by Greg Dragon
And Then We Had Chaos
Knights and Demons Book 3
Greg Dragon
http://gregdragon.com
Copyright © 2015
Thirsty Bird Productions
This is a book of fiction. Names, characters, and situations are of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to people, places, or crimes is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted without the express written consent of the author.
Chapter One
A week had passed since Alysia and her company left the bunker to take their chances in the woods. They had no directive as of yet but knew they could not stay around the citizens of the bunker city.
They camped out in one of the bathrooms inside of a park, since James decided that an open camp would have them too exposed. With the bathroom they could keep one person guarding the doorway at all times while the rest of them slept. It wasn’t ideal and due to issues with the plumbing, the smell was something that took some getting used to. Nevertheless, it was safe and so far, they had not seen any demons, giants, or flesh-eating kreples.
“So, what’s the plan, CeeCee?” Jaime asked Alysia as they sat on a bench on the outside of the bathroom.
“I dunno, why don’t you ask my dad?” she replied, too busy fiddling with her shoes to look up at him.
“Because this is your deal. We’re all out here for you, and you need to give us an objective or this will become one of those crazy expeditions where people just move around aimlessly while they get picked off, one by one. We need a point to being out here, and that one’s on you.”
Alysia knew he was right, and though it looked as if she could care less, she had spent the day before thinking about their objective.
“I do have an idea but it may be too ambitious,” she said. “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”
“It’s not like we’re doing anything better. Plus I know that you’re not crazy; crazy can actually be considered fun sometimes.”
Alysia looked at him to see if he was joking; he was barely ever serious whenever they would talk but to her surprise, he looked as if he was ready to listen.
“Part of the reason the demons are able to keep killing us so easily is because we’re sitting around in a worthless state of disbelief. We need to accept that they are here, and that they are supernatural. In fact, there has to be a bigger reason for them coming here,” Alysia said.
“What makes you think there is a bigger reason?” Jaime asked.
“I told you about the ritual they held to turn me, and you saw what happens to women who undergo the full treatment. They become damn near gods, controlling freezing shadows, healing, and moving around so fast.”
“They can also turn us into human versions of themselves,” Jaime said.
“That’s not all,” a man’s voice said, and they both turned around to see James Knight standing with his shirt off in the doorway of the bathroom.
“Lose your shirt, dad?” Alysia said.
“Why don’t you let me be James Knight and you be Alysia the good daughter, huh, CeeCee?” he said to her and popped her playfully with his shirt. “Anyway, what I was saying is that the possessed humans evolve after some time. They turn into the red and black versions, the ones with some intelligence about them.”
“We never saw that. How did you find out about that?” Alysia asked.
“Well, your friend turned, as you all know, and we ran into him when we came looking for you. What I didn’t tell you is that he was full-on red and black when me and Tracy fought him off.”
Jaime shot a glance at Alysia and then back at James. “He was gone when we went back to my place to get ready to leave,” he said. “We tracked his steps to the entrance of the bunker, but I think he took off into the woods.”
“That’s not good,” James said to him. “If he has any part of Debdan left in him, he’ll know how to get inside the bunker. He could teach the others how to get the upper hand on the boys and girls protecting the place. Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve tracked him down and killed him.”
“We didn’t know that they turned, Dad. Remember?” Alysia said to him, and he looked at the two of them and then sighed.
“I came out for some fresh air; I didn’t mean to interrupt your chat,” he said.
“Oh yeah, you and Tracy putting in some work, huh, Mr. Knight?” Jaime joked, and James looked like he wanted to knock him out. Jaime started to laugh hysterically when he saw the uncomfortable look on James’s face, and Alysia proceeded to punch him in his arm.
“What?” he said to her and countered with a strong pinch to her forearm.
“Oh my god, that stings!” she exclaimed, and smacked him on his shoulder.
“You two are like kids.” James said to them, and then shook his head and walked back inside. He came back out with his undershirt on and sat down next to them on the bench. “Keep going on about your plan, baby girl. Let’s hear it; I’m sorry I interrupted.”
Alysia smiled at him, happy that he was involved. She tried to remember where she was on explaining her idea.
“So, the demons have a way to reproduce by using us as hosts,” she said. “We become their queens, we become their minions, and they seem to control the giants. I don’t know what the kreples are, but they seem to be animals from a different world. I’m not worried about them. The main thing we have to worry about is the demons. They’re tearing our world apart, and they are predatory.”
“Don’t forget the flying monster bats or whatever they are,” James weighed in. “I had a real up close and personal meeting with a few of them and they are just as intelligent and predatory as those demons. We have multiple problems going on; the demons and their possession games is merely one drop in a bucket full of drama.”
“We can at least focus on learning the demons though, Mr. Knight,” Jaime said to him.
“That’s a good point,” The big man replied. “What’s to say that finding out more about the demons won’t give us some insight into the other crazies? So where should we begin? How do we go about learning about the demons?”
