Blood Apocalypse - 04

by Heath Stallcup

  Dom nodded, a slight grin of relief crossing his face. “Thank you, sir.”

  Mark shot him a dirty look. “How many times do I have to…”

  “That’s out of respect.” Dom got to his feet. “Not many officers actually deserve respect, but you’ve earned it in my book and you ain’t even commissioned.”

  Mark studied him cautiously. “Okay. I guess I’ll let it pass then.”

  Dominic headed to the door. “If you think of anything on this, just let me know. Anything I can do, or anything I can help with…”

  “I will, Dom.”

  Tufo watched the man leave and sat back down in his chair. He thought about what he had told him and rolled the idea around a bit. Although he had no earthly idea how they could use the information, he knew that somehow it had to be useful. He felt another yawn come on and turned toward his private quarters again. This time he shut the door between his quarters and his office and removed his BDU shirt before collapsing on the bed.

  When he slept, he dreamed of vampires and dirt…and flames that engulfed everything.

  *****

  Barbara Mueller stared at the floor of the cabin above them, her ears straining to hear every sound. Although nothing had moved since she and Bobby had snuck into the crawlspace, her sixth sense told her that somebody…or something was out there. Perhaps it was waiting until they felt the two of them were sound asleep before making their move, but it was out there. To his credit, Bobby sat perfectly still, his eyes studying his mother. He held his knife in his little hands, ready for whatever may come.

  Barbara’s nerves were almost shot. She knew she was sleep deprived and her body was burning excess adrenaline at an alarming rate. Her senses were in hyperdrive, and she felt like a watch that was wound too tight. She forced her head to the side in a vain attempt to stretch her neck and was alarmed at the loud cracking noise that greeted her when she did it. Although the action brought her some relief, she wasn’t prepared for the sound to be so loud in the shallow area under the cabin. To her heightened senses, it might as well have been a gunshot.

  Bobby hardly seemed to notice his mother’s agitation. His eyes shifted from her to the trap door they had used to slip below and back to her. Like her, he waited for whoever was foolish enough to try to follow them below.

  After what seemed to be hours, they both heard the unmistakable sound of the front door creaking as it was slowly opened. They never heard footsteps on the front porch and that alarmed them both. They peered down along the cabins wooden floor to where they knew the door to be and thought they could make out dim shadows through the narrow slits in the wood planks. Whoever had pushed the door open was still near the entrance of the cabin, probably looking for signs of life.

  After a few moments, they finally heard the footsteps as the intruder crossed the cabin and rifled through the meager belongings scattered about the interior. A second set of footsteps soon followed and a muffled voice could be heard above them. Barbara strained her ears to hear them and could just make out their conversation.

  “It looks like they’ve been gone a while,” said an obviously male voice.

  “Richardson found their car about a half mile down the hill. Do you really think they’d have left it?” the other voice asked. This voice was softer, but also male.

  She could hear things being tossed about the cabin and an empty can clattered to the floor close to where she sat straining to hear.

  “I dunno. Who can tell with women these days? For all I know she ran out of gas and walked to a neighbors’ house,” the first voice responded.

  “Okay…so what do we report?”

  “What do you think we report? Exactly what we found. An empty cabin that nobody’s been in for days.” She heard more things clatter to the floor. “Hell, it could have been over a week ago. There’s no telling how long it’s been since anybody’s actually been in this dump.”

  “Hey, are you itching?” the soft voice asked. “My skin feels like it’s on fire.”

  “Son of a...silver nitrate!” the second voice snarled. “Mixed with white pepper! No wonder I can’t smell a thing...and my fucking eyes are burning like hell.”

  Something heavy thumped to the floor and she heard smaller things scatter about. “What are you doing?” asked the softer voice, “Shouldn’t we leave?”

  “I’m looking for a clue to where they might have gone. Surely they left something!” the first voice yelled.

