“Time to call it a day,” Jay announced. “We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow and Thursday.”
Lonny and Juan argued over who got first dibs on the bathroom, while Jay escorted Blossom back to her room. It gave her the willies.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes, babe. You’d better be stripped, cleaned and under the covers by the time I get back, or you go to bed as is,” he warned her. “The bathroom’s through that door.”
Blossom hurriedly stripped down to her underwear, did her thing in the bathroom and was huddled beneath the blanket in less than Jay’s allotted time. She didn’t want him ogling her scantily clad body. It might arouse him, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen tonight or any night.
Jay returned and handcuffed one of her wrists to the bedpost.
“Sorry, but I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, baby. Sleep tight.” He clicked off the overhead light and grabbed the doorknob.
“Wait!” she whispered.
He paused.
“I hope you’re going to keep a close eye on Lonny tonight. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m pretty defenseless handcuffed like this,” she said.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about Lonny. I’ll sleep with one eye open.” With that, Jay pulled the door shut.
In the total darkness, revulsion crept into Blossom’s consciousness. God, how she hated that man!
After Jay uncorked the long-sealed bladder and poured its contents into Lonny’s cup, a brilliant white energy glowed between the buried pillars east of the Warnke command trailer. Gradually, the Zyloux materialized in the muck, its clawed hands shackled to the pillars. It sensed the presence of the elixir that had been stolen so long ago and dropped into the ocean where the demon guardian could not go. Now that his master’s elixir had been recovered from the great water, the Zyloux could now track and slaughter the thieves.
The demon broke free of its shackles, thrust its three-clawed, webbed palms upward into the soft muck and began the long process of digging itself out.
Jamille, seventeen years old, checked his stolen Rolex watch. It read fifteen minutes after midnight. Sirjo calmly guided the van along the imperceptible dirt roads past dark farmhouses and pastures of bunched cattle. Distant lightning flickered on the eastern horizon, signaling an approaching sea breeze storm. They had to hurry.
It was nearly twelve-thirty when the van sped past the Warnke Construction command trailer toward the monstrous mechanical shovels in the muck fields. They resembled long-necked dinosaurs in the surreal moonlight, and Jamille shivered. This isolated place gave him the creeps.
Sirjo held up a hand and splayed the fingers. “You got five minutes to rig each shovel, man. The pigs cruise past here on a regular basis, and I don’t plan on gettin’ caught. Dig?”
Jamille nodded as rushed to the back of the van, opened the twin doors and seized his supply box. Sirjo, six years older than his accomplice, lifted his supply box from the back and strode toward the command trailer. Jamille ran along the plywood walkways that crisscrossed the muck and led to the monstrous mechanical shovels.
Jamille rigged the first two shovels with enough C-4 explosive to cripple them for months before heading toward the last one. The first of the mushrooming thunderheads obliterated the moon and shrouded the entire site in an impenetrable gloom.
“Shit, man!” Jamille swore as he stepped off the walkway into knee-deep, malodorous muck. He sat down and pulled his leg out of the sucking ooze with both hands. His leg finally shot free, and his momentum nearly rocketed him off the boards and into the muck on the other side.
He sat gasping in the muggy air. There was a slight breeze, but not enough to keep the black mosquitoes from swarming. He swatted the vicious insects as he approached the final shovel. Suddenly he stopped. He heard a noise from the east where there shouldn’t be any noises. He stood absolutely still, listened and stared into the vast blackness. It sounded like someone digging. He listened for a few more minutes but heard nothing but the wind and the murmuring trees.
Stupid chump, he thought, and scaled the last shovel’s arm up to the massive hydraulic joint. He quickly set the radio-activated charge and then paused again to listen. He heard the same digging noises as before, but this time it was louder and accompanied by heavy grunts.
“That ain’t like no man I ever heard,” he whispered to himself and slid down the thick steel as fast as he could go without toppling into the muck below. When his feet hit the cab roof, he froze. Ground-pounding footsteps splashed and sucked through the muck, and they were getting closer!
