At the door, he was assailed by the awful chemical stench and the popping gunfire in an enclosed space. Covering his nose, he slung the shotgun over his back and held the pistol with one hand. Activating the night vision, he slipped around the corner.
Maulky stood at the window with a semi-automatic rifle. He kept his head down as the shots came in from outside; he appeared oblivious to Max’s presence. Max brought his pistol up and eased around the corner. The laser dot landed on Maulky’s back, though the skinhead was moving a lot, so he wasn’t sure he’d hit anything vital. He squeezed off a shot and it smacked the skinhead under his shoulder. He screamed through his filter mask and rolled under a table as Max fired two more rounds. Neither hit, but they shattered a lot of glass and knocked a big metal pot off a lit gas burner on the table.
Whatever was in the pot wasn’t meant to come into contact with human flesh. Other than being boiling hot, it appeared to be quite acidic. It splattered all over Maulky, which brought a most disturbing chorus of screams as his flesh burned and peeled. Max stood and moved around the table in time to see Maulky clawing what remained of his eyes from his skull as the acid burned through his flesh. He pulled off the air filter and screamed until he bit off his own tongue. Then all he could do was make a throaty moan until the acid ate away his lips.
In an act of mercy, Max put a round in the shaking body’s heart. Maulky spasmed and collapsed in a bloody, burned heap. Max felt bile rise in his throat, and it wasn’t just from the stench, though that was considerable. He’d seen a lot of gruesome things—done a lot of gruesome things. This one was going to stay with him for a while. So was the stench… Max found an air filter mask hanging from a nail. He pulled it over his face before the fumes made him dizzy.
Outside, Max heard the pop of suppressed shotguns and the rapid crack of a machine pistol. He tried to exit but was stopped when a shotgun blast hit the door jam. It was unsuppressed, so one of the skinheads must have been using a shotgun as well. He wasn’t sure if they were shooting at him, or if a random shot just happened to come by the door. He wasn’t going to take the chance.
Every inch of his skin was screaming for him not to go deeper into the compound. He holstered his pistol, shouldered the shotgun, and went into the crudely formed hallway despite good sense and self-preservation telling him to do the opposite. It was hard to stay quiet when each step made the loose floor rattle. Max abandoned stealth and slid deeper into the fuzzy green darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Before tonight, Dwayne had only been shot once. It wasn’t a fond memory, but at least he’d lived through it. His friend, the one who was forced to shoot him, hadn’t. He’d been told vampires didn’t feel fear. If that was true, it must be something that developed over time. Dwayne wasn’t there yet. The night he got shot, he was terrified. Tonight, a little less so, but still… there was fear.
“How many times do we have to shoot this guy before he goes down?” Kearny pressed his back to the shed wall, shouting over automatic weapon fire. He loaded the last three shells into his shotgun. “I’ve hit him like five times!”
“I’ve hit him twice,” shouted Paul. He’d taken up a position on the roof of the shed and was drawing most of the fire. He’d abandoned his shotgun in favor of his pistol, but their adversary was smart enough to keep them pinned down. “And I nicked one of the humans. He’s hiding in the building, I’m pretty sure he isn’t dead. How many of these skinheads are there?”
“I lost track.” Dwayne handed his shotgun to Kearny. He had a couple of shells left in the sling. Kearny gave him an odd look. “He’s not going down unless one of us gets to him,” he whispered. He hoped it was loud enough for Paul to hear, but not enough for Luc. “You two keep his attention. I’ma creep ‘round!”
Kearny nodded. Dwayne checked his pistol—three rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. For all he knew, that French bastard was sitting on a crate of ammunition. It didn’t matter. Dwayne drew a black-bladed tanto from his boot and crept around the block shed.
Luc took the bait, firing at the roof when Paul poked over to pop off a shot then at Kearny when he peered around the corner and unloaded a shotgun blast. They couldn’t see him, even with their vampire eyes. The stench of death and the meth lab obscured his scent, so all they had to train on were muzzle flashes. Those moved quite a bit. This guy was fast and smart. Dwayne hoped maybe he was stronger. Doubtful, but it was possible.