  Barbara kept her eyes on Bobby and watched as her little man’s eyes narrowed on the trap door opening, his grip on the knife tightening. She slowly raised her hand to her mouth and extended one finger to her pursed lips in a shushing motion. Bobby only nodded then turned his eyes back to the trap door.

  They both listened to the two men rifle through the remains of their stock until a female voice chimed in. “Richardson said to regroup. If they aren’t here then we’re to keep looking. They’re somewhere on this damned mountain, he’s sure of it, and we don’t have much time before sunrise.”

  “Fuck!” the first voice yelled, and he obviously threw something that crashed against the wall, shattering.

  “You want I should stay here in case they return? I could wait outside,” the second male voice asked, turning Barbara’s blood cold at the thought.

  The other two were silent for a moment before the female replied, “You better not. Richardson wants everybody looking for her and that brat kid. If they haven’t been here, then odds are they aren’t coming back.”

  Barbara fought not to give an audible sigh when she heard that.

  “Should we torch the place?” the first voice asked. Barbara’s eyes shot open and she began to raise her pistol intending to try to shoot through the floorboards, but Bobby’s hand was on her wrist to stay her.

  “Are you nuts?” the female responded. “Not only could that get firefighters out here, but it could also alert her that somebody is after her! Not to mention you could set the whole damn forest on fire! Where would that put us?”

  “Come on, dumbass. Let’s get back to the group before Richardson gets pissed,” the softer male voice said.

  “Who are you calling dumbass?” the first voice said as they left the cabin. Barbara listened as the footsteps tromped out much louder than when they came in.

  Bobby started to make a move for the trap door, but she held him back and shook her head. He shot her a questioning look and she pulled him close to her and whispered in his ear, “We wait. Let them get some distance.” Bobby nodded and started to settle back when she pulled him close again. “If they didn’t sabotage the car, then we are out of here at sun up.”

  He simply nodded and hugged his mom.

  *****

  Bright and early, Captain Roberts tracked down Colonel Mitchell as he settled into his office to go over the nightly security logs. Roberts had made a point to speak with each of his men personally and get them on board with the program. After realizing that he wasn’t joking about the coming threat, each man listened to him as Roberts made an appeal to the man’s integrity and asked if they would make it their goal to help get the other men on board with the mission. Although they didn’t know it at the time, Roberts made it his personal quest to search out each man and make the same appeal. And each man took to heart his request, all except McDonald, who Roberts knew better than to ask.

  The security teams were at first alarmed by the newcomers to the base. Being forewarned is one thing, but meeting the newcomers first hand left more than a handful of the men with unsettled nerves. Roberts made it a new standard operating procedure that all personnel manning the gates would operate in groups of six with armed pairs to escort any newcomers to their respective abodes.

  Vampires were escorted outside the base proper to the old warehouse and placed with Foster’s people while the first wolves were being placed in the other underground facility. Viktor made a point of setting up residence there until the first handful of wolves arrived. With him there they would hav
e somebody to point out the facilities and help them settle in. Once more wolves started to flow in, he packed out and moved back to Natashia.

  Vehicles were being parked along the old abandoned runways like two very long parking lots. RVs, semis, cars, pickups, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, anything and everything that could transport a person was being used to bring them out here to the desert. Roberts halfway expected aircraft to start circling and requesting permission to land, but knew that even with their skeleton crew they’d never be allowed close.

  As he reported the activity to Mitchell, he noticed that the base commander seemed distant or his mind preoccupied. He paused and set his reports in his lap. “Colonel?”

  Matt looked up. “Hmm? Yes, Captain?”

  “I just…well, sir, you seemed…elsewhere. Is everything okay?” He seemed honestly concerned.

  Matt placed his copy on the desk and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain. I don’t mean to belittle you or your reports by not paying attention.” He stood and went to the window. “My Executive Officer recently quit and I find myself…” he smirked and turned back to the captain, “well, just a little lost now and then. She usually handles this aspect of the operations. My new XO has his hands full with the men and all the new operators.”

