Blood Apocalypse - 04 (19 page)

“Now
that
I believe!”

13

Mark was exhausted. He stumbled to his office and kicked open the door to the makeshift quarters behind his desk. He didn’t even bother with the light as he staggered to the military issue bunk and fell on it. “What a night,” he mumbled as he quickly drifted off to sleep.

After returning from Tinker with the equipment needed to construct the makeshift training facility, he then supervised the men in constructing it, stayed up half the night as they ran drills and followed up with training evaluations for Mitchell then tweaked the response times for the popup targets to increase the reaction rates for the operators…coffee only goes so far. His mind had just reached the abyss when a knock came at his office door. At first he refused to answer it. He wanted so desperately to sleep, but with a barely conscious groan he lifted himself from the mattress and stepped back out into his office.

“Yeah.” Mark dropped into his chair and rubbed at his bri
stly face.

Dominic pushed the door open. “I need to talk to you.” He stuck his head in questioningly.

Mark rubbed at his eyes. “Come on in,” he yawned.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Naw. I was thinking of sleeping, but I’ll have plenty of time for that when I’m dead,” he joked. “What’s the problem?”

Dominic took a deep breath and held it a moment before starting. “The colonel and I aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on som
ething, and I think it’s pretty important. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Mark nodded, suddenly feeling a little more alert. “Go on.”

“You know when I was gone? In Italy? I was in the coma and all? Well, I had a bit of a revelation…”

Dominic went on to explain how the Sicarii had filled his mind with his memories and how it had almost driven him i
nsane. He also told of how there was something constantly on the edge of his mind that he couldn’t quite grasp until he was under the influence of the drugs. Now that he knew what that something was, the Colonel didn’t seem that interested in pursuing it.

“Did he say why he didn’t want to pursue this?”

“No, sir, not really. He said that we didn’t have enough intel. We didn’t know what the importance of the dirt was, how to deal with it, where to find it, if it could be destroyed or tainted…” he trailed off.

Tufo nodded. “Well, I can see his point, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look into it.” He yawned again. “Tell you what, Dom. Give me a little time to mull this over. Maybe b
etween the two of us we can figure something out with or without the colonel.”

Dom nodded, a slight grin of relief crossing his face. “Thank you, sir.”

Mark shot him a dirty look. “How many times do I have to…”

“That’s out of respect.” Dom got to his feet. “Not many o
fficers actually
deserve
respect, but you’ve earned it in my book and you ain’t even commissioned.”

Mark studied him cautiously. “Okay. I guess I’ll let it pass then.”

Dominic headed to the door. “If you think of anything on this, just let me know. Anything I can do, or anything I can help with…”

“I will, Dom.”

Tufo watched the man leave and sat back down in his chair. He thought about what he had told him and rolled the idea around a bit. Although he had no earthly idea how they could use the information, he knew that somehow it had to be useful. He felt another yawn come on and turned toward his private quarters again. This time he shut the door between his quarters and his office and removed his BDU shirt before collapsing on the bed.

When he slept, he dreamed of vampires and dirt…and flames that engulfed everything.

*****

Barbara Mueller stared at the floor of the cabin above them, her ears straining to hear every sound. Although nothing had moved since she and Bobby had snuck into the crawlspace, her sixth sense told her that somebody…or some
thing
was out there. Perhaps it was waiting until they felt the two of them were sound asleep before making their move, but it was out there. To his credit, Bobby sat perfectly still, his eyes studying his mother. He held his knife in his little hands, ready for whatever may come.

Barbara’s nerves were almost shot. She knew she was sleep deprived and her body was burning excess adrenaline at an alarming rate. Her senses were in hyperdrive, and she felt like a watch that was wound too tight. She forced her head to the side in a vain attempt to stretch her neck and was alarmed at the loud cracking noise that greeted her when she did it. Although the action brought her some relief, she wasn’t prepared for the sound to be so loud in the shallow area under the cabin. To her heigh
tened senses, it might as well have been a gunshot.

Bobby hardly seemed to notice his mother’s agitation. His eyes shifted from her to the trap door they had used to slip below and back to her. Like her, he waited for whoever was foolish enough to try to follow them below.

After what seemed to be hours, they both heard the unmistakable sound of the front door creaking as it was slowly opened. They never heard footsteps on the front porch and that alarmed them both. They peered down along the cabins wooden floor to where they knew the door to be and thought they could make out dim shadows through the narrow slits in the wood planks. Whoever had pushed the door open was still near the entrance of the cabin, probably looking for signs of life.

After a few moments, they finally heard the footsteps as the intruder crossed the cabin and rifled through the meager belon
gings scattered about the interior. A second set of footsteps soon followed and a muffled voice could be heard above them. Barbara strained her ears to hear them and could just make out their conversation.

“It looks like they’ve been gone a while,” said an obviously male voice.

“Richardson found their car about a half mile down the hill. Do you really think they’d have left it?” the other voice asked. This voice was softer, but also male.

She could hear things being tossed about the cabin and an empty can clattered to the floor close to where she sat straining to hear.

“I dunno. Who can tell with women these days? For all I know she ran out of gas and walked to a neighbors’ house,” the first voice responded.

“Okay…so what do we report?”

“What do you think we report? Exactly what we found. An empty cabin that nobody’s been in for days.” She heard more things clatter to the floor. “Hell, it could have been over a week ago. There’s no telling how long it’s been since anybody’s actually been in this dump.”

“Hey, are you itching?” the soft voice asked. “My skin feels like it’s on fire.”

