THE SON OF ELI 2: LIKE A GOD

CHAPTER 4: THE RAGE OF ELI

The Tombers were fast!

As more poured out, the two batches closed in on the Browns, and for a wild moment, Eli was concerned, fearing the Tombers would cut them off from safety.

His mind raced as he formulated the best way to protect his new friends, and a moment later, he heard terrified shrieks behind him and turned. To his horror, he saw a huge, dirty, and ferocious lion bursting out of the door of the shop the Brown family were going to seek refuge.

"No!" Eli whispered and almost froze. "Kate!"

The beautiful girl was in the lead, but when she saw the lion, the shrieks burst frantically out of her mouth, and she beat a frantic retreat. She tripped on her legs and crashed on her back. The purple eyes of the fierce lion fell on her.

The cat let out a wrathful roar and leapt for her.

Solomon Brown did not pause to think when he saw his daughter going down. He lunged across his daughter's sprawled body with a ferocious look on his face. Kate, screaming and anticipating the claws and teeth of the lion tearing her apart, lay on the ground in a stupor of terror. She saw her father's figure looming above her and going directly into the attacking arc of the lion.

Elsie stopped, her hands gripping her head, and watched with horror as the lion's talons ripped through her husband's torso and its huge, curved, fang-like teeth sank into Solomon's neck. The lion's momentum took them across Kate's head, and by the time they crashed on the ground, the beast had torn out Solomon's neck, almost decapitating the man completely!

Its claws had torn open Solomon's stomach, spilling bloodied intestines on each side of the man. The mouth of the beast was smeared with Solomon's blood. It chewed the chunk of meat from Solomon's neck area with relish. The women were screaming with horror and emotional pain, oblivious to the fact that the horrible Tombers were almost on top of them.

Solomon was jerking on the ground as blood poured out of him and bubbled out of his mouth. His frantic eyes were huge, almost glassy, as he sought out his wife, his hand stretched out and the fingers twitching as if he wanted to touch her.

Elsie was weeping in a strange, shrieking voice when a Tomber reached her and tried to hold her. The Tomber in the pastoral collar was almost on top of Kate now. Rotten and putrid flesh pieces fell off his face as he dropped to one knee and reached for Kate with his gnarly claws and gaping fangs.

Kate screamed, and her bladder let go as warm urine drenched her, but that was the last thing on her mind as she saw death looming.

The son of Eli was breathing hard, his head tucked low, his eyes blazing with uncontrollable rage. One moment he was standing still, and the next second he was moving so fast that it was as if he transported. He was a blur of movement as he snatched Elsie with an arm around her waist. He moved again, causing Elsie to gag with the blinding speed, then he grabbed Kate pulled her away just in the nick of time, causing the pastor Tomber to strike the concreted ground with his deadly teeth.

Eli jumped and landed gracefully on the roof of the gas station where he set down the women gently. They were not exactly screaming, but their mouths were locked in great 'O' shapes with squeaky little sounds coming from their throats, and their eyes so wide open that they looked like they would pop out of their sockets any second.

"Stay here," he said in a fierce whisper, then he was gone.

When Eli landed on the ground, Solomon's outer body had already exploded, and now his internal organs were all bloated up and expanding alarmingly. It was just for a moment though; the sounds came phut, phut, phut, and Solomon exploded out, leaving a sprinkling shower of shiny bones and a sightless grinning skull.

Eli threw back his head, bunched up his fists, then a groan of anguish erupted from his mouth with such fiendish eloquence that the milling Tombers paused for a beat of a second, but not the lion!

It roared and leapt for Eli's throat. The young prince swung a fist with such violence that it practically exploded the head of the lion. The beast landed on the ground, and as it began to twitch in its death throes, Eli stepped on one of its hind legs, gripped the other leg, and yanked it out of the body of the lion. He swung around and smashed it into the Tomber nearest to him, blasting its head right off its shoulders!

What followed was a raw, violent display of cruelty and destruction. Maybe, it was a good thing the Tombers did not have emotions, otherwise they would have fled from the crazed man in their midst.

Even when the flesh and the marrow of the lion leg in his hand exploded out, Eli used the bone as a savage club, moving through the Tombers like an avenging ghost, smashing them relentlessly.

Across the street, near the main church, he heard a shriek and looked up in the heat of his blind rage. He saw a woman running frantically towards him pursued by a horde of Tombers. For one horrible moment, he thought either Kate or her mother had slipped off the roof and was being pursued, but a second closer look revealed that the woman was a stranger.

Eli moved into the centre of the street and grabbed the door of a police sedan slanted across the road. He ripped off the door and threw it in a savage arc. The door moved outwards, curved behind the woman, and smashed into the heads of some of the Tombers. With a roar of rage, Eli lifted the car with one hand and threw it towards the woman. It sailed over her head and crashed into the Tombers, leaving her free for the moment.

There was a stout guava tree growing near the wall of the collapsed cemetery wall. Eli pulled it down with one hand, then split it open into two clubs. Wielding them, he moved through the Tombers and began wasting them.

The pastor Tomber beat his chest like some ancient attacking gorilla, his glaring eyes a shade more purple than the others. When he leapt for Eli, he came with hands and feet bent and hands raised and crooked like a freak vampire or some bird of prey.

Eli dropped one of the saplings and grabbed the other with both hands, took a stance, and smashed the Tomber across the side of the head.

The pastor veered and crashed on the street, rolled, and got to his feet with his eyes a deeper shade of purple. Seeing that particular Tomber had survived filled Eli with such rage that he dropped the club and moved through the rest of the pests, striking, kicking, tearing, smashing.

A scream from the woman on the street made Eli turn around. About seven Tombers had peeled off and were moving towards her with snarling and devilish intensity.

Eli threw himself low, transporting from where he was to the Tombers. He grabbed them around the waist and rushed them at horrifying speed into the wall of the church, smashing them so violently that they broke into pieces.

Satisfied with this mode of attack, and ignoring the look of incredulity on the woman's face, he screamed, dove low, and grabbed about five more Tombers, and rushed them with deadly rage into the building once more, fragmenting them!

Around him, those he had already destroyed began exploding and showering the area with more bones!

Eli was a blur of movements transcending directional paradigms.

Grab, rush, smash!

Finally, it was left with only the pastor Tomber crouched in the road. When Eli crouched and prepared for a rush, the Tomber jumped into the air like a frog, soared high above the buildings, arced, and landed far down the street, away from Eli's sight.

This was a feat Eli had never seen before in the Tombers and the Searots, and he stood gazing in the direction the Tomber had taken with dark eyes.

He was not even breathing hard, and he stood in the middle of the road tall, big, muscular, a very fine specimen of a man if not the finest.

The woman in the street stood gazing at him with her trembling fingers touching her lips. Across from them, Kate and Elsie stood on the roof gazing at him.

They all had the same look on their faces.

Awe!

A look of profound worship!