by Mark Tufo
A Shrouded World 6
Bitfrost
Mark Tufo
John O’Brien
Copyright © 2020 by Mark Tufo/John O’Brien
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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To all our brothers and sisters that are active duty or who have ever served we want to thank each of you for your service and give special thanks to the families back home that support them.
Contents
Other Books By Mark Tufo
Other Books By John O’Brien
Prologue
1. Mike Talbot — Chapter One
2. Mike Talbot – Chapter Two
3. Jack Walker – Chapter One
4. Jack Walker – Chapter Two
5. Jack Walker – Chapter Three
6. Jack Walker – Chapter Four
7. Jack Walker – Chapter Five
8. Mike Talbot — Chapter Three
9. Jack Walker — Chapter Six
About Mark Tufo
About John O’Brien
A Shrouded World The Series
Other Books By Mark Tufo
Zombie Fallout Series
* * *
Zombie Fallout 1
Zombie Fallout 2: A Plague Upon Your Family
Zombie Fallout 3: The End...
Zombie Fallout 3.5: Dr. Hugh Mann
Zombie Fallout 4: The End Has Come and Gone
Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World
Zombie Fallout 6: ‘Til Death Do Us Part
Zombie Fallout 7: For the Fallen
Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning
Zombie Fallout 9: Tattered Remnants
Zombie Fallout 10: Those Left Behind
Zombie Fallout 11: Etna Station
Zombie Fallout 12: Dog Days
Zombie Fallout 13: A Perfect Betrayal
Indian Hill
* * *
Indian Hill 1: Encounters
Indian Hill 2: Reckoning
Indian Hill 3: Conquest
Indian Hill 4: From The Ashes
Indian Hill 5: Into The Fire
Indian Hill 6: Victory’s Defeat
Indian Hill 7: Defeat’s Victory
Lycan Fallout
* * *
Lycan Fallout 1: Rise Of The Werewolf
Lycan Fallout 2: Fall Of Man
Lycan Fallout 3: End Of An Age
Lycan Fallout 4: Immoralty’s Touchstone
Demon Fallout: The Return
Lycan Fallout 5: Demon Wars
Dystance
Dystance 1: Winters Rising
Dystance 2: Cedar’s Conflict
Dystance 3: The Edge Of Decit
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale Books 1-5
Timothy Series
Timothy
Tim 2
Tim 3: Sliced Diced and Cubed
The Spirit Clearing
* * *
Callis Rose
Other Books By John O’Brien
Other books by John O’Brien
* * *
A New World Series
A New World: Chaos
A New World: Return
A New World: Sanctuary
A New World: Taken
A New World: Awakening
A New World: Dissension
A New World: Takedown
A New World: Conspiracy
A New World: Reckoning
A New World: Storm
* * *
Companion Books
A New World: Untold Stories
A New World: Untold Stories II
* * *
ARES VIRUS
Ares Virus: Arctic Storm
Ares Virus: White Horse
Ares Virus: Phoenix Rising
* * *
THE THIRD WAVE: EIDOLON
LIFTING THE VEIL
Lifting the Veil: Fallen
Lifting the Veil: Winter
Lifting the Veil: Emergence
Lifting the Veil: Risen
* * *
RED TEAM
Red Team: Strigoi
Red Team: Lycan
Prologue
Here it is. Another journal to document the craziness that circles my existence like tweety birds swirling around a cartoon character that has been knocked in the head with a mallet. Seems futile, sometimes, since I’m always losing them. The last one fell out of my pocket when Jack lurched the helicopter during take-off. I’d like to blame him, but tough to fault the man when he’s trying to lift us out of an active war zone. Doesn’t matter. They’re a testimonial to the craptastic fuck-fest I’ve been thrown into, so in the name of posterity, I’ll just keep writing, hoping whoever may stumble across this might avoid a similar fate. Of course, all I can give you is a recap in broad strokes. Some of the information has been lost to me, (partly from activity in my youth, mainly illicit drug use, but more so from the way these worlds seem to reset themselves—my friends, Jack and Trip, tend to come through unscathed, but the neurons in my head get scrambled up.) I absolutely cannot believe this shit…but I digress.
It all started with a hit of acid, like these things are wont to do. John the Tripper… sometimes I’ve thought of him as my all-seeing guide, possibly even a guardian angel, but either way, I should seek out the manager of the department of mystical companions and complain that I’ve been gifted a faulty unit. The man exists solely on snack foods and drugs and feels the absolute need to drag me and everyone around him through some of the craziest scenarios ever to be fabricated in alternate realms or realities. One second I’m trying to escape a zombie invasion, the next I find myself dropped into a completely bizarre, alien world where I encounter a man named Jack Walker. Much like me, he’s a soldier doing his utmost to keep his family, friends, and squad safe during a Man-Ending event.
