The Romero Strain (Book 2): The Dead, The Damned & The Darkness

by Ts Alan

  “You’ve got a real hard-on for this place, don’t you? You tried taking it before. How’d that work out for you? Before I lose it, I will burn it to the ground.”

  “You would destroy it?”

  “Every stone, every brick. And every soldier you kill will take ten of your men before they perish. I swear to your God that this armory will be the end of you.”

  “Your armory is filled with civilians. If my men die so will they.”

  “I will not yield this armory and I will not stop until I have all those you’ve imprisoned. Those are my terms!”

  “What is this armory worth, that you would sacrifice so much to keep it from me?”

  “Nothing,” J.D. spoke as he backed away. “And everything,” he told him as he turned toward the armory.

  Edward Stone walked away disappointed but with an even greater determination at defeating his adversary. “I will kill him, and piss on his dead corpse. This I swear,” he muttered to the dark-haired, balding man, as he returned to his men.

  J.D. Nichols knew that the hostages would not be released. He knew it was up to him and his men to rescue them. As the last truck departed and headed up Lexington out of view, J.D. turned back toward the granite sanctuary and walked toward the entrance, as he did he gestured up to the roof. A dwarf stood up, slung a rifle over his shoulder, and waved back.

  J.D. had barely made it up the first set of granite steps when a shot, emanating from the roof, rang out—echoing throughout the compound. It was Peter Dunne—a recent survivor addition—who had fired, sending a fence scaling insurgent to the ground. However, it was not Stone’s men who were on the offensive, it was half-mutes.

  There were four more, and they were angry, aggressive, and hungry. A half-mute was more voracious than an undead and more aggressive than any transmute. This new creature had evolved from a mutation of the original virus.

  Half-mute and transmute sightings had diminished since the onset of the changing season, and the sight of the four climbing the fence not only alarmed him in regard to their continued presence, but in their agility. What also alarmed him—and ran a shiver up his spine—was that when Peter had killed the first fence climber the others let out a cry of anger and anguish for their fallen companion. He had known these creatures to be furious and rapid in their attack, nearly in a blind rage, but he had never known them to show any sign of intelligence.

  The half-mutes had been drawn to the armory by the sound of honking horns. They had not come as quickly to the noise as in the past, or in as large of a drove, but they had come, and they were now deadlier than they had ever been.

  J.D. waved up to Peter and shouted to cease fire, and as he did the next of the group made it to the top of the fence, over the crown of barbed wire, and into the compound. Fast and furious it came; eyes filled with rage and hatred intent on laying clawed hands and jagged teeth into J.D.’s flesh.

  Sidestepping, J.D. sliced his bolo machetes across the torso of the first partially naked creature as it lunged, inflicting two deep gaping wounds into its chest. Abruptly the sounds of machine gun fire came from behind him. The bullet riddled creatures dropped from the fence.

  J.D. rotated his head around to see Lieutenants Duncan and Alexander charging out of the building. “Cease fire! Cease fire!” J.D. yelled. They did, but James had not stopped solely because he had been ordered to. The sight of his commander’s head spun around like Regan from the Exorcist shocked him. Ryan saw James’ anxiety and commented, “Great party trick, huh?” He hoped it would lighten James’ unease, but it didn’t.

  J.D. quickly rotated his head toward the north just in time to see another two leap halfway up the gate. Moving forward, machetes at the ready, J.D. was prepared to greet the threat, but neither naked male creature made an attempt to scale any further up the barrier. As they gripped the fencing they looked around at their dead comrades, and then looked up at the approaching, sword wielding human. J.D.’s attention was drawn to the missing last finger on one of the creature’s left hand. He vaguely recalled tearing a finger off one of them at the Pier 17 melee, but he doubted it could be the same half-mute. As J.D. got within feet of it, four fingered half-mute appeared to shriek a cry of bitter resentment and frustration, as it gave J.D. a cold glare and outstretched index finger aimed directly at him, and then it fled with its companion.