“The queen talked,” Tracy said and they all looked up at her as she walked out into the cool night air. The confidence and beauty of her stature was not something anyone could ignore, and she tied her hair back effortlessly as she turned to face them. She was still in her tank top , cargo pants and boots, and Alysia wondered what it was that she had been doing since it was obvious she hadn’t been sleeping. “She talked, so that means she could answer questions. Why don’t we find another one, chain it up, and force it to talk to us?”
“I’ve heard some pretty terrible ideas, Tracy, but that one tops them all,” Alysia said before she could stop herself from saying it. “With all due respect, of course,” she added. Tracy gave her the middle finger in reply, and then forced herself onto the bench between Jaime and James.
“It may be a crap idea, but it’s better than what any of you have. Which is a whole lot of nothing.”
“Why don’t we go back to the place where they originated from?” Jaime chimed in, and everyone grew quiet as if they had all considered it but didn’t want to mention it.
“So travel back to my school and see what is there,” Alysia said, and then put her face into her hands. “Didn’t they pop up from all over the eastern shore? We don’t really know the origin of it all.”
“It’s a good idea, CeeCee. Better than sitting here waiting for them to attack us,” Jaime said. “We know that the whole bunker thing was a panicked move and we aren’t even sure if that was really the president that ordered it. There will be a lot of groups traveling around, just like u
s, and they may have more insight that we can share and get educated from.”
“Bingo!” Tracy said.
“So when do we head out?” Alysia asked and Tracy looked at James to see if he had any ideas.
“Why not tomorrow?” he said after a while. “We can wait around to see if things will magically change, but I think we should keep moving. That way, we don’t get a lot of time to start having doubts.”
~ * ~ * ~
The small party trudged through the woods, bearing east beneath a sky that looked like an abstract work of art. It was all dark purple, splashed with hints of blue, and it would soon change to something wonderful when the sun came up. They didn’t speak, most of them tired and sleepy from a night of uncomfortable rest, but they had to leave, according to Jaime. Staying would only delay the inevitable.
Out of everyone who marched along through the well-preserved forest, James Knight was the most composed. He had been in places where the woods were wild and untamed, when the soldiers in his company stayed up 72 hours at a time and uncomfortable rest was all they knew. Compared to the missions he had undergone as a U.S. Navy Seal, this was literally a walk in the park—pun intended. He pulled them up short at what appeared to be a clearing, and got down on a knee. He then used the detachable scope from his pulse rifle to see what was in front of them.
“Don’t make a move!” he whispered and they all complied, too frightened to move an inch.
A slow rumbling sound caught them as a giant pushed past the trees, walking in a southwestern direction. He was small, about the height of a two-story building, and he walked so close to them that it took everything within Tracy not to react. When he was gone, James exhaled, and they all looked at one another with a mixture of fear and relief. The light from the dawning sun cut through the darkness and as they recovered their march, James spoke again.
“I think that the demons become giants,” he said, and they all looked at him.
“How did you come up with that one?” Tracy asked.
“Did you not look at the one that just passed us?” he said. “It had the red and black texture on its legs. We keep wondering where they come from… well, that is my theory. Some of them grow into giant men while the others just stay red.”
“That makes no sense,” Tracy said. “I think they are a different species altogether.”
But James didn’t want to argue, so he shrugged and kept them moving.
“You notice something?” Jaime asked. He hadn’t spoken since they set out, so everyone was curious as to what was going on inside his mind.
“No, what?” Tracy replied.
“It’s quiet; like, too quiet. I don’t hear the helicopters and jets in the air shooting anymore, or any guns or things blowing up. It sounds as if we gave up, or we lost the fight and all our soldiers are dead.”
“Not all of them,” James shouted back at him, but they knew he was right. Since the day when the monsters first attacked, they had heard the sounds of war going on all around them. Now it was quiet, and once the giant’s stomping had passed on into the distance, it had become very peaceful. It was a cruel illusion that masked the reality of their lives, and it begged to question where the U.S. military was.
“I bet they left us,” Jaime said to Alysia as they walked behind James and Tracy, who had sped up their own pace in order to have a private conversation.
“Who, my dad?” Alysia asked, looking at him to see if he was joking.
“No, I mean the government, the elite few with all the money in the world. The world goes to hell, they tell the military to get us into bunkers, and they rush to their escape boats and ship off to a safe house of some kind. Like maybe Antarctica.”
Alysia rolled her eyes and sped up to get away from him, but he caught up to her without saying anything.
“Is your stomach okay, Jaime?” she asked.
He frowned. “Yeah, I’m a little hungry, but I’m good. Why do you ask?”
“Because of the diarrhea of the mouth you have going on. Your imagination is immense; I’ll give you that, but safe houses in Antarctica? That just about says it all.”
