by Adam Drake
Several steps from the Life Crystal another message appeared, and this one brought me chills.
It said:
Welcome to the Realm of Carnage
I hoped this world wouldn't live up to the name.
Turns out, I was very, very wrong.
Zyra's blood-soaked nightmare continues in
Bitch Berserker 2: Realm of Carnage
Blackout: Book One
The nightmare begins
In one fell swoop, civilization is changed forever.
No one is unaffected, few are prepared.
Some become survivors, others - easy prey.
Only the strong, and crazy, will survive.
Through the blood and chaos, civilization will be permanently transformed.
And it all begins with one terrifying moment, when the lights go out and never come back on.
Blackout.
CHAPTER ONE
Nate
Pistol in hand, Nate Davenport eased through the bushes, then paused.
His eyes scanned over the backyard, an ocean of tall grass and weeds occasionally marred by an island of garbage. A child's swing set sat along one side by the only fence, rusted from years of disuse.
Nate looked at the house. The windows of the two story derelict were boarded over, its back porch covered in leaves and dirt.
For several long moments, he waited. He'd learned from past mistakes not to rush headlong into a place he was unfamiliar. You can get into all sorts of trouble that way, especially when on a job.
Use your head, or I'll shoot it off! He heard Unger's voice in the back of his mind. The boss loved to berate the men in his crew, even if they did a good job. A warped way of keeping people on their toes.
And it worked.
Nate checked his temper before it grew too hot. Focus, he thought. Get in, get it done, get out.
Satisfied no one was around, he slipped a nylon mask over his head and stepped out of the bushes at the back of the property line, and crossed the yard.
The high grass swished against his pant-legs as he navigated around piles of crap. The pistol was kept low at his hip.
Reaching the bottom step of the ruined porch he paused, again. Not having the chance to scout the place ahead of time, he didn't know how creaky the old planks were.
Cautiously, he placed a foot on the step.
A sudden noise made him freeze. He looked about in alarm.
A high pitched whirring sound echoed off the neighboring buildings. Apprehensive, he slipped his finger through the pistol's trigger guard.
The noise continued; whirring, grinding, clanking.
He recognized it. A garbage truck making its morning rounds down the street on the opposite side of the house.
The tension eased in his shoulders and he allowed himself to breathe again. Shouldn't have guzzled all that coffee earlier.
He climbed the stairs, with little noise and crossed the porch to the back door. It was ajar, the opening only revealing a wall of faded paint.
No one should be here. At least, according to Morse, the screw up. Unger's lackey was supposed to come by and check the place out first. Said it was all clear. Maybe he didn't even do a simple drive by.
That lazy bastard.
Nate's anger heated up like a bubbling volcano. He'd deal with Morse later.
Keeping to one side, gun at the ready, he pushed the door open.
Darkness and debris.
He tried to listen for movement, but all he could hear was the garbage truck; closer and louder.
After a few seconds of peering into the derelict's murk, he entered.
The place was empty of furniture. Dirt and garbage covered the cracked tile floor. A careful search of the bottom level came up with nothing. Why was the door ajar? Maybe a bum or junkie had spent the night and left.
Nate stopped at the stairs leading up to the second floor. No sign of movement or shadow play above.
The garbage truck was one house over, the sound almost deafening.
Keeping his back against the opposite wall he climbed the stairs slowly. At the top was a hallway and a couple of bedroom doors, one wide open.
He checked the room with the open door and found it empty. A large broken window streamed in morning sunlight. Beyond was an apartment building.
With a quick glance behind him, he entered the room and sidled up to the edge of the window, and peeked out.
Directly across was another window, its curtains open showing a living room. A big screen tv on the far wall was playing a porno. Naked people jiggled about.
He could see chairs and a couch, but no sign of his target.
The sound of the garbage truck seemed to drown out the world. Damn, those things are loud.
The back of his neck prickled.
He spun around, pistol in both hands, its silencer barrel like a sword.
No one was there.
Nate took a second for his heartbeat to slow. He knew to never ignore that sensation. It had saved his life many times before and now he couldn't finish the job without being certain.
He reentered the hallway. Only the closed bedroom door on the opposite side confronted him.
Okay, then.
As he padded down the hall a vibration at his hip brought him up short. Cursing inwardly, he fished out his phone while keeping the pistol pointed at the door.
He peered at the little phone's display.
Done yet?
It was Unger on a burner, checking in.
His eye twitched. What kind of moron sends text messages during a hit he ordered?
Nate knew he worked for an idiot. If not for Unger's incestuous family connections, the guy would have been encased in concrete or hanging from a tree by his intestines, long ago.
Ignoring his boss, he pocketed the phone and approached the door.
The garbage truck's angry presence outside reverberated through the old house.
Gingerly, he turned the door's knob then pushed it open.
Another bedroom. Empty, except for two problems.
A man and woman were laying on a foam mattress on the floor, both naked. Clothes scattered about, a pair of backpacks leaned against a wall.
The woman, early twenties, was out cold, snoozing. A colorful tattoo of a butterfly perched above the nipple of one breast.
