Forsaken World (Book 4): Dark Crossing

by Watson, Thomas A.

  “That’s the Commandant,” Lance wooed sarcastically, then pushed play.

  The Commandant looked around and then moved, picking up the dropped coffee cup. As he sniffed it, four more people started screaming around the room and everyone turned to the closest person to them. “Don’t drink the coffee!” the Commandant bellowed.

  The woman on the floor at the Commandant’s feet was grabbing her throat. Having already seen this, Lilly shook her head at seeing the woman’s swollen face. The woman’s hands looked like marshmallows, they were so swollen.

  Three men ran in carrying a stretcher and started working on the woman while the Commandant moved to the coffee pot. “If someone is playing games, I will remove your ass!” the Commandant shouted.

  “She’s in anaphylactic shock!” one of the medics yelled as they put the woman on the stretcher and carried her out in a run.

  “I will find those responsible!” the Commandant bellowed, and Lance scoffed. “Replace the coffee and I want all captains to report to me now!”

  Several cooks ran out, grabbing the large coffee dispenser and carrying it back to the kitchen. “Amateur,” Ian chuckled as the Commandant headed for the door with a line of men following him.

  Lance stopped the playback before going to the menu and selected the next video. “This is thirty minutes later,” he chuckled. Lilly and Jennifer both sucked in breaths to see the cafeteria again but now, there were kids and families in the group.

  “You didn’t?” Lilly gasped. Neither she nor Jennifer had watched any more after the first one.

  “Hey, everyone there is our enemy,” Lance snorted. “Fuck with us and we fuck right back, age, race or gender means nothing when a deed is called for.”

  “Lance!” Jennifer cried, looking at the wooden box. Now she knew what they’d put in the sugar dispensers around the room. “Those are kids!”

  “Yeah, so? Nobody there is innocent in our eyes,” Lance shrugged as a woman screamed, dropping a glass. When the glass shattered on the floor, it looked like it had been tea. As several ran to her another woman and man started screaming, making everyone in the room freeze.

  Then, six kids started screaming and one knocked over a bowl of cereal as he fell to the floor. A man picked the boy up and ran for the door. Like a tidal wave, everyone ran from the possessed cafeteria. When the screen was empty, Lance stopped the playback. The ease that the boys showed dealing out pain even to the kids of their enemy did concern Jennifer. The fact Lance and Ian laughed, watching the torment is what concerned Lilly.

  “The first woman died, two of the kids had to be sedated. The others just had burning for several hours,” Lance chuckled, moving to the next video.

  “That was cool,” Ian snickered as Allie and Carrie held up their hands to Lance. He gave each a high five and then pressed play. “That is the power house,” Lance grinned when a camera showed the front of the building that held all the batteries.

  A man walked into the scene, heading to the building. Stopping before he reached the door, he turned to look out of the camera’s field of view. “This was when the medics were running for the cafeteria,” Lance explained.

  Unlike the cafeteria there was no sound, but the man could be seen calling out. For several seconds, the man looked out of the camera’s view, then turned back to the building. Reaching out, the man grabbed the doorknob. Even though she knew what the boys had done, Jennifer jumped with Lilly when the man gave a jerk and flew back several yards before crashing to the ground.

  “Told you fifty amps wouldn’t lock their hand on the doorknob,” Ian said with a huge grin.

  “Okay, you were right,” Lance chuckled, pressing the stop button and moving to the next scene.

  “Did he die?” Lilly asked.

  Slapping his thigh, “That man was dead before he landed,” Ian laughed.

  Pressing play, “That man laid there for fifteen minutes before someone in the security shack noticed him,” Lance said, and the screen showed the dead man in front of the building.

  “Don’t they record?” Jennifer asked.

  “They can, but only the cafeteria,” Lance snorted. “All their cameras are wireless. That’s how I was able to hack into their network.”

  A group ran up to the figure on the ground. One checked his pulse while another held an AR to his shoulder, looking around. Watching the screen, they saw one man kneeling beside the dead man pull an ice pick out and shove it into the skull. “I was really hoping that would put one stinker inside,” Ian moaned.

