Blood Apocalypse - 04

by Heath Stallcup

  Blood

  Apocalypse

  A Monster Squad Novel

  Heath Stallcup

  Edited by TW Brown

  Cover by Ronak Kothari

  Blood Apocalypse: A Monster Squad Novel

  ©2014 May December Publications LLC

  The split-tree logo is a registered trademark of May December Publications LLC.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Publications LLC.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  DEDICATION

  For my wife. Thank you for being my biggest fan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will forever be grateful to Mark Tufo. You took the time to teach a total stranger the ins and outs of this business and helped me to avoid the pitfalls that so many others fall into…you are definitely one of the good guys in the biz.

  Oh, buddy…be a sport. Don’t let Tracy read these.

  To TW Brown, who puts up with me on a regular basis. Who takes my rough output and shines it and makes it ‘print worthy’ and still lets me keep my name on it.

  To Denise…you took a chance on me. What more can I say? Not many would, but you did and I can’t put into words what that means.

  To my graphic artist, Ronak, whose wonderful work everybody else gets to see on the covers here…you are a wonderful artist and you should be proud. I hope to keep you very busy in the future my friend!

  To my wonderful wife who still tolerates my night owl writing when the house is silent and the kids are all asleep—just me and the computer tapping into the night. None of this would be possible without your total support and complete understanding.

  To my sister, Sheila, who stepped up to be my proofer and make Todd’s life a little easier and my work that much better.

  And to those of you who read my stories and have allowed the characters to come to life, thank you. It’s because of you that I can continue to mold and develop them and allow them to become the living, breathing, monster fighting heroes that they are!

  -Heath

  1

  Dominic DeGiacomo paced the area around the pool of fresh water while the specter of his grandfather waded through the clear water with a spear in hand. He held the handmade spear aloft, waiting for a fish to come into view. He pulled the spear back ready to throw it when Dom turned and yelled, “It’s right on the tip of my mind, but I just can’t…reach it!”

  Louis DeGiacomo sighed and lowered the spear. He turned and looked at Dominic, a sour expression crossing his features. “You’re scaring the fish, boy.”

  “What?” Dom turned, his mind elsewhere.

  “The fish,” Lou said, nodding toward the water. “You’re scaring them away.” He trudged back toward the shore and tossed the spear into the sand. “I thought you were hungry?”

  Dom plopped back into the sand and held his head in his hands. “I am, but…this is driving me nuts,” he moaned. “It’s like it’s right on the tip of my mind, but it’s just out of reach.”

  Lou sat down next to him and shielded his eyes with his hand. He looked up at the sun and shook his head. “This is damned strange, boy.”

  “I know. You’d think it would eventually come back to me…”

  “No, I mean the sun.” He was still staring at the sky. “It’s been high noon all day. You’d think the sun would move a little across the sky.”

  Dom stared up at him as if he were crazy. “You’re worried about the sun?”

  “I’m worried that your time here is limited, and without a way to measure it, we have no idea how long we’ve been here.”

  Dom studied him a moment and realized just how worried his grandfather was. “How long do I have?” Dominic had found himself stranded in his own personal version of Purgatory after an accidental overdose while recovering in a hospital in Italy. When his grandfather was sent from the afterlife to guide him back ‘home’ Dom wasn’t sure if he was saved or had lost his mind. Neither knew how long he had to find his way, but they both felt that time was limited and growing shorter by the moment.

  Lou shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned and looked at Dom and shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody ever gets an instruction book. I just…know. Your time here is limited.” He stood up and brushed the sand from his shorts. “And we have to eat.”

  “We got bananas and coconuts and…” Dom started.

  “Yeah,” Lou laughed, “we do, but you need to be careful. Coconuts will give you the squirts, bananas will clog you up and those berries over there? I have no idea if they’re even edible.” He pointed back at the water. “That’s why I was trying to catch us some fish.”

  Dom shoved his hands into the moist sand and squeezed again. It had such a calming effect on him and he didn’t know why. Lou watched him a moment and then hunkered down next to him and pulled his hands out of the sand. Dom struggled against him, trying to drive his hands back in the sand. “What are you doing, Grumpy…stop it.”

  “Why do you keep shoving your hands in the sand?” He fought against him.

  “I don’t know…I like playing in the dirt.” Dom struggled. “I need to—”

  “That’s not dirt, boy, that’s sand.” Lou pulled at his hands. Dom continued struggling with him, but the old man was stronger than he looked. “Stop it, boy.”

  “No, I need…I-I need…”

  “You need to remember something and you aren’t sticking your hands back in the sand until you…”

  “It’s not sand, it’s dirt,” Dom nearly snarled. The old man held him tight, his face like stone as he continued to hold his hands back. “Stop it!”

  “Tell me why it’s so damned important to you and I might,” Lou argued.

  “I don’t know why, it just is—” He was cut off as Lou dragged him to the edge of the jungle where the plant life was thick and used his foot to kick away the detritus to expose the rich soil below.

