Gathering Tempest: Nephilim Trilogy, Book 2

By Eric O'Connor

The Nephilim, born from a forbidden union between fallen angels and human women, were an abomination to God. They were gigantic, immensely strong, and very war-like.

Nephilim is a trilogy, a story of redemption. In book two, Ray Bennett travels to Dallas, a city from his recurring nightmares, with his old football buddy Charles Mason, who managed to become one of the worlds most powerful men since he last saw him. Charles attempts to treat Ray to a weekend of excitement and debauchery, but Rays thoughts keep returning to the woman and little boy he met and mysteriously fell in love with the day before.

Violence in Dallas, and around the world, are escalating quickly. The Nephilim travels to Dallas to prepare for a ritual to open a doorway to hell and release Satan. Ray meets a strange old man traveling with a young couple. This man tells Ray his friend is more than who he says he is, and that his nightmares are visions preparing him for battle. He has been chosen by God as a warrior to stand against a half-demon giant who walked the earth in biblical days.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490758794

Eric O'Connor

Eric O’Connor is a graduate of the Dallas Baptist University School of Applied Business Administration and works at a hospital in the small town of Waxahachie, Texas, just outside of Dallas. He grew up in Dallas watching scary movies of all types and was introduced to the amazing world of books while in college. After reading incredible tales by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, he became a full-blown addict of horror novels. Eric has trained in several styles of martial arts and holds a black belt in judo. He currently lives in Arlington, Texas, with his beautiful wife, Chris, of more than two decades, two sons, and his full-grown German shepherd, who thinks he is a lap puppy.

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Copyright 2015 Eric O’Connor.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5878-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5880-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-5879-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905975

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CONTENTS

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1

3:14 a.m., Albuquerque, New Mexico

I sao Tumura moans loudly in his sleep. His breathing is shallow and rapid while his eyes dart from side to side under their lids. The sheets are damp from nervous sweat as his body spasmodically twitches from the mental exertions of the nightmare he is experiencing. Once again, he is facing off with an immense opponent.

This time, however, he is not in a dojo with his beloved Sensei watching over the match. Instead, he finds himself in a strange place, in a strange city. It is nighttime. Most of the streetlights are broken, only a few are providing sparse light. Visibility is poor, but the rusted shells of some of the nearby cars are on fire, providing a little more light, just enough for him to know that he is better off not seeing his surroundings more clearly. All around him, the ground appears to be working alive with impossibly large bug-like creatures and other strange animals that his mind does not even begin to know how to recognize.

What he currently faces is an enormous mutant centipede that must be nearly twenty feet long. He knows better than to allow himself to become cornered like this, but somehow he finds that he has been backed up to a mound of ruined cars that are precariously stacked and off balance. From where this gigantic creature came, he does not know. The alien nature of it has all of his reflexes on edge. He is not sure if the thing is capable of jumping, flying, or possibly even spitting venom at him. It is moving quickly, but not faster than Isao can move, at least not yet. Because of this Isao is not ready to succumb to fear. This is not really any different from facing off with any other opponent. But he still tries to be ready for anything.

Although not as large as what he is facing, there are numerous other equally mutated bugs, insect-like and arachnid-esque looking bugs, scrambling around very closely. A few are flying around on wings that look too insignificant to provide flight, yet they are airborne nonetheless. Presently, they are keeping their distance, possibly due to the proximity of the enormous creature near him now.

From the corner of his eye, he sees what appears similar to a flying fish hovering in front of another flying thing that looks like a scaly weasel. They are moving just out of the illumination of a weak streetlight. The weasel lifts its tail toward the fish and a stream of some sort of milky fluid shoots out toward the other’s face. The fish-thing dodges the stream and juts in to bite the weasel with exaggeratedly large teeth. It shakes its head back and forth, while the weasel stabs at the fish with its tail. The bizarrely alien and savage nature of the attack attempts to hold his attention. However, they are not his immediate problem and he forcefully turns his eyes to the threat in front of him.

This centipede-type of creature has apparently noticed Isao and is now approaching. Looking around at the ground by his feet, Isao finds a good-sized chunk of concrete that appears to be part of the nearby curb, right next to a three foot section of a two-by-four board. He bends over to pick both up as he backs the last few feet to the cars behind him. The thing is now approaching faster than he would have thought possible.

