The Heartbeat Saga (Book 1): A Heartbeat from Destruction

by Reece Hinze

  “Oh my God, Luke! Is that your…,” Bridgett said, her voice faltering.

  The dust cloud dissipated enough for them to see the person turn towards them. It was a man’s face wearing a blank expression, void of all life. “No, that’s…,” Luke started.

  The eyes.

  It was always the eyes, harsh and alien. They stared at each other. Luke, from behind the headlights of the big truck and the man, in the middle of the road.

  Like a timer going off in his head, his docile expression turned to rage instantaneously. A lightning blast reflected off his snarling teeth. He screamed into the night like a wolf’s howl and charged. Luke only hesitated a moment before gunning the gas. The man’s bleeding face looked surprised as he disappeared underneath Luke’s hood. John covered his face as they felt the bump pass under the tires. The screaming ended abruptly with a pained shriek. Luke slammed the breaks, shifted into reverse, and hit the gas, only stopping after they felt the man’s body crushed under the tires once more. Luke shifted back into drive. The gravel dust swirled again and for a few tense heartbeats, held the secret of the man’s fate. Seconds turned into a lifetime. Luke held one hand on his rifle and the other on the wheel.

  The drifting dust dissipated into the distance.

  They saw the leg first. It lay a few feet from the rest of the crushed body. Luke’s heavy dual rear tires had smashed the man’s head into an unrecognizable goo. Twin tire marks painted red lines back towards the truck. Bridgett leaned forward to look but Luke held her in place. He shook his head.

  Rain droplets splattered the windshield.

  “His name was Clayton,” Luke said quietly. “He was a welder my father hired a few weeks ago out of Beaumont.” Silence hung in the air like a foul stench until lightning lit the sky and a few seconds later, a thunderous boom shook the truck. Luke let off of the brake pedal and continued forward, this time doing his best to avoid running over the dead man in the road.

  The farm house loomed ahead about a hundred yards from the stable, at the very crest of the hill. The trees in the yard weren’t as dense as the surrounding forest but were much older, fully grown back when the old house was built. Now they towered above the white washed walls like silent guardians. Luke pulled into the grass, pointing his headlights directly at the door.

  Bridgett gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. The hair on the back of Luke’s neck stood on end. He gripped his rifle with white knuckles. “Stay here,” he commanded and stepped out of the truck.

  None of the lights were on inside or in the yard. The front door was wide open and his father was nowhere in sight. Luke checked on Danny. He lay on his back unconscious but his chest fell up and down.

  He’s still breathing.

  Luke turned towards the house.

  Nothing I can do for Danny right now.

  A pillar of bright light stretched from the heavens, arching across the black sky in a hundred directions. A clap of thunder roared simultaneously with the lightning. The storm roared but sheltered under the cover of the big trees, the rain fell in big slow drops instead of a deluge.

  Luke advanced toward the house, rifle at the ready. He emit a massive shadow but as he inched closer the house his shadow grew smaller and his anxiety larger. The front door wasn’t just open. It was destroyed. Fear gripped him like he was in front of those gas pumps all over again. His feet were heavy, like he was trudging through quicksand.

  It is strange what the mind thinks of in extreme situations and Luke, surrounded by high trees in the shadow of his boyhood home, all at once was reminded of something his father told him long ago. Luke, like all the Slaughter brothers, was a Boy Scout but unlike his brothers, he had had a crippling fear of the dark. A fear which made it impossible for him to camp outside with his friends. Luke’s father Tim sat him down one day and told him, “All men are afraid, Luke. What makes us men is what we do after the fear grips us. Do we hide, or push forth bravely?” It was a profound lesson and Luke had kept it with him all this time. Dad did not deserve to die like Clayton the welder.

  He took another step towards the house.

  Luke heard a strange thudding, too fast to be a man running but very similar. It approached rapidly. The figure appeared in his peripheral, materializing out of the darkness. Luke turned just as it slammed him, the impact knocking him sideways a step. He swung his rifle, his finger fell towards the trigger. Sitting below him was a gigantic dog, a grey Great Dane, wagging its tail and panting happily. Luke nearly fainted with relief.

