Type Slugger

Land Of Shadows: Chapter XXVIII - Sunrise

2011-10-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

They moved the boy out of the lobby and into an office nearby. Elias examined him thoroughly, packed gauze in the wound and bandaged it up. Old habits died hard and he just happened to have a pack of antibiotics on hand that he'd liberated from an underground cold storage unit. He would have felt better getting him on IV antibiotic, but that was not an option now. They all gathered around him with questions, but he didn't have any satisfactory answers. He had no idea if the young man would make it. His immune system had been compromised.

He felt Allison would be a problem, she was distrustful of the boy and kept on hand on her gun every time she was near him. Someone would have to keep watch on the boy at all times.

Dee, sensing that Ally would be a problem too assigned her and Olly to explore the base, but warned them, especially Olly, not to touch a damned thing. She felt the need to explore a bit too. Aided by one remaining working electric Jeep they found in the tunnels, they quickly found that there was more underground than above, but given the description Elias had given them of the base in Alaska that was not surprising. There was a huge network of underground tunnels and bunkers, one area in particular, caught Dee's interest. It was a habitation on the west side of the complex. Rather than the spartan barracks of the other habitation areas these were divided into lush apartments with the most luxurious being at the end. It was a subterranean penthouse suite. The door to each apartment was labeled, President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, etc.

But the most wondrous thing was that the whole subterranean complex had power, provided by some kind of automated fusion power plant. The Alaskan complex had housed the smaller prototypes for the Houston complex Elias had told them.

Everything was laid in carefully preserved arrangements. Clothes were in vacuum sealed bags. Food was carefully preserved in deep freeze or sealed metal containers that would last a century of more. An armory was supplied with carefully sealed ammo boxes and crates of weapons that reeked of cosmoline that reminded her of Billy Parsons.

The whole thing was painting a very dark picture.

"Just what the Hell were your employers up to Dr. Hood?" she demanded of him that evening while he was in the infirmary changing the boy's bandages. He'd moved him there as soon as he learned of its existence. Elias handed the soiled gauze and bandages to June for her to dispose of. She still did not speak to Elias much, but she was always there like his shadow.

"Look, I was just the company doctor. They recruited me because I was a good doctor with military training and I looked pretty, They didn't give me a handbook with all the company's dirty little secrets the day I signed on."

"But you had to know something was not right with all the cloak and dagger shit!"

"You didn't grow up in the shadow of big multinational corporations so I'll make allowances for that. Suffice it to say that government spies were nothing compared to their counterparts in the private sector. They had fewer rules to follow and better equipment and backing. The Company had a lot of money tied up in this project and they did not want details leaked out to competitors. I don't know for sure what they were up to. I never really could see the purpose of the whole program. I mean projecting a man into the future in yearly increments has little benefit. It was strictly a one way trip. From a medical standpoint you could in theory project a severely injured man a year into the future and then take the whole year to prepare for his return and have everything you could possibly need to save him. But the projectors, even the small one in Alaska suck a lot of power. Fire it ten times and you've used enough to power a small city for a year. There really just is not that much profit in it."

"But you've got your suspicions."

"I do."

"Well ... "

"The Company, GPMS, had it fingers in a lot of pies. But the big three were weapons contracting, aviation and pharmaceuticals."

"So?" she asked not getting what he was driving at.

"GPMS was one of the biggest promoters of enforced contraception. The company PTBs thought that one of the biggest problems in the world was not so much a matter of dwindling resources, but out of control population growth. One of the CEOs was quoted in an interview as saying the world would be a better place if ninety-eight percent of the people on earth would just go away. Of course the question was asked, what two percent would remain? He responded that of course the two percent that was most like him."

"Nice guy."

"Yeah. Well he died mysteriously shortly afterwards. Back in twenty-five there were three outbreaks of a previously unknown virus. They were quite lethal and very contagious. But they were rapidly contained. Almost like somebody had advance warning. The third was the most lethal of all. It killed one hundred percent of those infected. And entire town wiped out. These were all in different parts of the world, continents apart. So no one really took notice. But the company that handled the containment and cleanup afterwards in all three was GPMS. It was an expensive cleanup in each case because the virus can lay dormant for years without a host. Everything had to be sanitized or burned."

