beast. For most people, a lucky shot is a good enough explanation, but every once in a while, keen eyes see through that lie.”

Evan’s words took a moment to process and raised more questions than they answered. So many things were racing through my mind. How did he look human? Why did he choose to stop looking like an Angel? Or did he even make the conscious choice to become human?

Before I could ask any of my questions Malcolm clapped his hands together,“There, was that so hard? Why can’t you tell that to everyone?”

“I can’t tell that to everybody I meet for a few simple, but powerful reasons,” replied Evan. “Although I do want people to have hope that they can defeat the Demons, I don’t want people to turn to me or other Angels thinking that we can solve all of your problems. Try to think of how many other Angels you’ve met in the past several days. The answer isn’t likely to be high. Now, I’m sure you all have a lot of questions---”

Smalls quickly tried to cut Evan off, “Yeah, no shit we have questions! What the hell happened to all the other Angels? Why is any of this happening in the first place?”

Evan simply continued speaking without so much as a sideways glance down at Smalls. “But we don’t have enough time to answer all of them now. It’s almost time to start evacuating and we all need to be ready when the signal comes. Also, Malcolm, a few last minute details of the plan have changed. I will be coming with you as the bridge crew evacuates, but I’ll be purposefully delaying them to be about a day behind.”

“I’m guessin’ that was your plan the whole time.” Sighed Malcolm. “And I’m guessin’ that we already know the reason why.”

“Right,” Evan affirmed. “You’ve already guessed correctly that Demons can sense the presence of Angel-touched weapons. Sensing Angels isn’t very much of a stretch. I may send the bridge crew out ahead of me, but most of them have Angel-touched weapons anyway, so it won’t really matter either way. We’ll be about a day behind you, but we will catch up eventually.”

Evan started walking with a brisk purpose out of the fort. Before he left I wanted to see if he could answer one thing. “Evan, one last question before you go: What happened to the rest of the Angels? Why haven’t we seen any besides you?”

Evan stopped and smiled. “Technically that’s two questions, but their answers are the same. We were betrayed. Long story short, for every portal that opened allowing Demons into your world, there was a counterpart for the Angels. The one that I came through opened up over San Jose. But all across this world, all of our portals closed unexpectedly. I’m still trying to figure out why. Without reinforcements, our forces were routed.” Again, this only raised about a dozen more questions that I’m guessing even he didn’t know the answers to, but Evan simply pointed a finger at me and sternly stated, “But that’s all we have time for. Sergeant Hartford should be getting really close to his goal, and we need to be ready when he lets us know.” Evan began to leave at a quick, meaningful pace headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge, but stopped and turned to get in one more word, “I’ve asked Hartford to keep my identity a secret, and I am going to ask the same of you. It’s better if less people know I’m an Angel, trust me.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, Superman, I mean, Clark.” Smalls joked.

As Evan left, Malcolm let out a long, disappointed sigh. “It explains a lot,” he said to himself. “And nothing at all. Well,” Malcolm began to address me and Smalls with a more focused tone. “I guess I forgot to tell you about the rule with the boats. It’s ‘first come, first served,’ so I’m sorry to say that you two will be on the last boat outta here.”

“That’s fine,” Chimed in Smalls. “As long as there isn’t a rule about Mariah having to bring her own chair too, we should be good.”

Malcolm chuckled. “I like you, kid.”

“Malcolm,” Someone shouted from down the hall. “What the hell happened to your radio?”

The old sailor started patting down his pockets withs a confused look on his face before shouting back. “Well, I could tell ya where it’s supposed to be! What’s goin’ on?”

A beefy man with a shotgun came running down the hall. Out of breath, he sputtered out a brief explanation. “Signal flare was sighted about two minutes ago. It’s time to move!”

“Already? I thought we had more time!” Malcolm yelled.

The soldier just shrugged nonchalantly and muttered quietly. “Guess not.”

“Alright, these two are gonna be part of the last group. Have Collin start leadin’ the evacuation while I look for my damn radio again.” Malcolm grumbled.

He set off on his search and Smalls and I were guided by the soldier into a larger room with dozens of people grabbing what the could carry in a hurried dash to leave. We were traded off to a different guard and a quiet group. Everyone looked like they had only just arrived before everything burst into action, just like we had. Despite the tired look almost omnipresent in the group, everybody looked healthy enough that I decided to turn my attention to Smalls.

“How bad does it hurt?” I asked.

“I honestly thought I’d be in more pain by now, but I’m sure I won’t be saying that on the boats.” Smalls replied.

“You never worked at Seven-Eleven, did you?” I asked this time more pointedly.

“Come on,” Smalls protested. “I’m not that bad a liar am I?”

“Look, I’m not angry at you for lying to a man you just met about where and why you got shot. I’m just curious.”

