Outbreak (The Outbreak Series Book 1)
Page 8
In my peripheral vision, I spied a body of a guard lying nearby. A hip holster held a pistol. I reached for it with my right hand, wrapped my fingers around the butt of the pistol, and drew the handgun out of the holster. Luckily for me, Mother didn’t see a thing.
Yet my index finger stayed outside the trigger guard for now. I felt bad about what I was going to do. In fact, I greatly hated myself at the moment. But I had to do that. Weeping in grief, Mother was completely unaware of what was happening around her. That could be my only opportunity to waste her. There was no telling if I would have another one anytime soon.
I slipped the tip of my index finger into the trigger guard and onto the trigger and brought the handgun up to her hand. She suddenly stopped sobbing when the metal muzzle touched her. Her body ceased shaking and stiffened, tightened. I gave her a triple-tap: one shot to the head and, when she tumbled down, two in the chest. Having jumped to my feet, I put Mother in my sights once more and shot her another time in the chest for good measure.
I kept my handgun trained on her for a few more seconds as if I was expecting her to resurrect and sit up. However, that never occurred. She just lay there, the pool of blood slowly growing under her, a big bloom of red blossoming from her chest. A crimson stain spread rapidly across her dress. In death, she looked like an ordinary woman. It was hard to believe that she was a livid witch from another dimension. For a second I even wondered if I had made up the whole thing in my mind and capped the innocent woman. As if to prove my speculation to be wrong Mother began to move. At least it looked like she started twitching or wiggling. A tad later on, I learned I was wrong.
It wasn’t her that was moving. No, Mother herself was motionless, and it was her loose attire that began to flutter slightly as if flying in the light breeze. The flapping of her clothes was getting more and more evident with every single beat of my racing heart. I had a feeling that something bad was about to happen.
After a few seconds, her threads were whipped violently as if being lashed at by a strong wind blowing. I felt a strong rush of air coming from the Mother’s body. Her skin started to sparkle and shine, the glittering and the blowing increasing by a second. Something nasty was on the verge of occurring, I could feel it in my bones.
Employing all the magical power I could muster, I created an energy protective dome around myself. I had barely finished the job when Mother’s body burst in a dazzling explosion. The terrifying shock of the explosion picked me up and threw me backward. I was able to survive, thanks to the magical dome taking the blast wave and absorbing most of the impact. Yet smashing against the unyielding concrete wall was still painful. I even passed out cold for a few seconds. When I regain consciousness, I noticed that Mother’s body had disappeared with no trace of ever having been laying there.
The whole complex was quaking, concrete walls crumbling, long cracks running along them every which way, bits of plaster and concrete constantly dropping down from the ceiling. The entire underground building was teetering on the edge of collapsing in on itself. I had to get out of there fast. If I didn’t haul ass I would be buried under tons of the rubble forever, of that I had no doubt. To stay here any minute longer would be suicide on my part. In order to stay alive, I had to leg it extremely fast.
I was hurt from having been smashed against the wall, but at least I was still ambulatory, so I burst into a run.
To my pleasure, I was able to split the underground facility before it gave way. Once outside, I leaped into the vehicle I had driven here in, shoved the gearshift knob forward, stomped on the gas, made a wide U-turn, and tore off. As I was speeding away, I would glance in the rearview mirror to see the house, which was the entrance to the underground facility, caved in. The ground behind my car was sagging bringing about a great depression. The side of that enormous hole was collapsing almost faster than the speed my car was racing away at. The ground was falling in just beyond the vehicle’s trunk in a crash of din and billow of swirling dust. For a few minutes, I was sure I wasn’t going to make it. The ground continued to collapse and the vast cavity expanded and widened even farther. I caught my breath when I saw a fresh plume of dusty earth kicked high up in front of the vehicle’s hood. The gravel road I was driving along was progressively worsening due to the earthquake, I could tell this by the bumping and jarring of the truck’s suspension.
But then everything suddenly went silent. The ground ceased to shake and collapse. The chaos seemed to be all over. I drove a little farther across the desert, dust kicking up around the tires. I then brought the car to a halt, shoved the driver’s-side door open, and climbed out. A few feet behind the vehicle gaped a colossal opening in the ground, the enormous black hole from which swirling dust billowed upward lifting into the sky.
It was all over. At least, that was what I thought at the moment. Yet in time to come, I was to learn that erasing Mother wasn’t the end at all.
It was just the beginning.
Epilogue
It’s been one year since I smoked Mother and Frank. The world’s changed. Completely changed. When Mother exploded, the dark energy erupted from her and spread all over the world. It inflicted serious harm on people. Most of them flipped out, going totally insane like the crazies I had encountered at the Walmart. Few of the population of the Earth went unaffected by the dark, magical energy. But there are some people who not only did go crazy but they also acquired supernatural abilities like the woman from the Walmart. And every single one of such people has been using their newly secured magical powers solely to lay waste everywhere they went. Guess this is the case, for Mother herself was extremely livid and flat-out anxious to destroy the world. So in a word, the whole Earth has been plunged into devastating full-on chaos.
As for me, I lost all my magic the moment Mother exploded in a quickly spreading wave of dark energy. I imagine I managed to remain alive only because of my magic shield I had created. However, Mother’s dark energy slamming against my magical shield cost me all my magical powers. When it swept across me, it deprived me of my magic. Not that I complained much about that. I ended up safe and sound, only that mattered.
Nobody but me knows why the world has changed and became the way it is now. What everyone knows is that one day some sort of magical power has swept the whole planet and caused great changes to the world. This event’s been dubbed the Outbreak.
So I’m an ordinary man now. Just as the next guy. Yet I’m on a quest now. Having no magical powers notwithstanding, I’m still gonna take care of all the people with supernatural abilities. Since it was I who has fragged Mother and caused shit to hit the fan, it’s my responsibility to deal with them. Sure enough, I’m only too well aware that it’s a very difficult goal to accomplish. But I know I won’t give up on my mission without a resolution to this nightmare. Either I’ll eradicate all the people with Mother’s dark magical abilities and end this nightmare or else I’ll die trying.
I’m in Mexico in a small town now. The town is in complete chaos and disorder. I mean, such Mexican towns always were out of order due to being under the total control of malicious and omnipresent cartels, but now the situation’s even worse here. The town is complete mayhem. Yet I’ve come here not to deal with cartels’ sicarious traversing the area. No, I’ve got here to find and eliminate the gang of crazies possessing deadly magical abilities that wreaking havoc here. Even the cartel’s thugs can’t deal with the gang of the sorcerers, so it’s up to me to take care of it.
I’m inside the cargo bay of a van now, checking my gear one last time. I pack a Heckler & Koch MP5 nine-millimeter submachine gun hanging from a sling over my right shoulder. I also wear a Kevlar bulletproof vest under a chest rig, which carry a few thirty-round magazines for the subgun, held in place with Velcro straps, as well as several extra mags for a Beretta M9 jutting out of its holster on my right hip. I also have a combat knife in a quick-access sheath adorning my utility belt.
Having checked the gear, I take a long deep
breath, shove the doors open, and climb out of the van.
Time to kick some crazy sorcerers’ asses.
The End
Other books by Victor Deckard
The Glitch Series (LitRPG)
Glitch Book One
Glitch Book Two
Glitch Book Three
Glitch Book Four
Glitch Book Five
Glitch Book Six
Glitch: The Complete Series