In the other direction, beyond a slim quarter-mile of woods, the small town of Skyhill sprawled with a population less than 2,000—according to the last census over a year ago. After Violess set up camp, the population had become significantly less. Some of the taller buildings, no more than three or four stories, stood above the trees, but any more detail wouldn’t be discernible.
Something squeaked in the far corner of the room, and Violess turned to see two rats staring at her. They both had mottled, greasy fur and eyes that leaked pus. One squeaked, though it came out as more of a croak. She smiled with sympathetic eyes. “Sorry, boys, Lenny won’t be coming back; you knew this.” The rats turned and sniffed each other. “It’ll be alright. Join the others; I’ve got another job for you later.”
The rats then left, wobbling through a crack in the wall. A patch of fur from one of them tore from its decaying flesh on the crack’s opening.
After a moment, she seethed as she returned to worrying about who the two escapees could run into. The only belongings they had on them were the clothes on their backs. Their phones were destroyed, so they couldn’t simply call anyone, and good luck finding a payphone. There wasn’t really much out there.
Had they gone south toward Skyhill, they might have bumped into someone willing to help, but it wouldn’t have lasted long. Her taint of Ghoul Fever had spread through that town, and now the carriers were under her control. Of course, containing something like Ghoul Fever to just the small town would be difficult, but that wasn’t any of her concern. Not anymore. The bigger the mess, the bigger the distraction.
If the escapees had run into one of her ghouls, she’d know about it by now. She had a way of projecting herself into their consciousness and taking over the driver’s seat. She’d hope they wouldn’t be tainted with Ghoul Fever. She wanted pure bodies, alive, for the upcoming great sacrifice.
What she needed was a great tracker. The dogs, fronted by their alpha, Kael, was by far her best option at this point. With his superior talents, he could hunt and retrieve damn near anyone. He worked fast and wouldn’t work behind her back. He had a sense of loyalty that she enjoyed and often exploited. Sometimes she feared him, even though she knew she would probably survive whatever he could do to her. He could only ravage the body, so she would just find another one to inhabit. Over the years, though, they’d developed enough of a working relationship that she knew she didn’t have to fear him. He’d never laid a hand on her. Perhaps he really had become her lapdog after all this time.
She picked up her phone that sat on the corner of the desk and dialed.
Many miles away, somewhere between Tacoma and Olympia, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked off the side of the road just outside of a small town surrounded by rolling hills. Farther down the slope, away from view of anyone passing on the road, a large man with thick, dark, tangling hair and a beard held a much smaller man at the mouth of a drainage ditch. Brought to his knees, the smaller man whimpered while the large man clamped the sides of the small man’s head from behind, squeezing as if he were testing the pressure of a basketball. The small man struggled and squirmed, but the large man held firm, unconcerned over the pathetic sobs.
The small man cried. “Please … uck! … I … said I was … eerrkgh … sorry.” His forehead pulsed, and his eyes bulged.
The large man’s arctic-green eyes narrowed as he twisted and crushed the small man’s head like a grapefruit. Bone fragments and grey brain matter splattered, cutting the palms of his hands. He brushed off a chunk of the temporal lobe that clung to his black leather jacket, but he paid no attention to his bleeding hands. He stared at the limp body with a gushing stump where his head used to be and grunted, “When a customer tells you ‘whiskey, neat’ he means ‘no ice.’” His deep voice rumbled, like the purr of a tiger. “And he really means it.”
He kicked the body closer to the mouth of the ditch.
On his off time, he enjoyed weeding out what he viewed as bad bartenders. The poor, small man had misheard the order, no thanks to the local news coming from the loud TV set behind him, mixed with the jukebox blasting Mötley Crüe. The bartender knew he had trouble focusing his hearing, where all noises seemed to just blur together. Still, he never expected it one day to bite him in the ass like this. At first, when he left his shift and saw the large man in the parking lot, he thought he was about to get hit on. It happened more often than he liked, so he prepared not to be rude about it. However, he found himself getting jabbed in the throat and strapped to the back of the Harley as it rode out of town.