Isao grips the concrete chunk, which is about twice the size of his fist, and throws it as if it is a baseball. He feels a twinge in his shoulder from the intensity of the throw, but the cement bomb flies true to its target, striking the thing squarely on the head. One of its antennae breaks, and its head slams into the street with the force of the impact, but its forward progress is barely interrupted. The thing’s exoskeleton is evidently too thick to really hurt it that way.

When it got within striking distance, Isao jabs the thing in the face with the board, attempting to penetrate the gleaming, hard armor in a sword-thrusting motion. He hits the thing in one of its multi-faceted eyes, which seems to get its attention. Isao then swings the board in a sideways slicing motion, catching the other antennae and breaking it off at the base.

Instead of really hurting the creature, it seems only to put it into a rage. But, at least it stops its forward motion. The front third of the thing’s body rears back into the air, resembling a cobra about to strike. Isao knows he has no time. If he attempts to run around it, the creature will attack with its front legs, which each have a combination of pincers and grasping fingers. He turns and jumps as high up the pile of cars as he can, and begins to scramble his way toward the top of the stack of automobiles. As suspected, he feels the pile shift forward as he climbs higher on the metal and fiberglass husks, bringing him closer to the multi-jointed legs of his pursuer.

Isao jumps up to the next car above him, reaching the top of the stack, but cuts his hand on a broken piece of glass from the window. Gnashing his teeth, he holds on. His weight adds to the leaning mound and tilts the unbalanced pile beyond its point of stability and he falls back toward the enormous bug. He rides the cars downward until he gets within a few feet from the creature before he pushes off with his legs to the right of the thing. He hits the ground in a roll and comes back up to his feet, running. From behind him, he hears a loud crash as the pile of vehicles comes down on the monster-centipede, crushing the front half of its body.

The back half of the thing whips around from side to side. Isao jumps into another shoulder roll to avoid being struck by the armored tail, brushing against a moth-looking creature with a curled up prehensile tail that leaves a thick coating of foul-smelling powder on his shoulder. He falls flat to the street on his stomach to avoid an impact from the centipede tail whipping the other way over his head. But he fails to avoid the tail of the moth-thing that whips out and catches him on the side of the face with a stinging strike. Thankfully, that thing does not appear to want to engage in battle and continues on its flight path.

Isao watches the thing’s retreat. White heat flares as one of the claws on the last set of legs of the centipede manages to catch him on his back as it flails about, raking over him from just above his left hip to his right shoulder. It leaves a deep scratch that feels like fire on his back, overwhelming the stinging pain on his cheek, which is now bleeding down to his jaw.

Instead of moving forward, Isao rolls sideways to his right and just barely avoids another swipe from those grasping claws as the tail whips back toward him. Isao knows that the thing is either dead, or dying, and that the final throes are just reflexive, but the attack has come too close too many times to appear just random. It is as if the tail section is aware of his presence and is desperately trying to take him down with it. Perhaps it has a separate brain at the other end like the extinct stegosaurus was reported to have.

Isao jumps to his feet and turns to look as the rear half of the monster-centipede continues to whip back and forth. The motion is slowing, but is still dangerous to anything that might get too close. The exoskeleton sports numerous spikes that extend both upward and sideways, leaving deep cuts in the pavement; it can still impale anything so soft as a human body.

One of the other arachnid-esque looking things gets too close to the curling and whipping tail. It appears to weigh in excess of 100 pounds, but the tail hits it and turns it into a flying projectile, slamming into an enormous pile of debris and causing a massive avalanche. The falling debris exposes a hoard of dinner plate sized roach-like insects. They scurry out in all directions. The tail finally stops moving and the roaches all zero in on the remains of the centipede, making an effective cover over the dead body. Even from where Isao is standing, he can hear them chewing through the thick armor of the tail.

A few of the roaches start moving in Isao’s direction, so he turns to escape the opposite way. More of the gigantic bugs begin to move towards him as he runs. Over on the left, across the street, there is an alley between a large multi-story building and what appears to be a warehouse that at the moment is devoid of life. He ducks as some sort of flying creature dives at his head and he veers off in the direction of the alley, jumping over a large spider-like thing with a leg-span of a manhole cover. A glowing silver thread shoots up from its tail, but his movement is too quick for the strand to touch him.

