by Russ Watts
“I’m sorry, it was an accident,” said Freya between her tears.
Jonas smiled at her as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Not your fault, Freya, I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have… I…”
Jonas felt Dakota whisper in his ear. She was telling him that she loved him, and he let his remaining eyelid close. This was just a flesh wound, he told himself, just an accident. He had survived worse. He could recover from this. He always did. He sank back and tried to think. His thoughts were lucid, but he was slipping into a euphoric state. Voices at the back of his mind were foggy, distant, as if calling to him from some place far away. Dakota’s was the clearest. She was calling to him; telling him to relax. All he had to do was close his eyes and sleep. The pain would be gone soon. A blissful white light settled over him, surrounding him from all sides, like the gentle touch of his wife from before any of this trouble started. He knew he had to wake up, to help Freya, but it felt so good, he just wanted to relax for a moment longer.
Freya watched the bad people from the boat. They didn’t look like they could swim. If they could, wouldn’t they have all started by now instead of standing there waving at her? She stopped crying, and wiped her face. Daddy always told her not to cry, but to think about why she was crying, and then find a way to solve it. If only Daddy was here now, he would know what to do. Freya reached over the side of the boat and ducked her hand into the water. It was icy cold, and she pulled her hand out quickly. She was not going to swim in that. She didn’t even have her swimsuit with her.
“Uncle Jonas? You don’t look so good.” Freya was glad he was here in the boat with her, but he was asleep now, and she wasn’t sure what to do. She supposed she was going to have to row the boat herself. She looked at the water. The paddle thingy that Jonas had used to get them away from the bad people was gone. She looked around the boat, but it was empty. There was nothing but herself and her Uncle. It was quite nice out on the lake, and her tummy didn’t hurt like it did last time she had gone on a boat. If it stopped raining, she actually wouldn’t mind it. It was quite peaceful, and she started humming a little tune, something she remembered from school. After a minute of that, she was bored though. When she stopped humming it was silent, and she’d had enough of that too. She didn’t have any toys anymore, and now the stupid boat was drifting away from the shore. How were they going to get back to Daddy if they kept going the wrong way?
“Can we go now?” Freya kicked Jonas’s shoe. “Uncle Jonas?”
Jonas groaned, and slowly opened his one good eye. He stared at Freya and said nothing.
Freya drew her knees up to her chin, and fished in her pocket for the key chain he had given her. “Uncle Jonas?” He didn’t look very good, not at all, and the way he looked at her was funny, as if he didn’t recognize her. Her murmured something but she couldn’t make out what he was saying and it just sounded like a groan.
“Uncle Jonas, are you okay?”
THE END
Read on for a free sample of Machines Of The Dead
Acknowledgements
I hope you enjoyed being dragged along with Hamsikker on his tortuous route through America. If reading it was hard at times, then trust me, so was writing it. There is a lot we could learn from Hamsikker and Javier, both good and bad. If nothing else, then at least we know how to dispose of a zombie, right?
I urge you to check out my publisher Severed Press, and the fantastic novels they have produced at www.severedpress.com
Finally, if you have enjoyed this, then please consider leaving a review, and pay a visit to my website www.russwatts.co or look at my other titles:
The Afflicted
The Grave
Devouring the Dead
Devouring the Dead 2: Nemesis
The Grave
Hamsikker
Hamsikker 2
Chapter 1
“Damn it,” Dr. Reynolds said when he looked through the glass into the containment room. Homeless person number 14 was dead, the bots taking too much of the man’s energy, sucking him down to almost nothing more than a husk.
“I don’t understand why the programming isn’t working,” he said, and hit the kill switch, filling the containment room with enough electromagnetic energy to wipe out a small town’s electrical equipment. “The bots worked perfectly in the rats.”
“Sir,” said Dr. Chan, his assistant. “The human brain is just too complex. Maybe we—”
“Maybe we what, tell the military that their project is too much for us? That they should find another company to work on this project? We’ll just give back the millions upon millions we’ve been funded, and say sorry.”
Dr. Chan sighed and looked down. “I’ll have more test subjects rounded up. The city’s full of them.”
“Get on that; tell Chambers I want at least twenty—no, thirty.”
“Thirty? Sir that’s too many at one time. We’ve never—”
“I need to be alone,” Dr. Reynolds said, cutting his assistant off.
“I’ll take lunch then,” Chan said, and left the control room.
When the military first approached him, Dr. Eugene Reynolds had thought it a good thing. Now he wasn’t so sure. What if he couldn’t deliver? What would they do to him? Would he ever be able to work again, or would his reputation be ruined? None of that mattered, because he was going to make the project work; give the government what they wanted. He had never failed before and he wasn’t about to now. With thirty more subjects coming in, plus the ten he had left, he would be able to get the bots to work. He had to.
Sitting down at his computer, he began to re-work the nano’s interface module. He needed stronger bots, and ones that required less host-energy.
Chapter 2
Derek Mayfield had been living on the streets of New York City for ten years, having spent time in almost every borough. At the age of fifteen, he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and under his parents’ medical insurance, he received the proper care and medication for him to maintain a normal lifestyle.