“Well, gee, maybe you should turn that curiosity into something more useful,” Smalls guffawed sarcastically. “Like, maybe you try figuring out who else needs help.”

“Smalls, there are two kinds of people in this room: Those who have guns and those who have made it this far without having a gun. If someone needed my help that badly, they’d ask or send someone else to ask for them. You may not have known me for very long, but hopefully you’ve seen that I am very curious by nature and when I want answers, I try to get them as quickly as possible. So tell me, where did you actually work that got you shot?”

Smalls sighed and motioned at his chest and legs as he spoke. “I wasn’t actually at work the day this happened. I was at my parents’ home, it was my little sister’s birthday, and we were just trying to have a good time. It was the first time in a long time that our whole family could just sit down and have dinner together, but it was all ruined by my piece of shit brother.” His whole face fell into the deepest expression of rage I’d seen in my life. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on the armrests of his wheelchair as he continued to speak. “You know, it was a point of pride in my family that we all had legit jobs. We never got in trouble with the law, we never fell in with any gangs, and, hell, my parents were so against drugs that they basically never drank alcohol except on very, very special occasions like the one we were having. But then my brother had to ruin all that by thinking he could sell drugs for a gang with his old high school friends and that there wouldn’t be any consequences. He always swore it would just be a side hustle, not his main source of income, but that wasn’t true. It was never going to be just a little extra on the side. The one thing I’ll give my brother is that he was smart. He kept his head down, knew what was a sting, and when to make himself disappear. This only gave him more problems as he started stepping on the toes of a lot of pissed off dealers.” Smalls took a moment to collect himself. Tears of anger, mourning, and surely a lot of other things were welling up in his eyes. “That night, someone decided to send him a message. By the time we knew what was happening, my dad’s brains were on the wall and people were breaking down the door. My brother handed me a gun and took off leaving me to take care of a dead father, a grieving mother, and a soon to be dead sister. He figured they just wanted him so he made sure that everyone knew he was long gone. He was only a little bit right, but the thugs didn’t care who they were shooting at as long as my brother understood he was supposed to be the one dead by the end of the night. When they finally shot my sister, I went nuts. I shot four or five people before the rest gunned me down. I never thought I had it in me to want to kill someone so badly,” Smalls glared at me with an intensity I hadn’t seen in him before. “But if it turns out my brother is alive, I’m gonna make sure he knows that he’s getting what he deserves when I pull the trigger.”

Beneath my grim and surly expression, I was fighting back tears while listening to his story. Even under normal circumstances something like that would seem almost impossible to cope with, yet here he was. The people around us were getting restless as the sounds of gunfire began to thunder nearby. Many of them looked like they heard Smalls’s story and wanted to say something, but no one approached.

“Smalls, I--” I could barely choke out the words let alone figure out what to say after something like that.

Smalls just waved his hand in front of my face rather nonchalantly. “Don’t bother,” he said. “But if you meet a Mexican dude named Enrique, hand me a gun and point me toward him.”

A walkie-talkie chirped to life on a nearby soldier’s hip. After some chatter that was hard to distinguish from the background noise the young man spoke. “Alright, our boat is almost here. Grab your stuff and head down to the wharf.”

When I finally looked up from Smalls’s story, I noticed that much of the room we were in was mostly empty at least when compared with when we first arrived. There were less than a hundred people now getting ready to leave the city where they likely built up their homes and livelihoods. Just then, a thought crossed my mind: No one has told me what happens after we leave the city. As I helped to gather things that people couldn’t carry I never stopped thinking about that one burning question.

What happens after we leave San Francisco?

Sure, it was perfectly reasonable to flee north if people had notice the Demons rampaging south on their war path, but we needed to have a goal in mind. We couldn’t just wander through the wilderness expecting to replace a Walmart to restock our supplies. We had to have more of a plan after our mad gambit with the boats.

I tried my best to put that out of my mind as we were running toward Torpedo Wharf. Gunfire from the bridge split the air again and again as we were running. A few smaller Demons were circling near what I could only assume was the largest concentration of people on the bridge, but judging by the amount of shots I could hear, I could only guess that there was something on the ground up there with them.

Once we got to the wharf I was reminded of how little time I could spend near the water despite living on a peninsula. It was never my first choice to spend time off by taking a cruise or just going to the beach. I’d rather spend time with friends watching a movie or reading a book or something. That being said, it was somewhat relaxing to be on a boat that I knew was ideally not going to be blown up by Demons or hit by a stray bullet as we left everything we thought we knew about life behind us.

I started searching for Malcolm as soon as I possibly could. I wanted to raise my concerns with the apparent lack of a concrete plan before it was too late. I was horribly disappointed by his answer.