by David Aslin
E quickly got into his shark-suit then put on the rest of his black colored gear. “Okay. Let’s shove off shall we?” Ian, though reluctantly, nodded his approval.
The two men pushed the zodiac towards the deeper water. E told Ian to jump in the front. He took the stern end of the boat, along with its nearly two hundred pound motor.
Once they’d oared themselves to just a few more yards offshore, E fired-up the inflatable boats motor, in moments he opened the throttle wide open. Seconds later they were skimming the river at better than twenty knots. At first the engine was loud; but with the flip of a switch, the motor became less than half as loud.
E looked ahead at Ian who was riding in a kneeling position near the bow. “Ian, we’re heading into the gulf, you might see a series of small drift islands. But not many, ‘cause it’s high-tide now, and that’s good for us. But, I’m intentionally staying out of the main channel for obvious reasons.” E pointed ahead at a ship that was entering the mouth of the river.
“I’m in hopes that our luck will hold and we’ll stay a step ahead of that storm system that’s heading this way.” E nodded his chin once as he again pointed, this time at the very dark thickly cloud laden starless sky ahead. Seconds later they both spied far off out in the gulf, lightning flashes, and followed seconds later by thunder. Suddenly the light rain went from not much more than heavy drizzle, to a full on downpour.
So far, Ian wasn’t really made uncomfortable by the intensifying rain. It was tropically warm, like the gulf itself; of which he’d forcibly became rapidly acclimated to, due to the near constant bow breaching waves, and face douching plus-tepid, eye-stinging sea spray.
“How far to the Island?” Ian almost shouted out while wiping rain and sea from his face.
“Not far now.” E calmly replied. It appeared to Ian that E was totally unaffected, strangely oblivious even, to their present engulfment in a slow storm surging water-world.
Ian silently mused as he continued looking at E, This, no doubt is nothing, for an ex-British commando, turned half vampire; Navy Seal secret agent type, from hell. Christ, I’ve probably gotten myself into the makings of another Clayton Collins best seller. That is, if I once again am lucky enough to live long enough to tell the tale.
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Two nights previously (Midnight) - Cemetery on the Island
Sounds of wailing shrieks, bongo’s and maraca’s filled the night. Otherwise it was the proverbial ‘calm before the storm.’ Three scantily clad Haitian women, in white linens, danced about a grave frantically, in spastic frenzy-charged movements; eyes rolled back into their heads, exposing only the whites. A spectacle that would appear to anyone not practiced in the art that they were dancing about a grave in some kind of fever-pitched trance.
A fourth women, an albino, was not dancing, she was repeating words in her native tongue over and over. Posed atop her shoulders was a large, equally albino as herself, coral pinkish-white, snake.
In addition to the women, there were two men in lab-coats who were just observers, and one man who was obviously in charge of the show. His face was dramatically painted to appear as a white skull, with exaggerated features, blackened eyes and painted on teeth about his lips. He too, like the rest, was dressed in white linen. But he wore a tall felt top hat, and was in shirt and pants, not the long skirts and semi-see-through blouses that the women wore. His shirt was not buttoned, it was left open intentionally to expose his large chest down to his chiseled six-pack, stomach. In his clenched teeth he held a large lit cigar.
Wielding a machete he slashed it around during the women’s ceremonious dancing. The man then paused and took hold of a rooster that seemed too stupefied to run away. He chopped the head off of the rooster and proceeded to drain much of the rooster’s blood into a black stone bowl. He then chopped the feet off of the rooster and dipped the feet into the blood filled bowl. Using the bloody chicken feet like they were paint-brushes he began smearing the fowl’s blood all over his stomach and then he began dipping and slinging the blood onto the dancing women and onto the gravesite. All the while he too was repeating over and over words in Haitian.
Suddenly there was a muffled sound of boards breaking. A filthy bleeding broken nailed hand, just one, managed to dig, scrape, and claw its way breaching the shallow earth. The hand and now arm, rose slowly, arduously, stretching and grasping upwards from the grave.
