The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20

by Jacqueline Druga

  ^^^^

  Joe was the last one to enter Hal’s hospital room where Elliott, Frank, and Dean all waited.

  Toting a small stack of folders, Joe was out of breath when he finally stopped. “All right, Frank, what’s the big rush?”

  “Yes,” Hal interjected. “We would like to know as well.”

  “He didn’t tell you yet?” Joe asked.

  Dean shook his head. “No, we’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Well, I’m here. Spill it,” Joe told Frank.

  “Wait until you hear this,.” Frank nodded and looked around, pleased. “I heard from Robbie.”

  A loud ‘what’ erupted from Hal, Joe and Elliott.

  Joe lifted his free hand to silence the crew. “Frank, you heard from Robbie? When?”

  “Ten minutes ago,” Frank replied. “He called.”

  “Oh my God, Joe gasped out. “He called? On the phone?”

  “No. Here.” Frank pointed to his own temple.

  Joe groaned at the same time as Hal. It had an eerie doubling effect that made Frank twitch his head and tug his ear.

  Dean halted the verbal execution of Frank. “No, Joe, wait. This is possible. I believe him.”

  “So do I,” Elliott said. “Frank, what did he say?”

  “He said they are fine. And . . .” So proudly Frank spoke, “I got a location.”

  “Yes.” Joe made a fist. “Where?”

  “La,” Frank answered. “They are in a place called la.”

  Silence.

  From his sitting position on the bed, Hal peered up curiously, “La?”

  “Yeah, la.” Frank nodded. “You know, like the singing thing. La-la-la-la-la. Or what you were in when they put you out. La-la land.”

  Hal scratched his head. “La.”

  With an even more lost look, Elliott glanced around in thought. “La.”

  Dean’s hand shot to his mouth as he too contemplated. “La.”

  Joe grumbled and his voice raised just a little with edge, “La, Frank?’

  “Yeah. La.”

  Joe exhaled with a slight huff. “La.” His voice grew a little louder. “La? You mean, L.A.!’

  “That’s what I said. La. L.A., spell it, say it, same thing.”

  “No, Frank it isn’t,” Joe said amongst the groans. “L.A., Los Angeles!”

  Frank shook his head so seriously. “No, Dad, he didn’t say Los Angeles, he said . . .”

  “L.A.,” Joe completed the sentence.

  “Yeah.”

  “Father,” Hal interrupted. “If I may . . .”

  “No, you may not, Hal,” Joe snapped.

  “Fine.” Hal shrugged. “It’s your stroke.”

  “La.” Joe nodded with the speaking of the word, then after getting yet another agreement from Frank, calmly approached him. Then with both hands on the stack of folders that he held, Joe lifted high and not only hit Frank in the head with the stack, he hit him over and over with every loud, yelling syllable he released. “La! L.A.! You goddamn stupid, son of a bitch bastard!”

  “Hey!” Frank defended himself against the pelting folders.

  Elliott laughed, while Hal derived some sort of sick pleasure.

  Dean, on the other hand, acted as if he didn’t even notice. Eyes glued to his own notes, he walked up to Joe and blindly reached out, stopping him. “Frank’s right.”

  Mid strike, Joe looked. “What? You’re a scientist. You’re gonna say this is a place called la?”

  “No. It’s L.A..” Dean lifted a piece of paper, “Ellen guessed that, well, Hollywood. We have a location. We really do. If we can get some pictures of . . .” He looked at Frank. “La. Then we can show them to Christopher and maybe he can tell us where the entrances are.”

  Joe nodded pleased,. “You’re right. Let’s me and you find Danny Hoi and see what Mr. Resourceful can come up with. Elliott, you find Chris.”

  “Got it, Mr. Slagel, right away.” Walking out, Elliot chuckled once more with a mumbling of ‘la.’ before he left.

  “What about me?” Frank asked.

  “Stay here and bother Hal,” Joe stated. “Let’s go, Dean.” As he started to leave, Joe paused, walked back, and hit Frank just one more time before he and Dean walked out.

  “Ow.” Frank rubbed his head then looked at Hal. “What?”