  Captain Roberts nodded. “I think that’s understandable under the circumstances, Colonel.” He picked up his reports and started to put them away. “We can go over this stuff another time, sir.”

  “No, Captain, we can finish it now,” Matt said. “I’m sorry. I just find myself wondering if she’s okay, that’s all.”

  “Sir, I’m sure you must have more important duties to attend to. Surely this can wait…”

  “No.” Matt waved him back to his seat. “This is as good a time as any.” He went back to his desk, yet he just couldn’t quite bring himself to pick up the reports.

  Roberts nodded. “Something else is bothering you, isn’t it?”

  Matt slowly lowered himself into his seat and looked across at Roberts. “You know, Captain, there are a lot of things that have been bothering me lately. A lot of things seem to go really smoothly for us and a lot of things…well, maybe not so much. But as a whole, we tend to land on our feet.” Matt glanced away a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. “But this situation that we’re about to face? We don’t really know what it is that we’re up against. I mean, we have an idea, and we have clues, but we don’t really know,” Matt said quietly. Roberts nodded his head, listening intently. “My men and I have gone up against some really nasty things over the years. But every time we did, we had a pretty good idea what to expect. Not this time.”

  “Well, Colonel, you know it will be vampires, right?”

  “True, but how many?” Matt gave Roberts a knowing look. “It could be over a million, and that’s something we’ve just never had to deal with before.” He leaned back in his chair and gave him a stare. “Can you imagine a tsunami of cold-blooded bodies coming at you like that?”

  Roberts went pale at the thought. “Honestly, no. To be completely honest, Colonel, I can’t imagine having to face one of them, much less…”

  “So you can imagine where I’m coming from.” Matt leaned forward again, his eyes piercing Roberts. “True, we have reinforcements that we’ve never used before. And we have a few weapons in our arsenal that we don’t usually have. But all in all, this isn’t something that we have ever dealt with before.”

  “Because of the massive numbers…”

  “And their leader,” Matt added. “He’s not stoppable. And even if he were, we aren’t supposed to kill him. We’re supposed to catch him. This is totally unlike any situation we’ve ever faced.”

  “Yeah, I can see what you mean,” Roberts added quietly, the depth of the situation finally sinking in. “Colonel, I know it isn’t much, but you know that my men and I are here for you. Whatever you need for us to do, we’ll do it.”

  Mitchell met Roberts gaze and it dawned on him that Roberts was offering him the lives of himself and his men; he couldn’t find the words to express the gratitude he felt for the man at that exact moment. He nodded to Captain Roberts, a tight smile forming across his mouth.

  “Thank you, Captain. I know I can count on you and your boys to do what needs to be done.”

  Before either man could say anything else, the intercom beeped on the colonel’s phone. Mitchell mashed the button and the base operator spoke through the speaker. “Colonel, you have the Pentagon for you on line two.”

  He glanced back to Captain Roberts. “Captain, I better take this call. If it’s all the same, just leave the reports and I’ll go over them with my XO later. If we have any questions, I’ll give you a call.”

  “That’ll be fine sir.”

  As Captain Roberts left his office, Mitchell picked up the phone expecting the worse. He wasn’t disappointed.

  14

  Maria pulled Hank into the shadows and stole a kiss when she knew nobody could see them. Hank felt her melt into his arms, softening as their arms entwined around each other.

  As they pulled away, catching their breath, she looked deeply at him and whispered, “I can’t keep doing this.”

  “Me neither.” He lowered his eyes, unable to meet her piercing gaze.

  “I can’t keep avoiding him. He already suspects something.”

  “It’s only until after this operation, Maria,” Hank argued. “We both agreed that his role in this is too important to—”

  “I know what we agreed to, but he’s making it pretty damned difficult.”

  Hank sighed and stepped deeper into the shadows, pulling her after him. He lowered his voice even more, “Just keep trying to keep him at bay. Please, Maria, just a little longer.”

  With a heavy heart she nodded and laid her forehead against his heavily muscled chest. “Just pray that he doesn’t press it, Hank. Please.”