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Present time
E pointed ahead as he called out to Ian. “There, look over that way.” Ian glanced back at E to see what he meant. He then looked in the direction that E was pointing, ahead and off to the right of their current position was their destination.
“We’ll be at the island in about five minutes,” E shouted out. Ian nodded that he understood.
The storms intensity and pounding rain continued to intensify. From their present position, it appeared that lighting was flashing in the very direction they were headed. The thunder was getting louder and closer timed with the flashes, as they were quickly approaching the island.
CHAPTER 11
Forteresse Bastille Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne
E turned off the boats motor, and pulled it up out of the water, as they rapidly approached the shoreline. Rain was now pouring down and the wind seemed to be increasing in intensity by the minute; but the slippery up-turned nose of the zodiac, with E at its helm, defied the ragging waves near the shoreline, and was skillfully guided nearly all the way to beach. E quickly leaped from the boat into the shallow surf, and signaled Ian for do the same; which he did without reluctance, knowing he couldn’t get any wetter than he already was.
They both drug the boat up onto the shore, over to some tall grass where it wouldn’t be easily seen.
E stood above the boat looking down at the duffle bag that he’d told Ian earlier was filled with toys. E motioned for Ian to come close.
E opened the canvas bag and began pulling out its contents. “Here … I believe this little .32 popgun is yours.” E spoke while grinning.
“My Berretta, how’d you get…?” Ian held up his hand, motioning to E that he didn’t want to know. He’d quickly deduced that E had somehow broken into his car and found his ankle holster and gun.
“Ole Caretaker, I believe is what you call your pea-shooter.” E said while smirking.
E then pulled out another hand gun from the bag. This one was fastened to a shoulder holster. “Now friend, Ian, this is a weapon, sure and true. Sleek, sexy and deadly.” E removed a handgun from its shoulder holster and held it towards Ian as he spoke, “Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell… Walther PPK, 7.65 millimeter. Lightweight like your little toy, but locked and loaded with Q-branches latest depleted uranium, nitro-encapsulated incendiary rounds; it will penetrate about anything, then explode sufficiently to get just about any job done, I should think. They developed these to be capable of dispatching their own, if need be. There’s no regenerating a new head.” E then smiled and winked at Ian. “By Q-branch, of course these days, I mean the council. They can facilitate just about anything you know.”
Ian wasn’t sure he knew what the reference to Q-branch even meant. Though it did sound a bit ominous, and for some unclear reason seemed vaguely familiar to him.
E then pulled from the duffle bag two orderlies outfits and name badges. He instructed Ian to get out of his life jacket and wet clothes, but to leave on his chain mail; and to slip on his half of their matching attire.
Ian did as E instructed, then strapped his ankle holstered handgun to his right leg. The jumpsuit concealed his weapon nicely.
E then pulled from the duffle bag a lightweight ballistic vest that had numerous pockets for ammunitions and such.
E proceeded to slip out of his wet clothes, he then put on the vest and shoulder holstered handgun; then, he too put on an orderlies jumpsuit and name badge they both looked like they should fit right in as prison hospital staff. Lastly E handed Ian a set of night vision goggles. “Once we get close to th
e place I don’t want anyone spotting the dancing light of a flashlight. E noticed the look on Ian’s face and decided to answer what he was certain was going to be asked of him. “I see nearly as well in the dark, as I do in the light. I’ve no need of such garish toys.”
Ian started to ask what else E was packing in his utility vest, but decided that unless E willingly divulged that information, he might be better off at least for now, not knowing.
Ian did once again ask. “Won’t a place like this have different, I don’t know… security checkpoints with, metal detectors, or…” E grinned. “Ian, this is a prison hospital located on a private island. That’s been retro-converted from a centuries old fort. It’s likely not as sophisticated as you might think. But, in case you’re right, just let me worry about how to deal with such things.”
Ian wanted to take comfort from E’s assurance of taking care of whatever they might be challenged with. But his words to that affect, offered little comfort.
“Okay, let’s get going,” E said as he glanced over a map to the island and its fortifications. “We’re going to have to pass directly through the islands cemetery to get to the drainage tunnel.”