The large man savored the coppery smell of a squished head split open, licking his fingertips like he just finished a large plate of buffalo wings. He leaned farther into the ditch and dipped his hands into the muddy water, removing most of the bartender’s blood. The wounds from the skull fragments in his palms were already gone, as if they, too, were washed away. He used the water to wipe away other chunks and splats, though he wasn’t particularly thorough about it. As long as the bulk of the mess was gone, he would go unnoticed on the road.
A phone rang from up the slope. The large man groaned and climbed the hill up to the bike.
He was muscular, with a natural tan that he often credited to a blend of Blackfoot and Spokane in his genes. He had powerful shoulders and a narrow waist. Relying on fancy clothes was not a priority for him, as he often saw them as a waste, tearing apart every time. He was, though, fond of the leather jacket: blackened alligator skin and slightly longer than a pea coat. He took care of this baby and would make sure to remove it if he needed to change. If a PETA protestor ever dared to harass him about his coat, they would find themselves in a worse situation than the bartender in the ditch.
As the phone continued to ring, he reached into one of the saddlebags and fished it out. He answered, “Kael, speak.”
A familiar sultry voice on the other line purred, “Have you been a good boy?”
Kael rolled his eyes. He hated the dog puns ─ there were very few who could get away with them ─ though he never understood why she thought they were so amusing. Perhaps it was because she was still new to the surface world? “Hello, Violess,” he said flatly.
She laughed like the snap of a whip. “I knew that would get your attention. Round up your pack. I’ve got a job for you. It’s urgent.”
The sun initiated its plunge below the horizon, leaving enough daylight to see the scale of scorched earth and rubble, nearly a quarter-mile in diameter. Closer to the center, the blackened sediment cratered. White cement walls had fallen over and crumbled into blackened chunks. Evidence of lower levels protruded with iron beams that had bent and warped due to the extreme heat. The location was so secluded that the only way the fire department could reliably find the place was thanks to the giant pillar of black smoke. Since no one was available to open the gates, the firetrucks had to ram through the fencing to get in. Helicopters continued circling after most of the firetrucks drove away.
The fire department finished its work, doing an excellent job keeping it contained and not spreading into the wilderness, but the crew feared there were no survivors.
Finishing a cigarette, a man with a narrow, angular face watched: With the long tan overcoat and khaki slacks, he looked every inch like a detective on a 1970s TV show. His widow’s peak had begun to recede, and the few days of stubble growth appeared unintentional. He stood just outside the fence line, a safe distance from the fire.
A wine-red Challenger drove along the road’s shoulder, passing the fleeing firetrucks, and came to a crawl as it reached the fence. It paused for a moment, then drove along the edge toward the man with the tan overcoat. When it came to a complete stop, the engine shut off, and Fiya got out. She approached him with her hands in the pouch of her sweater. “Paul DeMatto,” she announced.
“Miss Fiya Diaz,” he replied, turning away from her and looking upon the devastation.
Both locked eyes on the helicopter circling back in their direction. By the giant numbe
r four in white lettering on the side, Fiya was confident it was a news chopper. “Do they know anything?” she asked.
“They’re thinking terrorists. All they know is this was a government building, just not what for.”
“I’m sure HQ would love to edit that footage before it airs.”
Paul winced. “Pretty sure that’s live. Not much can be done. They don’t have much, so I wouldn’t be worried. I’ve already spoken to the fire chief. He knows the truth, but he’s running with the arson story.”
Fiya sneered. “He knows the truth?”
“Sure does. He was helped a while back, so he’s a bit savvy about what we do.”
“Uh-huh. Do you know what happened?”
Paul shook his head. “I know the incineration contingency plan went as, well … planned, so we know the last resort works. Apparently, a massive Ghoul Fever infection broke out inside the building. Pretty crazy. Never heard of that happening before. You?”
