“Hey!! Quit jumping around, dumbass! You got that stuff on me! My mouth was open!” They continued shuffling slowly forward as a team. Roscoe continued his track followed by Jake with his newfound night vision capabilities. Behind him, Duy and Anthony remained closely together. They clung onto each other’s shirt out of the fear that they could become separated and or lost in the blackness.
Onward they trudged, in a long, dark dirt tunnel that seemed to be spiraling deeper and deeper into the chasm. The thick, noxious air was becoming more and more overwhelmingly toxic with each step.
They marched further into the seemingly endless void, for what seemed to be at least a mile. Jake could see that several feet ahead of them was another tunnel that crossed the one they currently were traveling.
“Oh great!” Anthony squealed in a somewhat stifled voice. “Now which way are we supposed to go? It’s like a friggin maze down here. We’re not getting out alive, I just know it! “
“It’s gonna be okay, man. Look, Roscoe is still tracking straight ahead. You watch, I bet soon we will see light at the end of the tunnel.” Duy comforted his wee amigo.
No sooner had Duy spoken, a clan of musty, underground dwelling endoparasite packers rounded the corner from that crossover tunnel. They now blocked the path that the humans were traveling. It was plain to see that there would be no getting around them, the only possibility was to go through them.
“Oh shit,” Jake said. He was not too keen on Roscoe’s odds of making through the line of DEAD ahead. Not even with his muzzle daggers.
Jake grabbed Roscoe by his tail and restrained the valiant K9 from venturing further toward the HUNGRY.
“Roscoe, BLEIBE! “
Roscoe promptly sat and stayed put as commanded. The brawny law officer, armed with his newfound pickaxe, marched forward.
“ARRRRRRGGGGGGG, BLEAAAAAAAHHHHH” was the horrible eerie intonation echoing through the clay chamber.
“FUCKKKK YOUUU MOTHAH FUCKAHSSSS!!!!!“Jake screamed as he went Super Mario on the FLESHWROUGHT, slinging his miner’s pick in short quick strokes. His size and the tight enclosure would not allow him to swing the tool over his head as it’s customarily utilized.
“GLUNKKKK, GLOOOOOOOOPPPPP.” The once rust-encrusted axe blades were now shiny and sharp again as the bones from the beasts had revived their vibe. They sliced and diced zombie heads, necks and faces. The axe detruncated their limbs, separating the flesh from the bones as the laceration mantra played on much like an orchestrated composure. It was a meat hook masterpiece.
This nauseous genocide of the grotesque and flagitious concluded as abruptly as it began. Jake the morbid angel was now coated with the substance and stench of splattered slaughter sludge and decay. “Holy fuck, Jake! How many were there?” Duy asked, awestruck.
“Man, I don’t know. I was too busy to count them. Ok Roscoe, JAGEN!” The canine leapt over the pile of rotted entrails and eventual maggot meals, as the
pyramidal of humans followed suit. They marched onward for approximately fifty more yards until they came across another wooden ladder. This one went upwards to a steel manhole cover. Jake pushed upwards on the silver steel disk and sent it airborne for a few feet before it smacked down in the middle of a dirt road.
The team climbed out of what might have become their underground tomb. Anthony took a huge breath of fresh air and gasped, “I can’t believe we made it! “
“Where do you think we are?” questioned Duy.
“If I had to guess I would say we are in Mexico,” guessed Jake as he observed a street sign and advertising for a couple of small shops which were all written in Spanish.
They all began to walk several feet before they realized how tired they were from their adventure within the labyrinth. It was also getting quite late in the day.
“I think we lost the suspicious guy. Or he lost us, one or the other. For all we know, maybe that was his spleen we trounced on down in the tunnel at the bottom of the ladder,” Jake recalled.
Duyagreed. “Yeah, maybe we need to rest up for the night and start out fresh tomorrow. Let’s find a safe place to set up camp, there’s no telling how long we might be here.”
