by Leo Romero
Dom checked his rear-view. The edge of the sand storm dominated it. It was back there, behind them. A memory.
Nixon let out a roar of triumph. The two POWs joined in, cheering alongside Nixon.
Dom turned to face Trixie. He gave her a nonchalant grin.
But, she wasn’t smiling back. Instead, her eyes were bulging. “Look out!” she screamed, pointing at the windshield.
Dom’s reaction to the huge dune ahead of them was too late. He spun the wheel, but they’d already hit the front edge. The vehicle was airborne a split second later. Dom continued to spin the wheel. The vehicle twisted on the air, the momentum sending it over in a flip. The world spun. Screams rang out from all around him, severing his terrified mind in two. An almighty crash reverberated as the vehicle slammed down onto the sand. They went into a roll, the powerful momentum taking control, flipping them along. Hollow clangs sounded out as bodies hit the interior walls like peas in a tin can. Pain jolted Dom from all directions. The vehicle continued on its deadly roll across the desert, grunts of pain and screams of terror accompanying it until the energy eventually petered out. The vehicle flipped up and over one last time. It smashed down on its side hard, embedding in the sand.
Everything became still.
And the world went dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Eddie stared into his microscope with a slack jaw. Something equally weird, scary, and amazing was happening all at the same time inside the petri dish he was scrutinizing. Something he couldn’t explain.
After spending the last day wringing his hands in anxiety while thinking about Rufus going out to save Dom, he needed a break, to take his mind off it all. Eddie did what he knew would work best. Go straight into nerd mode. So, he was in the Sun Enterprise lab after hours. He sat there alone, the sky outside black.
The syringe of Ambrosia that creep Troy gave him had been playing on his mind since he handed it over. He didn’t believe Troy when he said the stuff was making people turn vamp super-fast. Eddie knew that was impossible. The venom altered DNA slowly over time. Sure, some people turned faster than others depending on the person, but still there was always a period of time taken for transmutation to complete as human DNA resisted the recoding to some degree or another.
Besides all that, Eddie was the architect of Ambrosia. It was his baby, and he knew it was designed to act exactly like vampire venom in every way. That meant a slow structural alteration over many doses.
But what he was now witnessing was defying all of that. He’d put a small sample of his own blood into the petri dish, added a dash of Ambrosia, and left it to stew for a few hours. He didn’t expect to see much difference when he returned, but what was happening was a smack to the head. The cells within his blood were literally being devoured by the Ambrosia. They’d turned from red to a greenish-black, almost tumor-like. Some appeared to have hardened while tiny wisps of black connected others together. Fybosponge. Literally growing before his eyes.
He’d never seen anything like it. The Ambrosia was almost alive. While he stared into the microscope, he had visions of The Blob, the stuff just going around devouring whatever was in its way. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The Ambrosia should just wash over the cells, maybe making tiny alterations not even visible with the aid of a microscope. It was the repeated dose of venom or Ambrosia to the same sample over time that would cause the darkening and hardening of the blood cells, alongside the tiny development of fybosonge fibers. Over a longer period, you’d eventually get a sample of full-on vamp blood, complete with chunks of fybosponge.
But, this was happening in real time. A shiver crawled up Eddie’s spine. It was creepy to witness. He couldn’t explain it. He looked up from the microscope at the rain-smeared window, his mouth a big O. A puzzling realization dawned on him.
“This isn’t my formula?” he said to the empty lab, the statement coming out as a question. It was confusing, illogical, bizarre. His eyes fell on the Ambrosia syringe lying on the desk ahead of him. The green slime inside glowed under the low light. It looked eerily alive like it was moving all by itself. Oozing.
As Eddie continued to stare, another more pertinent question formed in his mind.
If this isn’t my formula, then whose is it?
And more importantly, where is it coming from?
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Table of Contents
Contents
TITLE PAGE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
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