Jamille’s eyes widened as he strained to capture even a glimmer of the approaching person. Person, hell! It had to be a big animal. Maybe a bear. He swung through the cab and scampered down onto the wood walkway. The splashing and sucking were very close now – too close. Jamille’s hands trembled as he quietly laid the supply box on the plywood and slipped his 9mm automatic from his belt.
“Get back, motha fucka!” he shouted at the advancing animal. “I gotta a gun here.”
But the footsteps didn’t slow. Jamille fired blindly into the blackness to scare off the animal and then sprinted toward the van.
Sirjo ran from the trailer. “Jamille, what you shootin’ at?”
Before he could reply, Jamille slipped on a patch of slick mud and pitched forward, landing flat on his stomach with his arms and legs spread like a facedown Vitruvian Man. His gun clattered on the plywood before sliding over the edge into the muck.
The footsteps ceased, and Jamille gradually raised his head and gazed up into a pair of enormous soulless eyes, with blood-red pupils floating in a sea of glowing green. They stared down at him from a height of nearly twelve feet. Its breaths were prolonged and raspy, with rumbling growls rising in its throat.
The prone teenager remained glued to the plywood, too frightened to respond to the desperate screams inside his head urging him to make a run for it. A brilliant light beam distracted his attention from the unseen beast. Sirjo swiveled the van spotlight until its dazzling beam drenched his young partner. Jamille wished he hadn’t.
The powerfully built creature that bent over Jamille was gargantuan. Its leathery gray skull sloped down from a sharp crown, with two brief spikes above its large eyes. The mouth and jaw extended like a long muzzle with a single row of jagged fangs dripping thick saliva. Its ears were finely sculpted to a point, and its nostrils were two flat holes atop the muzzle. The flesh was smooth and pale gray and tightly stretched over the brawny frame. Its arms were knotted with twisted muscles, and its hands were webbed with three keen rubicund claws, curved slightly at the tips.
A savage roar split the stillness as the monster hovered above Jamille. Slowly, it raised its left arm.
A weak whimper escaped Jamille’s lips as its arm descended and the razor tips of its three claws tore into his back, puncturing his heart, lungs and liver. Before the boy realized what had happened to him, his life force faded away.
Sirjo abandoned the spotlight and jumped into the van after witnessing Jamille’s horrible death. He had to get the hell away from there! His trembling fingers fumbled the keys as he tried repeatedly to jam the right one into the ignition. Another inhuman roar reverberated through the swamp and shook the van.
The engine finally sputtered to life, and Sirjo threw the transmission into Drive and floored the accelerator. The van didn’t budge! It was suddenly listing toward the passenger side. The rear wheels screamed and spun wildly in the air.
The beast’s claws shredded the steel roof like cardboard, missing Sirjo’s head by inches. The monster lifted the rear of the van with one arm while it attacked Sirjo with the other. Even in his panicked state, Sirjo realized that the thing’s next swipe might separate him from his life. He stretched across the front seat, grabbed the remote detonating device and pressed the red button.
The construction site burst into sizzling orange flames. The command trailer and the three mechanical shovels
were ripped into metallic debris. The demon shrieked as several fragments impaled its body.
That was Sirjo’s final act. The angry Zyloux’s claws peeled back the van’s roof and raked the trespasser into squirming quarters. Sirjo’s stunned eyes blinked once before he was dimly aware that his head was no longer attached to his twitching, bleeding body parts. A ring of sharp teeth descended swiftly toward his terrified face, and then all went black.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and the wounded horned demon retreated from the searing flames. After it healed, the Zyloux would return to this realm to hunt and destroy the humans who now possessed the stolen elixir.
12
J
ay moved his bedding out of the other bedroom so he could watch Lonny who was sleeping peacefully on the couch. Jay stretched out in the uncomfortable recliner and placed his silencer-equipped gun on his lap beneath the sheet. He chuckled as he imagined the water’s effects on Lonny. The worst-case scenario would be Lonny’s regressing into a pain-in-the-ass, zit-faced teenager who was on the prowl for a lay. He checked on Lonny once more, and then read The Tampa Tribune.