I like Jack; he’s a great guy, no doubt about it. But just like anything, you can’t have the good without the bad. It seems that when Jack and I were dragged into this new, shrouded world, we brought our very own nightmares with us. In his case, it’s night runners. Terrifying beings born from a flu vaccine, they’re faster than us, they hear better, their sense of smell is better, and, oh yeah…they crave the flesh of the living. That, and they’re sentient; they know what they’re doing, and they hunt in packs. The only advantage given to humans is that night runners cannot be exposed to sunlight, and thankfully, for now at least, they don’t understand the concept of weaponry.
In the few moments Trip would show some lucidity, (which were way too few and way too far between), we would get dribs and drabs of what was going on, what might have brought this nightmare to us, or us to it…tough to say we got “insight,” but bits of information, anyway. Near as we could tell, Trip and a colleague of his during his MIT days, (who knew!) had ripped a hole through time, space, and realities, thus freeing the whistlers, another scourge upon us, whose sole intent appears to be destroying everything they come in contact with, merely for the fun of ruining shit.
Whistlers are grotesque creatures with joints that bend at odd angles and striated coloring on their heads that makes anything remotely humanoid about them take a back seat. They shoot paralyzing staples that leave their victims unable to defend themselves, and like everything these days, they feast on whatever they can get ahold of.
We figured they were a fabricated weapon, maybe created by some vengeful gods, chaos-inducing demons, or the most likely culprit, Man. Apparently, it seems, we do have a mission. We’ve been sent, brought,
summoned, drafted, take your pick, to stop them. Why? That, I don’t have an answer for. So, if you’ve picked up this journal, I would imagine right now you’re checking around the entirety of your perimeter, looking for these monsters, as you should. But wait, there’s more! Pretend I spit that out like Stu, (Matthew Lillard) did in the movie Scream; it’s an accurate portrayal of my anger and bewilderment, and I suppose you can add in fear.
On top of all this wonderfulness, (still practicing my sarcasm font), beings called “angels” have been brought into the mix. But if you’re thinking these are the winged, haloed creatures of benevolence and light who protect and guide us, you would have a very skewed understanding of what we are actually dealing with. Something about them terrifies me, down to the very core of my existence. It is unexplainable; still doesn’t make it any less tangible. When faced with them, it is nearly impossible to function correctly with the way my entire system misfires. And from what we can discern, it appears that these angels now want the whistlers for their own cause, which again, was something we couldn’t comprehend why. Whether they aim to stop the whistlers or wield them for their own purpose is anyone’s guess. All we know is they have taken Trip, and if we ever want to succeed in the vast wasteland of misery and death and get to our own homes where, somehow, there was less misery and death, we needed him.
By now, your head may or may not have blown out through the side, trying to shove all this information in. If not, let me see if I can send you over the edge. At some point, Jack, having found a lone cabin far up on the side of a mountain, sought refuge and then sought other people. Unfortunately, what he came across was a group of cultists…or acolytes…or maybe wizards? Again, no clue. What we do know, is they were summoning a demon, for whatever nefarious purpose. Jack interrupted their party by freeing their would-be sacrifice, who suspiciously resembled his daughter, though the image was possibly fabricated for him. Maybe if I’d come across that altar, it would have been one of my kids or wife; I don’t know. What we do know, is he seriously pissed off the demon that was tearing through the veil.
So, like the smart monkeys that we are, we decided to go back. Okay, we were forced back, semantics. This time we got our very own demon, a fifteen-foot, giant red one named Kalandar. I think we’re friends, but seriously, can you ever truly get comfortable with something like that? Like, I would love to believe I could befriend a massive Kodiak bear, and we would wrestle affectionately; I would toss him fish, he would beat the snot out of my enemies, basically, BFFs forever, but could you ever really know what was going through his head? What if the fish you gave him tasted funny and, in a quick fit of temper, he just swiped your head off? I mean, it could happen. And then there’s not much you can do with your head removed, except maybe have your eyes go wide and open and close your mouth like a beached fish. That’s Kalandar in a nutshell. He has been an ally thus far, but when we come to the end of our adventure, will it be the same as he intended? And if not, what could we possibly do to counteract his endgame? So far, we’ve had shit tons of questions and very few answers.
Like a rotten cherry, evacuated from the bowels of a rat with a serious case of E.coli, Jack and I stumbled through savage weather patterns, heat that literally melted the glue that held my shoes together, and extreme cold to the point where we were in danger of our eyelids freezing to our eyeballs. Again, where it came from or what its purpose, impossible to tell. Just another wrinkle on a rayon shirt full of them, and I cannot take this shit anymore.
