“You have women at your camp?” Skater asks. “I’m sure we can make a trade for some women.”
“Not for sale,” I say, laughing. “What else would you want?”
“I’d have to ask, Bert,” he says. “He probably just wants women too.”
Orange slaps the kid on the back of the head. “Dude, we don’t want slaves. Just go get Bert.”
Skater kid takes his cue and runs off around the building.
“Sorry about him,” he says. “You know how teenage boys can be.”
“I can probably come up with a collection of porn mags,” I say, laughing.
“Then you’d be left without power and a new companion,” he says. “Names, Ralph.”
“Mitch,” I say. “We call this one Nal.” I nod over towards him. “Don’t ask his real name.”
He snorts. “So you guys really here to fix the power,” he says.
“That’s the plan,” Nal says, looking up at the roof. “Had it going once, anyways.”
“I was wondering who did that. We lost power about a week ago. Bert figured it wouldn’t be that hard to get back on.”
“Yeah, I ran into a bit of… trouble,” Nal says.
I see a large man, easily mid threes, walking around the corner. How a guy can live in these times and be that fat is beyond me, but something tells me that’s why he’s the boss.
“Josh tells me you want to offer a trade for some power,” Bert says, Skater in tow.
“I was thinking more of an alliance,” Nal says. “Both sides provide guards and technicians to keep the place up, and we both get power.”
Bert rubs one of his five chins with his fat, grubby fingers for a few seconds before answering. “I think you need to sweeten the pot.”
“How?” Nal says.
“We need guns,” he says. “And canned foods.”
“Guns we can handle. Food is another story.”
“Then I have an idea,” He says, pulling a pistol out of his pocket. “How about you get out of here and find a place with your own power.”
“I have an even better idea,” I say, pulling his gun to my hand. “You can leave.”
The look on Bert’s face is priceless. It’s hovering somewhere between holy shit and what the fuck until Nal grabs the gun from my hand.
“That isn’t necessary,” he says, handing the gun to Ralph. “We can work together here. There’s no reason for anyone to die today.”
“Everything fine, boss?” I look up and see our friend on the roof looking down.
“Yeah, go back to watching the road,” Bert says, rubbing his palms.
“What do you think?” Nal says.
“With that guy around, I don’t see I have a choice.”
“You have a choice,” I say. “The smart call is to take his offer to help each other out.”
He looks down at his hand before turning behind him. “What ‘cha think, boys?”
I assume he is addressing the rest of the guys on the other side of the building. Bert’s head moves back and fort a few times, like he is watching the conversation intently. After a minute, all of his men walk around to the side of the building.
“What do you think they’ll do?” I say.
“Couldn’t tell you,” he says. “We need someone to watch the back, make sure nobody is sneaking around from behind.” He looks over at Terry with his deer rifle slung over his shoulder. “You put a bead on the rooftop. Make sure he isn’t up to anything funny.”
Terry nods before taking a few steps back. Once in position he kneels down behind a stack of pallets, resting the gun on the pile while he watches the rooftop through his scope.
“What do you need me to do?” I say.
“Can you clone yourself?” he asks.
“Not one of my tricks,” I laugh.
“Then just keep your head on a swivel,” I promised Uriel I’d bring them all home safe.
I crack my knuckles. “Can’t go breaking a promise now, can we?”
He smiles at me, pulling his pistol out of its holster. That’s your sign Nal is worried. I can’t say he refuses to use a gun because I’ve seen him use one frequently. To be fair, it is normally in self defense, though. He has a thing about killing people as odd as that may sound.
Not having others kill people for him though. Just killing them himself.
I take a few steps forward, hoping to get a view of the men around the corner. It takes me ten steps before I see the first man, Josh kneeling on the ground lacing his boots. I side step a few times to catch a clear view of the rest. Once I see the man on the roof climbing down the access ladder in the front I signal Terry to lower his weapon. I figure that Nal wouldn’t want us to look too aggressive unless we had a reason. Seeing that the coast was clear, or at least everyone was on the ground in front of us, helped ease the tensions in our camp some.
I take a few steps backwards when I notice Bert moving our way. Behind him, his other men have lowered their weapons, some even putting them away.
Maybe Nal was right. We can handle this without shedding any blood.
“I take it you two are in charge,” Bert says walking up.
“I am,” Nal says. “But I don’t go anywhere without him.”
“Then it’s only fair I bring one of mine in the conversation.” He turns around facing his group. “Ralph, get over here.”
Ralph jogs around the corner into our little pow-wow, smiling. I guess he just learned he was second in command on the job. Always nice when that happens. Too bad the promotion probably didn’t come with a pay raise.
“Let’s move over here,” Bert says, motioning towards a picnic table in the middle of the yard. “Been standing too much already.”
I smile at Nal. I can’t help but to think that should be reason enough to lose weight, maybe find a treadmill somewhere. Not a lesson I’ve ever had to learn, thankfully. Less of a problem now with the lack of food. You tend to go easy on things when you don’t have much to go around. Better to save a bit for tomorrow instead of eating it all today. The exact opposite line of thought from the rest of the American culture that said you should super size it and eat it today.