At the age of nineteen, he fell in love with Clare Schmidt, a waitress and recreational drug user. Together, they partied at night and on their days off from work; it was a twenty-four hour party. Marijuana and beer were the drugs of choice, until one day, they decided to try cocaine. From that day forward, it was the hard narcotics: cocaine, speed, meth, and heroin.
Off his meds, Derek experienced major mood swings. They could occur at any moment and anywhere. After Clare died from an overdose, Derek spiraled further down the path of destruction. One day, while arguing with his parents over money, he snapped and killed them both.
Since that night, he had been living on the streets, hiding from the cops and society. His weight had dropped to half of what it used to be; he was dirty and had a full, scruffy beard. He was always looking to score, and one day a large, well-built man came to him, offering him a job.
“Work for you?” he asked the big guy. “I thought you brought me to this back alley because you wanted me to blow you.”
The big man smiled, but something about his smile bothered Derek, making his blood feel as if it had turned into ice.
“I work for a pharmaceutical company,” the big guy said.
Derek’s eyes lit up at hearing the word pharmaceutical.
He was in.
“My boss,” the big fellow continued, “is looking for test subjects. Former drug users, current drug users, and whatnot.”
“What do I gotta do, suck his dick?”
The big man laughed. “No, no. Nothing like that. He needs people willing to go around the bureaucratic tape, the paperwork. Things get done much faster that way. Course it’s all off the record. We keep our mouths shut, and you do the same.”
“How long is the job?”
“Should be no more than a few days and while you’re staying with us, you’ll be fed, bathed, and given whatever you need.” The big man held up a small baggie filled with white nose candy. Derek reached out, grab
bed the coke and held it close to his chest. “And you’ll earn a thousand bucks, cash.”
What did he have to lose?
Now, sitting in his room five stories below Manhattan, in an underground bunker, Derek started to feel as if he were in withdrawal. He was antsy and needed a fix. The small room was too claustrophobic. It made him angry. Made him wonder why he was there in the first place. Who were the rich assholes who needed him? How much were they going to make off him?
He deserved more than a grand.
Derek closed his eyes and began smacking himself upside the head until he felt right again. Truth was he needed the money. Didn’t everyone need money? He’d been allowed to take numerous showers. The hot water was something he had longed for, and he was fed and clothed, just as the big guy promised. He could do this, whatever it was. If all they wanted were samples of his blood, they could have them. Shit, they could keep on having them if he could stay here. His brain was so fucked up. He needed meds. Fuck that. Meds turned him into someone else. He needed drugs, the kind he could use to leave the world and enter the land of ecstasy. Once he got paid, he would go out and celebrate in style. Get the good stuff, not that shitty crank he had to settle for on the streets. Maybe, he would even find a woman.
Okay, he could do this. Let them take whatever they wanted from him. A little blood, sure. Some skin, sure. He had done way worse, for far less. Nasty things with nasty people. He should count his blessings and enjoy himself. If only his head wasn’t so fucked up.
Sitting on his bed, he waited for his turn in the lab.
An hour later, a doctor entered his room.
“Hello, Mr. Mayfield,” the man said. “My name’s Dr. Chan. How are we doing today?”
Scratching his head and twitching, Derek said, “Good. I’m doing good.”
Chan looked at him curiously. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. What have you got for me, Doc?”
“I’m going to give you a very mild sedative, so that when we bring you to the lab, you won’t be as jumpy.”
“I like sedatives. It’s a good idea. I’m a little nervous.”
“Oh, this is nothing really. I doubt you’ll notice a thing, and as far as being nervous, don’t be. All we’re going to do is x-ray your body, take some blood and skin samples and send you on your way.”
“Sounds good, Doc.” Derek held out his arms. “Pick one.”
The doctor approached him, held onto the left arm and injected him with the syringe he was holding. “Okay,” he said, “all done.”
“I’ll just lay back and enjoy . . . I mean, wait for you to come back.”
“Relax, Mr. Mayfield. You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Chan said, then walked out of the room and closed the door. Derek heard the lock click and jumped.
“Fuck,” he said. Why were they locking him in? Precautionary, that’s all, he thought. He laid back and tried to relax, let the drug take effect. However, after a few minutes, he felt the same. He wondered what the hell was going on. He’d been on plenty of sedatives and whatever they had given him, sure wasn’t one.
Shit. They were screwing with him.
Sitting up, his heart racing, he looked around the almost barren room. Cameras! They must have cameras and were watching him to see how he would react. But why?
He searched the room, looking in the corners, under the bed, and along the walls. Nothing; he found nothing. Shit. He was just being paranoid, allowing his condition to get the best of him. If only he had a hit of something, something to calm him down, because whatever they had given him was total bullshit. Maybe, he shouldn’t have lied on the form he filled out and informed them that he was bi-polar, and a heavy drug user, instead of just a recreational one. Maybe then, they would have given him a stronger dose of sedative.