A syringe stuck out of the arm of the man, who looked up at Nate and offered a groggy smile. “Hey, man...”, he said. He blinked slowly, flying high.
Vagrants. Homeless. Bums. Whatever, Nate thought.
Outside the truck rumbled past, shaking the room's cracked window. No garbage worth picking up here.
Nate pointed the pistol at the man. “You shouldn't be here,” he said.
The young man's drugged out state kept him from even registering the presence of the gun. “What?” he slurred. “I can't hear-.”
Nate shot him in the forehead, the silencer coughing loudly, its noise suppressed further by the passing truck.
He shot the woman, too.
As he went back into the hall, he closed the door.
They'd been here all night. If Morse had done his job, Nate would have been informed. A new plan would have been made.
He and Morse were going to have a conversation later.
In the other bedroom, back at the window, he looked across.
A man was sitting on the couch, his back to the window. The porno still played out its fleshy antics, but with different actors this time.
Nate glared at the back of the man's bald head.
Perry Levine.
This twit got himself in debt with Unger. Something people with brains don't do. After repeated attempts to collect, Unger, as usual, lost all patience and sent Nate to 'punch his card.'
Nate shook his head. Nobody has said 'punch his card' since the nineteen twenties. Except Unger, who liked watching old gangster flicks and emulated their characters.
I need a new job, Nate thought and aimed at Perry's head. It was like one of those shooting
targets at the fair. Only this one would bleed.
The garbage truck had stopped outside the apartment building, and its keening grew louder as it loaded up.
Perfect, he thought. At least he had this going for him.
He slowed his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. His hands steadied. The end of the silencer was pinned to Perry's skull.
He squeezed the trigger.
The garbage truck suddenly turned off.
Nate stopped pulling at the trigger. Shit.
The porno on the television winked out, the screen going black.
Perry reacted by moving about, probably looking for the remote, making for a messy target.
Double shit. Nate blinked in confusion at the loss of his covering noise and the sweet moment of splattering Perry's melon all over his living room.
Somewhere in the distance he heard a crash, the crunching of fiberglass and metal. Then another. Car accident?
Perry got up and walked over to the television. He wasn't wearing any pants, no doubt to better enjoy the porno.
Cursing again, Nate ducked out of view, back against the wall. What the hell was this?
Another crash, this one closer but the noise going on for several long seconds. Crunch-crunch-crunch. A car rolling over and over.
Far away a woman screamed.
Okay, this was messed up. He needed to go. Now.
But he couldn't leave. You don't kill two people and not go through with the real job.
He looked out the window, again.
Half-naked, Perry now stood facing toward the window, but he was frowning down at a smart phone in his hand.
Good enough, Nate thought. He aimed, this time at the center body mass.
Perry shook his head as if totally confused by the phone. Then he must have sensed something and looked up.
His eyes locked with Nate's, then to the pistol in his hands. His eyes widened.
Another crash, just on the street outside like someone drove into the garbage truck.
Nate fired. Two loud coughs and Perry's window cracked with the double slugs.
Perry fell backward with a muffled cry and vanished from view.
Without wasting another second, Nate moved from the window, scooped up the two spent cartridges and left the bedroom. At the bottom of the stairs he paused. There was shouting from close by, but none from the apartment building. Not yet.
At the back door he looked outside. Satisfied it was all clear, he slipped his pistol into the deep pocket of his long coat, and stepped onto the porch.
Despite the hammering of his heart, he had the presence of mind to close the door quietly behind him. Less of an invitation for other drug-addled backpackers. He calmly crossed the backyard. His growing anxiety made it feel like the tall grass was trying to slow him down, force him back to the scene of his crimes.
He gently pushed through the bushes at the back of the property line and out into the back alley. More a gravel road than a real alley, it went north and south.
Slipping off his nylon mask, he turned south and sauntered along, gravel crunching underfoot. To a casual observer he would appear to be an average joe out for a walk, and not a paid hitman with three fresh bodies in his wake.
As he emerged from the gravel lane, and onto a paved cross street, movement in the sky made him stop in his tracks.
To the south, the landscape dipped downward, giving him a relatively clear view of the downtown core in the distance, with its clusters of skyscrapers and office buildings.
A large passenger plane was gliding earthward, heading toward downtown at a fatal angle.
“Huh,” Nate said. “Ain't that a sight.” Then he turned away and walked to his car.
CHAPTER TWO
Wyatt
“What kind of money do you think we can get for a dead body?”
Wyatt, who was busy arranging bags of cans in his cart, paused and looked up at his friend, Ethan. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
Ethan was perched on the edge of a dumpster, legs swung over inside, ready to drop in and start hunting for recyclables. “It's a legitimate question considering I'm looking right at one.”
“No, you're not,” Wyatt said and looked both ways down the alley. The garbage truck was late which suited him fine. He and Ethan weren't done with their rounds, yet. “There is no dead body. You just don't want to work. It is your turn. We switch at the next alley over.”