  “Good God, I almost shot you dog!” Luke turned towards the headlights but Bridgett was already running at him. The dog turned its big head and wagged its tail rapidly.

  “Omg, Sophie!” She said, bursting into tears.

  “She must have followed us all the way here,” Luke said with a smile. “Take her to the truck, Bridgett.”

  She turned to him, opened and closed her mouth without saying a word because Luke had already turned away. The screen door leaned precariously beside the doorway and what was left of the main wooden door lay inside, flattened by whoever broke through. Red handprints were smeared on the wall like cave paintings. Blood covered the floor, showing the path ahead like a hellish yellow brick road.

  Luke took a deep breath and stepped into the house. With his AR-15 rifle at the ready, he paused inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the near perfect darkness of the house.

  What I would do for a flashlight…

  The first room of the Slaughter farmhouse was a hardwood floored kitchen, wide enough for a dining table. Long ago when the house was built, they housed the kitchen in a separate building because of the risk of fire but when Luke’s ancestors renovated the place, this was the only room that seemed practical to put the appliances. The wood floor creaked with his steps. The shutters on the windows banged back and forth with the howling wind. He tried the light switch to his left.

  Nothing.

  The blood trail, in the darkness only a slightly darker shade of black, continued through the kitchen and into the next room. He froze when a blast of lightning lit up the room. There was no sign of anything living. Slowly, painstakingly slow, he continued. At every footfall, the old floors creaked. In the back corner of the dining room stood two doorways, one leading to the living room and the other, a stairwell. The shutters banged loudly making it hard for him to concentrate.

  Wait…

  Luke heard something else. Something coming from somewhere deeper in the house. He closed his eyes and knelt in the dark, trying to soften the deafening beat of his heart.

  Upstairs.

  Luke stood, taking the doorway to the stairs. As he placed his boot on the first stair, lightning and thunder rocked the house. A bay window flanked the stairwell and on a normal day, offered a great view of the yard. On this night the window allowed the lightning to show Luke where the trail of blood, now a trickle, continued up the wooden stairs.

  Each stair creaked. The thumping was louder now, slow and rhythmic.

  Boom.

  Another step.

  Boom.

  He gripped his rifle tighter.

  Boom.

  Luke reached the landing where the stairs wrapped around to the right and led to his and his brother’s old bedrooms. He swung his rifle, pointing it up the stairs with a finger on the trigger. Lightning cracked again. A small window at the top of the stairs allowed the light to flash over Luke’s path.

  The slow, rhythmic pounding continued.

  He paused for a moment on the top stair, gathered his courage, and peeked over the railing. The top floor of the farm house had a long wood floored hallway with bedrooms flanking both sides and a single bathroom at the end of the hall. From the top of the stairs, you could see all the way to the bathroom. The banging was loud now.

  Boom.

  Is this my father’s blood?

  Boom.

  What the hell is going on here?

  Boom.

  A thunderclap answered his questi
on. In the split second the room was lit, Luke saw a woman at the end of the hall slamming her fist into the bathroom door. Her hair was matted, her naked back and buttocks soaked in blood like red body paint. One of her arms dangled by her side, barely attached to her body by a few stubborn tendons. She had her forehead against the door, apparently low on strength but determined to get beyond the blockade.

  Luke trained his rifle ahead and crept forward in the darkness. He made it half a dozen steps before the floor creaked underneath him. Her banging stopped and for a few perilous moments, so did Luke’s heart. In the hallway’s complete darkness Luke never saw her loose arm flop against her bare chest as she turned but he did hear her. Her breath was labored, raspy. She sucked in gurgled gasps of breath that drew closer and closer to him.

  Lightning flashed.

  He saw her mouth first. Open, not in a threatening manner, but in complete surprise. Her bloodshot eyes were as wide as her mouth. Luke had seen the expression before. The lightning faded and the hallway turned black.