He made it to the corner of an adjoining building, holding his breath. He could do that for a long time. When he finally felt safe enough to take a breath, the smell of gunpowder was stronger than the chemical fumes. Dwayne traced the scent to a corner between two disconnected buildings. Peeking around the corner, he saw a thin, pale man with a bald head ducking behind a pile of dry mortar-powder sacks. He held what looked like a Tommy-gun with a stick magazine to his chest. Closer to Dwayne, up against a stack of wood, another sub-machinegun rested. That one had a drum magazine, but it wasn’t like the other one. Dwayne didn’t know guns that well.
A shotgun blast splattered gray powder into the air, clouding the space between Dwayne and Luc. He wasn’t sure if it was just dumb luck, or if Kearny did that on purpose. Either way, he’d have to thank him later. Dwayne rolled around the corner as Luc came up over the bags to return fire. His Tommy-gun sounded like a typewriter.
Dwayne popped all four shots off as he ran. One hit Luc’s shoulder, knocking off his aim so it peppered a particleboard door in the compound wall. The rest of Dwayne’s shots went wild. He dropped the empty pistol and grabbed the oddly shaped sub-machinegun. It wasn’t hard to figure out how it worked though. Finger on trigger, muzzle towards what needed to die. He put the wood stock to his shoulder and knelt to fire.
A burst of 9mm, he could tell by the sound, peppered Luc’s body before the bolt locked. He expected to get more use out of it with the drum magazine, but remembered that Luc had been shooting at them for a while. Four more drum magazines were at his feet, but he couldn’t tell which ones were empty, and Luc was still upright. Dwayne flipped the gun in his hands and held it by the heat-shield before diving into Luc.
The Frenchman laughed, and moonlight reflected on the golden teeth between his fangs. Dwayne hadn’t ever seen a white man with that many gold teeth. He didn’t have long to reflect on it before Luc dodged a clumsy overhead swing from the wooden gunstock.
“Careful with that, Mon ami noir.” Luc brought the rifle butt of his Tommy-gun up, smacking Dwayne in the head. The impact sent him into the bags of mortar. The side of the bags cracked, covering him with dust. “That is an antique.”
Dwayne shook dust out of his eyes and rolled away just as Luc brought the muzzle of his weapon to bear. A quick burst filled the sacks. One round grazed Dwayne’s arm as he rolled away. A shotgun blast from Kearny, probably his last round, sent another cloud of dust into the air. This time, a few bits of shot peppered Luc’s bloody chest. It wasn’t enough to take him down, but it distracted him long enough for Dwayne to get to his feet.
He hoped to get more help from Kearny and Paul, but he heard one of them shout something about Grendel being up. There was no doubt in his mind about whether he could still feel fear.
The stink of crystal meth dissipated in the hall. Max tore off the uncomfortable filter mask and tossed it to the floor when he came to a T in the hall. He looked right, then left, then right again just in time to get pummeled by a fuzzy green shape.
It slammed him to the wall and knocked the air from his lungs. A fist came up and knocked the goggles off. Max rolled away and grasped around on the floor for his shotgun. A bare foot kicked it down the hall then dove under Max’s chest. He was flipped over and looking up in the darkness at a faint outline of what appeared to be a woman. She seemed familiar.
“Max?”
He squinted to see, but it wasn’t any use. It was almost pitch black in here. He recognized the voice though.
“Janice?”
She giggled. “Hi!
Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Yeah,” he groaned and tried to catch his breath. “It’s me. What are you doing here?”
“I’m a vampire now.” She laughed. Max caught a whiff of blood on her breath. “Those skinheads were feeding on me, and they said I was blessed, so I became one of them. Can you believe it? I didn’t even know vampires existed, and now I am one!” She laughed again.
“I’m happy for you…” Max felt around in the darkness for his shotgun. He didn’t find it, but he did find the goggles. He pulled them over his face and there appeared Janice in fuzzy green hues.
“Oh this is so great. I can’t believe you’re here.” She smiled. “You know, I always thought you were so hot.”
“I’m flattered.” He saw the shotgun lying just out of reach. He wouldn’t be able to get it without it being obvious.