Ethan stared into the dumpster and frowned. With his long white beard the expression made him look like a depressed Santa Claus. “I'm not looking to skip my turn. I'm just curious if maybe we could profit from this fella's misfortune.”
Annoyed, Wyatt dropped a shopping bag of cans into the cart with a loud clatter, and moved to the dumpster to peer over its edge.
Sure enough, the body of a man was nestled in amongst full garbage bags as if he were sleeping. But the wide vacant eyes and ashen skin made this sleep eternal.
“Well, I'll be damned,” Wyatt whispered, shocked.
“Told you,” Ethan said. “What should we do with him?”
Wyatt tore his gaze away from the body to look at Ethan. “Do with him? Why, nothing at all. That's what we do with him. What makes you think we should do anything other than get the hell out of here?”
“Well, he's in our dumpster, so technically he's ours.”
“This is not our dumpster. It's the apartment building's. Just because we dive into it every morning doesn't make the thing ours.” Wyatt pointed a finger at the dead man. “And that makes this guy the apartment manager's problem.”
Ethan shook his head. “Wyatt, buddy. You're such a negative-Nancy. But you're right, this is not our problem.”
“Damn right it's not!”
“It's our opportunity!” Ethan said and dropped inside the dumpster.
“What the hell are you doing?” Wyatt said, glancing toward the apartment building. He hoped no one came out right now, or they'd be screwed. “Get out of there!”
Ethan shifted some bags around to get a better look. He seemed absolutely fascinated with this find.
The dead man appeared to be quite young, maybe in his early twenties. He wore a dark blue jacket over a black dress shirt and black jeans. There was a tattoo on the back of one curled hand. Wyatt recognized its symbol.
“He's a Feral Kid,” Wyatt said with disgust. Maybe it was good this guy was dead. The Feral Kids were a notorious homeless gang that roamed the city, terrorizing and extorting the other homeless. Wyatt had many encounters with them over the years, none of which were pleasant.
“Yeah, you're right,” Ethan said, leaning closer.
“Can you tell how he died?” Wyatt asked, curious despite himself.
“Being a Feral Kid is how he died, I'd guess. Not the most work safe occupations you can choose.” Ethan delicately lifted open the man's jacket. “I don't see any blood, but there's too much crap in here to tell.”
“I don't think you should be touching him, Ethan.”
“Why not? He won't mind.” Ethan reached into the man's shirt pockets and felt around.
“God damnit! What are you doing? You're gonna get your DNA all over him. What about forensics?”
Ethan shifted to jam his fingers into the man's jean pockets. “DNA. Forensics. What's that all mean to someone like us? No one cares. This guy will be scooped up by the truck and ferried off to the dump. He'll end up under tons of shit and will rot away to nothing with the rest of the garbage.”
Wyatt stepped away from the dumpster to check the alleyway, again. Other than a dozen dumpsters full of their morning trash there was no one around. He tried listening for the garbage truck but couldn't make out its distinctive sound.
“This isn't good, Ethan. I don't like it. Come on, get out of there. Will skip this row and go to the next alley over.”
Ethan didn't find anything and scratched at his chin, disappointed. “They picked him clean, whoever did this. There isn't even lint in hi
s pockets.” He spotted the man's shoes. “Oh, hey! Check these kicks out!”
Wyatt looked on in horror as his friend wrestled a pair of faded runners of the dead man's feet. Not a sight he expected to see when he woke up in his tent this morning to start his rounds. He expected more of the same. Cans, bottles, and the reek of garbage filled dumpsters.
It had been his routine for the last eight years. Day in and day out. Not once did he encounter a dead body. Dead animals, sure. Rats, and cats, and even a dog or two. But not a person. Feral Kid or not, this guy had been a human being. Watching Ethan casually manhandle the body suddenly made him queasy.
Somewhere from down deep, a memory fought to surface. “Oh, I think I'm gonna be sick,” Wyatt said and stumbled over to throw up behind the dumpster. Cold coffee and stale bagels.
Ethan dropped to the ground, the dead man's runners on his feet. “Now your DNA is everywhere. We're both going to hang.”
Wyatt wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and glared at his friend. “Satisfied?”
“With the runners? Damn right. They fit perfectly!”
Wyatt opened his mouth to berate Ethan when the sound of a distant car crash tore his attention away.
They both turned in the direction of the noise. It was immediately followed by another crash, metal smashing against metal.
“Damn,” Ethan said pacing around in his runners, trying to break them in. “Someone was in too much of a hurry to get somewhere.”
Another crash, this time from the other end of the alley. From that direction a woman screamed.
“We're at the epicenter!” Ethan said.
“What? This isn't an earthquake, just shitty drivers hopped up on caffeine.” Wyatt scoffed and grabbed the dumpster's heavy lid.
“What are you doing now?”
“Laying him to rest,” Wyatt said and eased the lid closed. “Have any last words?”
“Yeah, I'd like to thank the guy for wearing size twelves.”
“Let's get out of here,” Wyatt said grabbing the cart full of cans. “The less time here the better.”
Ethan grabbed the other cart which they used to carry glass items. Only a half dozen beer bottles rattled at its bottom.
