Jack Kursed (42 page)

"I know what you mean. I hate
technology."

"This is it," Eli said. "This will
work."

Jack and Victoria joined
the mortals and hovered over the computer. Eli had a diagram of the
facility on the monitor and typed quickly at the
keyboard.

"What are we looking at here?" Jack
said, handing over his guns to Eli and Diane.

"It's an old security
measure we took when we were first dealing with the drone vampires.
We can flood the labs on the first floor with gas and blow the shit
out of them."

Victoria shook her head.
"That’s it? Ghouls won’t go down to fire right away, and they’re
scattered all over the place. Blowing up the labs won’t take many
out."

"We’ll open the doors,"
Diane said. "Let them vent as much as possible. We should be able
to burn out the whole first floor."

Jack leaned on the desk.
"Okay, so we lure as many as we can from outside and the other
floors. If we can just knock their numbers down some, Victoria and
I should be able to handle the rest. How do you flood the
labs?"

"From Munroe’s computer,
on the first floor. He ran this place. Only his computer had
access."

The door to the lab
splintered, and then flew open. Three ghouls bunched up in the
doorway as they tried to force their way inside, with plenty more
behind them. Jack didn’t hesitate, and sprinted across the lab. He
tackled the lead ghoul and pushed them all back into the hallway,
collapsing on the group of them.

He tried to climb to his feet, but a
ghoul grabbed his leg, throwing him off balance. Another climbed on
his chest and bit into his face. Death and decay was all around
him, attacking him.

Victoria grabbed the ghoul
on his chest and tossed it down the hallway into another group. She
reeled back as a ghoul snapped its jaws dangerously close to her
arm, and stepped forward to kick it in the face. She took Jack’s
hand and pulled him to his feet. Eli and Diane stood in the doorway
and fired at the group down the hall.

"We’ll get as many on the
first floor as we can," Victoria said. "Can you two make it to the
labs and do your thing?"

Eli nodded. "I think
so. But look, if we leave those lab doors open, we’re sitting
ducks. So if you’re rounding them up, be
very
fast."

"I can do that," Victoria said, and
ran into the office next to them. She jumped through the window,
drawing gasps from the mortals.

"She’ll be fine," Jack
said.

He turned his attention to
the ghouls pulling themselves to their feet, nearly twenty of them.
Eli and Diane jumped behind him as they backed down the
hall.

"There’s at least two in
the stairwell. Be careful. I’ll start gathering them."

"What are you?" Diane
asked. "Even the vampire is worried about getting bit."

"I’m cursed," he said.
"It’s funny. I was cursed by a witch. These ghouls were cursed by
you."

"It was an accident. It
wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were just trying to understand
it."

Jack wasn't surprised at
their naivety. He actually believed them, even if their superiors
had other motives in mind.

"This is your chance to
fix it all. Go. I’ll round up what I can and find you
later."

"That's not much of a plan," Diane
said.

"You want to stay here and
discuss some more? Get moving."

Eli and Diane vanished
into the stairwell. Jack held the door open and waited patiently
for the ghouls. The mortals shouted in fright in the stairwell. He
looked down and saw a flash from their guns before hearing their
footsteps once again.

"Let’s go, guys," he said
to the ghouls. "We’ve got things to do."

The slow-moving walking
corpses pursued as he moved calmly down the stairs. He pushed the
door open to the second floor and jammed it open. Ghouls from the
second floor moved toward him.

"That's it," he taunted. "Let's keep
it moving."

Jack stepped over two dead
ghouls as he made it to the first floor. The exit door to his left
was open, and a blur with red eyes stopped in front of him, the
moon and night behind her.

"Are you doing okay?" Victoria
asked.

He looked her up and down. Her clothes
were soaked in blood, gore and tissue dangling from her claws. Her
fangs were out and slurred her speech.

"Not as good as you,
apparently."

"I'm killing what I can.
Almost got bit twice, though. I've got a nice little crowd
following me."

He nodded. "Happy hunting."

She ran away, forming into
a blur once again as his eyes couldn't keep up with her speed. The
ghouls from the stairwell caught up, and he had to duck to avoid
being grabbed. A few ghouls stumbled in from outside as more poured
out of the stairwell.

He didn't have any idea of
the layout of the facility. As he passed by every office and room
he tapped on the walls, drawing more of them.

There was a scream around
the corner. He turned to see Diane on the floor. One ghoul had its
teeth in her arm while two more slowly marched toward her. Her gun
lay just out of reach. Jack rushed to her side and grabbed the
ghoul. Not having time to be gentle, he ripped it away from her,
taking part of her arm with it. She screamed in pain and tried to
climb to her feet. He helped her up and grabbed the gun to hand it
to her. She fired wildly at the ghoul, her own flesh still in its
mouth, taking three shots to find its head.

"Where's your friend?" Jack
asked.

"Eli's heading to the computer to
start the gas. I opened all the lab doors."

Jack grabbed her hand and
started down the hallway, deeper into the facility. There were two
ghouls in front of them, and many more behind. Diane stopped and
pulled on his arm.

"No! Follow me."

She ducked into a side office, Jack a
step behind. A ghoul moaned in frustration as it missed grabbing
his shoulder. He shut the office door behind him and locked
it.

"There's another door over there,"
Diane said. "We can hit the next hall and pass the conference
room."

Jack watched Diane as she
bent over and held her injured arm. Blood trickled down her fingers
and dripped to the floor. She coughed violently. He approached her
and touched her shoulder as the pounding outside the office grew
louder.

"Are you gonna make it?"

"I'll be fine."