  The encounter had been odd. It was like the creature was giving him warning. J.D. knew that the razor wire was not enough to deter these creatures. A better deterrent needed to be placed atop the perimeter fencing.

  14

  Stone Cold

  J.D. knew little about the man who came to the gate and demanded that they abandon the armory. What he did know had come from what Peter Dunne had written down in regard to his harrowing story of his brief captivity and the story Paul had told them of his time under the rule of Stone and the one called Renquist, whose true name was Richard Barlow. Of Stone he knew even less, only that Barlow and Stone had been in prison together. What J.D. didn’t know, what none of them knew and what they would never discover was Stone’s past atrocities and the brutality he was capable of.

  Edward Coleman Stone was born at Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, New York and grew up in the Buffalo suburb of Tonawanda. A local family named Slayzek adopted him at age five, as his mother could not afford to look after her son. As a child, Edward resented his illegitimacy.

  In 1996, at the age of eleven, he entered Tonawanda Middle School. Throughout the next three years he was recognized as a very bright pupil by his teachers, one who was sure to make a memorable mark in the world. They had no idea how right they would be. After starting at Tonawanda Senior High, he became idle and easily distracted, did not apply himself and began to behave badly. At school, he was inept at sports, but demonstrated a talent for music and learned to play the violin and cello. It was during this time that he developed a fascination with Nazi Germany, Nazi idealism, Nazi symbolism and the exploits of Doctor Josef Mengele.

  In his junior year, Edward made his first court appearance and was given five years’ probation for breaking and entry and grand larceny. A few months later, he was also given probation on a charge of vandalism for defacing a cemetery, having spray-painted a large Swastika on the side of a mausoleum. In June, two months before his 17th birthday, Edward left school with no GED to his name and found work as a porter for the summer at a Buffalo waterfront restaurant. The money he earned he used to purchase books. He had now developed an interest in the writings of the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche, with special interest in Nietzsche’s theories of Übermensch and The Will to Power. He became increasingly interested in a philosophy that advocated cruelty and torture, and the idea that superior creatures had the right to control—and destroy, if necessary—weaker ones. Stone avidly collected books about torture and sadomasochism along with other paraphernalia related to domination and servitude.

  At the end of the summer, he left the porter’s job and became a janitor for the Amherst Audubon Center, a recreational ice hockey, roller hockey, and sports training/fitness complex. He also began drinking heavily and smoking marijuana. His employment at the sports facility was short-lived, being fired for drinking on the job and verbally abusing fellow employees. Having no income to support his habits and vices, the young man resorted once again to thievery. At age 18, he was sentenced to two years in the Wyoming Correctional Facility, a medium security prison located adjacent to the maximum security prison known as the Attica Correctional Facility.

  While incarcerated, Edward, hoping to avoid any further manual labor jobs and desiring to appear respectable, studied accounting. Upon his release, he returned to the home of his adopted parents and tried to find a suitable position; however, due to his criminal record he was unable to secure an accounting job and was once again forced to do manual labor to support his growing illicit fantasies and fixations.

  What made him fi
nally act upon his illicit fantasies of rape, torture and murder was not clear; however, for the next ten years he would claim 24 victims in four cities. In Buffalo he became known as the Ellicott Creek Killer, having dumped his tortured and mutilated victims along the banks of Ellicott Creek between the Town of Tonawanda and the Village of Williamsville; even going so far as to dump his last victim, a 15-year-old girl, in the murky waters that surrounded Williamsville’s Island Park, which lay directly behind the village’s administration building.

  In Rochester, he was dubbed the Salmon Creek Killer and claimed five victims before moving to Albany to take another seven lives and become the Lakeside Park Killer, having disposed of his victim’s corpses along the shores of Buckingham Lake, Rensselaer Lake, Tivoli Lake, and Washington Park Lake.