Nothing else impedes his way as he runs toward the buildings. When he gets within about 30 feet of the alleyway, the bugs stop their pursuit. He stops to look around and get a better view of his surroundings. Isao wants to see if there are any other dangers around before he accidentally runs directly into one. Quickly spinning around, so that nothing sneaks up from behind him, he views what little he can see in the semi-darkness.

Huge mounds of garbage and other refuse are piled haphazardly around him. The street he is standing on is littered with debris. The view reminds him of the videos he had seen of the aftermath of a war. With the mutated monster bugs, it might be a nuclear war. The nearby buildings are riddled with great holes, empty husks smoking from recent fires. The smell of those fires wafts over to him on a gentle breeze as a few sheets of paper drift by, propelled by an unseen wind, a wind carrying the putrid smell of the surrounding garbage.

There is an undercurrent in that breeze that is bringing a smell worse than the smoke and garbage. The stench is not strong, but it does affect his gag reflex. It is the smell of decomposition, not of a once healthy creature, but rather of something that is riddled with some fetid cancerous disease, something that had never been healthy. He glances around quickly but cannot find the source of the smell. In all directions he is able to detect the awful reek. It is as if the city itself is rotting from a long and evil existence.

Nearby, he can see a few people moving around. For the most part, the bugs are leaving them alone. But, the huge roach-things take advantage when one of them gets too close to their mound of garbage. Yet they seem oblivious to the things crawling all over them. None of the people are very close at the moment.

The visibility is too poor for him to get a good look, but even in this lighting, he can see there is something terribly wrong with the people, in addition to the carnivorous bugs crawling over their bodies. They walk as if under the influence of alcohol or drugs, yet stiff and uncoordinatedly. A few are laid out on the pavement, one of them covered with the roaches, and a couple are pulling themselves along with their arms. From what he can see, more than a few are missing limbs.

The clothes they are wearing are in rags. In the darkness, he can see that the shredded garments on most have huge dark stains in various places; he knows at the core of his being that the spots are bloodstains. Upon closer inspection, there are more people than he originally thought, standing very still. One of them is standing by the burning husk of an automobile. The ragged flesh of the stump of a missing arm and nearly three inches of exposed bone are visible in the poor light. The wound is still dripping blood onto the street. The man appears to be in shock, as he seems unaware of the damage to his ruined body.

Near some of the mounds of refuse, and in the gutters, look to be piles of bodies of numerous people. Some piles are near the illumination of the streetlights, or car fires, and appear to be in the middle of pools of blood. He can hear the flies and other larger things buzzing madly about the corpses. Some of the larger bugs are making a meal from some of the non-moving people. The scene reminds him of one of the video games his software company produces, called Necropolis. A game under the genre of Survival Horror where one lone survivor has to escape a large city where a satanic priest opened up the door to hell releasing several demonic creatures and turning the people of the city into zombies from the force of evil radiating from the door.

Isao has always detested the mindless video games his company produces, believing that they promote idleness in young minds that should be preparing for the future. The Tsukuri Corporation, which Isao works for, produces a large number of educational programs including an assortment of subjects from the grammar school level through college, not to mention a very highly acclaimed High School Equivalency curriculum and a wide variety of computer program tutoring. This is the division where Isao works. The name Tsukuri means preparation, in order to prepare minds for the future.

Still, it is the video games that bring in the majority of revenue and keeps the company in the black. It is hard to fight the interests of people who prefer to be entertained, rather than to be educated in order to become more productive and successful. But then again, the horror video game that he does not believe to be much help in preparing people for life’s challenges looks to be his best resource in dealing with the situation at hand.

In the game, the survivor has access to several weapons that can be used to blow the zombies and demonic creatures to pieces. He, on the other hand, has no weapons, other than his training. However, he knows that his training has been far more extensive than most. In any case, it doesn’t look like he has much of a choice.

