War Of The Resurrection

By Tabu Chika

Humanity has finally incurred the wrath of the gods. The old wretched earth has been laid to waste and in its place, a new world has sprung up. A world full of fantastical and agreeable new beings who won’t anger the gods with their wanton disregard of faith. Welcome to the Alkebulan.
Amidst the fine loose yellow grains of sands, a strange desert wanderer appears. He brings death and chaos with him. No one knows what he wants but everyone is terrified of the approaching evil.
A race of warrior giants coming to terms with the decline of their dominance sees this as an opportunity to mount the earth and thrust their authority deep into its crevices but times are changing and everyone wants a firm grip on the reins of power.
This new being, shrouded in mystery, threatens to upset the balance of the resurrected world but this time round it won’t go down without a fight. News has spread and creatures are stirring. This second battle of Armageddon will just have to wait.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tabu Chika
• Release date: Jul 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005228422

Book preview

War of the Resurrection: Book I

A Novel by Tabu Chika

PROLOGUE

Francis blazed through the crowded streets of Kenyatta Avenue. The sounds of his quick light steps were drowned by the multitude of crazed individuals who were running wild, in fear of their lives. His face endured the bitter cold sting of the Nairobi air as dark clouds threatened to unleash their liquid anger onto the earth below. A flash of lightening illuminated the streets for a split second, followed by the loud crash of thunder. Francis knew that it was the end; he never thought that he would still be around to see it for himself. He always imagined that the end of days would find him buried in the earth, long forgotten by all those who once cared for him. It was set in his mind how the world would end; a trumpet would blast its holy sound onto the people of the earth. He would hear the sound from his grave and rise up to the second coming of whatever holy deity that presented itself. Everyone would gather outside, both the living and the dead, and their sins would be measured on some gigantic golden scale. An image of all your deeds, whether good or bad, would be projected in the sky for all to see. He always cringed at the thought of everyone seeing him beat off to a wrinkled newspaper cutting of Jennifer Lopez. He was sure no one wanted to see him in the throes of passion; his eyes tightly closed shut as his body spasmed to the pleasures of the flesh.

The loud thud of faces meeting concrete brought him back to his current predicament in the real world. He jumped over a fat woman as she tried to pick herself up from the ground. Francis briefly considered helping the woman but his conscious convinced him otherwise. Society had taught him to help those who were well advanced in age whenever they needed it but in the face of certain death it was every man for himself, no one would risk their life to save another. The crowd continued to surge forward. They were all running from an unseen terror that Francis was yet to meet.

He had been well on his way to the office when the insanity exploded in his face. The horror in the people’s eyes had been enough to persuade him that this was not the time to be asking questions, his legs were the only body part that had responded in the manner that the situation called for.

He had been running for about ten minutes now and he could literally feel his chest tighten. He wasn’t a particularly fit man neither was he a slob, just a guy who wasn’t used to running long distances in such a short time. He saw a street light pole ahead and decided to catch his breath against it. A light continuous ring constantly played in his ear. He looked all around him as people ran past; men, women and children all scampered in one direction. He tried to catch a glimpse of the evil that had descended upon his city and failed to spot anything. He was now getting frustrated at running for no particular reason. He had had enough of that with the continuous battles between the city’s council askaris and hawkers.

A woman collapsed in front of him. He waited for her to rise to her feet but she never did. She didn’t look like she had any reason not to get back up; she had no physical wounds that would suggest mortal danger and yet she lay there, dead. He watched her lifeless body somewhat captivated by it. It was shocking how people trampled on her, as if they didn’t care for the vessel that once held life.

As he tried to understand what could have accelerated the life of such a young woman, he noticed something huge move out of the periphery of his eye. At first he assumed that it was a tree swaying in the wind. Its erratic movements eventually forced his eyes to wander towards this furious bush that didn’t want to settle down, but it wasn’t. He didn’t know what it was, in fact he didn’t have to know, the one thing that he was sure of was that he needed to get out its way as fast as he could. The wind whistled its music in his ear as his feet found flight once again. For the first time since it had all started Francis understood the terror that had laid claim to the peaceful city that he called home.

Judy could feel her heart pound in her chest as she tried to keep up with the crowd that was fast getting away from her. She felt the warm tears flow down her face even as the rain began to fall. There was no escaping from the demon that was behind her, she had lost all hope and was now shuffling her feet along the ground in a vain attempt at escape. She dared not look behind her again, once had been enough to understand the gravity of her position. Life is unfair, it always was for her.

Francis jumped over lost toddlers and street kerbs. The rain now fell in heavy drops, he could hardly see through the steady stream of water in front of him. He glanced back at the monstrosity that had invited terror into his city but dark clouds blocked his sight. It was no surprise when Francis suddenly crashed into something…or was it someone? His feet failed to find traction and soon enough he was on the ground, at one with the mud, an extension of his humanity as told in some spiritual books.

Look at you! Mscheeew! Judy screamed at the stranger as he wiped the mud from his mouth. She picked herself from the pool of water and wiped off the dirt from her blue trousers, like it mattered to anyone. Francis didn’t have time to argue with some woman who couldn’t see where she was going. He quickly continued chasing after the crowd.

Don’t leave me?! Judy pleaded with the man; you could hear the desperation in her voice. Francis pretended not to hear her; after all it was his life that was at stake here. Judy couldn’t believe it. She watched as the man ran on. The water in the pool beside her began to ripple. She could feel the ground tremble beneath her and that’s when god came to her; great earthquakes shall be in various places, and there shall be famines and plagues and panics and terror, and great signs from the sky shall appear and there shall be great storms.