  “La.” Hal shook his head. “Good God, you’re brilliant.”

  “Thanks.” Frank smiled. “And don’t forget telepathic. Call me the long distance mind reader.”

  Barring all the lame, ‘la’ comments, and hating to do so, Hal had to give it to Frank on that one.

  ^^^^

  Lars nodded with an interested ‘hmm’, but other than that he lacked the plethora of enthusiasm he had shown earlier in the conversation with Johnny.

  “That’s all well and fine, Stew,” Lars said. “The micro chip soldier stuff is stunning and I really don’t care to hear any further about how ego maniac super scientist Dean Hayes is now the bionic man. But . . . but, I do want to go back to how the little shit is manipulating DNA with experiments.”

  “Lars, as much as you hate Dean, you have to give it to him. He’s doing brilliant work.”

  Lars rolled his eyes. “Creating monsters is brilliant work? He is creating cannibalistic hybrids.”

  “They don’t always turn out to be cannibals. And . . .” Johnny said brightly. “The Society has Dean beat on cannibal killer DNA manipulated beings.”

  “How?”

  “Genetically enhanced embryos.”

  “OK,” Lars said in a ‘big deal’ sarcastic way.

  “Seriously, you have embryos that are supposed to grow faster, be smarter, and ones that are created to withstand the elements. However, in the same instance that the Society failed, they also succeeded.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “All right, the Society farms women. They impregnate them with these embryos.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.” Johnny shook his head. “Only problem is they lost their top genetic scientist so the entire batch that went awry couldn’t be fixed and when the enhanced babies were born, the Society saw the product of their creation and immediately wanted to kill the babies and abort the plan until someone could fix the problem.”

  “Did they?”

  “Nope. The brilliancy of George saw what they created. Not only did they ship the batch to the area surrounding Beginnings, they created more. To the best of my knowledge, they are still creating them. They are an indestructible army that can withstand the elements and grow at six times the normal human growth rate. They’re human but don’t look it. Very deadly. Beginnings calls them killer babies.”

  Lars laughed. “Killer babies.”

  “No kidding, Lars. In infancy, they can run up to fifty-five miles per hour. Lord knows how fast when they reach adult hood. They dart in unseen, tear you to shreds, and leave nothing. Imagine what an army of them can do. It’s scary. Beginnings battles them constantly.” Johnny saw the immediate seriousness on Lars’ face. “Now you believe me, don’t you?”

  “Killer babies,” Lars spoke with a whisper, then turned his head to look at Johnny. He pulled a sheet of paper forward. “Stew, again, give me what you told me and more. I want to know everything you can recall about these . . . .killer babies.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Joe was certain somewhere in the continuous, hard, circular rubbing motion he applied to his temples, he would break through the skin, hit the brain, and kill himself.

  “Joe, you aren’t listening.” Jenny stood before his desk with her arms folded.

  His elbows digging hard into his desk surface, Joe only peered up as he continued to rub. “How can I not listen, Jenny? You’re right here.”

  “Then respond.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “He’s your son,” Jenny griped. “He made a complete mockery out of the fine judicial system you have struggled to establish and made a mockery out of t
he rules our dear Grace . . .” Jenny lowered her head for as second, “wrote.”

  “He’s a grown man.”

  “Who acted like an asshole. He faked cried, Joe.”

  “Jenny.” Joe finally stopped rubbing and sat back. “I will say it again. What do you want me to do?”

  “Anything. Ground him.”

  “Ground him?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you haven’t done that before.”

  “He’s forty, for God’s sake. Yes, I grounded him when he was a kid.”

  “You’ve grounded Robbie since we’ve been in Beginnings,” Jenny said smugly.

  “That’s Robbie. We’re talking about Frank. He does what he wants.”

  “Can’t you beat him?”

  “As much as I’d like to, no.”

  “Punish him.”

  “Jenny . . .”

  “Do something, Joe,” Jenny urged. “I implore you as the leader of this community to stop the madness. Stop your son.”

  “I can’t tell Frank what to do. I can’t.” Joe lifted his hands.