  In the late winter of 2013, he arrived in New York City and killed his first victim in March of 2014. She was 14 years old, and stuffed deep into her throat he had left a nursery rhyme. Over the next 7 months he would destroy three more lives, all young girls under the age of twelve, before being caught by criminal profilers from the FBI’s New York office.

  That evening in March of 2014, in less than two hours of custody, Stone confessed to being the Nursery Rhyme Killer. However, Stone’s confessions were just the beginning of his ruthless, brutal admissions. He made the interrogators ill. The more Edward talked about hurting woman and children, the more he seemed to enjoy himself, as if his outpourings were an opportunity to relive the experiences. When the police and FBI searched his home they found a torture rack, countless items of sadomasochistic paraphernalia, articles about the crimes—all the way back to his first victim—and the most disturbing evidence was discovered in a small plastic container under his bed. Inside the green box, Stone kept hundreds of photos of his victims, including heart-wrenching pictures of the children he bound, brutalized and sodomized. He also kept a chilling diary recounting the terrifying ordeals of his victims and the sexual pleasure he received from acting out his sadistic desires. He received the most pleasure from those victims who fought back, keeping them alive for days or weeks while repeatedly sodomizing, raping and beating them until they were completely emotionally and physically demoralized. The journal also contained meticulous entries of planned sadistic torture fantasies for future victims.

  When the plague broke out he was at Rikers Island awaiting trial. He had been in the dining hall when the chaos from within began. Riots broke out, the prison attempted to go into lockdown, but the inmates and the living dead outnumbered the correctional officers. Most had fled the dining area, but a small group remained and barricaded themselves in, using tables and chairs to block all entrances. Stone, Barlow, and Matthew Downey—the skinny red haired man J.D. referred to as Stutters—the only survivors of the 17 men that had taken refuge together. One by one the inmates of the group had grown ill then died, only to return moments later as one of the living dead. One by one the group killed their fellow inmates, using chairs to split apart their skulls and bash out their brains until there were only three remaining. Toward the end they didn’t even wait until their fellow inmates died, they began to kill each other as soon as anyone showed signs of the infection.

  When the living dead had ceased to be and it was safe for them to leave the confines of their refuge they did so, taking with them uniforms of corrections officers and their weapons. They found the west side of Manhattan their destination, in particular, West 15th Street, a building, which held special meaning for Stone. It had been the residence of his idol Albert Fish.

  15

  Supporting the Sword

  November 15, Day 221.

  J.D. and his original team never had an opportunity to get to the Javits Center; they had been rescued before they even had a chance to recon the facility. It had been many weeks since they had left, and after Stone’s visit he realized his new team was going to need heavier fire power if they were to defend themselves against any further attacks, especially now, since they had refugees to look after.

  He had taken James with him to do reconnaissance of the facility before he decided to take a full team to recover whatever they could from the fallen sustainment headquarters. James had been the logical choice; he was actually a soldier with combat experience.

  J.D. mumbled as he drove, repeating the rhyme that Stone had recited over and over again.

  From a book of nursery rhymes that J.D. Nichols’ grandmother often read to him when he was a child, Humpty Dumpty was as an egg that had fallen off the wall he had been sitting on, shattering its shell with no one able to put him back together. He also knew that in the 18th-Century “Humpty Dumpty” was a reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person.

  The meaning behind the demented limerick could have meant that if he was clumsy and made a mistake, Stone would be ready to take advantage of it. Except to interpret the rhyme in its literal form was to dismiss Stone as just an unstable sexual predator, and to disregard the fact most serial killers, though they do poorly in school, are very intelligent with IQs in the “bright normal” range. Nichols knew there had to be a deeper meaning to the nursery rhyme. However, the answer eluded him.

  “Sir, what exactly is your obsession with Humpty Dumpty? You’ve been repeating that rhyme for days.”

  It had actually been over a week.

  “Stone,” he replied, candidly. “Stone… ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,’” the colonel spoke out loud, in a clear but irritated tone. “‘All the colonel’s horses and all the colonel’s men. Couldn’t put Humpty together again!’ It’s got to mean more than its literal translation.”