  “I do. Every moment that we are apart, I do.”

  “So do I,” a voice from deeper in the darkness said, causing them both to jump. Hank pulled Maria behind him in a defensive gesture as Marshall stepped out of the darkness and into the gloomy light of the motor pool shop.

  “What the hell, Dave? You been following us?” Maria almost yelled.

  Marshall gave her a sideways look. “Wasn’t that hard,” he quipped. “You look like a lovesick puppy.”

  Maria muttered a few choice curses in Spanish before Hank shushed her. “What do you want, Marshall?” he asked defensively.

  “The same damned thing you do, Padre.” Dave stared the older man down. “To keep Apollo’s head in the game until this thing is over.”

  Hank raised a brow at his remark and studied the man. “So we can trust on you to keep this to yourself?”

  Marshall shook his head at the two of them. “Honestly, Padre, I don’t give a hoot what the two of you do. I just hope you keep your heads about you.” He made his way to the doorway. “If it were me, I’d avoid each other like the plague until this thing is over. Apollo will not be happy either way, but if you seriously don’t want him finding out about you two, then you need to curb yourselves a bit.” He paused at the doorway and stole a glance over his shoulder. “And for the love of Pete…go easy on the big guy when you do break it to him. I may not know him all that well, but he seems head over heels for you Sanchez. He deserves better than this.”

  *****

  Damien observed from a distance as one of the older and more aristocratic of Foster’s followers animatedly spoke with Paul. He couldn’t tell what was being said from where he was so he worked his way in that general direction and listened in as the older vampire argued for Paul’s mercy to be allowed to leave. He had brought his minions to fight in their name and for Paul and Thorn’s misguided cause, therefore there was no reason for him and his immediate family to be put in harm’s way. Damien noticed that Foster appeared almost bored with the vampire’s rant. The harder he argued for their release, the more Paul seemed to tire of hearing his voice.


  Damien worked his way closer still and closer still until finally he was amid the group, listening to the man whine about how he was a lover, not a fighter. True, he had centuries under his belt, but he knew nothing of fighting. His family had always concentrated on gaining power by monetary means, not through battles. He could tell that Foster had stopped listening to his arguments long ago and was simply paying respect to his position by standing there when Damien decided to act. In less time than it took to think the thought, he dropped his fangs, descended his nails and slashed the vampire’s throat clean to his vertebrae, spraying black blood in all directions.

  Paul almost displayed shock as he turned his gaze upon Damien for an explanation to his actions. As the elder vampire fell to the ground, gurgling his last thoughts in his own blood, Damien looked to his master, “Cowards shall not be tolerated, my lord.”

  Slowly, the corners of Foster’s mouth curled upward and formed an evil smile. “No, my son. They shall not.” Paul leaned down and rent the elder vampire’s head from the remains of his neck and held it up at eye level. He chuckled lightly to himself before tossing it to one of his guards. “Place that on a stake for all to see. Let them know. Cowards shall not be tolerated,” Foster repeated and he began to laugh. He turned to leave then called over his shoulder, “Clean up your mess, Damien. We can’t be littering government property, now can we.” Something about his last statement made him laugh even harder.

  Damien gave an exaggerated sigh and grasped the elder vampire by the ankle. He dragged the remains to the stairwell where the body pit lay below. He checked the shadows to ensure that nobody had followed him and hefted the body up into his arms as he began down the stairs.

  With one hand, he ripped a large piece of flesh from the vampire’s back and quickly shoved it into his mouth. He barely chewed it before swallowing and almost immediately felt the sickening feeling as it hit his stomach, then the energizing feeling of the elder vampire’s centuries struck him like a sledgehammer strikes an anvil. He staggered on the stairs and fell to his knees, the grit and broken concrete biting into his flesh. He reveled in the rush of power for only a moment before rending another chunk of flesh from the other side of the vampire’s back and quickly consuming it. The power flowed through him, surging into him, filling every cell of his body until he felt he could burst.