Welcome To The Jungle

by Michael Todd

  The demon slowed the wolf down, then came to a stop in the sand. He tilted his head and looked at the compound, pricking his ears at the sound of someone moving. A red beam suddenly flashed out, rolling across the desert and up his body to stop right between his eyes.

  Uh oh, the demon thought.

  BOOM!

  There was nothing left of the wolf’s head, and the demon went straight back down to hell.

  19

  Katie pulled herself out of bed and yawned. The sun was not yet up.

  She looked around the guest room they had put her in, which was smaller than her room at home but comfortable enough for her to get a good night’s sleep. She wanted to get some training in, since she wouldn’t have to work out in dust and debris like she had recently at home.

  She washed her face and brushed her teeth before pulling on her normal black spandex pants and tank top and the gear they had provided her. As she laced her boots an alarm sounded, and lights began to flash in the hallway outside her room. She smiled and grabbed her knives, slotting them into her vest’s sheaths.

  Time to rock and roll, Pandora chirped.

  Katie grabbed Ella, who surprisingly was already awake and dressed, and they headed down to the team area. When they arrived they joined Damian and the Jersey team at the side of the room, waiting for the team’s second to appear. All were quiet, standing easily, geared up and ready to rock.

  One of the Jersey team approached with some papers in his hands. “Busy morning,” he told everyone. “We have two large events in New York City, and three smaller ones right here in New Jersey. I want two teams of two to go out on two of the incursion calls. I want the fifth man on this team to join them in the City to help out, and I would like Katie and Damian to take the last call here in Jersey.”

  “What about me?” Ella shouted.

  “You will stay here and man the fort.” He smiled. “You are not quite ready for this one.”

  Katie patted Ella on the shoulder and smiled, then caught up with Damian as he headed off to take the call.

  Ella kicked at the floor, pushing her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt and muttering to herself.

  “I didn’t want to go on no stinking incursion anyway,” she grumped. She walked over to the doorway and watched the three teams racing toward the SUVs. She knew she would get her chance, but she couldn’t help but be impatient. Fuck it…maybe she would just take a nap or something.

  Meanwhile, Katie jumped in the SUV with Damian and inputted the GPS location. They took off out of the base and rolled down the road for about fifteen minutes. When they arrived, they pulled up outside the house in question and looked at each other suspiciously.

  The house was obviously party central. There were beer cans throughout the yard, the front door was wide-open, and someone’s boxers were hanging from the tree out front.

  “Are those bodies?” Damian asked, pointing to the half-naked men face-down on the lawn.

  “There’s only one way to find out, I suppose,” Katie grumped, opening the door and getting out.

  She crept across the yard and looked around her, making sure there were no demons in the shadows. Slowly she bent down next to one of the guys and pressed her fingers against his neck. He was alive, and he smelled like he had drunk a keg the night before. She went to all three bodies and sighed, shaking her head.

  “They are just drunk,” she told Damian, disgusted. “Not a demon effort, just a seriously badass rager.”

  Ella whistled as she walked through the base, trying to get rid of the boredom. She was the only one left in the building, and they hadn’t given her any tasks to take care of.

  She thought about working out but passed, figuring no one was there to help her anyway. She went up the stairs to the top floor and down the hall, looking at the different paintings and pictures decorating the walls.

  She stopped about midway down.

  “Those Who Have Paid Tribute,” she read out loud. “Huh.”

  There were rows of plaques, each with a picture, a name, a date (which she assumed was the date of their death), and some words of description. She reached forward and ran her fingers over the engravings, reading some of the stories underneath the pictures. This was the first time since she had gotten here that she was careful and thoughtful.

  Some of the plaques—the ones in the top rows—had no pictures, and some of the names were only first names. The dates spanned over two hundred years. She hadn’t realized how long humans had been fighting demons until that moment. When she reached the first picture she stopped, reading the information aloud.

  “Ely Holmes, March 4, 1973,” she read. “Ely was born and raised in Illinois and served in the military during some of the toughest battles in history. Ely became a Damned during his last tour in Japan, and joined the team voluntarily when he returned. During the Great Battle of the Plains he fought valiantly but was taken down by a Level-Seven, leaving behind only the memory of his bravery.”

  Shivers ran down her spine as she moved on to the next.

  “Melissa Overland, June 11, 1999. Melissa was born and raised in the Deep South, playing in the bogs off the great Mississippi. She was the oldest Damned to join the team, starting at the young age of fifty-three. Melissa is accredited with taking down over three hundred demons before her death at the age of seventy-two. She was spry and witty, and her laughter will forever echo the Damned Hall of the Great.”

  She raised her eyebrows, picturing her grandmother kicking ass in a demon incursion. She chuckled to herself and moved to the end of the rows. There was one guy and one girl, the most recent deaths. She stared at the boy’s picture, his blue eyes flashing like he was right there in front of her.

