“The stuff made me stronger, made my endurance peak. I didn’t tire. I didn’t feel pain. It was incredible. I didn’t realize until much later in the program exactly how devastating and dehumanizing this stuff was, or else I never would have asked you guys to participate.”
Meanwhile, Jake’ s friends and their cartel partners were still in the lower depths of the building. They were attempting to make their way toward the arena. But they had their hands full; Camacho’s heavily armed guards and security officers were intent on keeping any of the uninvited from ruining the big show.
Anthony knew that at this point he was the only one in position to get past the security guards to aid Jake. He waited until all the watchmen were fully engaged in their combat so they would not be able to prevent him from passing by.
Anthony snuck past the militia undetected. He opened the doors to the long runway leading up to the stage area and ran as quickly as his short legs would allow. He jumped up onto the stage and dashed up to the cage door. Anthony began to use his cordless Makita drill to bore into the steel lock just above the door handle.
Camacho, now realizing that Jake was more powerful than him, had made his way closer to the door in preparation of an escape. Seeing Anthony working on the door lock, Camacho kicked the door open from the inside. The solid chain-link gate smacked the wee warrior hard, sending him airborne. Anthony’s body flew back about ten feet and he landed on his back, still on the stage.
Camacho ran over to Anthony, picked him up, and pulled the drill from his tiny hands. The over-sized long-haired villain then put the small man under his arm. Anthony was punching and kicking as Camacho walked back into the cage and began to squeeze the life out of his victim.
“Anthony!!” Jake roared as he raced to his friend’s aid. Hathaway drew his fist back, but not before Camacho began to use the hijacked power tool and penetrate Jake’s forehead. The drill bit slightly punctured Jake’s skin, causing blood to trickle down into his eyes.
Jake stood still, taking the drill bit to the hea d. It didn’t hurt him, and he had serious doubts that he could be injured with much less than a missile blowing his head clean off his torso. “Give it your best shot, Camacho!” he challenged.
Camacho continued to bore onward, the high speed and torque of the drill bit continuing to penetrate flesh, with the odor of parched body pulp wafting through the air.
The penetration concluded abruptly as the drill bit struck the original Invulnerable Warrior’s skull. Then the drill bit fractured.
Camacho continued to mash the trigger on the tool in a maniacal fashion, and the drill bit then snapped in two. The momentum of the break sent the borer backwards. The portion of the high-speed drill bit that remained inside the drill now bumped into Camacho’s long flowing mane, tangling up and swirling around in his fleece. The evil incarnate did not realize what was happening and never let up on applying the power to the tool.
The menacing Makita now appeared more like a fur-covered cotton candy stick; locks, tresses and curls were all packed onto and wrapped around the machine. Camacho was unable to see what was happening, as he now had hair down over his eyes. VRRRRRRRRR, VRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! The drill bit continued spinning, twisting the hair taught, until the Makitaapparatus itself flew from Camacho’s grasp.
Jake grabbed hold of the blue power drill and, with an incredible feat of strength, jerked the drill so hard that the momentum began to pull Camacho’s scalp clean off his head. Jake continued to tug, causing more flesh to peel off.
A congealed, brownishred blood was now pouring down Camacho’s bewildered face, onto his neck and down his chest. What had been advertised as a cage fight between man and DEAD had precipitously turned into nothing less than a feeding frenzy. All the creatures instinctively focused upon the source of the sauce.
The DEAD could not resist their carnal temptations, and they followed their noses to the flowing fountain of blood and epidermis. One final yank and Camacho’s face skin was cleanly jerked away from his head. The zombies piled onto the expressionless evil warrior and began to devour. They feasted upon the fallen, bloody, incised face skin much like a teenager would eat the top layer of mozzarella cheese dripping off a freshly baked slice of pizza.