A low growl brings his attention back to the front. The dark and giant form is pacing back and forth impatiently about thirty feet away, leering at him with what appears to be amusement, and hunger. The eyes of the monster are glowing red. As it locks eyes with Isao, he stops pacing and turns to face him directly. The look it is giving him is striking a chord and disturbs Isao more deeply than the horror scene going on around him.

Standing at its full height, it is easily more than twice Isao’s height. The silhouette of his opponent in the darkness shows a massively muscular body, even broader than Isao is tall. In his experience, he has noticed that most muscle-bound people or creatures do not move very quickly. But, in the darkness, he sees even the subtle movements to be graceful and fast.

It lifts its massive arms to the sky, arms that are too long in proportion to the rest of its body, giving this behemoth a simian look. Lifting its head back to look up at the night sky, it opens its mouth and bellows out an inhuman roar, causing Isao’s organs to vibrate and incite a streak of panic. What good is his training going to do against this thing? He might as well fight a freight train.

Looking around desperately for anything that he can use as a weapon, he finds another two-by-four board about four feet long with rusted nails sticking out of the side of a pile of refuse. It looks about as effective against this monster as using a bee-bee gun against an enraged lion. Still, he does not see any other options.

He runs the two steps over to grab the board as the creature before him watches him move. When he picks up his pitiful weapon he assumes a defensive stance, holding it like he would his prized katana. The creature actually smiled; at least he thinks it is smiling. The glow of its eyes are bright enough to reveal lips stretched and spreading in a hideous grin, showing double rows of long carnivorous fangs as his great head nods up and down, accepting the challenge. Isao stares at its teeth, which remind him more of the mouth of a great white shark.

It occurs to Isao that he must be dreaming. All the long hours that he has had in the past few days with little or no sleep must be affecting him. He seems to have actually found himself in a scenario of the video game Necropolis, and this thing in front of him must be one of the bosses of the game, a demonic creature that he must defeat before he can progress to the next level.

From the look of this thing, it may very well be the main nemesis. Defeating this monstrosity might bring the end credits, followed by a ranking of how well he did throughout the game. Somehow this feels right, but the dream is too realistic. His five senses are taking input from too many sources. This whole thing has some sort of wrongness about it that he can’t quite put a finger on. The realization that this might be a dream does not have a sobering effect; his fear is not abating one iota.

The thing charges, incredibly fast, raking freakishly long claws at him. Isao sidesteps out of the way of the onrush and ducks below the slashing motion. As the momentum of it carries the creature past a few steps, Isao turns and swings the board at the exposed lower hamstring of the closest leg.

The nails of the board only sink into flesh about an inch deep. The effect is satisfying, but not nearly as much as he hoped. Some of the exposed nails stick out more than three inches, and yet with all his might, he couldn’t sink them any deeper than one inch. The creature’s skin and muscle must be denser than he imagined. Isao instantly pulls the board to him sharply in an attempt to rip the nails out sideways, hoping to tear through the tendon, which would render the leg as useless, but the flesh is too tough.

Isao steps sideways again as the creature turns around so that he would not lose his grip on his pathetic weapon. He manages to yank the board out just as a gigantic hand rakes at his face again. He ducks just in time as the monster turns to face him again. This creature is easily powerful enough to kill Isao with one blow, but so far it is only attempting to cause injury. It apparently wishes to drag out the punishment into an agonizingly painful death. Isao assumes his defensive stance once again.

Expecting a shriek of pain for his efforts of ripping the board out of the thing’s leg, Isao hears a few repeated grunts that sounded like chuckling. Yes, this hellish abomination is actually laughing. It seems to be pleased with its opponent, as though Isao presents a worthy challenge. Oh that’s just wonderful; I’ve managed to impress this freakish beast. Should I be pleased or more frightened?

Like a cat swatting at a mouse, the creature swings its massive claws at Isao. Using his own lightning reflexes, he manages to evade them, but just barely. The creature swats again; Isao ducks but holds up the board. The force of the swat drives the nails of the board all the way into its hand, yanking the board out of Isao’s grip. Just as fast, Isao stands and throws a powerful side-kick into the monster’s groin, his heel landing solidly on its exposed scrotum.

Without hesitation, he jumps to the side and rolls to his feet in an all-out sprint. If he can make it to one of the smoking buildings, he might find a place to hide from this thing. His mind barely registers the grunt of pain from the monster and the swish of wind at his back as it swats at him with the other hand, missing him by mere millimeters.

