BITTEN Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3): The Resurrection Virus Saga

by Tristan Vick

  “I-I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” Rachael said, slowly descending the steps. Rachael paused and looked at the stunned reaction of the audience, still waiting for her to say something meaningful to them. Something that would fill them with hope. Panicking, Rachael raced down the aisle and made a beeline for the large arched doors at the back of the church.

  “Stop her!” shouted the reverend. Two large men in the very back stood up and blocked Rachael’s exit route. She spun back around and dashed back toward the front of the church. The pastor stood up and met her at the front altar and put his hands out to catch her if need be. He gestured for her to take a seat.

  “Just calm down, my dear. Take a deep breath. Everything will be all right. It was just a bit of stage fright is all.” Turning toward his audience, he added in good-humor, “I should know…I have often experienced it myself.”

  To Rachael’s ears the ensuing uproar, as obnoxious as it was unnecessary, sounded an awful lot like canned laughter. The audience took their cue and like stupid sheep just followed along with it. Nothing about this place seemed natural. Everything felt rehearsed or pantomime. Everyone here either grinned like fools or else cried hysterically; they bobbed their heads senselessly and spoke in glossolalia. The congregation was indistinguishable from a bona fide loony bin, Rachael thought.

  Perry Campbell turned to the audience and, using his stage voice, addressed his flock. “My brethren, hear me. It is prophesied that ‘Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.’ Out there,” he said pointing out the large stained glass windows, “are the damned—the Lord’s everlasting contempt. But here, among us now, is one who has gained the gift of everlasting life!”

  The audience erupted in cheers of glee followed by a chain reaction of hyperbolic amens. Rachael was starting to grow worried. She turned to run again, but one of the ushers caught her by the arm.

  Just then a shot rang out.

  Rachael watched as Perry Campbell jumped back with fright, checking himself for wounds. An expression of great relief came across his face when he found that he was unscathed. Looking back toward her, Rachael noticed his gaze fixated on her chest, as if he was intently staring at her breasts. Then he slowly smiled. She looked down to see what he was looking at and, to her dismay, discovered a dark wet area seeping out of her chest. Someone had shot her from behind and her blood was soaking into her clothes. Rachael fell to her knees and landed at the reverend’s wife, Mary Campbell’s feet. Blood oozed from the corner of her mouth and dribbled down her chin as she sat in shock, looking up at Mrs. Campbell, who held the smoking gun.

  “Now, see for yourselves that my husband speaks the truth!” Mrs. Campbell explained, her voice hysterical, her eyes wide with a crazed look that only fanatics and serial killers have.

  Rachael began to feel the room spin frantically around her, the dizzy spell brought on by her drastic loss of blood. Everything was hazy and there was a brilliant white light flooding her vision. Before she knew it she spiraled down and crumpled to the floor. By the time she hit the ground she was already dead.

  Standing directly over Rachael’s corpse was the pastor’s wife, Sister Mary Campbell, looking half crazed and trembling as she held the smoking gun in her hands. Realizing what she had done, she promptly dropped the weapon. It landed on the floor with a solid clunk, and she stepped away from it as if it were a venomous snake.

  Looking over at her husband with big, sensationalist, watery eyes, her lip quivered, a surefire sign that the waterworks were about to come on and drown the world in a flash flood of fictitious tears.

  “I–I don’t know what came over me. I–I…” her words cut out and were quickly replaced by large wet sobs. Her husband took that as his cue and he ran up and caught his dear wife in his arms just as she conveniently, and opportunely, fainted.

  The audience ate up the dramatic presentation as if it were their favorite reality television show—and they simply couldn’t be bothered to peel their eyes away, no matter how absurd it got.

  Opening her eyes, Rachael gasped and sat up. As her eyes focused she saw the entire congregation looking down at her with horrified looks. Then, slowly, the corners of their mouths all curled upward, and the entire church erupted with rapturous elation. Cheers mingled with a chorus of “Hallelujahs!” and proclamations of “It’s a miracle!”

