The fire fight continued and no one knew where the fifty caliber bullets were coming from, as the snipers on the rooftops cut down the officers, one by one, until there was no movement on the smoking streets, aside from the masked men who running to the black getaway van. They jumped in and made their escape, barreling between two smoking cop cars, barely missing them, as the snipers on the rooftops disassembled their weaponry, putting everything back into the black cases. Then, hurrying over to the back of the building, the snipers ran and jumped over the ledge of the rooftop, taking flight and disappearing into the midday sun.
___________________________________________________
Chapter Thirty-Six
Everyone in the nation was glued to their television set, watching the breaking news of the bank robbery that had just taken place. Someone caught most of the action with a cellphone camera and it was already splashed on every news channel and had gone viral on the interweb, causing widespread fear. So far, the death toll was tallied at forty-eight and there were very few survivors.
JD and Nate watched the broadcast closely, both knowing that they were observing the Sunlife in action.
“We both know those are Vampires, right?” JD summed up, as he punched some numbers into his phone.
“Without a single doubt in my mind,” Nate replied. “No human could do something like this.”
“I’m going home to check on my wife and son, they’re not answering any of my calls,” JD said, reaching for his hat.
Nate picked up his cellphone and tried calling his place, but got no answer, as well. “I better go check on mine too, JD. I’ll meet you back here in a couple hours and then we’ll go look for Mason.”
“I left word with his people, that I wanted to speak with him when he got up. I have a strange feeling… they know I’m on to him.”
“We should be careful. They could set us up and we could walk right into a trap,” Nate suggested, always cautious.
“I thought of that,” JD said to him. “I tried not to sound suspicious and I don’t think he’d try anything right now, but I’d still like you there, as back up.”
“You know I’ve your back, brother.”
“That goes without saying.”
“I’ll fill Brad, Tony and Wayne in, on what’s going on,” Nate said, following JD out of the station.
Both men left, taking the same paths of travel, as they’d done every day for years.
Nate drove out of town and down a country road, until he made the turn into his driveway. He hit the remote for his automatic opener and the gates slowly began to open. Without any warning, two masked gunmen suddenly appeared from behind the pillars at the end of his driveway and they opened fire, riddling his police jeep with hundreds of bullets, blowing out all of the windows. Nate dove out the passenger’s side, avoiding any bullets and he jumped into the thick bushes that lined the pavement. The gunmen continued firing and in seconds, they’d emptied the entire magazines from their assault rifles, into the bushes that Nate had jumped into. Both men slowly approached where Nate had disappeared, dropping their empty magazines and reloading, before pumping more ammo into the brush line. They kept firing, until their magazines were once again empty, but when they dropped their magazines to reload this time, Nate leaped out from the bushes, fully-transformed.
Without any hesitation, Nate sprang into action, ripping both of the gunmen’s heads clean-off, as the blood spurted from their necks, before the flames began to rise. The two attackers burned, until there was nothing left, but the hollowed shell of what was once a Vampire.
With a look of confusion, Nate stepped over to check out the two piles of goop that remained in the Vampire’s place. He knelt down and touched it. “Sunlife.”
JD fumbled with a cigarette lighter, trying to light up a smoke. After it was lit, he leaned forward and wiped off the fogged-up windshield, using the sleeve of his coat, so he could see the road in front of him. The sun had just set and a light snow was beginning to fall over the town of Wolf Creek. With Nanook riding in the back, he made the fifteen-mile drive to his home on the countryside and just as JD was bending a turn in his driveway, two men wearing skimasks and assault rifles, dropped down from the trees above him, delivering a steady flow of automatic gunfire.
As silver bullets ripped through, JD hit the floor of his truck, nailing the gas, while trying to steer into the nearest ditch, blazing by the shooting gunmen, as he went. His truck crashed into a tree, just a few hundred feet away, sending Nanook sailing through the air.