The four of us sit down on the table, Nal and I on one side with Bert and Ralph on the other. I’m thankful Nal sat on this side of the table because it gives us a clear view of his men. It’s not that I don’t trust Bert, but…
Yeah, I don’t trust him. Or his men for that matter. At least from here they would have to shoot their boss to take us out. That’s all the comfort I need right now.
“So, what are we talking about here,” Bert asks.
“When I controlled the plant, I had twelve people stationed here constantly,” Nal says. “So, six men each, at minimum. Then another two each to cover the plant.”
“You can run this with four people?” Ralph says. “We have a small army inside.”
Nal laughs. “One for every chair?”
Ralph nods.
“Better to have too many, but three our four is all you need to monitor things. They can radio to the guards if they need a hand.”
“Well, shoot,” Bert says. “This was a lot less painful than I thought it would be.”
“You get to keep some men back at your camp now,” I smile. “Probably a better place for most of them.”
Bert leans over to shake Nal’s hand while Ralph shakes mine.
“How do we contact you if there is a problem?” Bert asks.
Nal pulls a metal case out of his pocket, then hands him a business card from inside. “Phone is on all the time.”
Bert smiles, pulling a scrap of paper out of his pocket to hand it to Nal. “Here’s mine,” he says. “Wife’s rather. I hate technology.”
Nal laughs. “Gotcha.”
I stand up, ready to make the trip back home. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feeling that this is a wasted day. Not that we didn’t get something important done because we did. But if I had known things would have gone down without
a hitch I would have spent the day with Sara. Get a little alone time with her.
“What the hell is that?” Bert asks, falling on the ground after tripping on a rock.
I turn around, seeing what he is talking about. Behind us, approaching the north gate are three of the ugliest dogs I’ve ever seen. They are definitely the biggest. Not every day you see three dogs the size of elephants.
- 7 -
“Find some cover!” I yell, running away from the snarling beasts. From far away, they almost look like normal dogs. Until they were up on the fence, that is. Once their skin touches the metal it glows a bright red color, almost like it is getting hot. I watch in horror as I see the metal links of the fence turn a shade of yellow before slowly changing to orange.
“They are melting the fence!” Ralph says, helping Burt to his feet.
“Why didn’t you tell me about these things?” Nal says. He pulls his gun out, firing off a few shots while he backpedals towards the plant.
“First I’ve seen of them,” I say, pulling out my sword. I’m not sure what I’m facing here, or if this will even work, but I do know I don’t want to risk losing my knife to one of them. With any luck, they won’t be able to melt whatever the hell metal they used to create this sword.
It doesn’t take them long to melt through the fence, adding three large holes to the one we left in the back. Going to need to make a trip to Home Depot later to fix this.
Saying we survive.
Behind me, I can hear two distinct groups of gunfire. To my left, my team is mainly equipped with small arms weapons, so the shots are coming one at a time. To the right, I can tell they managed to find a cache of semi-automatic weaponry thanks to their rate of fire.
The dogs seem to split up as they close in. One heading towards Bert’s men, another to our men, the last one wants me. Guess it’s time to see what these puppies are made of.
Grasping the blade with two hands, I square up to the dog in front of me. It stops about five yards way to snarl, forcing me to jump back when it lifts its front paws up in the air. Some of its spittle rains down on the surrounding ground, causing it to smoke and burn.
Well great. Not only can they melt metal by touching it, they have some lava-acid spit. One of these days I’m going to find whoever created these creatures and shove my angel blade straight up their ass.
Just need to live long enough to do it.
I rush forward, swinging my blade in a wide arc as the dog drops to the ground. The tip of the sword catching it in the leg sending some of its lava blood on the ground in front of it. The beast lets out a loud howl before bending over to lick the wound.
I nearly shit myself when it finally stops, lifts up its head, and roars at me. Looking down, I notice his leg isn’t bleeding anymore. I guess I should be thankful that I don’t have to dodge those fireballs too, but it would be nice if I could add to the cut. Looks like you have to take these things down in one shot.
The beast rears back again before leaping my way. I roll to my right, narrowly avoiding his claws. I hold my ground as he circles around me, waiting for its time to strike. After ten seconds of Ring Around the Rosie, it turns at me and charges, once again sending me sprawling to the ground.
Not only is this thing big, it’s also fast. I barely have a chance to dodge one blow before facing down another. Hopefully the guys are doing better with theirs than I am with mine, or we are all going to be dead in a hurry.
“Let’s see what these things are made of,” I say, running towards the holes in the fence.
I don’t have to look behind me to know the big son of a bitch is following me because I can feel it on the ground. With every step he takes, the ground shakes making it hard to keep my balance.
Finally reaching the fence, I leap in the air through the holes they made coming in, rolling on the ground once I’m on the other side. The demon dog wasn’t nearly as graceful, crashing into the chain link fence bending some of the fence posts in the process.
“Over here, doggie,” I say, running my sword along the fence as I run away from the thing. I seem to have its attention because it is following me on the other side of the fence.