Montpelier, Vermont. Year 1 month 9 ATBI (October) In the small town of Montpelier, Vermont, a group of a dozen young students from a Sunday school group ranging from the ages five to fifteen were on a church-sponsored fall pumpkin patch hayride. The kids were seated on hay bales on the back of a fifteen-foot-long wooden flatbed trailer, towed by a medium sized green John Deere tractor.
It was evening time. Dusk was settling in and there was a slight roll of fog lingering about. Soon the tractor came to a stop in the pumpkin patch and the kids sprang off the trailer to pick out a free pumpkin of their choice to take home and turn into a wonderful jack-o-lantern.
Most of the children became focused upon searching for their prize orange gems. But one of the more observant children pointed over toward the adjoining corn field and loudly exclaimed, “Whoa! Look – monsters!!”
The kids looked over and saw slow moving figures dragging their way through the fogcovered corn field. They were now only approximately a hundred feet away. One of the older kids excitedly jabbered, “Haa, that’s cool! They got some people out here dressed up like zombies!”
Steve was an eighteen-year-old farmhand who enjoyed driving the local church kids around through the patch each year.
Steve looked at the figures wobbling through the golden stalks and he knew there was trouble brewing. For he knew that no one on the farm had planned for any sort of monsters or creatures to be looming through the fields. Steve didn’t want to panic the little ones, so he abruptly announced, “Kids, everyone get back on the trailer…”
“But we haven't picked out our pumpkins yet…”
“We have plenty of them to choose from back in the barn. They are, even better and bigger than these. Come on, let’s go!”
The children jumped on the trailer and Steve punched the accelerator, sending one lightweight seven-year-old kid flying off of the back.
Steve slammed on the John Deere’s breaks and the tractor skid to a stop. Steve ran to the rear of the trailer and grabbed the tot by his scruff. He picked up the little dude, hoisting him back onto the trailer.
“Okay, everyone hold on to the person next to you, especially you smaller kids, hold onto a bigger kid nearby.”
Steve again stomped onto the accelerator pedal. He was still looking back at his cargo to make sure no one had been thrown off the back again. But because he was not paying attention to what was in front of him, the John Deere veered directly toward a large boulder. The tractor abruptly collided with the large rock. The front wheel warped around the stone, bending the front axle and rendering the farm vehicle inoperable.
Dusk was near and a heavy fog blanketed the pumpkin patch. This fog cover concealed the close gravitation of the lucid figures that had been looming in the corn patch.
Their speed increased gradually as they sensed human flesh. Their sustenance of choice was dead ahead.
Steve yelled, “Everyone run for the barn! Older kids grab the little ones! RUNNNN!!”
Everyone abandoned the tractor and trailer combo. They were all sprinting, stumbling through the pumpkin patch and tripping over vines and rocks, pumpkins, gourds, and squash. Some of the children who tripped, dropped to the ground. Of those, some regained their footing and ran fleet of foot back into the barn safely. Others on the other hand were not as fortunate. Three of the children tripped a second time and were swallowed up by a sea of DEAD. Nearly a dozen zombies swarmed over the exhausted kids and in a frenzy. They relished the carnage by feasting on the innards of the kiddy cadavers.
Chapter Thirty-Three - The Anthropophagus Among Us
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas The United States Disciplinary Barracks, more often referred to as Leavenworth, is the U.S military’s only maximum-security facility that houses male service members. They have all been convicted of or court-martialed for violations of th
e Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Although this was an Army facility, the two outcast Marines, Barrett Blackhoof and Levi Fiedler, found themselves committed to being longtime residents. They had been sentenced to twenty years apiece for their roles in the Al Anbar incident.
So far, the two inmates have been incarcerated for over six and a half years. Although they entered on the same day and were scheduled to leave at the same time, their incarceration experiences had differed vastly.
Barrett Blackhoof since childhood had been cursed with a very poor attitude and a quick temper. So, while others in the prison were trying to make the most of their stay by reading, getting an education, or at least pumping iron for muscles, Blackhoof opted out. Rather, he chose to pick fights with fellow inmates, steal their rations, and direct cat calls to their wives or girlfriends who sat across from their loved ones on visitation days.