  “Is that your answer?”

  “Um . . .” Joe took a dramatic pause. “Yes.”

  Jenny huffed. “I have over a dozen women standing outside waiting for an answer and that’s the best you can do? What am I suppose to go out and tell them?”

  “Try this.” Joe said. “Tell them they started this whole goddamn mess and tough, now they have to deal with the repercussions of their overreacting whining.”

  “Oh,” Jenny growled. “Fine. Just fine. Thank you very much Mr. Chauvinist Slagel. I should have known.” With her arms crossed tighter to her body, Jenny moved to the door, flung it open, and stormed out.

  On the step of Joe’s office, she lifted a hand to the women so she could speak. “It’s useless. Joe, too, has the typical male mentality, ladies. We gave it our best shot. No one can say we didn’t hit every option so . . .” Snidely, she sniffed. “As I said, this is war. The men will pay. But we are gonna have to start out small for now and go full force whenever Joe leaves because he won’t stand for it. So . . . let’s go plan our war. Follow me ladies, I have wonderful finger food refreshments waiting at my home.” Leading the troop, Jenny moved on.

  From inside his office, on the other side of the door, Joe tilted his head with a curious look. “War?”

  ^^^^

  “Killer babies?” Michael tied not to laugh at the prospect was presented to him. Perhaps it would have helped had Lars stated the reason why he approached Michael and said, ‘Michael, I have your answer . . . Killer babies.’

  “Yes.” Lars nodded . “Killer babies.”

  “What is this, a movie?” Michael asked.

  “No, it’s your solution,” Lars stated.

  “To what? Boredom? Killer babies? What the fuck, Lars? Be a little more clear. My solution to what?”

  “The bizarre deaths that occurred in the field beyond the river.”

  “And we believe this to be killer babies?” Michael asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Lars.” Very seriously, Michael looked at him. “Now I won’t get mad, but are you um, creating your own version of cocaine again?”

  “Kiss my boney ass, Michael!” Lars told him then looked at Johnny. “One time. One time many years ago, I experimented.”

  Michael cut him off. “Yeah and two dozen of the men in this town burned their nostrils.”

  “No one forced them to try it.”

  Michael grumbled.

  “Michael.” Lars walked closer. “This is a viable answer to those deaths.”

  “No, Savages are a viable answer. Killer babies? Lars. Say it with me. Killer babies. That would be an interesting approach to tell my men. Yes, we have . . . . killer babies that are taking out our people.”

  Frustrated, Lars nearly gave up. “Stew, tell him.”

  “Chief, this is true. OK, perhaps their real name isn’t killer babies. That’s a Frank term. But . . . the Society created a batch of genetically enhanced embryos that were not only grotesquely mutated physically, but habitually as well,” Johnny explained. “Just about the point the Society was ready to abort the entire project they saw what the killer babies can do and they dumped a batch near Beginnings. They’re still dumping them near Beginnings.”

  Lars add, “I believe they dropped some here as well. They attack so fast that no one sees them coming.”

  Michael lifted his hand as he halfway stood. “Even if I believe you, how can babies attack so fast no one sees them coming?”

  Johnny answered, “They move at fifty-five miles an hour.”

  “They have six rows of teeth,” Lars continued. “They are like a tree shredder, gnawing to the bone. Death occurs in a matter of seconds. What young Stew here has told me is so consistent with the postmortem exam I did on the last three victims, it’s frightening.”

  Slowly Michael lowered back down to sit. “Mutated killer babies that move fifty- five miles per hour.”

  “And have an insatiable taste for flesh,” Lars said.

  “Christ.” Michael ran his hand across his face. “If this is true, what do we do?”

  “You can mark off the area,” Johnny explained. “They are territorial. They tend to not roam except for food. So, basically, you can keep them fed and they’ll be happy.” He shrugged. “Or you can go after them.”

  Michael’s eyes lifted to Lars. “He suggests we feed them.”

  “I’m thinking get a few and train them,” Lars said.