“You know…” She straddled his waist. That’s when he figured out she was naked. “We could have a lot of fun.” Janice wasn’t heavy, but she was strong. She couldn’t have been a vampire for very long, a couple of weeks at best. It was practically random who got turned into a vamp and who didn’t. There was no way he could have predicted she’d turn into one of them.
She rubbed his chest, feeling his wounds from the fight with Grendel. She couldn’t smell his blood thanks to the potion. If she had, she’d have bitten him by now. Newly turned vampires are ravenous and not terribly bright. That made them dangerous, but predictable.
“Yeah, okay.” Max nodded with a pained smile. Her face seemed to light up, even in the darkness. “I just need to get my pants.” He looked up at her. “Could you move?”
“Oh yeah,” she said with a giggle. She lifted just enough for Max to adjust. He feigned reaching for his belt hook with one hand and reached behind his back.
He pulled the Glock and popped a round into Janice’s neck. She squealed and grabbed her throat as blood splattered onto Max. He wiggled from under her and put another round in her head. It fragmented in her brain, stopping the screaming. She stood for a second before falling like a tipped log.
Max stood above her and holstered the pistol. She trembled and drooled. The wound in her throat was healing but the one in her head still oozed blood. Max took a deep breath and pulled a knife from his boot. He turned it over so that the saw blade back was pointed out. His stomach churned at what he had to do next.
“I’m really, really sorry.” He knelt on top of her and pinned her chest under his leg. “Trust me. It’s for your own good.” He was glad he could only see in green as he jammed the saw blade into her throat and started raking through muscles and spine.
Somehow, decapitating a former coworker didn’t shake him that much. He attributed it to the numbness running all over his body. Anything resembling a conscience got buried under an ocean of blood and melted eyeball goo. He rolled Janice’s head away from the blood spurting neck and wiped the blade clean on his jeans before sliding it back in its sheath.
He looked at his hands. He’d worn gloves, but some of the blood had gotten under them and soaked his wrists. He was pretty sure he wasn’t susceptible to the vampire virus. But like all viruses, it had the capacity to mutate, so there was no telling exactly what strain of the virus he’d been exposed to. It was too late now to do anything about that. At least he’d kept the blood away from any open wounds.
Max changed magazines in his pistol and collected his shotgun. The gunfire was still going on outside. Max heard one of them, probably Kearny, shout something about Grendel being back up. He had a hard time believing that until he heard a bone chilling roar, the same one he’d heard when Grendel came charging out of his shack.
He needed to find a way out, but didn’t want to go back the way he’d come. Going right brought him to a room at the end of the corridor. Inside, he found metal shelves covered with supplies. There was a door leading out, but it was locked from the outside. It also appeared to open directly into the middle of the gunfight, as a few heavier rounds had already punched holes in the wall, and the sounds of suppressed handguns were audible here.
On the shelves, Max found plastic tubing, burner fuel, several red plastic gas jugs, a dozen bottles of iodine, a few buckets of lye, some duct tape, and numerous other chemicals. All the ingredients of meth in one handy location. Max held his breath and backed from the room.
He crossed over Janice’s headless body and proceeded down the corridor. It ended in a sharp turn that brought Max to an incline. The ground outside the compound was uneven so it was likely this led to a small room in a recessed part of the woods. The ceiling over the ramp was higher, and blocked off from the corridor. Had he given it much thought, he might have realized what a great hiding spot that was for someone who can climb walls. But he didn’t. As such, he was taken completely off guard when a wiry man swung down from the ceiling and slammed his boots into Max’s chest. The impact hurled him through the wall, knocking the wind out of him yet again. He hit the dirt and felt the cool night air rush over his sweaty, bloody body. It would have been a welcome refrain from the stuffy, chemical laced air of the compound under better circumstances.
“Hey, Max.” Boone landed on the floor and stepped through the vaguely Max-shaped hole in the wall. “How’s it going?”
Max rolled away, grimacing in pain as the bones in his back strained against the new bruises on top of the old ones. He began to understand why people in pain cry out for death. Using the shotgun as a crutch, he lifted himself up feebly. To his surprise, Boone did not pounce to finish him off. Apparently, Boone didn’t think he was a threat.