The gunmen were already reloaded and sending another barrage of gunfire in his direction, unloading another entire magazine into JD’s truck, filling it with holes. Besides the smoke bellowing from the truck, there was no other movement and the gunmen were reloading, while they cautiously approached. They could smell the burning flesh from the silver bullets and the attackers assumed JD was dead.
“Do you think we got him?”
“We’ll find out in a few seconds. Watch your ass.”
Before they could click the triggers on their weapons, JD leaped
through the blown-out window of his truck, transformed into his deadly Lycan form.
“Holy shit, he’s alive! Shoot! Shoot, motherfucker!” Before they could pop off any more rounds, the Lycan was soaring through the air, taking off the first gunman’s head, with one swipe of his razor-sharp claws. Blood gushed from his headless body, before finally burning up and turning into pile of ash. JD moved swiftly, jumping back in the air, smoothly leaping from tree to tree, just as the second gunman took aim.
The assailant didn’t see that Nanook was charging, until the dog reached him, sinking his teeth into the man’s throat and locking his jaws tight. The gunman dropped his weapon in attempt to fight Nanook and JD took advantage of the moment, ripping into his chest and tearing out his heart. He took a huge, bloody bite of the Vampire’s heart, spitting it back, as the gunman burned up into a fine dust.
JD dropped to his knees and howled in pain, pushing the silver bullets out of his body. None of the ammo had hit either one of his hearts, or it would’ve all been over. The bullets burned, as the silver worked its way out and the holy water that was infused was burning his insides like acid. He howled in agony, holding his stomach with his hands, as it took several minutes for his body to finish expelling all of the silver fragments. The holy water was still burning, but JD’s wounds were starting to heal and he stood up to his feet, looking up into the sky. “Fuck you, Mason! Your assassins are dead! I fucking warned you and now I’m coming for you, Mason Rockwell!”
JD suddenly heard his phone ring and he followed the sound back to his truck. He reached in and grabbed his tattered shirt from the floorboards of the truck… by some miracle; the phone had also survived the gunmen’s bullets.
“Nate,” JD quickly spoke. “You’re not going to believe this. I was just ambushed by two Vampires. They tried to shoot me up with silver bullets… both of ‘em are dead.”
“JD, the same thing just happened to me… are you alright? “I’m fine. I was only hit a couple times, before I tore them apart. But shit, I’m going to need a new uniform.”
“Yeah, me too. Damn it!” Nate’s voice erupted from the phone. “They shot my truck to hell,” JD reported to his deputy. “But, I
think it might still be drivable. I think I might have a couple spare tires up in the garage.”
“Good. I need your help cleaning up this mess over here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Vampire assassins turned to ash, but they left behind something disgusting… part of their skins, or something,” Nate told him. “You need to get over here and see this.”
“These bastards here went up in flames, but there’s nothing left of them,” JD said, scanning the driveway. “I just need to round up all these shell casings they left everywhere.”
“I’ll be waiting, JD,” Nate said. “Oh, by the way, nobody was home at my place. I’m a little worried.”
“I don’t see Wendy’s car here, either. We’ll clean this up first and then figure out what’s next.”
A half hour later, JD pulled up in his truck, smoke pouring from the engine. It barely made it into Nate’s driveway, before clunking out and spitting one last chug. Nate was shaking his head, as JD got out and when he slammed the door, it fell off, hitting the ground with a loud, metallic racket.
“What do you think of my truck?”
“Nice, take a look over here,” Nate quickly replied. “I have to show you this stuff. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Nate walked JD over to what was left of the Vampires, poking at the gel with the tip of his boot. “See what I’m talking about?”
JD reached down and scooped up a small amount of the goopy substance, knowing instantly what it was. He went to fling the jelly off of his hand, but had to wipe the rest of it into the grass. “This has to be the Sunlife,” he said, “my attackers didn’t have it and that tells me that they’re still in the process of applying it to all of the members of their inner circle. They probably don’t have enough of it made yet, but I’m sure they’re working on it.”
