Kane listened to the ravings of the consort before he spoke. “What’s the situation?”
“Antony’s lost,” Wylan answered.
“That’s a shame, but what of Mercer’s cure? Did you find his work there?” Kane unemotionally answered.
“I was driven away by something rather large. I think it—” Wylan stopped in the middle of his sentence by the sudden appearance of the two guards’ heads rolling past his feet. As he turned to see the threat, he heard the sound of something cutting through the air before he felt the cold metal of a blade making contact with his neck. He tried to speak, but found his vocal cords were no longer working, and then the world started to spin as his head tumbled from its normal resting place. His eyes caught the sight of his headless body falling to the ground before a bag was placed over his head and the darkness took away his sight.
Hope was the first to stand and survey the area. She walked over to Hunter’s flashlight, that had been knocked from his hands in the struggle, and shined it on the all-but-stone statue at the rear of the room. “We have got to get out of here before the other one returns.” She looked around at all the papers and files that were scattered around the room when the fighting started. “We also need to gather up as much of this as we can, just in case it’ll help Benjy figure out how to make more Frankies. We need more of them; that much is for sure, after what I’ve seen out of him tonight.” She started to sort through the mess on the floor.
“What about Trip?” Hunter asked. “We need to do something with his body.”
“Why?” a new, but familiar voice rang from the hallway. “What happened to Trip?”
Hope turned, startled by the new arrival, and shined the flashlight on its origin in the dark. She found Benjy standing there. “How did you find us?” She rushed to greet him with a thankful hug.
“The same way you were found by my brothers, my computer. I have a good mind to kick your ass, girl. You put a lot of people in danger. This little stunt of yours almost got your brother and sister, hell, all of them you left back home unprotected, killed. Now, what about Trip?”
“Trip’s dead,” Hope answered. “Shot by one of them, and he didn’t make it. Is everyone okay back at Camp? Please tell me everybody’s safe.”
“They’re all safe now, but there was an attack, and I had to relocate them,” Benjy answered as he made his way across the room to look at Trip’s body, unaware of the juggernaut that he hadn’t yet seen. “Tell me it was all worth it, though. Did you find anything about Mercer’s cure?”
Hunter helped Morgan up off the floor and spoke for the first time. “I think we’ve had a little discovery,” he said as he waved to Hope to shine the light on Franky.
As Benjy caught the sight of the large juggernaut, he froze in his tracks and stared in amazement. “I need you to tell me everything,” he said as he studied the beast from across the room.
It took the trio almost twenty minutes to tell Benjy everything that had happened to them since they arrived at the bunker. They didn’t even go into their adventure at the school, figuring they would save it for the ride home.
Benjy soaked in everything, and after examining the juggernaut, he walked over and scooped up the body of their fallen friend and helped them bury him before they returned to the bunker to gather what they could. He told them to get all the documents and books boxed up or bagged, and where his vehicle was located that he used to get to them. One by one they all loaded up everything they could find and started staging the boxes and the bags outside for transport to the awaiting vehicle.
As the last box was brought out, Benjy and Hunter grabbed the first few boxes and took off with them for the truck while Hope and Morgan stayed behind to stand guard.
Franky wavered between following Hunter, who it still thought was one of its masters, and staying behind with Hope, who it thought was a nice person. Finally, Franky decided to follow Hunter, after Hope told him it would be okay. As Franky ran to catch up with the men, Hope looked over at Morgan and spoke to her for the first time since the fight.
“Are you okay?” Hope asked. “I don’t just mean with the whole vampire attack.”
“Yeah, I mean what the hell just happened is going to take me some time to sort out. Trip was good people, and he shouldn’t have been the one to die. But I guess, eventually, we all do, and at least he made it this far into the apocalypse, so at least he has that to take to the grave.” Morgan stood up and rubbed her sore neck. “I don’t know what else to say. I don’t blame you, though. It’s unfair of Benjy to lay on that kind of guilt. You had a decision to make, and you made it. That’s all you can do. Sometimes the decision will be right, and other times it won’t, but, regardless, you acted, and look what we found when you did. I’m not saying it was worth it, but at least it wasn’t for nothing. We may have just found something that will help us wipe those undead bastards off the face of the Earth—both of them, the slabs and the vampires. We just keep doing what we have to. I’m sure this won’t be the last time one of us dies on this quest.” Finished, Morgan walked up the small hill to keep a look-out for the return of the others.
“I’m going to go back inside to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Hope said. “You okay out here?”
Morgan gave her a thumbs up, and Hope headed back into the bunker one last time. She walked slowly around the room, checking every drawer, and was just about to wrap it up when she heard a footstep behind her. “Are the guys back?”
When she didn’t get an answer, she turned to look and see who it was, but before she made it all the way around, she was grabbed from behind and placed in a choke hold. She struggled against the grip, but couldn’t break free. She tried to scream out, but found herself almost completely out of breath as the sneak attack had caught her during an exhale.
She thrashed about, grabbing at whatever she could on her attacker, but came up with only cloth from their clothing just as she started to find herself slipping away to darkness.