She looked up at the sky and – Francis heard her scream, it was a terrifying high-pitched sound that chilled the blood in his veins. He dared not stop, not now; the creature would be on him if he did. He could hear the blood rush into his ear as his legs quickened. He passed by I&M building and immediately rued his decision not to hide there. He got into ICEA and sought a place to conceal himself. He found a family of street urchins gathered in the ground floor huddled against each other. It was hard to say if it was out of fear or the cold…maybe both. They all heard the boom as thunder rolled in the distance but it was the shrieking that followed after which worried them.

They glanced at each other seeking comfort in their presence. A quiet lull set in the room before another round of earthquakes. The building trembled and started to fall apart. Francis wasn’t ready to die under the rubble of fallen blocks so he took off into the street, right into a pale grey disfigured foot the size of a school bus. He quickly tried to double back into the building and in his haste failed to spot the falling block just above his head. The block hit him on the head, and blood spurted from his wound. A fountain of bright red blood mixed in with the water that flowed into the street drain. He felt faint and collapsed to the ground. He could feel life escape him as more blocks fell on him; crushing his legs and snapping his rib cage. He looked up at the sky and saw the giant grey demon make his way past him, leaving destruction in its wake. His vision blurred for a moment and when it cleared he watched as a small black speck gradually grew larger and larger until – THWACK!

The rain washed up the pinkish grey brain matter onto the street, Francis’s time on earth was done and so was the rest of humanity, but they didn’t know that yet. As the grey god made its way forward to claim more human lives, a huge plant shot up into the sky filling the devastation with other monstrous green shoots that lay foundation to the hope of new life.

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. – Isaiah 65:17

CHAPTER ONE

Hot air blew across the sandy desolate land. The wind carried with it a hint of scarlet; spores of dried blood, blood which once belonged to victims of a raid not too long ago. It’s rare that the desert finds moisture, but when it does it soaks it up hungrily, only this time the wind wasn’t willing to cease its hold on the spent life force of the poor villagers that Ahmsa had crossed paths with.

Ahmsa, it was an unusual name, even for this time, but so was the man who owned it, if he was a man at all. It would be best if we considered him not a man but a humanoid. He was tall with one dark brown eye. A devilish gaping hole graced the other side of his head where his other eye should have been. His bronze coloured skin blended well with the sand. The slit that cut across his face passed off as his mouth and the two holes sprouting with golden hair at the side of his head were what we could assume to be ears. His head was bare as the skin on his arms, no hair dared grow on it, whether it was by choice or otherwise it was hard to tell. After all he was the only one of his kind left. Ahmsa was the closest thing to a human in the new resurrected world; a testament to his ancientness.

No one really knew where he was from or which tribe he belonged to. The few who were vaguely aware of his presence just knew that about fifty years ago a tall bronze-coloured man appeared from the east to bring havoc to the natives of the Alkebulan.

Rotting flesh slid off the bones of what used to be an elderly human. Ahmsa bent and grabbed hold of the flesh watching it curiously as it slid off his hands and onto the ground in thick heavy blobs. He twisted his mouth in disgust and then grabbed a handful of loose soil to wipe away the traces of human DNA that he had just come into contact with. His eye danced at the scene before him.

It was dry and dreary. The heat of the summer sun was amplified by the wind so it felt like a thousand degrees hotter than it really was. The desert shouldn’t have been this far in but ever since Ahmsa appeared to the Alkebulan mysterious things seemed to happen around him. The air was strangled by the iron smell of blood. It was something of an acquired scent but he was no stranger to it. This was the umpteenth raid he had conducted ever since he landed on the land of the black. No one knew what he was but everyone knew he was different and that scared them.

The fine sand particles had soaked up as much blood as it could and flies had descended on the fallen bodies in droves, nasty bastards. The buzzing of their wings fluttered over unflinching dead eyes, into decaying nostrils and out of putrid mouths. Whenever they got out of a body it seemed like even more flies emerged than had gone in. Ahmsa walked past bloated human bodies, his own form casting an even longer and lankier shadow against the pile of decomposing flesh. His face betrayed no emotion but his eye…his eye celebrated the sight of death. He was slowly getting there, getting into the territory that he had set out for many years ago. He was close, he could sense it in him.

A sudden shrill cry suddenly broke through his thoughts. A male human leapt up from the coldness of empty skins and took off into the horizon. Ahmsa watched in amusement as the man scurried across the hot sand. A few of his fighters looked up at him for guidance, others just laughed at what they were seeing. It was difficult to notice the presence of other beings when Ahmsa was around. He was an interesting breed of the new world creatures, you just had to take notice, not that the warriors around him were anything close to normal so to speak.

Look at him, Ahmsa exclaimed. Humans, always scurrying away from our feet like cockroaches in the light. Look at him run.

He wondered how far the human would go before being consumed by thirst, how many days he would endure the heat of the desert. The man was now quickly breaking away from the anonymous evil that had descended upon his village.

Let’s see how fast you can run old human. Ahmsa shouted. He stepped forward and whistled, an almost silent high-pitched sound. For a few seconds nothing happened, the escaping man only continued to increase the distance between him and the murderers.

Murmurs quickly spread through the camp like wildfire, something was happening. People hid under tents, others stayed as still as they possibly could. Eyes watched as the sole man took off into the curve of the earth but then a huge mass of red appeared before him and bit him clean in half. Entrails hung from the sternum of what used to be a man just seconds ago. The dark red monster commanded silence as it chewed on its human snack. A low rumble rung throughout the entire desert as it fed.