His face scrunched up as he smelled
gas.

"Eli made it," Diane said, trying to
smile. "What do we do now?"

"We head to the labs, taking as many
of these bastards with us that we can. We let the gas flow, and
then up she goes. No more shooting until then."

Diane reached for a phone on the
nearby desk and hit the page button.

"Eli, go to the labs," she
said, her voice echoing throughout the facility. "Head to lab 102,
if you can."

Jack took her hand and
rushed to the other door. A ghoul stood on the other side,
wandering aimlessly in the hall. It perked up when it saw Jack, and
stretched its arms. He kicked its leg out, sending it to the
floor.

It took them five minutes
to make it to lab 102. They had to duck into a few side offices,
let a ghoul or two wander by. A ghoul lunged from the bathroom as
they passed, trying to bite into Diane. Jack jumped in front of her
to protect her, to save her from any more pain. The ghoul bit his
arm, drawing blood. He flung it to the ground and stomped on its
skull until it cracked. His arm had already healed before the ghoul
was dead. Science and technology were powerful, but a magical curse
was stronger.

The smell of gas grew stronger as they
turned another corner, and Jack knew they were close. He heard Eli
cry in pain, and the sound of a ghoul feasting.

They stepped into lab 102.
Dead ghouls were strapped to tables, some overturned on the floor.
Eli weakly fought with a ghoul against the wall, its teeth already
latched onto his arm. Jack rushed to his aid, pulling the ghoul
away and stabbing it through the eye with a pen from a nearby
table.

"Where's your gun?" Jack
asked.

"I lost it on the way
here."

A ghoul moaned as it stumbled into the
lab. Jack pushed every table in the way, wanting to slow them down
as much as possible. Another ghoul showed up, and then
another.

Victoria's voice boomed over the
intercom.

"Hey," she said. "Most of
them are inside. I've locked them in."

Jack reached for the phone on the
corner desk. "Just get outside. We'll light this place up in
another minute."

Diane slouched against the
wall next to Eli and slid down to the floor next to him.

"I bet you wish you'd taken me up on
that date now," Eli said.

She laughed before leaning her head on
his good shoulder. "You wouldn't have been able to handle
me."

Jack watched them both as
he shoved more tables near the door. They were covered in blood,
their skin pale. Diane coughed violently again as Eli rubbed her
back. Jack hoped he could one day face death like they were, with
strength and dignity.

"I've seen a lot of death," he said.
"You two are handling it better than most."

"Make sure this doesn't
get out," Eli said. "Make sure our mistake doesn't hurt anyone
else."

He nodded. "Count on it."

More ghouls forced their
way into the lab. Jack leaned against the wall next to Eli and
Diane. He took the gun from her and waited patiently as ghouls
pushed tables out of the way, tripping and falling over each
other.

"There's Dr. Barnes," Diane said,
pointing at a ghoul. "He tried to grab my ass an hour before this
shit started."

"I wished you would have told me. I
would have punched him."

Jack smiled, and looked up at the
vents. The gas continued to pour in, as did the ghouls. A ghoul
tripped as it drew near, landing near Diane's foot.

"I'd say we're about ready," Jack
said.

Diane nodded, tears
rolling down her face. She grabbed Eli by the chin and kissed him.
Jack aimed at the closest vent and pulled the trigger. The single
spark was all it took, and Jack closed his eyes as the lab exploded
around him.

Ghouls howled, but he
wasn't sure if it was in pain or simply confusion. He felt his
clothes burning, and a table flew and struck him, knocking him to
the ground.

A minute later he pulled
himself to his feet, stunned at the destruction around him. Only a
single light hung from the ceiling, throwing shadows across the
lab. Ghouls lay around him and crawled as their bodies burned. Some
were dead outright, blood and organs on the floor. Jack felt a
sense of déjà vu as he inhaled the scent of death.

"Jack! Are you in here
somewhere?"

Victoria walked through
the hole that used to be the wall to the lab. She casually killed
ghouls as she went, either with a stomp to the head or a claw
through the neck.

"I'm here. How'd we do?"

"The whole first floor is
toast. We killed over half easily. There's a few scattered in the
yard still, and I'm sure there's more on the other floors. But we
can handle it now. Just get some rest, and we'll finish up. Then
we'll burn this place to the ground."

He laughed as he looked at
his ruined clothes, and groaned when he pulled out his destroyed
iPhone. "Get some rest. Funny."

"
Mental
rest,
whatever."

"I'm fine. Let's hurry it up and get
this done. Tiffany has to go to school in a few hours."

She smiled and slapped him
on the shoulder. "I'll call some people as soon as I can to help
with cleanup. Thank you. I needed all the help I could
get."

"Yeah, yeah. You're
welcome."

They walked together to the closest
exit into the night air. A lonely ghoul limped toward them that
Victoria easily dispatched with a swipe of her claw.

"This sure beats a boring night in,
doesn't it?" she asked.

"A year ago, I would have told you
yes."

EPILOGUE

Tiffany ran a lap around the living
room before stopping in front of the iPad. She waved at Jack as he
watched her through Skype before taking off for another
lap.

"Uh, Tiffany, it's hard to talk to you
when you're running like a crazy girl."

"Tiffany," Erica called
from the kitchen. "You might want to slow down a little in there
before you pass out."

She stopped in front of the iPad and
took deep breaths. Jack laughed and shook his head at his
daughter.

"Are you being good for
Erica? And I'm not just talking about at the house, but in school,
too?"

She nodded. "Of course," she said
defiantly. "Don't be mad, but I've told everyone at school that
you're my family now."