  “It can be done,” Johnny added. “We have. We have Marcus, who is very domesticated. Of course, he was born in Beginnings to one of our women. It’s a long story. Frank and Robbie used shock therapy to train some.”

  “Are you familiar with this training program?” Michael asked.

  “Oh, yeah, very. I worked with them in the lab,” Johnny answered.

  “I’m still not convinced . . .” Michael exhaled. “But I’m willing to check it out. So tomorrow morning, we go out to that area and find . . .” He swallowed then winced. “Killer babies.”

  ^^^^

  Post apocalyptic world or not, one thing remained, children had bedtimes and that was definitely a rule in the Hayes home. Of course some of the kids under Dean’s roof went to bed without being told. Actually, Joey usually fell asleep sometime during the evening. Frank called it ‘Robbie Syndrome’, like with Robbie, that immediate ‘lights out’ conveniently occurred before a bath could be had.

  Then, Alexandra was never a problem. After her initial ‘bitch and gripe’ session about her brothers, she would go to her room, slam the door, and eventually go to sleep. Josh went from being a student, to the ace number one tracking monitor. He was never home in the evening anymore.

  Billy. Billy argued. Every night he fought the bedtime factor. He felt he was too old to be given a bedtime and that he had a dire need to fulfill his adult conversation void. It was an argument, but Dean likened it to a weird bonding time between them.

  The covers went up over Billy and Dean tucked them in extra tight.

  “This is abuse,” Billy stated as he squirmed.

  “No, it’s bedtime.”

  “Mom would never do this to me.”

  Dean paused. He actually gave a visual pause when he thought of Ellen.

  “You miss her,” Billy said. “I miss her too.”

  “Soon, Bill. Soon she’ll be home.”

  “Can I go with Uncle Frank to pick her up at that town?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Why?” Billy questioned. “I’m really running my course here in Beginnings. I think I am ready for the UWA or something better . . .”

  “Bill . . .”

  “No, Dad. The kids are dumb.”

  “They’re kids.”

  “So.” Billy shrugged. “And Jenny . . .”

  “Can we not talk bad about Jenny? There’s enough shit going on.”

  “You mean with that harassment case.”

  Dean waved a finger.
“You know too much.”

  “I don’t know enough.”

  “Goodnight.” Dean started to leave

  “Is my mother dead?”

  Dean froze and turned back around. “What? No. She’s with Robbie. Why . . . why would you even say that?”

  “Because I’m smart and something is not right.”

  “She’s not dead, Billy.”

  “Then something is wrong. I can tell. You guys are holding back.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Uncle Frank,” Billy answered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Uncle Frank is a dead giveaway.’ Billy exhaled. “Tonight, while he was reading that kids book to Alex and Joey, ‘Are you my Mother’, he cried. He had to stop.”

  “Billy . . .”

  “A grown man of his size and stature .. . broke.” Billy shook his head.

  “Uncle Frank . . . he has issues. Don’t worry about it.” Dean kissed his son. “Mom is not dead and neither is Uncle Robbie just in case you are wondering about that. They’ll be back. Soon. I promise. Speaking of which . . .” he pointed to the door. “I’m going to check on her escort now and see if Frank needs help for the trip.”

  “OK, night.”

  “Night.” Dean hit the light switch and pulled the door closed.

  No sooner did the room go black than Billy was out of bed with light on, and he pulled out a book.

  It was pretty quiet and nearly dark when Dean returned into the living room. Frank was in plain view, sitting at the dining room table with maps and papers all sprawled out before him. He had a cigarette burning in one hand and a pencil in the other. The hover over the documents was such a typical Slagel pose, that all Frank needed was a pair of glasses and he could be Joe.

  “Hey,” Dean called out softly. “How’s it going?”

  “Good. Good. Billy out?” Frank looked up. “Never mind, I know the answer to that one.”

  “So was Chris any help?” Dean asked.

  “Pretty much so. Some. We’ll do good when we leave day after tomorrow. Of course, speaking of tomorrow, it will be hectic.”

  Dean walked closer to the table. “I bet. Aside from finalizing the packing and meetings, you have to . . .” Dean slowed down. “Frank?”