“What should we do with this? We can’t just leave it here,” Nate said, making a face. “It smells like a mix of chemicals and… death.”
“Go run to your shed and get us a couple cans of gasoline, hurry up,” JD requested. “We’ll try burning it and see if it goes up. If not, we’ll just dig a hole and bury it.”
Nate left to retrieve the cans and when he returned, the two men dumped the gasoline over the remains. The gooey, synthetic skin gave off a green, hazy smoke, along with a smell that was, both, odd and repulsive to the Lycans’ noses.
“So, what’s the game plan, then?” Nate asked, getting right to it. “This can not go unanswered. They tried to kill both of us!”
“I need to borrow your police jeep for a while. And, I need you to meet me at Dave’s Grill, around midnight. We’ll hunt Mason during the witching hour.”
“That’s fine, I’ll take Sarah’s Dodge,” Nate said back. “It’s such a piece of shit… I really wish they would’ve shot up that up instead. I was really quite fond of my jeep.”
______________________________________________________
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jason Cross was hard at work in the underground lab, hidden deep beneath the Vampire club, Thirst. The dimly lit room stunk of mold and rotting corpses, along with a pungent chemical smell. One side of the room was for manufacturing, with a full setup of glassware tubes and hoses that curled in and out of the various-sized chemistry flasks and beakers. The other side of the secluded laboratory had been set up for the other necessary operations needed to produce the Sunlife, including a two-thousand-gallon vat and an elaborate air-purifier system that would keep the stench down to a minimum. An incinerator was also constructed, to burn the remains of the unlucky ones who were brought down to the small makeshift factory.
Jason Cross and Skinny Limpkins had both been up for thirteen straight days, working steadily, in preparation for the night that Mason Rockwell and his Vampires planned to take over the town: Halloween. They needed to produce enough Sunlife, for the small army of Vampires that Mason would need to take out the Pack and the Hunters.
Jason was extremely irritable, throwing the freshly drained body of one of the missing girls against a brick wall of the lab, where it ended up in a small pile of dead bodies. “We need to get these corpses out of here! They’re starting to rot!” his voice barked. “I thought I gave you a list of what I needed to fix that goddamn incinerator, Mason!”
The other kidnapped female’s body swung lightly on a meat hook, as Jason ducked underneath it. Jason really had changed, since he left home and went to prison. The justice system, combined with Mason’s influence, had turned him into a brutal and cold-blooded human being. He’d even begged for Mason to turn him into a Vampire, which was promised, if he could complete the task of producing enough of the formula in time.
“Shut up and just keep working,” demanded the mayor. “I’ll have your precious supplies today… anything to make the little piss-ant happy.”
“I’m done with you calling me a piss-ant, Mason! Fuck you!” A swirling mist suddenly appeared underneath Mason’s feet, as he levitated a couple inches off the ground. He turned towards Jason, charging at him, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him into the air. The Vampire smashed him against the cold, brick wall, as Skinny watched from the other side of the room, saying nothing.
“Stop!” Jason was able to choke out. “If you kill me, the last batch of Sunlife will never get made!”
Mason thought for a second, before he set the kid back down. He calmed himself down and took a deep breath; he knew he needed him.
“Tomorrow will be Halloween,” Mason carried on. “You must finish in time… I’m relying on this plan to work. I must take over and kill that cocky bastard, JD.”
“Jason and I have been up working for thirteen days, straight and it wouldn’t have been possible, if it wasn’t for my special yohimbe extract blend,” Skinny bragged.
“That shit is for the dogs,” Mason scowled. “Why are you two morons drinking that crap?”
“Because, it works. You should give it a try.”
“I don’t need it. It’s basically for the help, so to speak.”
Mason enjoyed talking down to them every chance he got. His English smugness was always apparent in his statements.