Relax, he told himself, as he paced frantically. All they wanted was some of his stuff, blood and skin, then he was free to leave. Wait, the doctor didn’t mention the money. What if that was a lie. What if there was no money. What if this place was one big sex house and they were slowly dosing him so that he wouldn’t remember getting raped? No, he was being ridiculous. Damn it.
Derek hit himself in the head again, but this time it did nothing to calm him down. Shit, what had they given him? Maybe they knew he was “unsteady” and gave him something to keep him crazy. Watch him suffer.
He needed to get out of there, but if he showed them how upset he was, they might tie him up, or chain him down. Then he would be at their mercy.
Derek bit through his lower lip in grinding pain. “You got to act natural,” he told himself.
A knock sounded on the door, then Dr. Chan entered. “Okay, Mr. Mayfield—”
Derek lunged at the tiny man, toppling him to the ground.
Looking up, he saw that Chan wasn’t alone. He had a guard with him, a rather large man, who was dressed in black fatigues.
As the guard rushed at him, Derek pushed himself up. They collided, but Derek managed to toss the man aside. The guy lost his balance and fell to the floor. Standing over Dr. Chan, Derek stomped the little man’s face, breaking his glasses and his nose. The big guy was getting up. Derek jumped over to him and landed with his feet on the man’s back, knocking him down again. He then lifted his right leg and stomped on the back of the big guy’s neck, over and over, like someone at a slam-dance concert. He was in a rage, wanting to kill. Within moments, Derek had turned the man’s spine into mush. Blood pooled around the guard’s face, his jaw broken, and offset. Pieces of teeth lay in the red liquid like tiny lifeboats at sea.
Turning around, Derek saw Dr. Chan holding his nose and leaning against the doorframe. “You’re a tough little fucker, aren’t you?”
Holding both arms out, shaking his head, Chan said, “no, no, no.” Blood covered the man’s face, his broken, twisted nose, still gushing like a burst water main. The little man turned to run, but Derek was on him in a second. He was suddenly hungry, starving in fact. Grabbing Chan’s head, he yanked it back, exposing Chan’s neck. Derek brought his face down and sunk his teeth into the scientist’s Adam’s apple, tearing it free. He tossed Chan’s body to the ground like the dead weight it was and chewed.
As soon as he swallowed the meat, he wanted to throw up. Leaning over, Derek gagged, but nothing came up. Anger then coursed through him. What had these people done to him?
He needed to escape.
Turning back to the dead guard, Derek searched the corpse, finding a Taser strapped to his hip, a wallet with no cash, and attached to an extend-a-cord was the keycard Derek had seen numerous employees use to access doors. He unclipped the card, stuffed the Taser into the back of his pants, and left the room.
He ran down the hall, the way he had originally come, and came to a locked door. Using the keycard, he swiped the piece of plastic through the card reader and heard the door unlock. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
Another hall lay before him and he didn’t hesitate to sprint down it, passing a large window. Men in lab coats and a single guard, dressed in the all too familiar black fatigues, were in the room. Immediately, an alarm sounded, but Derek didn’t think it was from anyone in the lab. He remembered seeing cameras in the corners of the hallways and in certain rooms. As he approached the elevator, he looked up and saw a camera with its cold eye staring at him.
He pressed the button for the elevator and then thought for a moment; elevators were small, cramped. He didn’t like cramped spaces, especially when he was messed up in the head, which he clearly was now. Instead, he turned toward the exit leading to the stairwell, saw the card reader and used the keycard. The door unlocked and Derek pulled it open, ready to run up the stairs when a guard stepped forward and blocked his way.
“And where do you think you’re going?” the man asked, holding a baton and smiling.
Derek reached behind, pulled the Taser from his pants and shot the guard point blank. The guy went down fast, his body rigid and shaking. Unlike a stun gun, which
only affects the part of the body it is exposed to, the Taser causes pain throughout the whole body, incapacitating the target completely.
Derek dropped the Taser and ran up the metal set of stairs. His stomach pained him, almost as if he hadn’t eaten for days. He had known hunger; living on the streets had brought him that sensation plenty of times.
Up and up he went. He was so caught up in trying to escape, he lost count of the flights. Had he climbed five or six? He wasn’t sure. Finally, he reached the top, coming to a small landing. Elevator doors sat to his right. On his left appeared to be a set of storm-cellar doors and another card reader was next to them. He knew he had reached the exit. Taking the keycard out, he swiped it through the card reader. A beep sounded, then the mechanics of working gears sounded and the doors were opening.
Below, he heard the hustle of boots on the steel stairs as the guards were coming after him. Derek bolted up the steps and found himself outside and in the alley where he was first propositioned to work for the pharmaceutical company.
Derek might have been outside, but he was far from free. The men were right behind him and a solid steel gate eight feet in height, topped with curling barbed wire, stood at the end of the alley. A sharp, stabbing pain erupted in Derek’s gut. He doubled over, thinking he had been shot, but when his hand came away from the area, it was clean. When the pain subsided, he stood. His abdomen was fine; it was just hunger that he was feeling.