She shook her head slowly. “No.”
“It’ll be a while before we can find the little black box, so we know for sure it was a Ghoul Fever outbreak. There are already rumblings about that shit breaking loose.”
“Any of the other hunters chime in yet? I haven’t gotten anything new for messages since this morning.”
“Just us so far.”
Fiya sighed and kicked a piece of charred wood near her feet. She shifted her weight to one side, tilted her head, and rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been exterminating as long as you probably have been, but I’m so tired of this hiding-from-the-public crap. Seems like it’s more of a problem to be so secretive than it’s worth. We’d have an easier time keeping everything under control if the public were aware of us.”
Paul turned to Fiya and gave her an accusatory smirk. “Aren’t you the one that runs around with a mask on when you’re on duty?”
She mirrored Paul’s smirk. “It’s for protection, not for disguise.” She knew what other operatives thought of how she dressed on the job, like she was trying to be some kind of comic book superhero. Of course, she was inspired by comic books ─ she was raised on them, and she wouldn’t deny it ─ but that wasn’t the reason she dressed the way she did. “I’ve seen too many of you guys lose teeth not to be cautious.”
“I haven’t lost any teeth.”
“And noses broken, too.”
At that response, Paul blushed as he ground his stub of a cigarette into the dirt. He didn’t think she knew about the time a Sasquatch smacked him squarely in the face, but he also knew hunters sure do love to gossip among one another.
He quickly decided to change the subject. “I let Rome know I’m retiring.”
The helicopter stopped going in circles and changed its course toward Seattle, rising higher to get over the mountains. The sun ducked behind the mountains with it, leaving behind a fiery violet glow in the sky.
Then Paul added, “You should, too.” His tone of voice changed from the snarky coworker banter to cryptic and severe.
“Why’s that?”
There was an aluminum sandwich-board handicap parking sign, detached from its post, with scorched blemishes near Paul’s feet. He kicked it over, covering his cigarette butt. “Something big is going to happen, and we don’t have the muscle to stop it.”
“We can get the other branches here: Appalachian …”
“Would take too long to get here in time. In less than 12 hours, the entire west side of the continent is down to two operatives? At least, two who bothered to show up? Something huge is about to happen, and I know I’m not the kind of soldier to go up against it. A massive Ghoul Fever outbreak, totally uncontained. You know how fast that will spread? If you know what’s best, you should quit. Go to Funkoland or something and enjoy the end of days because they are here.”
Fiya watched the helicopter disappear and gave Paul the stink-eye. “You think this was a hit job and not some random leak?”
“Please. After how many centuries, have you ever heard about a leak that led to this? I’m certain it was a strategic move.” Paul walked away, leaving Fiya standing at the fence that surrounded the smoking crater. She tightened her stink-eye, and he ignored it. “Someone did this, a Ghoul Fever leak doesn’t just get that bad. We’re far better trained to handle something like this before pressing the big, bad, burn-it-all-down button.”
Fiya gravely considered this. She was used to the things they fought having little or no intelligence. Outside of vampires, she didn’t really think she dealt with any undead that could manage a single word; vampires rarely got involved with viruses like Ghoul Fever. Being snobs about that sort of thing made it easy for them to be ruled out as suspects.
Ghoul Fever had become the official name for the virus that spread by one person biting another person. It turned their consciousness into mush, causing them to rely on savage, cannibalistic feeding instinct. When persons become infected, their body temperatures rise immediately and then drop to room temperature. They were effectively dead by medical standards. However, they continue to move. Rigor-mortis eventually set in, slowing them down, but they still move. They have an unstoppable hunger to eat flesh down to the bones of anything nearby. They become ghouls. A substantial wound to the head, damaging the brain, would put them down, as would incineration. Hunters in the Order had extra tools that helped fight against the undead, allowing them to “kill” without needing to abide by specific supernatural rules.