The night runners had found us and were converging on us in numbers we’d yet to deal with, and all I knew with any certainty was that we were riding in a helicopter Jack was piloting. I had a fat BT next to me, one from a world in which we were far from friends. Our demon flew underneath us in a harness, pretending he was a superhero. We didn’t know where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there. Didn’t stop us though—we’re smart like that. And so, the story rolls on…
1
Mike Talbot — Chapter One
BT had his head back; he’d taken off his helmet and was trying to get some rest, which was pretty impressive considering the loudness of the rotors. With my safety harness fully engaged, I leaned out to get a look at Kalandar, his arms now hanging down toward the ground some couple hundred feet below, and he was fast asleep. How do I know this? Well, because he had a helmet with a microphone next to him, and even over the roar of the helicopter, I could hear his snoring. Once I made sure he was all right, I went and sat up in the co-pilot seat.
“Don’t touch anything,” Jack warned. Not sure how he even knew I was up there, as he had not turned to see me. He had a bead on how I worked, though, because that joystick control in front of me looked so tempting. Who among us hasn’t wanted to fly at one time or another? I sat down, making sure to keep my hands in my lap.
“How you doing?” I asked, doing my best to avert my gaze from the controls that beckoned me like pre-dinner cookies might a five-year-old.
“Do you want the standard: ‘I’m fine’ or the truth?”
“Honestly, Jack, I’m perfectly good with the ‘I’m fine’ approach. I prefer not to dwell too much on the plight of others.”
“Altruism runs deep in you.”
“I know, right?!” I answered.
“Mike.”
“Shhh…I’m enjoying the illusion right now that we’re on a sightseeing trip in Hawaii, gliding over the big island—no active volcanoes though—I don’t want any of that shit, maybe just do a fly-by on a nude beach…don’t linger though. Tracy catches wind of that I could be in trouble. Plus, the sand you’ll kick up’s not fair to the exhibitionists.”
“What do they put in those crayons in the world you’re from?” Jack was referring to the myth that Marines were infamous for eating the waxy coloring sticks.
“Tell you what, if they had anything worthwhile in them, I’d eat a whole box.”
“I was going to say you have problems, but right now, I think I’d join you.”
“Okay, now that you’ve ruined my beach vacation, what’s going on?”
“Fuel is the big one, I assume. We were topped off, which is a plus, and if this is at all like a Chinook, we’ll get about four hundred nautical miles.”
At this point, I had to bite back a mini-diatribe about regular miles versus nautical ones and why in the fuck did they need a differentiation? I wasn’t even going to get into the whole knots and miles per hour thing. I refrained from complaining only because Jack didn’t pause long enough for me to get a word in.
“We’ve gone about half that, so I figure we have another two hundred to travel, but…”
“We have no idea where we’re going,” I finished for him.
“I’m just flying. I don’t like not having a destination in mind. The only good thing is we’ve escaped the time bubble that is Valhalla. I think.” He looked over to me for a reaction.
I shrugged. “Could be a big bubble.”
“That’s helpful,” he replied. “The only reason I’m heading this way is that I wanted to get away from the cold front. Now that it’s gone or dissipated, I’m only going this way because what’s the point in changing direction. We’ve got a few more hours to see if something pops up, but if not, I’d like to get a consensus of what everyone wants to do. So far, I’m looking at barren landscape everywhere. There will be resources on the ground; there always is, but it’s not going to be bountiful.”
“Lizards for lunch. Sounds wonderful,” I was thinking aloud; sometimes it’s better not to. He wanted me to say something, anything, but I had nothing to add. Nothing helpful, anyway. Trip’s book of instructions had ended with us getting a helicopter. Lots of room for interpretation once that page was turned.
“You seeing this?” Jack asked after a while.
The stain of them would have been difficult to miss. There was a sea of zombies in the desert, and they were moving. As a matter of fact, moving in the same direction as we were. I’m all about receivi
ng omens, but really? Couldn’t we just once get a sign where there was an arrow made of big rocks or even better—a buxom blonde smiling and pointing? That would be preferable.
“Got to be thousands,” he added unnecessarily.
“The smell,” Kalandar growled, apparently his nap had been disturbed.
As we flew over the horde, I flashbacked to those nature shows where the cameraman flies over a herd of gazelles upon the Serengeti. In those shows, though, the animals would usually veer off and away from the excessive noise. Those below us were nobody’s prey. Some stopped and watched as we flew past, others ignored us completely as they ran toward whatever destination they had in mind. It would have been foolish of us to think they weren’t headed for the same place we were, wherever that was.
“I piss upon the heads of my enemy!” Kalandar was laughing. I looked down to see a golden stream as thick as a fire hose, gushing down and splashing upon the zombies.
“What the actual fuck.” Safe to say Jack wasn’t amused. Personally, I was dying; it was all I could do to hide my smile…I didn’t want to appear to be enjoying the spectacle.