Master of Plagues by D. B. Reynolds (reading rainbow books .TXT) 📕

The ground underneath the concrete rumbled. Strong winds from the dark Los Angeles skies blew down onto crowds of people along Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevards. Out towards the Pacific Ocean, the powers of the Universe split open the waters. Bursting through the roaring waves were Commodore Mowab and his school of allegiant sharks. At that exact moment, Reverend Warren and his protestors had set Club Sidelines on fire. Big flames engulfed around the building. People inside tried kicking and boldering their way out.
Jetting through the star-filled skies flapping their powerful shark’s fins were Commodore Mowab and his loyal school of other sharks. Several people had called nine-one-one for fire department emergency assistance. But the building was rapidly being eaten up by the raging flames.
Using water stored in his large spiral valves, the commodore ejected many gallons from the Pacific Ocean on top of the burning building. Members from his school forced many more gallons out from their spiral valves. The sharks used their aerodynamic fins to fly around the building shooting water from every direction.
A matter of minutes was all it took to put out the fire. Once an opening was forced through the roof, Commodore Mowab blew his forceful breath inside to rid the burnt club of deadly smoke inhalation. Not a single person inside Club Sidelines was harmed. Reverend Warren looked up in the sky and just knew his eyes had deceived him. A shark with a fluourescent blue color radiating around its frame was only a hallucination.
Reverend Warren rubbed both eyes and said, “I know I’m eighty-two years old, and I know I might be close to being senile, but sharks don’t fly and they don’t glow.”
Commodore Mowab darted down at the reverend and wrapped his fins tightly around his arms. “Wrong, Minister of Hatred. How dare you try and commit genocide on a group of people just because they’re gay. You know what that makes you?”
“What?” Reverend Warren asked, his aged heart pumping with confusion.
“A murderer. It makes you a cold-blooded, calculated, heartless murderer.”
The reverend couldn’t believe what was happening. “Sharks don’t talk, nor do they live outside the ocean. How can you live on land?”
“Never mind that,” Commodore Mowab alluded. “You were just about to commit mass genocide. Why? Because they’re gay? You condemned them to hell, when it’s your ownself who should be condemned. Heaven doesn’t have room for murderers with no remorse.”
“Talking sharks only happen in cartoons. Where’d you come from and what do you want?”
“Before you pass judgement on others, pass judgement on yourself.”
“Speaking to a shark is just like speaking to myself. This isn’t really happening.”
“Oh, it’s happening, alright. Your self-righteous attitude had led you to be accusatory towards the Jewish people. They are God’s chosen people and they are the apple of his eye. The One Most High has made a covenant with his people.”
Reverend Warren pulled away from the tight grip of Commodore Mowab’s fins. He slid the .45 automatic pistol from in between his pants and fired several shots at the commodore. The bullets went straight through him. Boy, did this piss off the commodore.
He grabbed the reverend and slapped him a few times with his flexible fins. Red patches spread across the reverend’s face. To give him something to remember him by, he scraped his face and neck and arms with the tip of his sharp teeth. Ounces of salty Pacific water was spit at the center of his face.
“Remember, gays are people, too.”
“A flying shark that talks? This has gotta be some type of plague from Heaven.”
“My master has ordered me to plague you since you’ve been unkind to mankind.”
“Who in tarnation is your master?”
“You shall never know.”
“Your master sure isn’t God himself.”
“Guessing won’t give you the answer.”
Other members of Reverend Warren’s church congregation ran hysterically up and down Santa Monica Boulevard and onto side streets. They tried avoiding the wrath of the sharks flying above. Six of his members still had loaded pistols in their possession. As the only measure of avoiding a possible attack, they fired up in the air. They hoped to wound the sharks and drop their dead bodies to the ground. Like their leader, Commodore Mowab, the bullets went straight through them. Their anger only intensified from the ambush.
Flying down at high speeds, the school of sharks scraped the backs and chests and faces of the fifty or more church members with the razor-sharp edges of their teeth. Blood trickled from the cuts and stained their clothing. Some of the members were smacked dead in the face by their hard flapping fins. Jugfuls of Pacific water splashed in their faces. An irritable salt taste coated their throats and rushed up their nostrils. Soon, they coughed and snorted out the water.
Commodore Mowab and his school faded away into the skies. Lying on the ground in pain was Reverend Warren and every one of his followers. The shark attacks taught them a good lesson. Just because someone was gay, it didn’t give them the right to try and burn them up inside a gay nightclub.