  “Can’t have everything,” Lance sighed as one of the men walked over to the building. Lilly and Jennifer still jumped when the man grabbed the doorknob and was thrown back. The flying dead man crashed into three of the others, knocking them down.

  The man holding the AR to his shoulder aimed at the door and they saw the AR flash several times and holes getting punched into the door. One of the others punched the shooter in the side of the head, knocking him down. He moved over to stand over the shooter, and they could tell he was screaming.

  “Man, I wish we had sound,” Ian laughed with his eyes glued to the screen.

  “He didn’t hurt anything,” Lance said, pushing stop and moving to the next scene. “They crawled in through a window and disarmed the door.”

  Leaning back and looking down the couch at Ian, Lance grinned. “You will fucking love this,” he said, then sat back and raised the remote dramatically and pressed play. “This is an hour after the woman was taken out, or 0830.”

  The screen showed the cafeteria and it was packed. All the tables were full, and others stood in ranks around the room. In front of the assembled Nazis was the Commandant and beside him, standing at attention were seven men. Lilly reached over and pressed pause. “Is that all of them?” she asked, looking at the mass of bodies.

  “Yep, counting kids, there are eight hundred and sixteen,” Lance nodded, then smacked his forehead. “Sorry, eight hundred and twelve now. We took out four so far. You’ll hear about the next one.”

  “Who are the ones beside the Commandant?” Jennifer asked.

  “Those are the captains,” Ian answered, staring at the screen.

  “Why can we hear them in the cafeteria?” Carrie asked.

  Pulling Carrie to his chest, “Because the Commandant makes speeches there, and everyone has to watch them,” Lance answered, with Carrie’s back to his chest. “That’s why these cameras are so good, all are HD.”

  “You said they don’t record,” Jennifer said, not really wanting the video to play.

  “They can record on all of them, but only record when punk boy gives a speech,” Lance corrected.

  Ian huffed, “Which is almost every day.”

  When Lance pressed play, Jennifer sighed and looked at all the people with a little remorse. After seeing the mason jars, she had a good idea what was about to happen. “Watch the back corner,” Lance snickered as the Commandant started talking.

  “We have been attacked!” he shouted, clasping his hands behind his back. “This morning, many of you witnessed the juvenile prank,” the Commandant snapped, and then started pacing in front of the crowd.

  “I’ll show you juvenile, pecker jockey,” Ian growled.

  “Somehow, pepper was placed in sugar dispensers in the mess hall,” the Commandant said in a booming voice. “The inferior races can’t combat us on the field, so they resort to these childish pranks. We are chosen above all to cleanse this world and spread the true form that God intended to walk this Earth.”

  “Oh, we are so going back,” Ian snapped as the Commandant stopped his pacing, staring at the crowded room.

  “We are each pure and because of this, others fear us. As many of you have heard, Captain Darren was killed and so was his second in command, Lieutenant Everest,” the Commandant said with a tense face. “They were training several others to monitor the power station, so do not fear.”

  Ian leaned over everyone to grab the remote and pause the video. “You mea
n, we got the ones who knew how to run the power?” Ian asked with a huge grin.

  Nodding with a Cheshire Cat smile, “Seems that way,” Lance chuckled. As Ian sat back laughing, Lance pushed play and the Commandant continued.

  “Our new Reich cannot be put off with these actions!” the Commandant shouted. “Teams are searching the compound now for more pranks and we have found several.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Lance laughed.

  “Two platoons will be going out today because the perpetrators can’t be far,” the Commandant said, then motioned to a large man off to the side. “Sergeant Major Clanton assures me it would take a large group several days to set up what we’ve found-”

  Jennifer busted out laughing. “You haven’t met Ian and Lance,” she giggled out.

  “- in the compound. Until the search is complete, don’t touch anything unusual,” the Commandant warned. “I would advise everyone to throw away your toothpaste because it seems several were contaminated with pepper like the sugar. Corporal Plaster suffered an anaphylactic reaction like Ms. Delmont. Despite the medical staff’s best efforts, we weren’t able to save them.”

