by Maxey, Phil
“I see… well maybe you can be useful and try to make up for what happened tonight.”
“I… would like to help.” He wasn’t sure if he did, but he wanted to be out of the room.
“Good. Report to Second Lieutenant Goode on the first floor at zero eight hundred hours tomorrow.”
Evan nodded again, although he wasn’t sure what he had gotten himself into.
“You can go now,” said the general. “And you,” she said, looking at Shannon.
All three of them got to their feet.
“Not you, Ms. Jacobs.”
They looked at each other, then Sasha sat back down as the other two left.
“I don’t pretend to know what you are, or how you do what you do…”
That makes two of us, thought Sasha.
“But from what I heard, the vamps couldn’t even touch you, and I presume not even a hybrid could hurt you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you be interested in learning?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to know the extent of your abilities? Do you want to control them, rather than them controlling you?”
A tinge of excitement mixed with relief in Sasha’s mind. She smiled.
“Good, then you be here with your friend at the same time tomorrow morning. Do not be late.”
Sasha got to her feet and went to walk to the door.
“And, Sasha. No more slip-ups like tonight. I meant what I said about outside the camp.”
“It won’t happen again.” She then left.
The general opened the drawer to her right, pulling out a notebook. On it was a number of names which she added ’Jacobs,’ to.
*****
As the sun crept above the eastern horizon, Dalton, Joel, and the others in the pickup approached the northwest part of the Jankle camp. The metal fence which signified the boundaries shone orange in the morning light, and the trees swayed losing more of their leaves.
Dalton slowed the pickup then stopped at the gate, which quickly slid back and he drove through. In the back, Amos’s head kept bobbing as he fought with the weight of sleep on his eyes. Joel was asleep in the front, but Carla was bright and alert, relieved to be back.
As they drove through the streets a Humvee slipped in behind them, and as ordered in their brief radio conversation some forty minutes prior, they headed straight for the town square.
The general was already waiting along with at least twenty heavily armed soldiers. Dalton parked up alongside a secure looking truck with a boxlike back and small slit-like windows.
They all got out. Joel being the last and the general approached.
She shook Carla’s hand. “Well done, Lieutenant. Keller got back some hours ago. The information in that notebook is… very… useful…” She stood looking at the soldiers who were pulling Tyror from the bed of the pickup. As if in a sleep-like state he slowly stood. “Hold him there.” She walked to a few feet from him, examining him up and down. She then nodded and they carried him away, and into the back of the bank truck. The doors slammed closed and it immediately moved out of the square. Most of the Humvees left with it.
“Where you taking him?” said Joel.
“Somewhere he won’t be easily found.”
Amos wavered and fell against the side of the pickup. Kizzy burst from between the soldiers that were left and hugged him, propping him up.
The general moved to them. “You did well, son. Now, get some rest. We’re going to need you back at it by noon.”
He nodded and slowly walked away with Kizzy.
The general looked at Joel and Carla. I know you’re both exhausted but I need you both upstairs to debrief.
They agreed and trekked up the five floors to a conference room already filled with five individuals Joel had never met.
Joel and Carla found a seat while the door closed behind them.
The general sat at the head of the large table and looked at the man seated nearby. “Quick introductions.”
A broad man in his forties with short jet-black hair looked towards the two new members. “I’m Colonel Gus Stanton. Together with the general and Clement, I work on intel and strategy.” He looked at the long-haired woman opposite.
“I’m Amanda Groves. My main role is to try to understand the minds of otherhumans, what makes them tick, and I also try to advise on what’s best for everyone at the camp.”
Seemed like a strange role to Joel, but he nodded, nevertheless.
“Lieutenant Colonel Irwin Hahn, logistics.”
“Captain Emery Slater, chief medical officer.”
“Umm… Second Lieutenant Madison Goode, head of science and tech.” The dark-haired young woman wearing oversized glasses looked more anxious than the others in the room.
The final person started talking, a stout man that Joel judged to be in his late sixties and like Amanda was in civvies. “Clement Wynn… ex-CIA amongst other things. My job is to fuck-up the enemy.” He looked directly at Joel and Carla. “Good work last night, now we have some idea of what we’re up against.”
“Now that’s done, let's get started on how we stop being stomped by the corporation?” said the general.
Gus got to his feet and walked to a monitor at the end of the room. He tapped on a keyboard near it, and the screen lit up, showing a map of the country. Numerous icons pulsed in different colors. “This shows you where the enemy forces are. At least from what we gathered from the new intel. Here we are.” He touched the screen. “As you can see, the enemy is to our west and north. They don’t appear to have moved south of us yet, nor have they penetrated too far to the east of us.”
“That’s the good news,” said Clement.
“Yeah, the bad news is they haven’t met much resistance, well apart from what you guys did up at the Canadian border, but apart from that, most of the human camps have fallen that came into contact with them.”
“They were just about surviving,” said Joel.