  “Stay there!” Luke shouted.

  He heard her bare feet slapping the hardwood floor, running towards him. Luke’s heart pounded.

  “Stop!” He shouted. “Stop!”

  They strapped Patient 1113 into the gurney. He struggled, as he always did, when they came for him but his kicking and screaming was halfhearted and weak. The fight had left him and he felt no desire to rekindle it. 1113 relaxed as he settled in for the short trip through the winding hallways. He knew at the end, terrible torture awaited him.

  His life now seemed a daze of passing moments, experienced and soon forgotten. The dull hallway lights passed lazily overhead pulling Patient 1113 from his thoughts.

  Lights?

  They didn’t black out his world with that terrible hood that smelled of shit and blood. His eyes had been open but for the first time he looked and saw the stoic figure of the Sergeant. The man’s big scar and taught jawline formed a fearsome visage. His eyes were squinted and withdrawn, frozen orbs that shielded a cold soul as if nothing, no matter how brutal, could surprise or phase him. 1113 blinked, communicating in Morse code as they had before.

  Situation… Report…

  The big man said nothing and did nothing, but move the gurney forward. He repeated his question slowly.

  Situation… Report…

  The Sergeant walked, steadily forward for some time while the Patient 1113’s desperate eyes bore into him. Did he lose the only man on his side in this place? Was he truly lost? Finally the big man blinked back.

  I… Am… Sorry…

  1113’s heart sank. He blinked back with angry eyes.

  Sorry… For… What…

  But then the gurney bumped over the threshold of a doorway and James entered the sterile white room with the white walls. As the Sergeant unstrapped his head, he saw the black mirror and the steel table with the steel chairs. By the time the Sergeant pulled him from the gurney and strapped him into the chair, he was laughing. It was the memory of his old comrade in arms, the Cajun Colonel Devreaux, shifting and coughing uncomfortably at their last meeting. He laughed and cackled in a deranged way but the Colonel simply stared back with an arrogant smile dancing across his mustached lips.

  “So good to see you again my dear Captain,” Devreaux said with mock courtesy.

  Patient 1113 took a long time to stop laughing before he asked, “Why am I here?” Before Devreaux could speak 1113 cut him off. “I suspect it’s because the last video you showed me did not quite have the impact you expected Colonel. It must be so frightening to know you will burn in hell forever.”

  Devreaux’s arrogant smile persisted. Behind him, his elegantly dressed priestly companion loomed like a creeping gargoyle. The man held his golden embroidered sleeves behind his back and looked down his long nose at James. Neither he nor Devreaux said a word.

  “Of course you must have known your spiritual fate long ago, murderer. Is that why you carry around that pocket priest with you?” he continued. He was never one to believe in the otherworldly but he knew Devreaux did and he enjoyed prodding him. “That roomful of children in Fallujah will never forgive you Colonel. The men I trusted to your command will never forgive you Colonel. Neither will God.”

  1113 furrowed his brow in anger. “I never thought you would see the light of day again. I smiled at your court martial and slept well that night as I hadn’t in years.” He nodded his head towards the Bishop. “Of course you seem to thrive here, even calling yourself a Colonel.”

  Devreaux slammed his fist on the table. A piece of his finely combed hair flung out of place. “I am a Colonel,” he boomed.

  “Oh of course you are,” 1113 said. “A title well earned. I suspect a child killer and murderer of your stature to succeed greatly with these people.”

  “Silence!” Devreaux demanded.

  The Bishop laid a cold hand on the Cajun’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should send this ugly man to his creator’s judgement Colonel? He has already given us what we want.”

  Devreaux waved away the comment. “Not yet, not yet.” He turned towards his captor.

  “Oh I am a Colonel. A title well-earned. You used to be a Captain, and now,” he offered an upturned palm with a gesture of disgust. “Now you are a lab rat. A thing to be used and discarded of. You are simply Patient 1113.”

  The smile returned to Devreaux’s lips. “Now, Patient 1113, I have a surprise for you. One that I deliver now at great personal expense.”