Jay stayed awake until two. An hour earlier, he had phoned his terrorist cell commander from the front porch and reported his discovery in the gold chest. His contact ordered him to do nothing more with the strange water until he received further instructions. By the time Jay returned to the recliner, his eyelids were ten-pound weights, and he finally collapsed. He fell into a shallow sleep, waking every thirty minutes or so to listen to Lonny’s rhythmic snoring.
At four-thirty, a piercing scream shattered Jay’s restless slumber. His eyes snapped open, his muscles tensed, and his fingers closed on his gun. A quick glance to the sofa told him that Lonny was missing. Shit! Here we go.
Another bloodcurdling scream shattered the stillness. Blossom! Jay struggled out of the recliner, rushed to her room, and flicked on the lights. Stunned, he fell back a step. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
That poor guinea pig, Lonny, had been transformed into an ugly, hairless creature less than five feet tall. Its elongated skull was too damned large for its pallid, emaciated body. Pointed ears displaced Lonny’s pierced ones. But it was Lonny’s new black, spiky teeth that unnerved Jay the most. The little bastard turned, curled its lips, and snarled. It glared out of the corners of its green elliptical eyes at Jay as its lethal mouth closed on Blossom’s quivering throat.
“Lonny!” he shouted.
The vicious creature pivoted and snarled, his graveyard pupils completely focused on the intruder. That was the effect Jay hoped for.
Jay raised the gun barrel and fired twice, splattering Lonny’s head with the first muted shot and exploding his hideous chest with the second. Blossom shrieked again as Lonny’s long nails dug into her shoulder as he slid to the floor.
Juan arrived with gun in hand and ready to fire. “Sweet Mother of Mary!” he muttered and crossed himself. He glanced at the bloody remains and then at Jay. “Lonny?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Just from drinking a little bit of wine from that old-fashioned thermos?”
“Not wine, amigo,” he replied, as he unlocked Blossom’s cuffs and held the sobbing woman in his arms.
“Then what?”
“Water from the fountain of youth.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
He shook his head. “It’s true.”
Blossom gradually regained her composure before going to the bathroom to wash the bloody spray off her face and arms.
“What do we do with . . . him?” Juan asked with a shudder.
“It’s still dark, so I say we throw the body into the back of the car, and you drive him out into the country and dump him,” Jay said.
Juan frowned. “Alone?”
Jay stood and nudged Lonny’s sunken chest with his hand. “Look, he’s dead, amigo. No heart.” He pointed at the blood-drenched wall where grayish bits of Lonny’s brain were still trickling toward the tile floor. “And his brains are wallpaper.”
“I still don’t like it, but what the hell. Like you said, the little shit’s dead.”
“C’mon, let’s get this done.”
They wrapped the corpse in a thin flannel blanket and carried it outside to the Explorer. The countryside surrounding the isolated, ramshackle bungalow was blanketed in fog and eerily quiet except for a cricket chorus and belching tree frogs. After heaving the body into the back, Jay tossed Juan the car keys.
“Be careful. Drive the speed limit. We don’t need any trouble from the cops,” Jay warned him.
Juan jingled the keys. “No shit, man.”
Jay watched the Explorer disappear into the muddy mist and grinned. He called his contact on his cell phone and related the details of Lonny’s transformation. His commander gave him detailed instructions on what he was to do with the liquid inside the bladder. Jay smiled. He liked it. The commander also gave Jay an address where he was to ship the remaining liquid via overnight delivery and hung up.
Jay hated losing Lonny, but his little experiment proved what his mind had only imagined. This new change to Friday’s mission was going to be a gruesome twist. It would certainly grab the government’s attention.
What Jay couldn’t guess was that his discovery would have worldwide implications, too.