Benjy and Hunter returned and found Morgan just staring off into the darkness, trying to recall all of the night’s events.
“Hey, where Hope?” Hunter asked. “Let’s get these last boxes and get out of here. Benjy’s got a plane that will get us back home, and I for one need a good night’s rest.”
“She went back inside to take one last look.”
Benjy heard this and volunteered to go get her. “You three go ahead, and we’ll catch up. I need a few minutes with Hope, anyway.”
Benjy entered into the room and called out for Hope, trying not to startle her, but he found nobody in the room. But he did find her flashlight on the floor, and walked over to pick it up. As he did, he noticed scuff marks on the ground from someone’s feet shuffling back and forth and started to think it might just be from the earlier fight, at least until he saw a piece of cloth lying next to the scuff marks. He picked it up and examined it. It was a solid white piece of cotton with some gold trim on it. It also had the corner of an emblem on it, and as he looked even closer, he saw a familiar animal embroidered into it, that of a deer. Realizing who it could belong to, Benjy exploded into a run and made his way outside the bunker before stopping and listening for any sound that might tell him where Hope’s kidnappers might have gone.
He could hear the sounds of his fellow companions heading back south, but that was the only noise he heard at the moment until the sound of a helicopter’s blades speeding up for takeoff entered into the night far to the north. Benjy leapt into the branches of a tree and quickly climbed to the top to get a better look. As he jumped a couple more times to higher trees, he finally reached the upper canopy of the woods just in time to catch a glimpse of a Blackhawk taking flight before it took off towards the east and into the darkness. “Damn it,” he yelled out before he started his descent.
As Benjy caught up with the others, he hurried them to his truck as fast as he could while not wanting to take the time to answer their questions on where Hope could possibly be. As t
hey got to the truck, and after some severe coaxing finally had Franky into the bed of the truck, Benjy relented to the constant questioning and gave them a few answers.
“I have no idea who it was, but I don’t think it was my brothers or their people. I found this, and if it matches up with something I have back in the plane, I will have a good idea of where they’re taking her. That’s all I know right now. Now if you want, we can stay here or we can get moving and maybe catch up to her,” Benjy finished. He was quickly joined by Morgan in the front while Franky made Hunter ride in the back with him.
Chapter 48
David started to fall asleep at the dinner table when he was snapped out of it by a plate of food teasing his nose.
He looked down and saw a pile of fried catfish with some vegetables on the side, and immediately his stomach growled at the sight. He had been up since dawn helping out with chores around their new home, and he was feeling it at the moment.
They arrived two days earlier at the location of a farmhouse way out in the country near Bonifay, a rural town in the middle of Northwest Florida. Their initial arrival almost ended with a bullet in David’s head, as the owners of the house weren’t too keen to let them enter their property. They were met in the driveway by an older couple, Ken and Brenda, in their sixties probably, who were very quick to announce that they didn’t like visitors. After a tense standoff, David was finally able to yell the password to the owners and they let them in.
All of them were put to work right away, with each assigned a set of chores if they were going to stay there; not even the little ones were spared from having duties. The place was loaded with livestock and a nice vegetable garden, that the woman of the house was very fond of, and a huge catfish pond out of which the night’s meal was caught. The younger kids were put on weed pulling duty in the garden with Brenda before they went fishing for catfish, while Renee and Tori were to tend to the animals.
David had been assigned fence duty, helping Ken secure some sections that needed tending and then cleaning the fish that the kids had caught during the day.
Needless to say, he was tired.
He started to dig into the plate when he was reminded by Brenda that they needed to say grace before eating.
Tori perked up at the mention and volunteered to lead it. After a brief speech, but far too long for David’s liking, as he fought his stomach’s growling, they were permitted to eat. David zoned out everybody in the room as he ate, just trying to enjoy the meal. As he was finishing things and about to get up to put his plate in the sink, he was startled by the appearance of Ken running into the room.
“We have some more visitors coming. Grab a gun and meet me out front,” he said before he took off running.
David grunted at the prospect that their day wasn’t over, but got up, anyway, and was joined by Renee and Brenda on the way out of the house, while Tori stayed behind to keep the kids occupied.
They got to the front gate and watched as a pair of headlights came up the long winding driveway leading straight to them. David and Renee took up position in the bushes beside the road to remain hidden while Ken and Brenda stood in the middle, just as they had done to them a few days earlier.
A small SUV finally made its way to them and stopped just as the headlights shone on the awaiting guards. The front door opened and a voice rang out, “Worm grunting equals free bait,” the familiar voice said.
David recognized Benjy’s voice right away, and he came out of the bushes to greet him. As he made his way to the vehicle, Ken came up beside him. “If you had just led off with that the other day, I wouldn’t have taken that shot at ya.”
David ignored the remark as he walked up to Benjy and gave him a welcomed handshake. “Glad to see you made it there and back safely, and it looks like you found them.” He started to look inside the car at a bunch of glooming faces. He began a head count, but stopped when he came across an unfamiliar face. “Who or what the hell is that?” he asked, startled by the large occupant in the rear seat.