  Behind 1113, the door opened and closed softly. A television cart, the same as before, was wheeled into his view by the bald man. “I’ve missed you big boy,” James taunted. “Where have you been?” But the man never answered his question or flared with a bit of anger. Instead, the bald man, who had loved to torment him every chance he got, looked upon him sadly, almost pityingly. That look worried him more than anything Devreaux had said.

  Devreaux gestured to the bald man. “Proceed sir.”

  The T.V. flicked on. Several men in black B.D.U.s sat in the back of a van. 1113 deduced the camera was attached to a man’s forehead because his arms and rifle were seen clearly from a first person perspective. The man lurched as the van skid to a stop. The door opened and the man and his team jumped out.

  1113’s eyes widened in disbelief as he recognized a familiar stone walkway that split a freshly manicured lawn. The men stormed down the path and kicked in the front door to the large brown brick house. It was the middle of the night.

  “What did you do?” he asked, still watching the screen. Devreaux smiled triumphantly.

  The men thundered up the stairs, splitting up when they reached the top. The man with the camera split left and kicked in another door at the end of the hall. There was a big bed with way too many pillows. A lone figure sat straight up, breathless with a mess of long tangled red hair. The video emit no sound.

  “What did you do?” 1113 screamed, rocking and thrashing wildly in his restraints.

  She screamed when they grabbed her.

  “Alone in bed after all of these years. How… faithful,” Devreaux prodded.

  Patient 1113 screamed when they brought the two boys in the room. They had red hair like their mother and cried as the big men forced them to sit in front of her. Their faces were masks of confused terror. The man wearing the camera produced a long syringe that bubbled with tumultuous red liquid. The mother fought and screamed and begged but they ignored her pleas. The man with the camera jabbed the needle violently into her neck.

  The change didn’t take long. Her tears turned red while blood gushed from her nose and ears. She retched red vomit on the ground in front of her, splashing her horrified children. For a moment, she leaned forward as if catching her breath but when she looked forward again, her eyes had filled with blood, and she screamed.

  Screamed and screamed.

  The men holding her arms let her go and she launched herself, like a rabid dog, against what she was supposed to protect the most. She brutally beat and
clawed one of her boys while the other slapped her back weakly, begging her to stop. She stopped only after they were both dead and the men put a bullet in her head.

  Patient 1113 lost all control, all hope, and all feeling except one. Pain. He screamed as he never had before.

  “How does it feel sir, knowing your family is dead, killed by the very woman who used to love you?”

  1113 shuddered with the deep sobs of a tormented soul.

  Devreaux cocked his head to the side with a glazed expression. “Whom you still love.”

  1113 felt the heart rip out of his very chest, such was his pain. Tears flowed like rivers down his cheeks. A drop fell to his arm and splattered red.

  Blood red.

  “No,” he said. “How can I be…”

  “A carrier? Well, that’s easy,” Devreaux answered, his lips twisting into a smile. “We injected you. How do you remain with a functioning mind? Well, that’s the miracle.” The Bishop smiled and patted Devreaux’s shoulder proudly.

  “You see, Patient 1113, after your success we have both the plague and the cure. The power to wipe the slate clean, start over.”

  “Bring about a new age,” the Bishop said with glistening eyes.

  “Indeed sir,” Devreaux shouted excitedly.

  “God commanded his servants to destroy the Amalekites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,” the Bishop continued. “To slaughter men, women, children, infants, and animals. We do God’s work my son, although it is difficult for you, a child of Satan, to believe such a thing.”

  “Amen,” Devreaux added. “You must open the gates of hell in order to hear the trumpets of the Lord.”

  1113 flung his words at the men, one at a time. “You murdered my family… for…”

  “You misunderstand me,” Devreaux answered. “You are forever unclean, one of Lucifer’s own sons. You and your seed shall be scourged from this earth.”

  1113 was too shocked to speak. He felt the wetness of his tears drip off of his cheeks and down his chest.