Once the face was gorged, the UNLIVING ones, all in their hungry daze, dove in. They proceeded to devour the screaming Camacho in what would be a horrific cannibal carnage. “NOOOOOOO!!! GET OFF OF ME, YOU GODDAMN MIS-CREATIONS!!!!! YOU CAN’T EAT ME!!! I’M JUST LIKE YOU!!!!! I’M NOT HUMAN!!!!! YOU CAN’T EAT ONE OF YOUR OWN!!!!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It truly is a dog eat dog world. Jake had a rare flashback and was reminded of a time when he was a kid back in Rhode Island. It was an instance where he had been at the beach eating fried chicken when a swarm of hungry seagulls began to swoop down upon him to get his food.
He found it odd that these birds ate other fowl, and they loved it. Seemed quite cannibalistic at the time, yet not quite as stupefying as what had just transpired before him.
Jake and Anthony fled out of the cage.
Hathaway was barely able to stand as they walked down the runway back into the lower depths of the arena. Meanwhile, some of the Vegas Containment Squad assigned to the strip had been called over to the Venetian. They arrived to provide support to their fellow security personnel as Mack, Duy and Roscoe, along with their cartel allies, were still battling with and taking gunfire from the hotel’s hired goons.
All the gun fire and fighting in the cage area had caused the transparent glass holding cells of the creatures to smash and crack. The UNLIVING began to forge their way through the weakened structures, freeing themselves.
The zombies made their way through the premises and began flooding out into the arena, and among the audience members. Many of the crowd were still under the impression that this was all just part of the show.
These blood-thirsty, organ-hungry oddities began to feast upon the humans in the building. Before long, the entire structure was encompassed by these hungry maggot-colony creepers. Jake and Anthony joined the rest of the gang in hysteria, struggling with security and now also flogging the DEAD that had escaped their restraints.
Jakebegan looking around in a frenzied state. He started calling out, “Amanda! Are you in here? Amanda!!!”
Mack found Jake in the crowd. “Dude! Jake! Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But where’s Amanda?”
“Amanda is here? Jake, are you sure?” Mack asked.
“I could have sworn I heard her voice in the audience, but I couldn’t see because of the bright lights. We need to look for her!”
After several minutes spent searching, Mack said, “man, I hate to say it, but I think your mind is playing tricks on you, Jake. And with all these flesh-famished creatures lingering around, we need to hurry up and get the hell out of here.”
The crew all ran up the underground sports stadium ramp toward the above ground exit. Mack was now the one who was frantically looking about. “Who are you looking for?” Jake questioned.
“A friend came with us wanting to help, but I don’t see h…” Before he could finish his enunciation of the word “her,” an extended white catering company van came flying in reverse out of a side overhead garage door. A cloud of dust and a pack of the carnally obsessed emerged behind it.
“THERE SHE IS!!!!”
The group all swiveled in unison and stared. The beautiful blonde former sprinter was driving a white Ram Pro Master 2500 van much like a Hollywood stunt woman would.
Jake was blown away by who he saw before him. “Holy fuck! Megan!?!” She slammed on the brakes, spinning the vehicle around in a 180-degree half circle, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt with it now facing forward. Megan leapt out of the driver’s door and into the hulking Hathaway’s tattered arms. She began to smooch him with a hard, passion felt kiss, like the one she had planted on him when they were in that storage closet at Central a year or so earlier.
However, this kiss was one-si
ded. Jake failed to reciprocate the sentiment this time. “I thought you hated me,” a surprised Hathaway remarked.
“We need to talk about that when we get outta here,” Megan replied sheepishly. Anthony hopped into the driver’s seat. As the crew loaded into the van, Duy saw Humberto Aguilar emerge from the underground tunnel. He was carrying the body and head of his deceased son, Rafael.
Aguilar’s men flanked their boss to the front, rear, and sides as they all walked away. They were using their AK’s to mow down the creatures around them, parting the sea of DEAD and clearing a pathway for their boss.