“We have a lot to talk about. But let’s get inside first,” Benjy said, solemnly.
“Where the hell is Hope?” Renee yelled from the other side of the vehicle as she realized her sister was not among them.
Benjy looked at the woman. “We’ll talk about everything when we get inside.”
“No. Tell me now if something has happened to her.”
“Your sister’s still alive, but she was kidnapped. I have a very good idea of where she was taken, and we are about to get a plan together to go rescue her.”
“Who the hell is kidnapping people?” Renee yelled. “It better not be one of your vampire friends. I swear, if they’re involved, I will kill every last one of you to get her back.”
“It wasn’t them. That I can guarantee. This was someone else entirely, someone that has long remained hidden from the world of man. I can only assume that with the downfall of the human race, they have finally decided it’s their turn to come out of the shadows and play a part in the world. They must’ve found out about your sister’s change and figured they would collect her so they could convince her to join them, since they share a very similar physiology. Now come inside, and I will fill you in on all I know; and I will introduce you to the newest member of our group.” Benjy climbed back into the vehicle and pulled away towards the front of the house.
Renee walked with a purpose back to the house, with David struggling to keep up. “Hey, if anybody can get Hope back, it’s Benjy. He always seems to have a plan. It’ll be okay,” he said, but could tell that Renee was paying no attention to him.
She stopped before they made it back to the house and turned to face David. “Did you happen to notice Trip wasn’t in there, either? He didn’t mention anything about him out there.”
“I’m sure there’s a good reason, and he will fill us in on the details, just give ’im a chance.”
“He better,” Renee said as she stormed inside to find out.
Chapter 49
President Miller was sitting in Aldrick’s darkened apartment when he first heard the sounds of something moving in the night. He slowly walked over to the window and peeked out, careful to not break the seal on the tape covering all the seams.
At first he didn’t see anything, but could still hear the screams off in the distance. Then, just as he was about to close the gap in the window curtain, he caught sight of something moving in the shadows of the alley across the street from his building. He kept an eye on the shadows until he, finally, saw a figure start to emerge.
He couldn’t tell who it was, right away, but the shape was familiar. He then recognized the outline of Kane, but not the clothes he was wearing. They were different from the usual suit he sported, and looked more like … well, more like a robe.
He watched as Kane sniffed the air as a dog would tracking a scent. He then saw him tense up as something in the air caught his attention. Miller’s heart stopped at the sight, thinking he had been found out.
He fondled the pistol in the rear of his waistband, hoping, indeed, it might do the trick if he had just been found. The seconds ticked by as he nervously watched Kane through the window until he saw Kane zero in on the source of the scent. A person walking down the street, checking garbage cans for any leftovers, was heading straight to the alley where Kane was still hiding. Miller watched as the person got to the alley’s opening; he wanted to scream at the man to run, but knew he couldn’t.
Kane leaped out of the shadows and bit down into the man’s throat, ripping it wide open. Kane, now in the full light of the moon, was fully visible to Miller, and the man could see this wasn’t the first victim Kane had attacked this night—couldn’t have been, not with the amount of blood soaked into Kane’s formerly yellow robe.
He also noticed that Kane’s face looked different, but at this distance, he couldn’t quite get a good look. The attack on the stranger went on for almost a minute as Kane relentlessly kept chomping into the neck until he, just as sud
denly, dropped the body to the ground and took off running, presumably after some other perceived scent picked up in the air.
Kane was gone from sight in a flash, but Miller didn’t feel any safer not knowing if he would be back. He’d been listening over a stolen radio, so he was fully aware that he was being searched for, and figured Kane had decided to take the hunt on himself. He also knew he was wanted in connection with the murder of one of the members of Kane’s inner circle, but didn’t understand what that was all about. About the only thing he did know, was that the creatures that he had been told about in the program all those many years ago after he got home from Vietnam, were more real than he was ever led to believe.
He also knew that if he was going to have any chance of fighting against them, he would absolutely be needing Aldrick to hurry his ass up and get back as soon as possible, since he’d been specifically created to fight these things in the event it was found they really were real.
Chapter 50
Before Benjy could start to explain the events in Colorado, he had a bigger problem to deal with, and that was Franky. As they learned on the flight back, Franky had spent a long time avoiding people, and if not for the fact he thought Hunter was his new master, they wouldn’t have been able to get him this far back. Currently, though, at the sight of even more new faces, Franky was having a bit of anxiety and was not wanting to get out of the vehicle, not even with Hunter ordering him to.
Benjy had turned to Ken and asked if there was someplace more secluded they could take him to until he calmed down a little. Ken directed them to an old shed near the catfish pond. Hunter told them to go ahead and he would get Franky situated and join them shortly.
Renee was pacing around the dinner table, waiting for Benjy to get inside so she could get some questions answered, and it was driving David nuts.
Humanity's Hope (Book 2): Juggernaut Page 24