This may work out better than I thought.
I stop once I reach the corner post, figuring that it may take him a few extra seconds to burn through the three inch steel post.
Seconds I desperately need.
Roaring in protest, the beast charges head-first into the post nearly pulling it out of the ground.
Guess I don’t have as much time as I thought.
With the beast in front of me, I reach out to pull the chain link fence on my side of the holes. Sensing the motion, he roars at me, sending a spray of magma spit at me that deflects off of the post to the surrounding ground.
I better make this fast.
I give up on the actual fence and instead shift my focus onto the smaller post on my side of the hole, hoping to get a better pull.
Once I latch on, I look forward to see the dog turning bright orange as he moves into the post. The surrounding fence glowing hot as he crashes into it.
With one last chance to make this work I yank my left arm, ripping the post out of the ground. I continue to pull it towards me while it rattles along the ground below. With the post closing in, I see the beast making his last push through the steel post between us.
I hear the crash of steel as the post hits the ground, the dog finally melting his way through. Hoping that I’m not too late, I close my eyes to wait for his jaws to close around me. Instead I’m rewarded with the sound of the fence slamming around the mutt.
I open my eyes to see the fence wrapping up around the dog, sending the danger of his jaws to my right.
“Game over,” I say, rushing over to the beast.
His body changes colors again as it struggles under the weight of the fence. Without another moment of hesitation I take my blade and stick it into the beast’s head, from under its jaw.
It lets out a loud howl as its volcanic blood gushes out of the wound. I let go of the blade to step out of the way, hoping the sword doesn’t melt down in the process.
Bending over to catch my breath, I watch closely as the beast twitches on the ground until he stops a minute later.
“One down,” I say, wiping my forehead. “Two to go.”
I’m about to run off to help the other groups when I notice the dog melting into a puddle of goo, steaming as it touches the plant life below. Shortly after, I notice the red liquid turn a shade of white before finally settling on a blackish-gray color as the goo hardens with my sword upright in the middle of it.
I walk close to the material testing it with the tip of my toe. Unless I’m mistaken, it is solid rock and nice and cool. A nice little surprise. I take a few steps on top of it and pull my sword out of the mess.
With my sword back, I run back towards the plant to find the other two dogs. Towards the front of the building I see four bodies laying on the ground, all smoldering. To the back the ground is clear, except for a set of blackened paw prints.
I sprint towards the back of the power plant, hoping I’m not too late. Knowing what these things can do, I don’t let the lack of bodies comfort me at all. Once I’m to the building I make out the hind legs of one beast. As I move closer I make out my crew, standing in a semi-circle around the thing with Nal on the right. Without hesitation I rush forward, hoping to take this one down before he can kill my friends.
“Hold your fire!” Nal says once he sees me. The gunfire stopping as I get close.
The hound hound turns at Nal, growling in challenge. Unless I’m seeing things, it almost senses the fact he is a leader. That or he is just mad at the one person actually talking.
The beast takes a few steps towards Nal as I get closer, stopping every few feet to growl again. Nal, with his gun aimed at the thing, is backing up slowly towards the fence.
Seeing my friend in trouble I kick my sprint up a notch, which isn’t saying much. I’ve never
been the fastest runner, but I wasn’t ever that bad either. At least when it came to sprinting. I was never much of a long distance runner.
The fence buckles as Nal’s body pushes into it, his face showing traces of fear at the beast closing in. Behind him I see the flash from the barrel of his rifle as he takes a shot at the beast’s head. I shift slightly to the right to avoid the spray of blood as it leaves the other side.
The dog shakes his head a few times before staring down his new threat, Terry with his rifle. Nal, sensing his chance to move takes a few steps my way.
“Game over, mutt,” I say, leaping into the air. The beast roars at Terry in contempt as my blade finds purchase in the base of its spine. Leaving the blade in place blade, I push my body away from the dog to prepare for its gruesome death.
“Thanks for the save,” Nal says, wiping his brow. “Shit wasn’t working on them.”
I nod, grabbing my blade from the new stone pile. “This does, at least.”
“You see Bert’s crew?” Nal says, changing out his magazine.
“They lost a few,” I say. “But I didn’t see them out front.”
“Maybe they ran out towards the trucks,” he says. “I can’t say I didn’t think about getting the hell out myself.”
“Let’s find out,” I say taking the lead.
Up front I see the front gate opened though the edges are slightly melted. A surefire sign the last dog went this way.
I stop at the gate to address the men. “Try to keep your gunfire to a minimum,” I say. “If someone is in trouble, take a shot to distract him like Terry did earlier.” I look over at the man, who is beaming. You can tell he is new to this hero shit too. I only hope he gets used to it, the world can use more men like him.
The men all acknowledge my command in their own way before following me out of the gate.
I follow the trail of charred footprints as they lead through the woods. Looking at the trees, I see the obvious signs of the dog’s passage thanks to the smoldering branches and a few lit leaves. The damage continues until we are in the clearing, with the beast up ahead.
Vessel: The Demontouched Saga (Book 4) Page 4