  The Commandant moved over to a man holding two kids. “Don’t worry, Sergeant Delmont, you will have revenge on the inferior race responsible,” the Commandant said, and Delmont nodded.

  “There he goes,” Lance said as a man got up and moved through the crowd to the far corner while the Commandant started pacing again.

  “We don’t think it was the Devil Lords but haven’t ruled them out, since we did wipe out four of their patrols. Sergeant Major suspects the group we hit last week, since most were young and mixed races-”

  The man reached the corner and flipped a switch, turning on ten ceiling fans over the group. Four small explosions like shotgun blasts sounded above the crowd from four of the fans. The group cried out, looking up as fine powder puffed out and rained down.

  As the fans picked up speed blowing the powder down, dozens of people started screaming and coughing. The Commandant tried to yell, but fell down in a coughing scream. Many tried moving to the doors, but there were too many bodies in the way.

  Lilly and Jennifer’s mouths fell open, watching the entire room collapse with coughing and screaming. “Shit monkey,” Jennifer moaned, watching the chaos. There wasn’t anyone in the cafeteria who wasn’t coughing and clawing at their chest.

  Lifting the remote, Lance stopped the playback. “Since Jennifer and Lilly don’t like watching everyone get hurt, I’ll move on,” Lance said, and Carrie reached up, grabbing his hand.

  “They need to grow hairy balls!” Carrie shouted, trying to press play, but Lance covered the remote buttons with his hands.

  As Carrie tried to pry the remote free, “Carrie, they just have to get used to war,” Lance said, and Allie moved over to help Carrie.

  “Lilly, don’t be a pussy,” Allie grunted, trying to pry Lance’s fingers up. “I want to watch the granny panty sniffers crying! A deed was called for and delivered, we want to watch!”

  Hearing the last remark, because it’d sounded just like Lance and Ian, Lilly gave a shiver and just watched the girls fighting Lance for the remote. It never crossed her mind once to stop the ladybugs. “Hey!” Lance snapped, and they quit. “It gets better.”

  “Really?” they both cried out with glee.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lance said, moving to the next scene. “This is just over an hour later. You can still see some are affected by the pepper cloud. Three died in the cafeteria from the powder.”

  The screen showed a large group of men standing in front of one of the barracks. There was no sound, but one man in front of the group was talking and they could see several in the group coughing, and all of them had red faces and watery eyes. “Oh,” Jennifer gasped, remembering that area, and her eyes moved to a trash can beside the building.

  “They’re outside. Don’t you think you wasted another pepper cloud?” Jennifer asked, looking at a large brown paper bag beside the trash can.

  “Never duplicate a deed on the same objective,” Lance and Ian said together.

  Ian leaned closer to Jennifer. “You can’t do them back-to-back because they know what to look for. You never set up two of the same thing when you do a deed,” Ian explained. “That’s why we did the coffee and sugar. They smelled the coffee, but didn’t connect it to the sugar.”

  “But the beads in the engines,” Jennifer said, watching the screen.

  “No, that’s one deed just on twenty engines, like the thirty-two sugar containers,” Ian shrugged, turning back to the screen. “It will take time for the metal to work.”

  Seeing a man move to the trashcan, Jennifer tensed up. “So, what did you do?” she asked, cringing as the man lifted the lid.

  The large paper bag exploded with a puff and they saw over a dozen men drop down. Jennifer was thankful for no sound because she could see everyone close was on the ground and screaming. “Holy shit, their clothes are smoking!” Lilly shouted.

  “Cool, huh?” Lance grinned, and Lilly jumped back when she saw one of the men screaming on the ground, and could clearly see his face was melting.

  In stunned silence, Lilly and Jennifer looked at the men and saw several stripping off smoking clothes while others ran over. Several others stopped them from getting closer. In full color, they watched the group beat at spots on their bodies that appeared to be melting with black ooze.

  “What did you do?” Jennifer mumbled.

  Clearing his throat and puffing out his chest, “Fluoroantimonic acid bomb,” Ian said proudly.

  Almost throwing Allie to the floor when she jumped off the couch, Lilly spun toward Ian. “That’s one of the strongest superacids known! How did you get some?” she screamed in shock.