  “You see that, boy?” He pointed, the rich aroma of the dark soil rose up to Dom’s nostrils. “That is dirt.” Dom fought harder this time, the desire to stick his hands into the dirt almost overwhelming. He wanted to roll in it, to lay in it, to sleep on it. “Tell me why it’s important,” the old man ordered.

  “I…don’t know,” Dom choked out, still struggling. He had to have the dirt. It called to him, it needed him…no, he needed it. It was safety to him. It preserved him somehow. It was…important to him. It would keep him safe. It would…

  “Tell me why it’s so damned important to you, boy. Why do you want to stick your hands into it?” Lou barked.

  “I don’t just want to stick my hands into it. I want to lay on it. I want to sleep on it…I need to!” he cried. Dom began to shake now, the tremors rocking his core. He could feel whatever block that was in his head start to crack and it hurt. It felt as though an ice pick were being driven through the center of his brain; he pulled his hands away from Lou’s with a jerk and grasped at his head, clutching the sides in agony. “No-o-o!” he screamed as he fell to the ground, rolling to his side, clutching his temples.

  Lou fell beside him and was yelling to overcome the onrush of pain, “Tell me, boy, tell your Grumpy what it is!” He got lower to the ground and next to his ear and whispered against the onrush of pain, “Tell me what i
t is…why the dirt, boy?”

  When the wall finally shattered and the vampire’s secret revealed to him, Dom’s eyes flew open and he sat up, his breath coming in short breathy pants. He turned to his grandfather and slowly a smile came to his face. He chuckled at first and then laughed out loud. He pulled his grandfather into a hug and squeezed the old man to him tightly.

  “I know now,” he said softly.

  Lou pulled away from him and stared him in the eye. “Are you sure, boy?”

  Dom laughed as tears formed in his eyes. “Oh yeah, Grumpy, I’m sure.”

  Lou sat down hard in the dirt next to him and with his hands resting on his knees, he sighed heavily and nodded. “Good. Because I was starting to worry that…”

  “What?” Dom asked.

  Lou snorted. “I was afraid we had run out of time and you were losing it.” He sighed again, reaching out and patting Dom on the leg. “You have no idea how worried I’ve been—” He stopped mid-sentence as the sun suddenly set and the stars began twinkling.

  Both men sat in the darkness staring at the sky, an eerie ‘oh-shit’ feeling shared between them. Dom turned to his grandfather and said, “Suddenly I’m very thirsty.”

  “Yeah…I imagine so,” he said cautiously. “Look, Dom…” Lou began, turning to him urgently. “I may not have much time left with you, so I want to ask you to do something for me, okay?”

  “Anything, Grumpy, you know that,” Dom said, suddenly afraid that he’d disappear as quickly as he appeared.

  “When you get back, please, tell Grammy that I miss her. Let her know that I meant to come home and spend the rest of my life with her.” Tears formed in his old, weather-worn eyes. “Tell her,” he choked out, “that I love her.”

  “Grumpy,” Dom began, his chest tightening and his eyes misting, “she already knows.”

  The old man nodded sharply and sniffed back a few tears. “I figured as much.” He looked up at the stars and breathed deeply of the cooling night air. “Heart of gold, that one.”

  “Yeah, you picked a winner with Gram.” They both sat silent for a moment before Dom sat up and got to his feet. He stuck his hand out to help Lou up, but he was already gone. The only indication that he was ever there was the impression he had left in the soft jungle soil. Dom looked around the area and stared at the spot where his grandfather had last been and he slowly fell to his knees, the tears flowing freely.

  “I never got to say goodbye,” he whispered. He fell over and rolled to his back, the tears flowing freely as he sobbed. “Thank you, Grumpy. Thank you for helping me.” He pressed his eyes closed to block out the pain and heartbreak and he sucked a huge amount of air to cleanse his mind. He lay there in the dark, doing his best to control his breathing, to bring his emotions under control, to try to figure out what he should do next.

  Dom allowed himself only a few moments to gather himself before he decided it was time to carry on. As much as he was hurting, both emotionally and physically, he had to push on. He inhaled one more breath of the cool, sanitized air and opened his eyes. He glanced around the darkness and saw the medical monitors hooked to him, the lighted numbers on the machines showing his heart rate, O2 levels, and blood pressure levels. He glanced in the other direction and saw a table with charts and paperwork on it. The lights were off in his room, but the moonlight through his window illuminated enough of the interior that he knew he was back in the hospital room in Italy.

  It had all been a dream. A wild, crazy dream induced by the drugs that the Team 2 members shot him up with. He sat up slowly and pulled the blankets off of him. As the leads fell from his body, the machine at his bedside registered alarms that he chose to ignore. He pushed the machine further away to get the sound of the alarm as far from him as he could. His head was still throbbing from his concussion. He slid his feet out of bed and felt grit in the sheets. Pulling the blankets back further, he ran his hand across the sheet and found…beach sand? His feet and the sheets were covered in beach sand. And no matter how Dom tried to explain it away, he couldn’t.