Something or someone had to have brought the Ghoul Fever strain into the building, past all the security, and caused enough of a shit storm for the Order to destroy everything. Hunters could have been in the building, but enough ghouls could still possibly overpower them. Fiya pondered over what could have been a back-door strategy, as Paul implied.
Paul broke her concentration. “This definitely was strategic. I’m positive other operatives who weren’t in the building have been taken out. No one else has answered my calls. Val, Carl, Bruce, Hans, not a peep. My home was broken into. I’d avoid going to your apartment if I were you.”
Fiya thought about how she went straight here from the airport, winding around the mountain range and how lucky she was to have made that decision. Perhaps she could’ve handled it, but since others didn’t, maybe not? “Well,” Fiya started and then hesitated for a moment, biting her bottom lip, “What about Appalachian HQ?”
When she turned to face Paul, he had returned to his silver Dodge Dart.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Haven’t heard from them either, which is why I think it’ll take too long for any of them to get here.”
Her stomach soured again. “Any possible way to convince you to stay? We can’t fight alone.”
“No, we can’t. Our numbers are too low to make a dent, so, we might as well quit now.” Paul climbed in his car but left his door open as he turned the key in the ignition.
The San Antone in her didn’t balk at the idea of quitting just because of small numbers, even if it meant certain death. “You really are chicken shit,” she snapped, shaking her head.
Paul just smiled and replied, “I’ll be at home in Seattle. Look me up. We’ll get drinks or something.”
He closed his door, and Fiya watched him drive away with her arms crossed, still shaking her head. She’s rarely had interactions with Paul before, but really didn’t want future lunch or drinks with him. Something just didn’t sit right with her about him, and even worse now. May your chicken shit ass come down with a case of Ghoul Fever.
She wondered if there really were other operatives still out there, and they just hadn’t gotten the message. Perhaps some who retired and were too stubborn to get on board with modern phones but still had the balls to get in a good fight? She hoped …
Several hours after nightfall, in one of many hidden valleys around Cut-Throat Peak and Silver Star Mountain, the wine-red Challenger parked along an isolated road under the tightly packed trees and brush. The sky was midnight-black with twinkling stars and not a single
cloud trying to hide them. A waning moon loomed.
Fiya watched the Moon from the backseat, curled up with her head resting on a travel pillow she kept under the seats. She wrapped herself with a tiger-striped throw blanket. It may not have looked it, but she was comfortable. She’d gotten used to sleeping in vehicles when away from home, and she found the plush seats of the Challenger a nice upgrade. Sure, she could have gone for a motel or just driven several hours back through the mountains again to get home, risking a possible trap, but she was tired, and this seemed as quiet and cheap as she could get.
After Paul warned she shouldn’t go home, she felt a little extra paranoid. Her mind even told her that inquiring eyes may be watching motels as alternatives if she thought her apartment could be under surveillance. If there was a hit squad, they’d know whom they hadn’t yet killed, slowly narrowing their list down to her.
Though she felt she’d found the perfect spot for some rest, her mind just wouldn’t shut the hell up. Her brain conjured pie charts and even a slide show of the various scenarios, how they all could be screwed, and she just simply wanted to rest.
The back of her head asked her why she even cared? The hunters in the Immortuos Venandi were nothing but glorified exterminators, right? Going from town to town as instructed, terminating pests that the public wouldn’t understand how to handle, and going on to the next. Maybe she really was nothing more than a tool, a blunt instrument. Completely expendable, no one cared about her well-being, and easily replaceable. She got jobs done, but it never seemed enough.
It always seemed to be an ongoing battle that they were probably meant to lose a long time ago. Why bother trying anymore? These challenges circled her thoughts just before she’d fall asleep, if she fell asleep at all.
Then, there was the howl.
Wide-eyed and alert as if a shot of adrenaline burst in her heart, Fiya sat up in the back seat so fast her travel pillow lifted with her face, detaching halfway up.
Graveslinger Page 3