Jason had already forgotten about being choked by Mason, turning back to his work. “Why do you have to kill JD?” he asked. “We have enough money from the bank jobs and enough Sunlife, to set up in somewhere else… somewhere far away from here. The Pack never roams out of Wolf Creek anyway, they won’t follow us,” Jason pointed out. “Let’s just cut and run.”
“Jack Donovan was once my lover and JD killed him… this is personal.”
Mason was quiet for a moment, before he spoke again. “I need a hundred Vampires prepped in Sunlife, by dusk tomorrow night. We’ll attack at daybreak. They’ll think they’re safe, then.”
“It will be done,” replied Jason, as Skinny agreed nodding his head.
“Fort Knox is where we’ll set our sights, next,” Mason planned. “I figure a hundred bulletproof Vampires should be able to take care of all the guards.”
“That’s because the guards don’t carry any ammo, Mason. There isn’t any gold there anymore,” Jason replied. “I keep telling you, no one has seen a gold brick, since 1972 and I think you’re asking for real trouble. Why do you have to be so damn greedy?” he pushed. “We have plenty of everything, why bring us any more attention?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Mason suddenly screamed. “If I wanted your opinion, I would’ve beaten it out of you!”
Jason quickly shut his mouth and went back to work, as Mason turned and left the room, floating up the staircase on a thin layer of black mist.
When he was sure Mason couldn’t hear, Jason looked over at Skinny and shot one last remark. “I hate that asshole as much as Donovan.”
JD finally arrived at his house to check on Wendy and his son, Sebastian, who was about to turn thirteen in a couple of days. JD looked forward to teaching his son the ways of the wild; that was all he’d ever wanted since the death of his first boy, who was shot by Donovan to make it appear as a hunting accident.
Both of JD’s hearts began to race, as he searched through his house, calling out Wendy and Sebastian’s names. He noticed an uneaten meal on the table, so he tried to call Wendy’s cellphone, one more time. Instead of her not picking up, the service-provider message played in his ear, explaining that the customer could not be reached. His stomach turned, after he snapped his phone shut and looked up to the see a curtain gently blowing, next to an open window in Sebastian’s bedroom.
The phone rang in JD’s hand; it was Nate. He quickly answered, in a state of panic. “Wendy and Sebastian are gone!”
“I can’t f
ind my family, either,” Nate said on the other end. “Sarah and my little girl, Moonflower, are nowhere to be found. What the fuck is going on?”
“It’s got to be the Vampires….”
“What do you think we should do?” Nate frantically asked. “Let’s try to follow their tracks!”
JD ran outside, stripping off his clothes and he quickly transformed into his Lycan form. His rage was one that he hadn’t felt in many years he looked up, howling into the sky.
Sticking his animal nose to the ground outside of Sebastian’s window, JD was fortunate enough to pick up on a scent. The smell took him through the thick of the woods and he ran on all fours, as fast as his legs would carry him. JD suddenly sensed that he was being followed and he slowed down, realizing that Nate was coming up from behind. He eventually catching up, as the two Lycans ran together, following the scent that led them to edge of the property where Mason Rockwell’s mansion stood.
“The trails lead here and I can smell them inside,” said JD, after he changed himself back to a human. “But, something isn’t right.”
“Yeah, that was too easy to follow, like we’ve been led here.”
“Let’s circle the mansion and look for any traps, before we jump the fence and charge the front door,” JD whispered. “You go that way… meet me on the other side.”
They instantly changed back to Lycans, both their eyes glowing, bright red. They circled the mansion, which was surrounded by an electric fence and barbwire, searching the well-kept yard, using their infrared vision to locate anything that might be laying in wait for them. They could see that the fence was hot with electricity and that there were laser sensors surrounding Rockwell’s mansion. From what JD and Nate could see in the distance, there were a couple sets of guards, walking in pairs of two, with attack dogs on the ends of leashes, patrolling within the estate’s inner fences.
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