Gus nodded. “Exactly and weren’t expecting a paramilitary group of otherhumans to turn up on their doorstep.”
Joel sensed Carla’s heart rate increasing and a flush of sweat move across her.
“And if they weren’t planning to come here soon, now we got one of their top people, we can expect them to up that schedule,” said Clement.
“Yeah, there’s also more you don’t know,” said Joel. He then spent the next ten minutes filling them all in on what Amos had dragged from Tyror’s mind. Most sat in silence, but there were a few gasps. The youngest of the group, Madison, appeared to Joel to be the most focused on what he was retelling.
“There is something else you’re not aware of, Joel,” said Groves. “Daniel Copeland appears to be being held captive by these ‘kings.’”
“How do you know that?” said Joel.
“With the help of the Alkron boy, Jasper—”
“You have Jasper here?”
“He’s being well looked after, Joel,” said the general.
Joel resisted asking more about Jasper. He meant to find Marina as soon as the meeting was finished.
Groves continued. “So with the boy's help, we located his father, and it appears he is not moving from the same defined area and hasn’t done for over eight hours. With what you have just told us, it would seem he has been supplanted from his position at the head of the corporation. And now these older beings have taken charge…”
Joel couldn’t help but find Copeland’s situation amusing, but he resisted smiling.
The general looked at the young woman nearby. “What’s your thoughts on all of this, Madison? Could it be true? That the hybrid we have is somehow from the ancient past?”
All eyes were on the girl with the glasses, whose eyes looked bigger than they were. “Taking into account what we know about the tablet, I would have to say, it is possible, yes.”
“Okay, well, whether they are five thousand years old or fifty, it don’t matter. We still need to
figure out how to kick the corporation’s ass’,” said Clement.
“Have you managed to get the tablet working again?” said Joel to Madison on his right.
She shook her head.
“I’ve got the old man’s grandson coming in, in an hour from now. I think he might be useful. Work with him, Madison.”
Madison gave a timid nod.
“And the girl who can turn into gas—”
“Sasha?” said Joel.
“Yeah, what do you know of her?”
“Seemed a good kid to me.”
“Yeah, well we’ll see.” She looked around the table. “So people. Give me options on how we’re going to survive the onslaught that’s heading our way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Evan and Sasha sat on uncomfortable wooden seats in the clean corridor. They had been waiting an hour despite getting there on time and had seen numerous people in military uniform rush from one door to the next without paying them any attention.
“Man, how long they going to make us wait,” said Evan. He yawned.
“You got somewhere better to be?” said Sasha.
“Umm… no, dunno. Maybe, what’s it to you?”
Sasha sighed heavily.
At the end of the corridor, a slim woman appeared with long dark brown hair and glasses which masked most of her face. She pushed them up her nose on standing next to the two seated.
“Sasha, Evan?”
They nodded.
“I’m Madison Goode. Follow me.”
She led them through one of the doors and then to an elevator that a guard stood outside of. The door slid back and they moved inside the cramped space.
“This used to be a service elevator,” said Madison. “The bank used to move their important clients up and down with it.” She tapped on the lowest button on the rack, and the small box rattled and then descended.
It wasn’t long before it jolted to a stop and Madison pulled the double doors back.
A wall of noise preceded the vision of organized chaos. Computer screens sitting on rows of desks, bursting with information and motion graphics played out across the low-ceilinged space. Men and women, some in military uniform, others not, sat diligently working, while others engaged in heated conversation.
“What’s this place?” said Sasha, fascinated by the scene.
“We just call it the ‘Lab.’ It’s where we do the virtual science. Mostly historical research, computer modeling. Things like that.”
A man in a Hawaiian shirt walked across to them. Madison appeared bothered by his appearance. “This is Mr. Huxley, our resident computer scientist.”
“Good to meet you both,” said Huxley, shaking Evan’s and Sasha’s hand.
“Evan, this is where you will be working,” said Madison. She then turned to Sasha. “Follow me.”
Sasha looked back at Evan as she walked past the desks and through a secure looking door into a similar sized space with modern clear walls creating a series of smaller rooms, each one with desks. Scientists, some in full hazmat suits, moved vials between scientific devices while others were focused on the contents of their slides under the lens of microscopes.
“This is where we do actual science,” said Madison.
Sasha noticed the huge bulky partition which put the door they just walked through to shame. “That’s the vault?”
“Yup, and where we do our experiments.”
“Experiments?”
“You want to know what you can do, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Then let's get started.”
*****
Joel’s arms and legs thrashed against a single blanket, and his eyes flicked open into the gloom of his room. He had only glimpsed a few hours of the daylight twelve hours before and now it was to be replaced once again by the evening. His mind was full of an overwhelming feeling of loss but he had no idea how the dream he must have been having led to that, for he could remember nothing other than when he stumbled into his one-bedroom apartment and collapsed onto the bed.
He had managed a brief conversation with Marina about Jasper before he made his way to his home and convinced her to let them keep the young boy in their custody. She agreed as long as they let her sleep nearby as well, which they did.