“Son of a...silver nitrate!” the second voice snarled. “Mixed with white pepper! No wonder I can’t smell a thing...and my fucking eyes are burning like hell.”

Something heavy thumped to the floor and she heard smal
ler things scatter about. “What are you doing?” asked the softer voice, “Shouldn’t we leave?”

“I’m looking for a clue to where they might have gone. Surely they left
something
!” the first voice yelled.

Barbara kept her eyes on Bobby and watched as her little man’s eyes narrowed on the trap door opening, his grip on the knife tightening. She slowly raised her hand to her mouth and extended one finger to her pursed lips in a shushing motion. Bobby only nodded then turned his eyes back to the trap door.

They both listened to the two men rifle through the remains of their stock until a female voice chimed in. “Richardson said to regroup. If they aren’t here then we’re to keep looking. They’re somewhere on this damned mountain, he’s sure of it, and we don’t have much time before sunrise.”

“Fuck!” the first voice yelled, and he obviously threw som
ething that crashed against the wall, shattering.

“You want I should stay here in case they return? I could wait outside,” the second male voice asked, turning Barbara’s blood cold at the thought.

The other two were silent for a moment before the female replied, “You better not. Richardson wants everybody looking for her and that brat kid. If they haven’t been here, then odds are they aren’t coming back.”

Barbara fought not to give an audible sigh when she heard that.

“Should we torch the place?” the first voice asked. Barbara’s eyes shot open and she began to raise her pistol intending to try to shoot through the floorboards, but Bobby’s hand was on her wrist to stay her.

“Are you nuts?” the female responded. “Not only could that get firefighters out here, but it could also alert her that somebody is after her! Not to mention you could set the whole damn forest on fire! Where would that put us?”

“Come on, dumbass. Let’s get back to the group before Richardson gets pissed,” the softer male voice said.

“Who are you calling dumbass?” the first voice said as they left the cabin. Barbara listened as the footsteps tromped out much louder than when they came in.

Bobby started to make a move for the trap door, but she held him back and shook her head. He shot her a questioning look and she pulled him close to her and whispered in his ear, “We wait. Let them get some distance.” Bobby nodded and started to settle back when she pulled him close again. “If they didn’t sabotage the car, then we are out of here at sun up.”

He simply nodded and hugged his mom.

*****

Bright and early, Captain Roberts tracked down Colonel Mitchell as he settled into his office to go over the nightly sec
urity logs. Roberts had made a point to speak with each of his men personally and get them on board with the program. After realizing that he wasn’t joking about the coming threat, each man listened to him as Roberts made an appeal to the man’s integrity and asked if they would make it their goal to help get the other men on board with the mission. Although they didn’t know it at the time, Roberts made it his personal quest to search out each man and make the same appeal. And each man took to heart his request, all except McDonald, who Roberts knew better than to ask.

The security teams were at first alarmed by the newcomers to the base. Being forewarned is one thing, but meeting the ne
wcomers first hand left more than a handful of the men with unsettled nerves. Roberts made it a new standard operating procedure that all personnel manning the gates would operate in groups of six with armed pairs to escort any newcomers to their respective abodes.

Vampires were escorted outside the base proper to the old warehouse and placed with Foster’s people while the first wolves were being placed in the other underground facility. Viktor made a point of setting up residence there until the first handful of wolves arrived. With him there they would have somebody to point out the facilities and help them settle in. Once more wolves started to flow in, he packed out and moved back to Natashia.

Vehicles were being parked along the old abandoned runways like two very long parking lots. RVs, semis, cars, pickups, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, anything and everything that could transport a person was being used to bring them out here to the desert. Roberts halfway expected aircraft to start circling and requesting permission to land, but knew that even with their skeleton crew they’d never be allowed close.

As he reported the activity to Mitchell, he noticed that the base commander seemed distant or his mind preoccupied. He paused and set his reports in his lap. “Colonel?”

Matt looked up. “Hmm? Yes, Captain?”

“I just…well, sir, you seemed…elsewhere. Is everything okay?” He seemed honestly concerned.

Matt placed his copy on the desk and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain. I don’t mean to belittle you or your reports by not paying attention.” He stood and went to the window. “My Executive Officer recently quit and I find myself…” he smirked and turned back to the captain, “well, just a little lost now and then. She usually handles this aspect of the operations. My new XO has his hands full with the men and all the new operators.”

Captain Roberts nodded. “I think that’s understandable u
nder the circumstances, Colonel.” He picked up his reports and started to put them away. “We can go over this stuff another time, sir.”

“No, Captain, we can finish it now,” Matt said. “I’m sorry. I just find myself wondering if she’s okay, that’s all.”

“Sir, I’m sure you must have more important duties to attend to. Surely this can wait…”

“No.” Matt waved him back to his seat. “This is as good a time as any.” He went back to his desk, yet he just couldn’t quite bring himself to pick up the reports.

Roberts nodded. “Something else is bothering you, isn’t it?”

Matt slowly lowered himself into his seat and looked across at Roberts. “You know, Captain, there are a lot of things that have been bothering me lately. A lot of things seem to go really smoothly for us and a lot of things…well, maybe not so much. But as a whole, we tend to land on our feet.” Matt glanced away a moment, as if to gather his thoughts. “But this situation that we’re about to face? We don’t really know what it is that we’re up against. I mean, we have an idea, and we have clues, but we don’t really
know
,” Matt said quietly. Roberts nodded his head, listening intently. “My men and I have gone up against some really nasty things over the years. But every time we did, we had a pretty good idea what to expect. Not this time.”