He got to his feet and brought up the shotgun. Searing pain shot through his shoulder, the one he’d hit the wall with during his fight with Skyler. Getting slammed through another wall hadn’t helped. It made aiming awkward and his grip weak, which was why Boone was able to slap the shotgun out of his hands so easily. Max pulled the trigger just as it left his grip and filled the wall with buckshot holes.
With a lightning fast backhand slap, Boone smashed one of the lenses of Max’s goggles and tore them from his head. He rolled with the blow, which would have killed him otherwise. Thanks to the goggles serving as a buffer and his surprisingly quick reaction, Max managed to avoid getting another concussion. It still hurt.
Max stumbled into the darkness. He was on the opposite side of the compound, and heard Dwayne and Luc fighting it out in the clearing beyond. He heard a scream, followed by a collapsing pile of wood. Max didn’t have time to figure out what was happening, because Boone was on him again.
“Do you hear the ravens of war calling your names, brothers?”
Kearny and Paul didn’t have time to figure out what Grendel was talking about, the one-armed monster was on them in a second.
Kearny put a shotgun blast into his scarred chest, but that didn’t even slow him. He was mid-pump when the charred monster slapped the weapon from his hands. Kearny shook and backed away as sharp claws rose above Grendel’s head.
“Of course, I wouldn’t expect anyone else to hear them.” The sharp tips came down in a blur. Kearny leapt out of the way, but got clipped in the leg. It felt like being run through with a jagged spear. His shin became wet with blood as he rolled away, holding his breath to avoid screaming.
Paul jumped from the roof and landed on the hulk’s back. Wrapping his arms around the beast’s head, he pushed the barrel of his pistol to Grendel’s temple and fired. A burst of charred flesh and blood splattered his shoulders as the round passed from one side to the other and streaked into the forest. Stunned, Paul found his throat in the monster’s hand before being hurled across the yard.
“Now you have done it,” he roared, lifting his hand to his head. “You’ve succeeded in giving me a headache. Now I’m really angry!” He threw back his head and laughed. “You think you’re the first person to shoot me in the skull?”
Kearny drew his pistol and fired into Grendel’s thigh. The monster turned and fixed on him with beady black eyes. Kearny raised
the Colt pistol and unloaded three more rounds into Grendel’s chest before the slide locked. He felt his magazine pouches for a fresh one, both were empty.
“Oh f—” He wasn’t able to finish it before Grendel had him in his hand. His feet shook above the ground as the monster held him at arm’s length, squeezing his throat like a balloon. Kearny struggled, but Grendel’s grip was iron.
“If, perchance, you get to heaven,” he said, twisting burned lips into a wicked grin. His teeth were rows of jagged blades like a crocodile. “I do so hope you’ll send my love to my wife and daughter. Tell them…” The grin vanished. “Tell them I’m sorry.”
Kearny felt the world getting dimmer. He couldn’t look away from Grendel, despite the terror rushing through his body. Something about being killed by him felt right, almost like it was an honor to die at his hand, or his destiny?
“But I would imagine you’ll go to hell.” Grendel’s laugh was a series of hisses like a dying man. “In which case, tell my father I’m not sorry at all, and that I’ll be along shor—”
He was interrupted by two shots. Each one made his head shake as the rounds tore through his forehead and hit Kearny in the lungs, but for the strangulation, those might have hurt. Grendel’s grip slacked, allowing Kearny to breathe, though not to escape. Grendel started to turn, but was met by two more shots to the head. One entered his skull from the side and passed through, zipping by Kearny’s face. The final shot entered through his cheek, but didn’t exit.
Kearny fell to his knees with a gasp, sucking in as much air as he could. When the hulking body fell, he jumped to his feet and scrambled away. A sharp pain in his leg, and a pair of them in his chest, sent him to the ground screaming. When the agony became palatable, he looked up to see Paul standing over Grendel’s prostrate form. Smoke leaked from the barrel of his gun. After a few seconds of motionlessness from the monster, Paul took a deep breath and backed from the corpse.
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 54