Hunger pains started to make themselves known inside him, so he felt down the side of the bed to the rug and where he left the last bag of blood he had been sipping on. His fingers felt the old dry threads but nothing else.
He wondered how much blood supplies they had in the camp. They now had a lot more mouths to feed than just the general.
Laying looking at the ceiling and the shadows starting to merge across it, he thought about what Amos had informed them all of on the way back to the camp. The crazy hybrid who hated being the youngest of three brothers perhaps wasn’t crazy after all. Amos mentioned they were kept alive for so long in a form of stasis. Capsules that fed them over the eons, which allowed their bodies to sustain against the tides of time.
He wasn’t sure he believed any of it, and even if it were true, what did it matter? What was important was keeping the people within the walls alive. He was zero for two so far in that department. Two towns down.
Not again.
Bill’s hearty smile moved into his mind, and the feeling of sadness which he had kept at bay for days swept across him. He squeezed the sheet between his fingers to try and hold back the emotion but it came anyway. As tears ran down his face, it wasn’t just the death of the old man that he was feeling but of his wife, his child, and all of the people that were no longer around due to the Scourge.
He swung his legs around and sat up, then wiped his face.
Some big bad vampire I am.
He walked to the cold box and pulled out a blood bag and sipped. The usual relief which came with quenching his hunger did not move the other feelings.
The other brothers were not going to let Tyror be held down here for long. They would be coming, and soon. And that would be their mistake. Moving too quickly before they were truly ready to take on what the camp had to offer as a defense. The kid was right about Tyror being important, but even he probably didn’t realize in what way.
Feeling nourished, he undressed and stepped into the manual shower and exercised the lever to bring the water from the tank down upon him. In the silence of the water falling on his skin, Anna’s kiss came back to him. He hadn’t given it a second thought after he left the room. He wasn’t human anymore. The idea of that kind of human interaction felt alien to him. Something which belonged in the past… with his wife.
He stepped out of the small cubicle and dried and was quickly dressed and standing outside his apartment block listening to the sounds of the night around him. The small town which the walls encapsulated, unlike Westlands, still operated as if civilization hadn’t ended months earlier. His enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of old people’s laughter and young couples arguing. Children singing and dogs barking. He was no longer part of that world, but it needed to be protected regardless.
He looked at a beat-up 80s brown sedan which he had been given and was soon sitting inside the driver's seat, turning the key and igniting the engine. It sputtered a few times but then fell into a reassuring hum. He needed to visit the hybrids in the warehouse. Something told him they were going to be key if the camp was to keep existing, despite the heavy hardware the general had at her disposal.
A short drive later and he had passed through the gate and was pulling up inside the parking lot alongside the blocklike building.
Getting out he showed an ID badge to two soldiers standing guard at the entrance and was then inside. Being night, the hybrids were mostly awake, talking and laughing. A miniature example of the town outside. A number of them saw him enter and made a straight line for him.
“When we getting out?!” shouted one. “When do I get to see my husband?” said another.
He stood, holding his hand up for them to quieten. More of those in
side the large space stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to him.
Joel looked down in thought, then back up to his audience. “What do all of you want?”
“To get out!” shouted a middle-aged man.
Ripples of agreement ran around the area.
“After that? You’re all strong, fast. You’re immune now to the Scourge and you can fight off vamps. What do you want to do with your lives now you have them back?”
Silence fell across the room as each person contemplated.
“I want to look after my son,” said a woman. A tall, squawky man looked at Joel. “They seem to be making a go of it in this town. I don’t like that they locked us in here… but, I want to help them. I used to work in retail. Had my own store. Maybe I can have that again…”
“Why not have that again? Each of you can help this place grow. But to do that it has to exist. The forces that drove the vamps towards Westlands and the prison are coming soon to Jankle to do it again.”
This time the ripples of sound were ones of apprehension.
“I know most of you here are not fighters. But if you want a life here, you’re going to have to fight.”
“I’ll fight,” said a man. Others joined in until it became a chorus of approval.
Twenty feet above, Anna watched, leaning on the rail of the walkway which spanned the large warehouse floor. She smiled, nodding to herself.
Five miles away within the camp walls, almost twenty soldiers guarded what was once a medical center. Five sentry posts sat around the building in its grounds and two more were on its roof. Below the modern building, in a small dark room within its basement, a hybrid king sat against the wall, his chin on his chest, seemingly asleep. Reams of chains bound him.
Slowly he lifted his head, a grin across his face.
“Brothers…”
Continued in book five.
BOOK FIVE
CHAPTER ONE
Arkansas, twelve hours ago…
Corine Mitchell’s view of her world swayed and faded. Opposite her were heads, hundreds receding into the dark. Some expressions were frozen with panic, while sleep rested on the faces of others, but all perched on a neck that was clamped to a rusting piece of iron and that attached to a network of scaffolding above.