  “Lyndon Ames, October 14, 2017,” she read. “Lyndon had only been with the team for two weeks, but he showed the strength and honor of forty men. He led the team into a great battle and killed fourteen demons on his own before falling. His death was quickly avenged, and his body will ever lie at peace. He may have only been a whisper in the timeline of events to the Damned, but his legend will continue.”

  She shook her head. It all seemed so crazy, so wild, that these people had come and gone so quickly. She looked at the next plaque, a picture of a girl, not much older than Ella, her face innocent, her eyes wide, and her long brown hair cascading over her shoulders.

  “Melanie Hanes, January 12, 2018,” she read slowly. “Melanie came to the team as a wild and dangerous girl looking for her place in life. She found it with the Damned, learning, training, and fighting her way to the top of the ranks in record time. As the team heavy she maintained a strict code of always helping her teammates, no matter what the cost. That was how she died, protecting a teammate and saving their life. Melanie will forever be remembered for everything she was.”

  Ella took a step back and looked at what she had just read; two men, two women, all valiant, strong, and honorable, from different corners of the world, and all had given their lives for the same cause. Melanie had been just a year or two older than Ella when she died, and Ella took that straight to heart.

  She could die too, and very easily—especially given where she was. Suddenly she wasn’t so upset about being left behind.

  Do you realize now why you need to train? Melneck asked.

  Ella shook the sadness from her eyes and cleared her throat.

  Of course, she barked. I’m not an idiot. I just want to train in the afternoon! There’s no reason to begin life before noon.

  Melneck chuckled, knowing those plaques had done more than any training she had received so far.

  Korbin stepped out of the car and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked around the property. It was the second time he had been there, but the first time he hadn’t been able to check it all out. There was a two-story building that was probably the barracks Stephanie had described, and a small building next to a blackened launchpad. In the distance he could see some large concrete pads.

  “So, there are
two main underground buildings, and they are connected by a hundred or so foot long tunnel,” Stephanie told him, giving him the specs. “The underground areas are reinforced concrete with eighteen-inch-thick ceilings and walls, and a three-foot layer of earth above them. There’s about fifteen thousand square feet of floor space, so we should have ample room. The control room is underground, and is about fifty by ninety feet with about forty-five hundred feet of floor space.”

  “How many acres, and is there water and such?” Korbin asked, looking around.

  “Yeah, there are wells around the property, and the part you’re interested in is a good thirty acres.” Stephanie sighed. “The US government kept many of these bases a secret, so they could use them for other things.”

  “How did you find out about it, then?” Korbin asked.

  “I had a couple of connections through my prior business.” Stephanie smiled. “You would be surprised at the power that walked through those doors. Anyway, those connections led me to this place and they sold it to me for cash; no trace of its existence.”

  “Sometimes I think I just shouldn’t ask.” Korbin smirked.

  “It’s not like I paid for them in flesh!” Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Make the best out of every situation you find yourself in.”

  “Very true.” Korbin shrugged.

  “I know it looks overwhelming,” Stephanie said. “But this place still has almost everything we will need. It just will require a team to get it fully operational. This will definitely not be a one-man show. Derek won’t be able to handle all of it on his own, so you will want to think about who you can put in here to get things rolling. Of course, if you need help with that, you know I have resources.”

  “Right.” He chuckled. “Though I don’t know if the gangsters you brought in the other day would be able to figure out the IT logistics.”

  “Hey, they were just muscle,” she protested. “Muscle that knows the importance of the word ‘discreet.’”

  “I hope so,” he replied, walking forward to the edge of the launch building and scanning the land in front of him.

  It was sand for the most part, but farther out there were both grassy and dirt-covered areas, with a ridge of short cliffs running along the edge. It was quiet—very quiet—and they could see for miles in all directions. There was a lot of work to be done, but he couldn’t imagine the place not being perfect for what they were trying to do.

  “Out there,” Stephanie told him as she came up beside him. “There used to be a dirt airstrip. It was somewhere between twelve and fifteen hundred feet long, but it hasn’t been used for nearly thirty years.”

  Stephanie pointed at a strip of grass and dirt to the west, which was overgrown but recognizable. Korbin put his hand to his chin, thinking about what it would take to make it useable again. He wanted an airstrip. It was a priority, but he knew that living quarters were first and foremost.

  Stephanie and Korbin walked around the base, stopping at the concrete slabs with Joshua’s machines on pallets stacked on them.

  They could probably use those slabs to put up some new buildings on, or even possibly a kitchen where everyone could take turns preparing dinners and such. It was a long shot, but Korbin thought maybe it would be better than pizza every night.

  Stephanie pointed to an area fifty or so feet away. “I want to create the foundation for the business, for Joshua’s things, right beyond this slab we’re standing on. It will connect to the network down below, though I don’t think we will be able to put the machines below because of ventilation issues for now. Maybe in the future we can move everything down there and have him completely hidden away from the world. I think he’d much rather have it that way than have to run screaming every time someone came to the base. The more I’m here, the more I appreciate the usefulness of underground compounds.”