  Rachael couldn’t believe it either. She had been shot point-blank and resurrected moments later. It was, well, miraculous. There was no other word for it. They weren’t wrong. But, still, she knew she had to escape this place and this terrifying blood cult that the Campbells had fashioned for themselves. It wasn’t safe here in crazyville. And for the first time since the outbreak, Rachael felt she’d rather take her chances out there with the monsters than inside here with these demented fanatics—and that revelation filled her with dread.

  Gazing down at her, the Reverend Campbell and his sociopath of a wife both smiled at Rachael with matching Cheshire cat grins that, in Rachael’s opinion, were drenched with equal amounts of malice and madness. Extending out her hand to help Rachael up off the floor, Mary Campbell entreated, “Be reborn as one of us, my child.”

  29

  Evil Resides Within

  Grimacing from the sharp twinge of pain from a split open head, Jennifer opened her eyes to see two blurry figures standing over her. Regaining consciousness, she suddenly felt a pair of hands on her, groping her breasts, but she was still too out of it to fight them off. The large one, Tony, picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder and then carried her over to where Derrick Hanson ordered him to set her down.

  “Put her down over there on that massage table.”

  Big Tony wasn’t at all gentle. He merely tossed Jennifer down like a sack of potatoes, and she groaned as she slammed down hard onto the table. She looked up to find Derrick Hanson standing over her with a twisted smile on his face. Grabbing her by the hair, Hanson yanked her off the table, twisted her around, and then bent her over the massage table. Slamming her face into the padded mattress, he unzipped his bright orange jumpsuit down to his crotch, reached inside and then pulled out his cock.

  Rubbing his limp dick up and down her thigh and ass, he whispered, “You’re going to be a good little girl and take it as quiet as a church mouse. If you so much as squeak, I will cut off your head and let big Tony have his way with your corpse. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Y-yes,” Jennifer answered. Although her voice trembled, it was more out of a concealed rage than actual fear. Suddenly, her blue eyes flickered with an unbridled wrath and a more menacing voice came out of her. “But before you show me all fifty shades of your STD-infested dong, asshole, let me tell you something.” Jennifer sneered, “If you let me live after this, I will hunt you down, cut off your dick, and force you to fucking eat it. Do I make myself clear?”

  Big Tony laughed, but Hanson shot him a sharp look that shut him right the hell up. Turning back toward Jennifer, Hanson added, “Well then, thanks for the heads up, bitch.”

  With her face being mashed into the pad of the massage chair, she could see Big Tony leaning up against the wall, using her knife to slice off some excess thumbnail.

  Derrick Hanson rubbed himself and got ready to rip Hurley a new asshole before proceeding on with defiling the rest of her. “Hope you don’t mind, but Big Tony likes to watch.”

  Jennifer looked over at Big Tony, who winked back at her. She turned her head away.

  “Now take off your clothes like the good little slut you are,” Hanson ordered.

  Jennifer began to unzip her jacket, slowly. She could tell Hanson was having a hard time getting it up. Men like him always did. They couldn’t function, so they took their sexual frustration out on women in the form of violence. Hurley knew if she resisted he’d try to regain control and become even more violent. It was all about the power. Simple-minded men always wanted power, and forcing
someone to submit to sex was the ultimate show of power over another human being.

  “Would you like me to get down here on my knees? I could suck you to perfection if you’d like.”

  “Just shut up and keep undressing,” Hanson ordered, rubbing himself even harder.

  Jennifer dropped her jacket to the floor, but with growing impatience Hanson reached around and aggressively squeezed her tits with his free hand while he jerked himself off with the other. Getting excited, he tore off her pants and bikini bottoms in one go, bent down, and slurped her ass. Standing back up, he turned toward Big Tony and said, “Ready for the money shot?”

  Then spitting into his hand, he lathered himself up and was about to insert himself inside her when out of the blue, a deafening gunshot rang out. The bullet tore through the bath chamber and whizzed past Jennifer’s head, causing her to recoil in fright. Almost the instant she had heard the gunshot, blood splattered all across her bare ass and thighs. She didn’t even have time to scream. Just cringe.