“Okay, but when you find out that everything I’m saying is true, I’ll have a big fat ‘I told you so’ waiting for you,” he said.
They exited the park a little past midday and were on the street, moving toward the city. There was an old, rusty water storage tank sitting behind a fence, and old broken-down trucks and cars from the age of gasoline. The tank brought back memories of a childhood spent in the country for Tracy, and she wanted to run up to it and climb it to the top to play queen of the mountain. James Knight stopped and observed the area, using the scope from his gun to get a closer view. He held his hand up to tell them to stop, and then he pocketed the scope and led them across to the short fence.
They jumped the fence and entered the junkyard, each person holding a gun at the ready as they cleared the area and worked themselves back to the tank. There was nothing but silence, and the air was humid, causing them to sweat. Tracy ran ahead when she saw something, but pulled up short and looked around frantically when she got there. Jaime ran up next to her and then James, and Alysia could see that they both had the same reaction.
She wondered what they were looking at, and as she got closer, she could see there was a corpse on the ground. It was an older woman in a flowery dress, and there were human remains next to her.
“Why do they kill some of us and turn others?” Tracy asked. “I just don’t get it.”
“It may have to do with the age,” Alysia said.
“What do you mean, the age?” Jaime asked.
“I mean our age. The people we saw turned inside the bunker were all young people. The oldest one I saw was the blonde-haired woman, and she looked to be about thirty, thirty-one. These people are older; they probably owned this junkyard and didn’t get the memo about getting to a bunker.”
“Or, they just had no means of getting to one,” James said. “I don’t see a functioning car or bike around here.”
“That or they got left,” Tracy said. “What is this place? I can’t even call it a junkyard since there is nothing here to indicate that this crap was being sold. It’s a dump. How did the city allow them to get away with this? Rust everywhere, the grass is all tall and out of control, and just look at the water tank. This place looks as if nobody has lived here in years.”
James brought his rifle up to eye-level and then started to move towards the small house that sat several yards behind the junkyard. He motioned for Tracy to move to his rear and she did so quietly, staying a bit behind him with her own rifle pointed at the door. Alysia and Jaime sat back, watching. It had been explained to them that during infiltrations they were to cover the flank, never to rush in ahead of their trained teammates.
James crossed the entrance of the door until he was on the right side, and Tracy checked the windows. Alysia and Jaime inched up to get closer, and then James kicked the door in and moved inside quickly, checking the corners while Tracy did the same. Alysia heard several quick bursts from the pulse rifle, and several demons burst from the backdoor, running across the yard to gain the street. Jaime took aim and began firing at them, but Tracy walked out and calmly lifted her rifle and put them down with precision shots.
“CLEAR!” James yelled, and Tracy lowered her weapon and sighed. She brought out a bit of cloth from her pants pocket and wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Jesus,” she said under her breath, “that whole sequence frightened the hell out of me.”
“I can’t freaking tell,” Alysia said to her as she ran up to the house to check on her father.
He was kneeling down over the corpse of a large man, and from the red veins running the length of his legs, Alysia knew he had turned and had tried to attack her father.
“Good job, Trace. For someone who hasn’t done this before, you were all right,” James said. “So what do you say, CeeCee? I bet you all are ti
red and hungry. The folks that own this place just got attacked. We can set up here and rest, and catch our breath before we head out again.”
Nobody wanted to argue against the idea. It had been a long time since any of them had slept in a real bed, under a real roof that wasn’t an apartment underground. Jaime and Alysia dragged the corpses out to the backyard and set them on fire, and then they went back inside to clean up the mess.
Their new shelter was a cozy home that had all the amenities you would expect: black leather couches that surrounded a mid-sized curved flat-panel ABE television. There were random paintings on the wall, the refrigerator held photos of the extended family, and there were three bedrooms, two connected to their own bathroom.
They decided that Alysia and Tracy would get their own bedroom, and James would do the couch, but Jaime insisted that they trade. A solar-powered generator powered the electricity, and with the Film-Jet 3.0 movie player beneath the television, Jaime wanted the luxury of falling asleep to a movie.
They cleaned the blood from the walls and floor, and then checked the refrigerator and cupboards for food. The owners had stocked it full prior to their passing, and they had enough to last them for a couple of months. James went outside to secure the perimeter. A short, chain-link fence bordered the house, so he tied a number of bells to it, bells he found in the couple’s Christmas storage that sat in boxes in the garage.
“Okay, a few ground rules since we’re going to be here for a while,” James announced once they had all picked out their rooms and had gotten time to catch their breath.
“Rule number one: Do not ever leave without letting the rest of us know. We want to shoot demons, not civilians, and if you are missing and come back to us unannounced, you may accidentally catch a bullet from a friendly.
“Rule number two: No fighting. We need to get along; we are like a little family in this thing. Any beefs we talk them out, and if you need to consult someone else about me, or whomever… talk to that someone. I’m serious.