Ian slightly unnerved, thought to himself, Cemetery, he never mentioned anything about a cemetery before.
“Ian use your flashlight for a while before relying on the night vision headset. They take a bit of getting used to, and for now I think the flashlight will serve you better.” Ian nodded in agreement. He had the night vision goggles poised on his head, but not pulled down into place over his eyes.
The two men gathered all that they intended to carry, and began slowly trekking uphill from the beachhead towards a stand of thick mangroves. After once again glancing at his makeshift map, E stepped out front of Ian and assumed the lead.
After ten minutes of arduously marching uphill through mosquito infested swamp, dense bush, and all manner of semitropical fauna, they finally came to a clearing. A clearing that was surrounded by a very old concrete and stone wall. The ages old decaying wall, was around seven feet high, and from their present position around seventy feet away from it and closing fast; it appeared to represent itself as a large rectangular border that likely confined within its walls, the cemetery they were searching for.
E motioned to Ian to look down the large wall, far to their left. As Ian did just that, he pointed his flashlight at its target, which appeared to be a gated entrance. E once again silently motioned to Ian, to follow him as he began making a direct bee-line towards the gate.
E turned his head back towards Ian as he spoke, “The map shows that the best way from here to the fort is for us to pass through the cemetery. The map shows that it has a gate on both ends. This side and its opposite. Not too far from the gate on the other end, once out of the cemetery, we should be able to deviate from the main path and service road that leads directly up to the front of the prison. Where we can slip, hopefully unseen, through the rabbit hole into a din of sin nightmare world. One that you can’t possibly imagine. One where shaved head, mad as a hatter, madmen if given the opportunity will feast on little girls named Alice for lunch, then pick their teeth her bones. And of course by Alice, I mean you! That is if all of that shite about Zombies isn’t just a bunch of bovine fodder; and all we are is surrounded by the most depraved degenerates that our little planet has to offer. Anyway, it’s all cliffs on that part of the island, that’s why I didn’t motor us directly to it. Like I said before, there’s supposed to be an old derelict sewage and storm drain tunnel that leads up deep inside the long ago abandoned underbelly of the fort.”
Ian rolled his eyes and let out a small sigh, as he tried to clandestinely express his discomfort with all of the uncertainties. That, and he was also made miserable by the gorging on his flesh and blood by mosquito’s and other lesser carnivorous beasts, in the forms of biting flies, fleas and lice. All culminating in an epic insect assault that feverously forced Ian to continuously swat and slap at his neck and face; adding to his irritation was the more than apparent fact that E somehow was impervious to the pestilence and their venomous potentially malady carrying afflictions. As bad as it was, Ian knew it would be unimaginably worse had it not been raining as hard as it was. That and the sporadic gale force wind offered, albeit momentary, the occasional partial reprieve regarding the swarms of insects and their relentless bloodlust.
E and Ian reached the gateway that lead into the cemetery. The gate was badly rusted out and broken. It hung at an extreme angle barely held up by only its bottom severely bent hinge. The gate swung slightly from the strong wind even though its bottom drug heavily against the storm drenched grassy-ground.
They entered the cemetery side by side. Ian panned his flashlight all around looking at the heavily damaged graves; many were of the above ground types, made of granite, concrete, and bricks much like those so commonly found in cemeteries in and around New Orleans. But some were less elaborate, and many were of the plain in-ground variety. Some of the apparently newer gravesites, were unmarked, absent of even a headstone. Ian walked up close to better investigate some of the more elaborate above ground crypt-type graves. He immediately noticed at a glance what further set them apart from the much less elaborate ones and especially the unmarked graves absent of all inscribed pomp and circumstance. The elaborate crypts were the final resting place for high ranking military officers who had served at the fort centuries ago. The graves that were lesser by comparison but still adequately marked were occupied by lower ranking officers on down to the simple marked graves of enlisted men.
Ian deduced that the obviously more recent, mostly unmarked graves, were most likely those of deceased inmates of the fortified institution.
E spoke as he motioned to Ian. “Ian, take a look here.”