  The high caliber .300 Winchester magnum blast tore Derrick Hanson’s head clean off his shoulders. His headless body teetered for a moment, as blood squirted out of his neck cavity, and then fell over. Blood sprayed Jennifer Hurley’s chest and face, dappling her with crimson polka dots.

  Big Tony turned to see who the hell was firing, but a second bullet drilled him right in the chest, and the big oaf collapsed to the ground with a bone-crushing thud.

  Jennifer, breathing heavily, looked over toward the stairwell and saw Jared Barnes holding his smoking Remington M2010 rifle.

  “Are you alright?” Barnes asked.

  “I think so,” Jennifer replied, her voice still a little jittery, as she pulled back up her pants and got dressed.

  Barnes rushed over and helped her up. Fetching a fresh towel from off of a nearby shelf, he handed it to her. “Here, you can clean off with this.”

  She gratefully took the towel from him and wiped the blood splatter off her chest, then dropped the towel onto Big Tony’s dumbfounded face. Wide-eyed with shock, he really had no clue as to what had hit him.

  “Come on, let’s get packed up and get the hell out of here.”

  “Just one thing first,” Jennifer said. Prying her knife out of Big Tony’s dead hands, she walked over to Derrick Hanson and lopped off his dick. Taking the severed penis in her hand, she found his decapitated head, opened his mouth, and shoved the severed dick into it.

  “Remind me never to piss you off,” Barnes said with a raised eyebrow.

  Jennifer looked over at Barnes and smiled. She wanted to tell him her darkest secrets. She wanted to tell him about the real reason her marriage failed—because she had a sex addiction that she constantly needed to satisfy. She wanted to tell him that she was taking medication to help cope with her schizophrenia. She wanted him to know that with the world falling apart around her, she could really use a good shoulder to cry on. But in the end, she decided to keep it all to herself. All she could do was thank him.

  “Hey,” she said, catching his attention. Barnes turned and looked at her. “Thanks.”

  He nodded stoically, but said nothing. He didn’t have to.

  Meanwhile, in her head, her other self was droning on about not drudging up old skeletons from out of the metaphorical closet while simultaneously reminding her what a whore she was. It was really beginning to piss her off.

  “Shut up,” Jennifer said to herself in a harsh whisper.

  “What was that?” Barnes asked as he tossed her a duffel bag full of supplies.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking out loud.” Jennifer flung the duffel bag over her shoulder and followed Barnes into the elevator. “Wait, what about the boys?”

  “You mean Butch and Sundance? Don’t worry. We’ll pick them up along the way to Bradley Air Force Base.”

  As they waited for the doors to finally close, Hurley looked over at Barnes and asked, “So which one is Sundance?”

  “Does it really matter?” Barnes joked with a smile.

  Jennifer wanted to pin him against the wall and fuck his brains out, but she pushed the temptation aside. Now wasn’t the time. He was still grieving for the loss of his previous lover.

  “I guess not,” she laughed. As the doors began to shut, she said to herself screw it, and grabbed Barnes by the collar, reeled him in, and kissed him firmly on the lips.

  Caught off guard, it took him a moment to figure out what to do with his hands. But once he realized she was in the mood, he quickly began undressing her almost as fast as she was undressing him.

  “I want you inside me,” she whispered eagerly, as she nibbled on Barnes’s ear while he kissed her heaving chest. Her whole body ached for his touch, and she desperately wanted to be filled with ecstasy. She knew that although she may not be able to tell him how messed up she really was, she could certainly show him.

  Letting out a carnal moan as he found his way inside her, Jennifer Hurley’s entire body flooded with sensuous delight. Sex was her go to medicine of choice, and if she was an addict, so be it. She only wished she could overdose on it.

  Pinned against the elevator wall, Jen did what she did best—fuck some lucky guy to within an inch of his life.