Because of his erratic behavior, and because he was one of the most dangerous inmates there, Blackhoof was considered a Level 5 inmate. He was moved to the Supermax base, where he was kept in solitary confinement for twenty-three hours every day. On the other hand, was Levi Fiedler. Ever since he had joined the Corps and was deployed to the Middle East, had become interested in Islam. He spent most of his time studying the Koran in the prison library.
He already held a strong hatred for the U.S. government as a result of the Zeus Project and his sentencing from the Al Anbar Incident. And it became fueled even more when he began to study and idealize the writings of Osama Bin Laden.
Over time, Levi, much like the others who had taken multiple doses of the Zeus Juice in the Corps - Blackhoof, Camacho, and Jake - had become much larger. He was the beneficiary of incredible strength and stamina. They all had become able to endure extreme pain while also possessing amazing healing powers.
In addition to all of these, Fiedler had over time also been able to develop one other capability that the others had not. Fiedler was still in the process of mastering the skill but was becoming somewhat proficient in the practice of psychokinesis. This was the psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction.
With his unique and powerful attributes to propel him, Fiedler now had plans to recruit others around the world to assist him in his cause. He had become obsessed with the goal of making not only America, but the entire Western World, pay.
Year 1 month 10 ATBI (November)
One brisk November Tuesday morning in Leavenworth Kansas, two Army prison guards escorted the leg-shackled Barrett Blackhoof to the outdoor exercise yard.
On each side of the yard stood a fourteen-foot-high fence. A second fence, just a few feet away, was equally as high. But this one was charged with a lethal current of electricity. Blackhoof, who was as tall as the biggest guard but twice as wide, wasted no time in using his left hand to grab the guard to his left. He used his right hand to clasp the prison guard to his right. He then utilized his sheer strength to bash their heads together as if he was playing the symbols in a marching band. Both guards lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.
The behemoth Blackhoof then released the guard to his left. Blackhoof grabbed the right guard, tucked him up under Blackhoof’s right armpit, and began to climb the towering fence much like Kong.
A guard in a nearby watchtower began to fire his rifle at the escaping inmate. In little time, Blackhoof was already jumping down off the first fence and running toward the second. He was using the unconscious guard’s body to shield him from the hail of bullets being sprayed at him.
Barrett threw the guard’s body about halfway up the second fence, and it remained stationary as the electrical currents fried the body like Spam in a greasy, hot frying pan. The fence shorted out rapidly, and the Native American was up and over that barrier in no time.
The disenchanted Blackhoof, now on the exterior of the secured facility, came across an occupied Army mail carrier Jeep. He extracted said letter deliverer before driving off with her vehicle.
With one more piece of business to attend to, Blackhoof drove the Mopar mail truck back onto the Leavenworth base and through the wall of one of the minimum-security habitation barracks. The eager escapee had done his homework and determined that this wall separated his compadre, Levi Fiedler, from certain freedom.
With the Jeep now halfway into the building with brick and rubble having been thrown all about, Blackhoof yelled from the driver’s seat, “Come on, Levi! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Fiedler replied, “no, you go on without me. My work here isn’t finished yet.”
Reynosa, Tamaulipas Mexico Just on the outskirts of town, the band of brothers had found a wide-open field to park their Odyssey in. Then they set up some basic trip wires with aluminum pop cans attached, all along the perimeter. This would allow them to sleep in the van and remain relatively safe while giving them notice and time to react if some of THEM entered the camp site.
Jake, Duy, Anthony and Roscoe spent several days scouting out the area. They had noticed that there was a large concentration of the creatures not far from where they exited the tunnel, through a manhole in the street.
For this reason, the guys knew that the secret research facility they had heard about had to be close by. Abruptly, a Hispanic teenage kid came running up to the guys, breathing heavily and fearing for his life. His name was Rafael Torres. He was a seventeen-year-old who was about six feet tall and very lean from having played a lot of soccer. He surprisingly had a better than average understanding of the English language. “Please help me!”