  Blinking as his smile fell off his face, “Um, I made it?” Ian answered in shock.

  “You know how dangerous that stuff is?” Lilly cried out. “If you throw water on it, you get a violent reaction!”

  “Yeah, they’re about to find out,” Lance chuckled, looking at the screen. Lilly spun around as a man ran over with a water hose.

  “Oh, shit,” Lilly said as the man squeezed the trigger, wetting everyone who was screaming. Those who were standing and screaming fell down with the others, and everyone saw several were passed out as smoke boiled off the bodies.

  “Yes Lilly, I know,” Ian chuckled. “That’s why I picked that one.”

  Not looking away from the screen, “Ian, that stuff is more dangerous than the explosives. Please be beyond careful,” Lilly begged, watching the horror of the deed playing out.

  “Trust me, making that shit, I’m in a rubber hazmat suit behind a shield,” Ian said, and Lance pushed stop.

  “Don’t know how many died there,” Lance admitted, moving to another scene. “This was an hour after that. You can still see their faces are red and swollen,” Lance said, pressing play.

  The screen showed a dirt ATV trail through the woods and Jennifer, now numb, just watched. From the top of the screen, two side by sides were following the trail. They heard the engines groan while the front side by side’s tires followed the ruts in the trail. When it reached the center of the screen, an explosion shook the camera and shut off the microphone. They watched the men sitting in the front side by side get torn apart when ball bearings from the claymore mine erupted on the trail.

  Following too close, the second side by side slammed into the first one as the wounded and dead fell out of both vehicles. “That was cool,” Lilly admitted.

  Like he had been injured, Lance looked up at her. “So, a crude mine is cool, but a thought-out deed seems barbaric?” Lance huffed, feeling he was being insulted.

  “Sorry, but how did you rig it so a stinker didn’t set it off?” Lilly asked, watching the chaos.

  “Had two triggers in the ruts. Both had to be pushed down to set the claymore off,” Lance told her.

  Clearly impressed, when the microphone cut back on, Lilly heard the wails of pa
in from the wounded. “Never would’ve thought of that,” Lilly admitted. “Did you set up a secondary?”

  Surprised, Lance stared at the side of her face. “How do you know about secondaries?”

  “Duh, I watch the same training videos you do,” Lilly answered. Then on the far left side of the screen, there was a loud screeching sound followed by a whoosh as a rocket took off. When the rocket took off, a shrill whistling scream rose up in the air with the rocket.

  “What did that do to them?” Allie asked, curling into Lance’s side since Lilly was still standing.

  “Rang the dinner bell,” Lance chuckled.

  After watching two more videos, a part of Jennifer was kind of sorry that was all the Nazis had tripped so far. She didn’t mind the killing, but was having trouble with the misery from the deeds. Granted, after the deeds done to the Devil Lords, Jennifer was slowly warming up to them.

  Then Lance showed them videos taken from the Nazis computer. The videos had been taken by handheld cameras and showed groups killing survivors. In one, a black family was tied out for stinkers. After that one alone, Jennifer was ready for Ian and Lance to deliver more deeds.

  “Okay, time for Ian and me to get to work in the shop,” Lance said, pressing stop. “Back to our routine tomorrow.”

  “So, the Commandant called everyone back?” Jennifer asked, getting up.

  “Yeah, punk ass,” Lance snarled, getting up. “Don’t know yet how many we’ve taken down.”

  Lilly hugged him. “Well, I can tell you for certain, they are terrified to even walk around inside their compound,” she said.

  “Just what we want,” Lance grinned, hugging her back. With the dogs in tow, everyone headed for the shop.

  Chapter 3

  Northwest of Centralia, Oklahoma

  Looking out over the swollen Verdigris River, Johnathan sighed still thinking about Bill. “Stop it,” he told himself again. Try as he might, Johnathan couldn’t think of a way to protect them from bites without stopping for several days or even a week. Even if they did find what he needed, Johnathan knew it wouldn’t protect them long from stinkers. Shaking his head, Johnathan mumbled for the hundredth time, “Just have to get home.”