As he runs, he can hear the thing pursuing him. He feels the ground shake with every step it takes. Isao knows that he does not stand a chance of beating this thing, nor does he maintain any delusions that he can outrun it after seeing how fast it moves. His only hope is that with the monster’s massive weight, he might be able to out maneuver it. In spite of its strength and grace, it cannot overcome the laws of physics with the tremendous momentum it generates with those quick movements.

He feels the thing quickly catching up. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his shadow and that of the monster running after him from the light of the nearest streetlight. In the shadow, he sees the hand of the creature reach up to swat at him again. At the very last instant, he ducks and jumps to the side, out of the way of the strike.

The creature’s massive bulk carries it forward as it tries to dig into the pavement with its claws in an effort to change direction. It slides a few feet, leaving deep claw marks in the cement, and trips over the rusted shell of an abandoned car, causing it to tumble forward into a pile of debris. It is so intent upon fighting his opponent that it is not paying near enough attention to its surroundings. Perhaps Isao can use that to his advantage.

Isao does not stop to see; he continues to run to the closest building, a multi-story official-looking structure. As he runs up the stairs to the main door, he sees what is left of the words Dallas County Courthouse. The glass doors are all broken out so he jumps through the frame of the one on the right. Inside the building, it is much darker. From outside, he can hear the thing free itself from the pile of debris. With a scream of utter rage and frustration, it begins its pursuit again. It is no longer amused with this fight.

Off in the distance, Isao can just barely make out what appears to be stairs going to the second floor. As he runs, a few zombie-like people inside of the building start to move toward him. In addition, some of the enormous bugs are crawling by the walls and have also begun to move in his direction. He can feel their presence, rather than see them.

Even with his own heart beating like a jackhammer and the whisper-soft echoes from the steps of his own feet, he can hear the shuffling steps of the zombies and the skittering of the bugs moving his direction. He also smells the musty fur of a more mammalian creature. He can see something unfurl itself from over in a far corner. It turns its head in Isao’s direction and he can see a slight glow in the eyes from the reflection of the wan light outside. In the near total darkness, he can still tell that it is about as big as a horse, but from the silence of the movements, it definitely does not have hooves for feet.

Instead of moving toward him like he thought it would, it thankfully moved quickly in the opposite direction, more deeply into the shadows, most likely away from the thing that is pursuing Isao. The other things moving toward him do not apparently have that same survival instinct. Fortunately, the people are moving more slowly than the bugs since they are closer. Extending his chi, he can feel the outstretched hands reaching for him. One of the zombies, a female on his left, moans softly, a moan of primal desperation that gives him the creeps, and he shudders involuntarily.

He moves to the side of the doorway after entering the building and he is now in near total darkness. He ducks out of the reach of the woman and steps away. Thankfully, his years of training helped to prepare him for this type of situation. He practiced extensively with a blindfold so that he had to develop his other senses. By reaching out with his chi, he can detect the details of a strange room and maneuver it unerringly. He senses the stairs ahead of him now; he also feels another zombie that stands blocking his way.

Isao jumps over a fallen office chair and leaps again to kick the zombie in the chest, sending him flying out of the way. He makes it to the stairs and takes them three at a time. Just as he reaches the top, he hears the giant creature below blast his way through the main doors with a roar of outrage. Basically, all that had been left of the doors were just the frames, which snapped under the giant’s incredible strength like toothpicks.

On the second floor, Isao moves in complete darkness. It is blessedly devoid of the monster bugs and other things in the immediate vicinity. But, he feels the presence of a body lying on the floor. The hand of the body reaches out for him as it utters a guttural growl. Isao jumps out of the way and runs up the hallway, dodging chairs, office furniture and other obstacles. As he runs, he passes a couple of open doorways leading to offices. He hooks a right in the second open doorway then down a small hall, which turns to the left. After the turn, he then enters an open door on his right.

The office is dimly lit from the weak outside light filtering through the window. He can see another open door, leading to a separate office. Running through that door, he sees that one of the windows of this office is broken out. From the hallway, he can hear that the creature has made it to