Blossom repeatedly scrubbed her face and arms in an attempt to eradicate the sinister sensation pervading her flesh. Damn, what a nightmare! First, she was kidnapped and then attacked by a repulsive creature. It was now apparent why Juan Ponce de Leon never reported his discovery of the fountain of youth and sent that nightmarish bladder to the bottom of the gulf. The liquid was cursed.
When she emerged from the bathroom, her horrible attacker was gone, but its blood dappled the floor and wall. She turned away. There was no way she would spend another minute in that room. The awful malodor of death permeated the small space. Snatching her folded clothes off the end of the bed, she retreated to the unoccupied living room and hastily re-dressed.
Suddenly, it dawned on her that she was alone! Blossom ran to the rear of the bungalow and tried to open the door, then rushed to the rear of the house, but it was boarded shut. Next, she checked the windows in the other bedroom, but they were boarded up as well. She tentatively returned to her bedroom and noticed that the window above the bed wasn’t boarded shut. Throwing back the curtains, she discovered that locked, outdoor shutters prevented her escape. Dammit all to hell!
Thoughts of Clay crept into her mind, and she cried softly. What began as a romantic vacation turned into something just as ugly and horrible as that mutant, Lonny. What next? Despair chipped away at her normally fearless facade. She wondered what kind of terrible operation was going down on Friday. What kind of fanatical group was Jay involved with? Only time would tell, and that’s what frightened her the most. She didn’t want to be an accessory to Friday’s big event.
Lisa Anders cranked up the air conditioning in her car as she returned to the Warnke Construction site. It was an uncivilized five fifteen in the morning, yet the muggy air was already stifling. She punched in a number on her cell phone. Perspiration formed along the hairline beneath her bangs as she waited for the call to connect. She was as nervous as a virgin on prom night.
The phone rang at the other end. The sweat droplets plummeted down her forehead and dripped off her brow. Another ring. Another.
Finally, a hoarse, groggy voice answered.
“Bellamy,” it said.
“Nick Bellamy?” she asked, although she knew it was.
“The one and the same. Who’s this?”
His question was greeted by silence.
“Look, this better not be a telemarketer, or I’m gonna . . .”
“My name’s Lisa Anders. I’m a professor at Florida State,” she blurted out at last.
“I’m happy for you,” he yawned. “So what do you want, Lisa Anders, at . . . five twenty in the morning?”
“ I . . . need your help.”
“Couldn’t this wait until coffee’s brewed?”
“No!” she replied emphatically. “And besides, I’ve had mine.”
“Good for you.” He yawned. “Now, what’s on your mind?”
“Actually, it’s a matter of life and death, Agent Bellamy.”
“Of course,” he said sarcastically. “By the way, how’d you get my home number?”
Good question, she thought. “Does the name Neo ring a bell?”
“As in Doss?”
“Bingo, Agent Bellamy.”
“Call me Nick. After all, since you have my private number, we might as well be on a first-name basis,” he grumbled.
“All right, Nick. Now, let me explain, and please don’t interrupt till I’m finished. I might forget an important detail if you do.”
“Is this going to take long? Because if it is, I’m going to shower and make my pot of coffee before you get started.”
“Dammit, Nick, I’m serious!” she shouted.
“I guess so,” he said, his demeanor softening. “Sorry. Fire away when ready.”
“Thank you.” Lisa described Blossom’s discovery on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, Blossom’s kidnapping, and her own theory of the kidnapping motive.”
“You’ve got my attention,” he said solemnly.
Next, Lisa related the Warnke workers’ discovery of a boneyard on their construction site, the mysterious shadow on the company’s thermal scans, and Crow’s grandfather’s ominous warning about the contents of the gold chest.
“You certainly had a busy day. Anything else?” He was peeved that neither Crow nor Neo reported in yesterday. He had to learn the facts from a stranger.
“I know the identity of the chest’s owner and what might have been inside it,” she responded.
“It’s too early for twenty questions, so just tell me who the owner was.”
The Ancient Breed Page 8