  “Humpty Dumpty was a cannon, Colonel.”

  “Cannon? What the hell would Stone be yammering on about a cannon for?”

  “I don’t think it was the cannon he was talking about. See, in 1648, during the English Civil War, there was a cannon mounted on top of Saint Mary’s at the Wall Church in Colchester defending the city against a siege. Colchester was a Royalist stronghold. The enemy, the Roundheads—or Parliamentarians as they were sometimes called—were the ones laying siege to the city, and they were loyal to Cromwell and against King Charles. The Roundheads destroyed the church tower, blowing the top of it off, sending “Humpty” tumbling to the ground. The King’s men tried to repair the cannon, but failed. This having been one of a number of setbacks, the Royalists were forced to lay down their weapons, open the gates of Colchester and surrender. The attack had lasted 11 weeks. That nursery rhyme of yours, that’s only the last verse.” He paused briefly, scratching an index finger to a cheek, as if trying to recall something. “I think the rest was:

  In Sixteen Hundred and Forty-Eight

  When England suffered the pains of state

  The Roundheads lay siege to Colchester town

  Where the king’s men still fought for the crown,”

  James paused as J.D. quickly slowed their vehicle. The road ahead required J.D. to drive around several overturned cars that partly obstructed the roadway. James continued:

  “There One-Eyed Thompson stood on the wall

  A gunner of deadliest aim of all

  From St. Mary’s Tower his cannon he fired

  Humpty Dumpty was its name

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall… and so on.

  I would think if Stone is as intelligent as you seem to believe, he’s going to attack the armory, again. And the next time I don’t think he’ll just bring Humvees and rifles.”

  “So, his men are the Roundheads, we’re the Royalists, and the armory is St. Mary’s… And I’m guessing I’m not One Eyed Thompson, I’m Humpty Dumpty.”

  “Yes, sir—No disrespect, Colonel.”

  “None taken… You remind me of someone I once knew. You study literature, too?”

  “Sort of, sir. My wife… my wife and I are Irish, sir…”

  James had hesitated when he first said ‘my
wife is.’ For one blink of the eye he almost was going to correct himself and say, ‘was.’ However, Ann-Marie was not dead, just gone from him but not totally lost. J.D. had kept his word and had even brought back a few digital photos after each visit, so he could see how quickly Michael Adam Alexander was growing.

  “She was born and raised in Athenry, County Galway. She lived there most of her life. Speaks Gaeilge, too… I never truly had an interest in that part of my ancestry before I met Ann-Marie. I wanted to know as much as I could about our culture and the history of her country. I became so fascinated with the Irish-English conflict that I decided to know more about the history of England, too.”

  “Well, that makes you smarter than me, Lieutenant. I’m Irish, mostly, but know damn little about Irish history. I drink at McSorely’s Olde Ale House and sing Shane MacGowan songs. That’s my Irish.”

  The only part of J.D.’s Irish roots that he knew much about came from his mother’s side of the family, which were mainly stories about his relative Peter O’Donnell. So when he told James that he was Irish by lineage and had no heritage—jokingly referencing Shane McGowan and McSorely’s as an ethnic baseline—he had not been truthful. However not knowing his complete ancestry made him feel like an empty bottle of Bushmills whiskey, Irish on the outside and unfilled on the inside.

  Though J.D. had not been as proficient in the history and culture of Ireland as James, he knew a great deal about Irish-American history, especially when it came to the City of New York.

  J.D. pulled their vehicle into a lot of freight trucks on the corner of West 35th Street and 10th Avenue, parking the Humvee out of sight as a precaution. They would only need to travel by foot one long city block to reach the Javits Center.

  After careful surveillance of the massive glass and steel structure that spanned four city blocks, something struck J.D. as peculiar. Amongst the abandoned military bunkers, torn down perimeter fencing and endless decayed bodies, it appeared that the dead had been pushed aside to make a pathway into the building at the south set of 34th Street entrances.