  “I don’t know if that will be possible, actually,” Korbin admitted. “As much as I would like to have him stowed away, I doubt that we will be able to put that part underground without risking our safety, due to the high gas content of the metals he works with. That being said, we can put the raw materials down below in a vault, along with the finished product. That will leave very little aboveground—maybe nothing more than the equipment and the work in progress.”

  “The finished weapons could be stored in the weapons bunker with the rest of them,” Stephanie suggested. “Whatever is available for team use can be left out, and the rest can be locked up for clients and orders. If there gets to be too much stock to keep in there, we can always create a bunker just for those. There are plenty of areas underground. Even if we had everyone live underground instead of in the barracks, there would still be dozens of rooms available for us to use.”

  “Good.” Korbin nodded. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you—I spoke with a contact at the airport. There is a MH-6 Little Bird for sale that I am considering purchasing. It won’t carry the entire team—maybe five at the most—but I was thinking that would get us on the road a lot faster. I could get from here to the jet facility in Las Vegas in about fifteen minutes. I am still looking for a chopper that’s big enough for the whole team, but I figured it would be a start. We can use it locally for reconnaissance. They are relatively straightforward to fly, too.”

  “That’s awesome,” Stephanie exclaimed, slapping him on the shoulder. “Get your airstrip set up and you are a bona fide operation.”

  “I sure hope so.” He chuckled.

  20

  Katie kicked a red solo cup across the floor and went around the corner into the kitchen, where Damian was standing amidst bottles and mess. Given the party they had thrown the night before, there were bound to be some hungover twenty-somethings nearby besides the ones on the lawn. Unless they were infected twenty-somethings, though, the call was a complete bust. Damian held up a bottle of no-name whiskey and grimaced.

  “They should be locked up.”

  “There’s no evidence of anything demon-related here.” Katie picked up a bra with the tip of her knife. “I’ll call it in.”

  “Good idea,” Damian agreed as Katie got on her phone. “And ask if anyone there wants some stale Doritos or Natural Light beer.”

  Katie laughed, turning away with the phone pressed to her ear. It wasn’t the excitement she had expected, but at least they had found three living people and the humor of the situation. The phone rang twice, and the local lead picked up.

  “This is Max.”

  “Hey, it’s Katie. We are at 419 Brunswick. There’s nothing here except the remnants of a party and three passed-out kids in the front yard.”

  “All right, good,” he said, making a note. “We have another call. Write down the address.”

  “Okay,” Katie said, pulling her notepad from her back pocket and grabbing a pen out of the puddle of beer on the table. “Hit me with it.”

  Katie and Damian left the party house and stepped into the SUV. One of the kids slowly raised his head off the grass to watch them drive away.

  Katie chuckled as she put the address into the GPS. She sat back and looked out the window. She had never been to a party like that, not even in college. Between keeping her grades up to keep her tuition assistance and playing volleyball for a coach who monitored their every move, she had stayed out of fraternity row for the most part.

  Most of the girls on her team had bitched about it, but Katie was fine. She wasn’t interested in getting barfed on.

  As they turned away from the main street, Katie realized that the scenery was changing with it. The houses were smaller and more run-down, and the general area wasn’t very well-kept.

  She got a chill up her spine, and realized that this one might be the real thing. Damian slowly pulled up in front of the target house and they got out, making their way to the door.

  The yard was overgrown, and there weren’t any signs of life. When they knocked on the door they heard low, deep growls, followed by the sounds of furniture crashing to the floor.

  “What in
the hell is going on in there?” Damian asked. “Sounds like a fucking twelve-foot Rottweiler.”

  It’s no normal dog, Pandora warned. Those are hellhounds.

  What? Katie replied, putting her hand up to signal for Damian to wait. You guys can enter hounds?

  Well, yeah. We can enter pretty much anything with a soul, she explained. But that isn’t what is inside that house.

  Katie sighed. Okay, then what’s in there?

  Those are real hellhounds. Demons that look like very large dogs with vicious teeth, red eyes, and parts that would make your grandmother turn over in her grave.

  “Oh, that sounds lovely,” Katie said aloud, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

  “What?” Damian asked.

  “Pandora said those aren’t actual dogs,” Katie reiterated. “They are—”

  “Hellhounds,” Damian interrupted. “Never actually seen one in person, but I’ve heard some really nasty stories. Interesting. New Jersey doesn’t only have bad television shows, they have dogs that like to eat humans. I knew this place was a fucking armpit.”

  “I was always a cat person anyway,” Katie said, sheathing her knives. “Though I’m not jumping on that train, because the next thing I know a demon lion will be chasing me down the street.”

  Actually— Pandora began.

  I don’t want to hear about it. Keep it to yourself, Katie snapped.

  Fine, but if we go to Africa you are arming yourself with a fucking flamethrower, Pandora warned.

  Deal, Katie replied. It would be awesome to have one of those right about now.

  Katie and Damian looked at each other for a moment before simultaneously pulling out their pistols.

  Katie let out a deep breath and reached for the door handle, not looking forward to this one. Damian nodded at her as she flung the door open and pointed her pistol inside.