Nomads

"What do we do?"

"What did this?"

"Will it come back?"

The questions rang in Jason’s ears. He did not know what to do about the “things” that had invaded their camp the night before. He assumed it was the Nomads.

"Let me think." He disappeared into the cabin, the only non-tent structure in the camp.

A very contagious virus had broken out, but that wasn’t the terrifying part. The terrifying part was the vaccines. People thought of them as a means to stop the spread of the virus; they didn't think about the long-term effects. Jason heard the virus and vaccine were both made in China, but he was pretty sure the virus came from the beer. (He chuckled to himself.) It’s a weird theory but most of his theories were pretty different.

However, one thing he was sure of is that the vaccine’s main long-term effect was summoning the demons from within. To make matters worse, the demons could take on different forms, not just that of the body they inhabited.

At first, they were unsure as to how to battle the demons, but they had figured out a way to capture and destroy them. But they had researched and experimented and had created demon “vacuums” in the form of little heart-shaped lockets. These trapped the demons, and when the locket was destroyed, the demons were destroyed too.

The door to the cabin creaked open and in came Connor, Nick, and Kayden. They helped themselves to what was in the fridge and freezer, and sat down.

"Man, are you going to eat that whole thing?" asked Connor, confusion, interest, and just plain surprise on his face.

"Yes, do you have a problem with that?" answered Nick, a tub of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other.

"No. I don’t have a problem with that," said Conner. “Go for it.” He grinned.

“When you’re done with dessert,” Jason told Nick, “how about if we have some dinner? Then, we can sleep in shifts tonight in case the Nomads come back.”

The next morning, Jason walked into the kitchen yawning, a stretch spreading through his body. He hollered out the cabin door, "Hey guys, there is some fresh coffee in here!" The other three came, thundering in.

"Look what the coffee man made," said Nick, grabbing the pot like a child with a candy bar. As the threesome fought over the coffee, their yells and shouts were cut off by screaming outside. They ran out of the cabin, and it hit them like a bullet. The Nomads were back. There were knives flying, guns firing, people and Nomads yelling. Some of the Nomads were on people’s backs tearing into them; others took the form of people’s worst nightmare and scared them to death.

"Grab your heart lockets, saddle your horses, and go save some lives…and destroy some demons in the process." Jason flung himself up the stairs, the other three on his heels. They grabbed handfuls of heart shaped lockets and stuffed them into their pockets. They climbed out the window, jumped off the roof, ran to the stables, got their horses; but when they came back, the nomads were gone, leaving the bodies strewn about, and a trail of broken tree branches and smashed grass.

"I am going to go call some friends of mine. Be right back," said Jason, looking at the horrifying scene around him. The rest of the guys sat down and breathed in. For the first time for a long time they were truly scared.

It took a couple days—a couple of nail-biting days, wondering if the Nomads were coming back—but Jason’s former military friends came to help. They decided that they would follow the trail that went back to the Nomads’ camp, and forge a full-on attack. This plan of action was dangerous but necessary for survival. Time flew by quickly while getting horses, trucks, and weapons ready for the attack. There were many people who had come to help Jason and his friends, but they were pretty sure the Nomads would still outnumber them.

"Are you all ready to head out?" yelled Jason.

"Ready," affirmed Kayden, Nick, and Connor simultaneously.

______

The trail seemed to go on forever, then come to an abrupt stop. The Nomads had a fence around their camp, and they had a single chained gate. Jason’s men broke the chain around the gate and charged in; then all hell broke loose.

The army went through the camp tearing down houses and trapping demons in the heart lockets. The lockets could contain only five Nomad demons, so they had to keep track. The battle was brutal. People and demons alike were getting injured.

Jason saw around him things he would remember the rest of his life. He heard water churning, and splashing, as horses’ hooves came down hard on the surface, kicking up dirt and mud under the water; tires running over tree branches and into puddles, spraying the people around them with toxic water. He heard the faraway cry of an eagle, and the thunder of the water falls on the other side of the camp.

Connor was helping some teammates, while Nick and Kayden were fighting back to back with open lockets in one hand, crosses and garlic in the the other.

“Hey Kayden,” Nick called out. “Why did you bring crosses and garlic? These aren’t vampires.”

Kayden responded, “I don’t know what these Nomads are. I thought crosses and garlic couldn’t hurt.” As if to punctuate the thought, one of the Nomads hit Kayden and he went down hard.

As if to save Kayden from the Nomad, suddenly the ground began to shake. It was like an electric bolt had been sent through the earth. The ground split, rocks and dust flying everywhere, people and Nomads falling into the fiery pool of lava. Trucks, not able to skid to a halt fast enough, tumbled into this trench of death, exploding as the gas inside them caught fire.

Jason wasn’t sure if the battle was almost over, but he knew both sides were getting tired. While fighting off demons he rushed to help his own, trapping demons, and throwing the lockets into the trench.

The battle forged on, both sides struggling to win. Jason’s crew didn’t have much energy left, and it was getting crucial.

Then everything stopped; it seemed that time had frozen. The ground stopped shaking. The battle was over, with the Nomads on the losing end of it all. It had become silent—no eagle, no water, no explosions. Just the silence, an occasional wave, or a random rock falling. But the silence was broken with the sound of footfalls crunching on rock. Those of Jason’s crew who had survived looked around at the horrors that had been caused by this brutal war. A voice broke the silence once again.

"We did it," said Nick, clearly stating the obvious. The four guys met and exchanged bro hugs, and handshake. The fact that they worked together to overcome this threat was the real prize.

After resting for a few minutes, they set up camp for the night. The four warriors, and their army of volunteers, looked forward to a good night’s sleep before heading home in the morning. They awaited the new day, only this time without the demons known as the Nomads.