  He stumbled into the bathroom and flipped on the light. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sharp brightness of the overhead fluorescent bulb as it flickered to life. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror and was shocked at the growth of facial hair. He ran his fingers across his face and saw his hands in the mirror. Pulling them back, he studied them in the harsh fluorescent light. There was dark colored dirt embedded into his nail beds and thick layers of it under his nails. He held them close to his eyes and studied them. He pulled one closer to his face and held his fingertips under his nose…with a deep, lung-filling sniff, he smelled his fingers and the aroma of the soil under his fingers was exactly that of the soil from the island in his dream.

  Dom staggered back against the bathroom wall and stared at his hands—his dirt encrusted hands—and questioned how they could have gotten that way.

  And then he remembered the importance of the dirt. He turned to leave the bathroom as two nurses came into his room to investigate the alarms from his monitor. “Mr. DeGiacomo, you must return to your bed,” she said as he pushed past her.

  “Where are my clothes?” he barked.

  “What?!”

  “My uniform? Where is it?” He stood there in the hospital gown and nearly growled at the woman.

  She shook with fear and her eyes betrayed her as they darted to the storage cabinet on the far side of the room. The other nurse darted out the door to get security.

  “Thanks,” he muttered as he marched to the storage cabinet and pulled his gear from the locker.

  Of course, his weapons had been confiscated, most likely by Team 2 personnel, but at least he had some clothes more suitable for outside. Something that didn’t ventilate his backside, a bit ratty and torn, but thankfully someone had cleaned them. He put them on as quickly as he could and made for the door in time to see three large security guards running down the hall toward his room.

  “Great,” he muttered as he went back into the room and propped the door shut with a chair.

  Dom looked around and made for the window. Great, another second story jump. At least he felt better this time. His wrist hardly hurt any more, but there was still a slight pain as he pulled the window open. He settled on the ledge and jumped to the grass below. He looked back up at the open window and made for the shadows to try to conceal himself should any more security come for him. He had to get to a safe place and contact Colonel Mitchell. He had to have him arrange for getting him stateside.

  He pulled up alongside a building and scanned both ways to make sure the coast was clear. As he stepped out along the way he heard sirens approaching and knew they were meant for him. He cursed and ducked back into the shadows. This journey was going to be tough enough, but now he had unlocked the secret that was nagging at his mind and he had to get it to the Monster Squad. For whatever reason, he felt it was important. It might, in fact, be the key to bringing down the Sicarii.

  *****

  “This is total fucking bullshit!” the security officer yelled as he threw a radio across the security office. It just missed the bank of monitors showing the different locations where cameras were running twenty-four hours a day and manned here in the ‘man-cave’ by Wackenhut’s top-notch security personnel around the clock.

  The man behind the banks of monitors flinched when the radio bounced off the enclosure but never removed his eyes from the screen. The officer and his men had been subdued while trying to stop infiltrators at the infamous Groom Lake base, only to be made fools of by the military garbed men they encountered.

  “Calm down, James.” The captain of the contracted security forces was doing his best to calm the man, but he knew it would do no good. Most of his men were either ex-military commandos or SWAT team members or some other form of elite fighter or they wouldn’t have gotten this billet. With those kinds of men came large egos and those egos were sometimes easily bruised. “Anderson bailed on us and left the base to th
is nitwit Mitchell. We can’t help that.”

  “That doesn’t give his people the right to just slip past all of our defenses and not explain to us how!” the man screamed. “We need to know where the weaknesses are so we can strengthen them and I want to know what the fuck they were using to make those half-naked guys disappear and reappear like that…they could be any-fucking-where.”

  “We’re going to figure it out and we’re going to get some answers, but blowing your top and demanding answers from somebody like Mitchell isn’t the way to do it.” Captain Roberts tried to make his voice soothing. Logic rarely worked when one of his best had his temper flared; and James McDonald’s temper wasn’t just flared, he was past the boiling point. “We’re going to have to use kid gloves with this guy if we want to get answers.”

  “Fuck that!” McDonald spat. “We ought to just go in there, cuff the bastard and beat the answers out of him. A little water boarding goes a long way.” He growled. “I guaran-damn-tee ya that me and the boys could get some answers out of that full bird if you’d just let us do our fucking jobs.”

  Roberts pointed a finger at him, “Your job is to do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?” He jabbed the finger into the man’s chest to emphasize his point. “Do you?”

  McDonald glared at him, his eyes wild. “I got you. I don’t have to like it though.”

  “No, you don’t,” Roberts agreed. “The time for liking it comes later.” He added, an evil smile crossing his features.

  James glanced at him, unsure that he caught his meaning. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Payback, of course. Nobody breaks into my base, abducts my men and then tells me to stand down over it,” he said, menace dripping from his voice. “Not unless they want their dick slammed in the door.”

  “Now that’s what I like to hear.” McDonald smiled, calming down somewhat. “So what do you have in mind?”