  30

  Necrocracy

  Flickering spastically above Rachael’s head, the single 60-watt bulb buzzed, faded, and went dark. It suddenly lit back up with a vengeance and buzzed energetically, as if it were a firefly hanging on to its final spark for dear life. Just like she was.

  She was stripped bare and humiliated, her hands were tied above her head, and she was strung up just high enough so her toes could just barely touch the ground, but not enough to alleviate her entire body weight. She had been hanging there for hours, and like being hung upon a crucifix, eventually she could no longer support her own body weight and she’d slowly asphyxiate.

  A few minutes later she’d be rudely awoken by a bucket of ice-water, and wake up lying on the cold dirt floor, naked and shivering. Each time she died, she’d resurrect again and a few minutes after regaining consciousness, there’d be a flash of white light and a cold bucket of ice-water, and Hank or the reverend would repeat the whole sadistic ritual.

  The constant deaths and rebirths were wreaking havoc with her memory, and she wasn’t exactly sure how long she’d been in the pit. A week maybe? She knew their goal was to humble her, break her, and make her submit to their fear tactics. But she wouldn’t. They could keep her locked up in their cheap little facsimile of hell forever and a day and she still wouldn’t give in. What kept her going was the thought of being reunited with her son, Hector.

  On the walls all around her she could make out cans of food and jars of pickled items. Everything from preserved pig toes to pickled onions. It was the church’s food cellar.

  Behind her, the door slowly creaked open, and she heard two sets of footsteps enter. Soon Reverend Campbell’s smiling face was crouched down beside her. His jackal-like appearance and snake-oil salesman greasiness sickened her.

  “My child, your cleansing is nearly complete. But before you can join us there’s just one more thing you must do.” Before she had time to respond he grabbed her cheeks and pinched hard as he pulled her face to his. “All you have to do is ask for forgiveness.”

  Rachael mustered up a laugh, and then said, “Screw you, asshole.”

  The reverend’s face grew livid, and he grabbed Rachael by the back of her hair and pulled her face to his. “Hear me now and heed my words. If you insist on this sinful rebellion against God, I am afraid we will have to find other ways to make you repent of your corrupting infidel ways.”

  Rachael spat in Perry Campbell’s face. Taking out a white and purple embroidered handkerchief from his inside breast pocket, he merely smiled and wiped himself off, pretending it didn’t bother him. Then he turned to Hank and placed his hand on his shoulder, saying, “By the authority vested in me by God, I pronounce you man and wife.”

  “What?!” Rachael gasped, kicki
ng her legs and trying to spin herself around so she could look them in the eyes. “You have no right. You can’t do this!”

  “I have the power,” insisted Campbell. His words dripped with chauvinism as he dismissed her worth as easily as he’d dismissed her pleas for mercy. Perry Campbell was not a man of mercy—he was a monster, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This much was made perfectly clear to her now.

  “You’d be wise to accept our hospitality, Ms. Ramirez. I wouldn’t want to have to repeat that ceremony for other men. Am I being clear?”

  “Go kill yourself, you God-sized-dick-bag,” Rachael spat in disgust. Hank abruptly laughed, but caught himself short as Campbell shot him a disdainful look.

  “Sorry, Reverend,” Hank apologized, lowering his eyes in embarrassment. Campbell merely scowled and then said tersely, “You’re forgiven,” and stormed off.

  Looking back at Rachael with lustful intent, Hank eyed her up and down and smiled with that nauseating grin that Rachael had come to loathe.

  “We’re not actually married. You know that, right? It’s not real.” Rachael went on. “He doesn’t actually have any legal precedent to make this a binding contract. Anything you do to me will be considered rape by a court of law. Did you hear me, Hank? Rape.”

  “Ain’t no matter. A man has needs. At least this way I can attend those needs without spending an eternity in the cooker.” As he stood there admiring her like a concubine acquired in the spoils of war, he licked his lips, and then with his grimy hands he reached up and squeezed and massaged her buttocks. Rachael tensed at his touch, but she knew that she could still reason with him. Hank wasn’t evil like the reverend and his bat-shit-insane whore of a wife. Hank was just simple minded.