CHAPTER—25

FLY THROUGH THE NIGHT

The West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station responded to the influx of nine-one-one calls shortly after fire trucks and ambulances rushed to the fire scene at the now burned down Club Sidelines. Smoke still wavered from around the building. The patrons once trapped inside felt lucky to be alive. Patrol deputies and detectives from the Sheriff’s Station didn’t know who to hustle any answers from.
Crowds of people who lived or partied in West Hollywood wanted to know what happened. Lieutenant Theodore Franklin from the West Hollywood Detective’s Bureau brought along with him two other detectives, three sergeants, and a crime analyst to find out who burned down Club Sidelines and why. Leland “Big Juicy” Campbell, a man who stood six-foot-seven and weighed in at two-hundred and eighty pounds, might’ve had some answers for them.
Lieutenant Franklin made a formal introduction to the big bouncer. “Young man, I’m Detective Theodore Franklin with the Sheriff’s Detective Bureau. I can see that you’re a bouncer here at this burned down nightclub. Can you tell me exactly what happened here tonight?”
“Where do I start?” Leland snoozed. “A preacher and a lot of his church people from Tennessee kept protesting in the front of the club. Myself and other bouncers kept telling them to not bother anyone coming or going from the club. We kept telling them to step away from the club. It got to the point they’d gotten out of hand.”
“Out of hand? How’s that?”
“Cursing and heckling and and hissing at the customers. They held up signs that said: ‘God Hates Gays’ and ‘Priests Are Perverts’. They kept telling everyone they were going to burn in hell forever.”
“Had you ever seen any of them?”
“Never in my life.”
“Could you tell me how the club got burned down?”
“The preacher and his people pulled guns on us and made us move away from the front entrance. Then, they got inside those buses over there and drove one of them on the sidewalk to block the front doors. He parked it close enough where no one could get out. After that, one of his people drove the other bus to the back of the club and blocked the back doors. No one could leave out through the front nor the back.”
“With both doors now blocked, what happened after that?”
“The preacher and some of his people grabbed gasoline cans from off the buses and started pouring it all around the building. Once they poured enough of it, they set the building on fire.”
“The building’s now on fire, what took place next?”
“Lieutenant, you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“In my line of work, I’ve heard the weirdest of stories.”
“Great big flying sharks shot gallons and gallons of water out of their mouths to put out the fire.”
“Flying sharks!” Lieutenant Franklin gaped, brushing back his thick brown hair. “Son, sharks don’t fly. They darn sure don’t fly around dry land and shoot gallons of water down onto a burning building.”
“These sharks did.”
“Have you had any drinks tonight?”
“Not’a one, Lieutenant.”
“Are you drug free?”
“To the core, sir.”
“Are you telling me that it wasn’t the fire department who put the fire out?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Are you sticking to your story that it was a bunch’a flying sharks who sprayed water from their mouths like giant hoses?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Did any of these other people see these sharks?”
“I’m only telling you what I saw.”
“Thanks for the information.”
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”
For Lieutenant and others, some stories just didn’t seem true. Who were these sharks? Where did they come from? Like Reverend Warren asked, “How can they live outside of water?”
A caravan of ambulances were lined up and down Santa Monica Boulevard. The harm Reverend Warren and his followers planned to bring to the Club Sidelines crowd, had to be reversed and brought straight down on them. Karma made them pay a serious price.
Lieutenant Franklin searched further for answers. He approached Lieutenant Mark Sellers, a detective also with the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station. “Sellers, you find out anything important?”
“The gay-hating preacher over there,” Lieutenant Sellers identified, pointing over to the side of the ambulance. “He claims that a whole lot of sharks flew down out of the sky and attacked him and his church followers.”
“Ironically, the bouncer working the front door told me the same story. What about all these other people out here?”
“Their story is that it all happened so fast.”
“Did the gay-bashing preacher say that the sharks are the ones who put out the fire to the nightclub?”
“He sure did.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to the fire department?”
“The fire captain said that