“What’s up?” He replied as he walked over to see what had caught E’s attention.
“Take a look at this grave. Tell me what you see.” E said as he began looking all around in every direction.
Ian pointed his flashlight to the ground beneath them at what first looked merely like a freshly dug hole in the ground. But as he bent down to have a closer look he noticed there were broken planks and wood fragments mixed all about in the muddy earth. The site was nearly filled with rain-water, but then Ian spotted what he knew E wanted him to see for himself. Though it was washing away, there was still clear evidence of at least something had clawed its way up from inside the hole. The impressions in the mud and dirt all indicated, at least one hand had been desperately at work.
Ian stood up, “The way the broken boards are, well something broke up and out, not into, this …”
E interrupted, “That’s right. Something, broke out!”
Suddenly a cold chill ran up and down Ian’s spine. He too then began looking with his flashlight in every direction.
E spoke. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here, and head to the other side of the island, and find that tunnel.”
E began walking at a brisk pace towards the gate on the opposite end of the cemetery. While passing, the two men began seeing more and more evidence of recently dug up graves, seemingly from inside out.
CHAPTER 12
Tunnel Vision
“Okay. The tunnel’s supposed to be around here, someplace. It’s reasonable to assume that it’s going to be very overgrown and hard to…”
Almost yelling, Ian excitedly proclaimed. “Look, look over there!”
E immediately fixed on where Ian had his flashlight pointed.
E smiled as he replied, “Well done!”
There were rats by the dozens coming in and out of a fixed location that was partially covered with foliage. The two men quickly cleared the loose grass and earth away from what was an obvious bar-gated entrance to a storm drainage system. The tunnel that they were looking for.
The opening was secured by a locked jail-style barred gate. The lock looked perhaps centuries old, and even though it was rusted to the extreme, appeared to still be formidable.
Ian watched as E pulled out his handgun, then retrieved from the vest inside his jumpsuit a black tube that Ian immediately recognized as a sound suppressor. E screw-fitted the silencer to his pistol, then glanced over at Ian, “This is a fluid-filled suppressor, it doesn’t allow much more sound than a small cough.”
E then pointed his gun at the lock, and then fired. Even with the warning, Ian was amazed how quiet the shot really was. E hit the lock square on and it broke into pieces and fell to the ground.
Ian tried to pull the heavy iron barred-gate open, but due to its weight, along with it being still slightly over-grown by interlocking grass and earth, he couldn’t budge it.
E re-holstered his weapon, leaving the suppressor fitted to it. He then took hold of the large gate with his right hand. With a loud grunt he pulled hard against the gate, but with little effect. He then grabbed the gate with both hands and fixed his feet firmly to the ground and pulled with everything he had. Ian was startled beyond words when not only did the gate open, E tore it away from its hinges. It was at that moment that Ian realized perhaps for the first time with absolute empirical certainty; the person standing before him was more than any mere mortal man, and likely much, much more.
“Remind me to never piss you off!” Ian proclaimed as he headed on into the rat infested ages-old sewer. E just smiled.
“So what do you figure our cover story should be to explain why our clothes are soaking wet and filthy?” Ian asked as he trudged forward into the pitch dark tunnel; the only thing breaching the total blackness was his flashlight.
“That’s a good question, Ian. One that I’ve given some thought to myself. A place like this isn’t the best of jobs. I imagine there’s quite a turn-over in staff. People quitting and new hires starting on a pretty regular basis. The pay it offers certainly isn’t enough to offset the unpleasantness for most. The main prerequisite for working in a place like this is a code of silence. I’m sure they’ve been legally bound to silence with the threat of prison should they ever come forward and tell anyone in any depth and detail about who is housed here and what goes on in the place. The employee’s likely know relatively little in the first place. Except of course for the warden, the doctors, and assistants who are part of the places underground black operations sadistic agenda.” E moved on past Ian, taking the lead. Ian couldn’t help noticing in his passing, that E’s eyes were now blazing garnet orbs. The last time he’s seen anything that compared was back in Astoria, when he stood face to face with Salizzar.