“Kid, what’s wrong? Is someone chasing you?” Jake inquired.
“You gotta help me. I left home a few days ago without telling anyone where I was going. And then I was hanging out in the street, kicking the soccer ball with my friend. A black Range Rover pulled up.
“A sleazy-lookin’ Mexican-American guy wearing a baggy black pair of swat cop pants and a black T-shirt, ballcap, and aviator sunglasses jumped out of the front right seat. He walked up to us. He said he was some agent for the Federal District Police, or something like that. He flashed a badge.
“He sounded American, speaking good English. Weirdest thing was that he had very long, wavy black hair. Like Troy Polamalu. He didn’t look like a real cop to me with that hair,” said Rafael.
“My buddy took off because he was afraid. I don’t know why I didn’t, too. He said I could make money if I helped him do some labor at some rich person’s house. I agreed.
“The cop guy and some other white dude drove me over to a boarded-up grocery store, the ‘Super Mercado.’ Once we got there, we went inside the back way - through a solid white metal door with a peep hole.
“So, when we get inside, there’s like three or four people wearing white doctor coats. They told me instead of doing labor that they needed someone to sample these new vitamins that they were wanting to put on the market in America.
“After I said yes and took them, they said I have to stay for a few days to see the results before they pay me. But later I began to hear some other people in another room. They sounded like they were sick or crazy. Moaning and screaming and stuff. It freaked me out. I wanted to leave now, so I pushed one guy wearing a white jacket away, and then I ran out the front door.”
“Okay. Rafael, right? Do you think you could lead us to that grocery store?” Duy asked.
“Yeah, I think so. “
“So why did you run away from home in the first place? “Anthony asked.
“I have this dream to be an international soccer star. But my dad has different plans for me.
He wants me to learn the family business and take over when he retires. He had tutors come teach me and my brother English so later on we can do business with Americans.”
“But I don’t want that.”
“What exactly does he do?” Anthony asked.
“My dad is JuanCarlos Aguilar.”
“Oh shit.” Duyexclaimed. “He’s the head of the Agui
lar drug cartel.”
Rafael nodded. “Yep.”
“All right, guys. Rafael says he can take us back there. Let’s arm up and get ready to roll. Anthony, can you put Roscoe’s muzzle mask on?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
So, the four live crew and Roscoe climbed into their conversion van and began to scour the area looking for the monster shop.
“This looks right -I think it’s down there.” Raphael instructed as Anthony drove onward. “There it is. “
Anthony parked the Odyssey war wagon on the side of the once-supermarket building, then proceeded to the back door. The entire building was completely blacked out, and there was no sign of activity around.
Jake muscled the back door down with a lowered shoulder. The team was instantly greeted by a gaggle of gore. Several DEAD pushed their way toward the scent of fresh meat as they moved in to devour the living ones who had entered.
“Let’s waste them inside before they can get out and surround us!” The Her culean Hathaway commenced to slaying the miscreations with his miner’s pickaxe. He began swinging, poking, jabbing the blade and flogging THEM in their noggins.
Duy began slicing and dicing zombies left and right with his pair of nickel bladed Karambit combat knives. He was slashing and shredding the beasts, creating a sanguine spray. Anthony, being of a shorter stature, was handling business down below. He was utilizing his nifty cordless reciprocating saw to remove the legs from the lethargic and bring them to the floor. There, Roscoe took over with his membrane-destroying muzzle blades.
During this battle, a handful of white lab coats escaped through the front. They had released the DEAD from their cages in the warehouse when they heard the back door get destroyed. THEY were now all immobilized, and the team began to walk throughout the facility. It had the appearance of a hospital emergency room in some areas, with beds and curtains and goosoaked surgical tools lying around. Other sections of the place looked more like a zoo with large cages all about and blowflies lining the walls.
“Jake, look what I found hiding in the attic crawl space above the old manager’s office” Duy said as he shoved a lab coat wearing medium-sized man of Middle Eastern descent into the space in front of Jake and his cohorts.
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