“That’s the cartel guy that helped bring us to you, Jake,” the Dew-man said. Jake got out of the van and met Aguilar in the roadway. “Mr. Aguilar, my friend tells me I owe you and your men my gratitude. But I’m very sorry for your loss also.” “You know, amigo, I wish my son had survived this ordeal, as di d you. But I know that you did everything you could to try to save him. You’re an honorable man. Maybe someday we will meet again. If you ever need anything, you call me.”
Aguilar shook Jake’s hand and carried his son’s remains into a waiting limousine. Jake re-boarded the van and Anthony drove them all away, traveling southbound out of the Vegas city limits. The former Marine sat in the center of the cargo van, propped up with his back leaning against the interior wall. Jake was not sitting straight, his posture exuded frustration and sheer consternation.
Megan wormed her body up beside his as she revealed, “I left my husband, Jake. I want to be with you.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Really? Don’t you understand what is happening here Megan? You expect me to just forget the way you wronged me? You think I should be highly flattered and excited at the prospect of being with you again?
“All you care about is YOU and your fucking website and social media bullshit. What’s wrong? Is that failing? Are you no longer the flavor of the month?”
“Jake, let me explain. I was young and immature. I’ve grown now. You don’t know the real me.”
“I think I do. You used to be a sweet girl, great cop, and good friend. All that changed when you turned into a social media sweetheart and celebrity. Then the only thing you cared about was having fresh material to post on your fucking websites.
“But that’s okay, Megan. I hope those websites loved you back as much as you loved them. And guess what? You have made a huge mistake in deciding you suddenly want to be back with me. Because I’m not who or what you think I am, either.”
A sobbing M egan responded, “I know who you are. So, you messed around on Amanda. I messed around too. We just fell for each other; we couldn’t help it. We
didn’t do it on purpose, we did not plan for this to happen. It just did.
“And you should not feel guilty about what we did. No one should have to stay with someone forever if they don’t make you happy… whether you are married to them or not.” Jake was compelled to explain further. “No, that’s not what I mean when I say you don’t know me.”
Jake paused, and diverted his eyes from gazing directly into Megan’s stare and aimed them at his feet instead.
“I have the virus inside of me. For quite some time now. I’m practically one of THEM…”
Megan veered into Jake’s dead serious expression and she broke down. Tears fled her eyes like flood water through a storm drain.
She breathlessly murmured, “Oh. My. God… Noo!!!”
The shaken but also stirred, petite yet sensually sculpted blonde attempted to hug Jake or to be held in return. But the solemn ex-Marine felt no inclination to offer her any solace.
Rather, he scooted away from her and said, “Now you know how it feels.”
He relocated himself to another seat in the van, several feet away from her. Megan felt isolated and foolish and covered her face to conceal her dismay. Normally in a situation such as this, the real Jake Hathaway would have felt guilt since he was not able to rescue Amanda from the devastation back at the casino, and he would have felt sorrow for her loss.
He might have felt the desire to reconcile with Megan, to bask in the fact that there was still someone in his life who loved him and longed to be with him.
But the military veteran felt none of these emotions. He felt nothing.
Mack, Duy, and even Roscoe all stared out their respective windows, trying to remain isolated from the awkwardness of the situation surrounding them.
Anthony stared ahead out the front windshield as he drove. He then attempted to converse with the closest passenger to him, Duy, about the “Fright Fights” finale. “Dude, that was crazy. At first, none of those THINGS would even get near Camacho - they had no interest in him at all. Then, when his scalp was gone and the blood started gushing out the top of his noggin like the Fountains of friggin’ Bellagio, it was ON!!! It’s like that old story about how the Eskimos kill wolves with a frozen knife covered with blood.”
“Huh?” Duy asked, seemingly somewhat out of his normal sorts as he gazed out of the catering van window.
“First the Eskimo coats his knife blade with like some seal blood or something, then lets it freeze over before putting another layer of blood over the blade to conceal it. “Then the hunter plants the knife in the ground with the blade up. The wolf will follow th e blood trail and his scent to the knife, then begins to lick it to taste the fresh blood. He begins lapping it up more steadily and before long, his own tongue is slit open from the sharpened edge and it is now his own blood that he is tasting.
“But he doesn’t notice or care. And o ut of his insatiable appetite and thirst for warm blood, the carnivorous wolf begins ferociously smacking his tongue against the weapon until he has completely bled out and is found lying dead in the snow.
“You get it, Duy? The wolf is just like these creatures. Even though Camacho was basically one of them, they still could not resist tasting his blood and flesh when it was gushing out of his head and all over the place. They couldn’t help themselves. After all, they are just mindless creatures.”
The Dewman did not respond or even acknowledge Anthony’s attempt at a conversation. For he was currently struggling with a real-life dilemma that was quickly approaching him, with the force and impact of a runaway freight train.
Chapter Thirty-Six - A Death in the Family
It was a solemn vibe that filled the air in the catering van as Anthony headed southbound in the early stretches of a roughly eighteen-hour trek back to Dallas. Mack attempted to talk to Jake to discuss their next plan of action.
“So, Jake, what’s next? We have a lot more information now about what these THINGS are and what it was that created them. Should we get this information to someone who can develop an antivirus or a serum to combat it or reverse it? Or do we need to go after Blackhoof?”
The former Marine was unresponsive, acting oblivious to any of the people or conversations around him. He seemed to be completely out of it, indifferent to where they were going and how they needed to proceed.
Mack turned toward Duy to get an opinion on the matter and noticed that Duy was bright red, burning up, and sweating profusely. “Duy! Are you okay, man?” The aspiring young attorney was now lying down on the bench seat. He began to moan as if in extreme pain and promptly commenced in disgorging projectile style.
Anthony asked, “Dude, what’s wrong?”
“Stop the van,” Mack advised.
“But if he’s REALLY sick we need to get him someplace where we can get him some medical attention.”
The Dew-man raisedhis head up from the seat and bellowed, “STOP THE VAN!!!! NOW!!!!!!”
Anthony pulled the white Ram Pro Master 2500 over to the side of the road.
Duytried to walk toward the front of the minibus but was unable to stand. “Jake, help me out of here.”
Jake picked up Duy and carefully carried him off the bus.
“Jake,” Duybegan. “I can tell I don’t have much time left. I can feel a change, my vision is nearly gone - but I feel the demons all swarming around, like vultures..
. circling around me. Do you see them too? They think I’m roadkill.”
“Duy, you’re burning up, delusional. What’s wrong? What happened? Did THEY get you back there?”
“No, Jake. It happened way back when we went to rescue Roscoe from that Dallas dog pound. As we made our way out of the place... tons of THEM between the building and our truck. I got scratched. Not bad - I really didn't think anything of it until... I started getting really sick up in New England.”
“Oh fuck, man. Hang in there, we can get you some help.”
“No, Jake. Here…”
Duy removed his trusty Bowie knife from his leg strap sheath and handed it to his mammoth amigo.
“I need you to end it for me.”
“Come on, man, don’t give up,” Jake p leaded.
“It’s almost time. I can tell I’m about to … no longer be me. I’ve been saving this special
knife my grandfather left for me. Been saving it for such an occasion… I haven’t dirtied it
by wasting any of THEM with it. It’s still clean. For me…
“I want to apologize for not being able to clear you in your trial, Jake.”
Jake said, “it’s not your fault. That whole thing was a setup, crooked. Besides, it really doesn’t matter now, the whole world is changed, different.”
Duysaid, “Jake, do you believe in God? In heaven?”
“Oh, man, I wish you hadn’t asked me that.”
Jake looked upwards searching forthe answer to his waning friend’s question.
“You’re really asking the wrong person, Dew -man. You know, there’s nothing I would like better than to be able to tell you what you want to hear. Something that will make you feel better about where you’re going.
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