Dee suddenly understood. Gather your desired "survivors" together, project them into the future, release your perfect engineered virus. With no viable hosts left the virus will die off long before you return. Your survivors return to a world cleansed of the surplus population, build your Utopia.

"And you worked for these people?" Dee asked.

"As did about three percent of North America and Europe. More if you count all of their little subsidiaries and satellite companies."

"So, what about this super virus you think they created? Is it here?" She glanced about nervously as if expecting to see it seeping through the walls. She had grown up fighting very visible and tangible foes. The idea of coming up against something she could not see to fight was terrifying.

"I doubt it, this is where their preselected survivors would have been housed. I don't think they would have wanted it near them. I know I would not. I would think it would have needed an aerial dispersal system. Something their aerospace division would have provided I guess. I'm sure it's out there somewhere"

* * *

Dee told the twins of her conversation with Elias that night and nobody slept well. In fact everyone but their mystery guest was awake when the alarms went off.

"Reactor Control Malfunction. Overcharge condition exists." a recorded voice announced. "Unscheduled projector sequence initiated."

"What the Hell?" Dee muttered as the headed for the infirmary. Elias was calmly pulling on his jacket when she got there.

"Our friend in there must have done something to the reactors before we got here." he told her.

"What does overcharge condition mean?"

"It means the reactors are banging out full power overcharging the batteries, overloading the control boards." Olly supplied from behind her.

"Yeah, what he said." Elias agreed.

"That's bad?" Dee asked.

"Very bad" Olly told her. "It could destabilize the reactors. They've been running unsupervised for years, who knows what condition they're in."

"You don't seem too worried about it," she said to Elias.

"The self repair systems can diagnose the problem and either initiate repairs or begin a controlled shutdown. This was designed to be completely autonomous. Just like the Alaskan facility."

"Yeah that worked out just fine didn't it. Mile wide crater and the entire world population sucked into limbo!" Ally piped in from behind Olly.

"Quarter mile," Elias corrected.

"Whatever!" Dee kicked a nearby file cabinet in frustration "And you can just sit there and wait for it to happen?" Dee demanded.

"Look, I'm a doctor, not a nuclear engineer. The possibilities are this. One, the reactor repairs itself everything is fine. All part of the standard safely drills. Two, the reactor cannot repair itself and we get a warning to evacuate the base, we put on some of the rad suits in that red locker behind me hot foot it out of here in one of those electric Jeeps, the reactor explodes and we don't came back to Houston for about two hundred years. If the projector malfunctions and fires again we all get sent forward and start over again. Nothing we can do."

"You can't do anything?"

"I can shut down the projector, but those generators are going full blast, that power has to go somewhere, it may just insure that the reactor blows."

Dee felt panic rising, she had never really told him the full story of his father's journals. Just enough to convince him that they were going in the same direction. How could she convince him of what she knew needed to be done.

"You have to stop it!" a weak voice pleaded from behind them. They turned to the young man on the bed.

"Worlds merge, the Bodachs will come. We will all die!" His voice sent a chill down her spine. He sounded so old and something about the way he called them Bodachs. Only one person she knew ever called the wraiths that.

"He's right, my father knew. We have to stop it. We have, what about fifteen minutes?"

"Twelve" Olly corrected.

"Your kidding right ... " Elias started, but he suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of Dee's newly acquired Sig-Sauer 9mm.

"You will shut it down and I will go with you to make sure you do it."

"You realize that if those reactors blow ... "

"I know enough," She turned to Olly and Allison without dropping the barrel of the gun so much as a tenth of a degree. Elias knew anything so much as a twitch and she could blow his head off. "Olly, Ally, put the boy here in one of those Jeeps and get the fuck away from here!"

For once they did as told without protest.

"You won't shoot me, I'm the only one that can shut it down."

"I will shoot you in the knee and drag you wherever I need to if I have to. Move!" She got him moving out into the hallway. As soon as she was sure the other two were out of earshot she felt she could talk more freely. He was leading the way but she prodded him to a faster pace with the muzzle of her gun.

They were on the surface headed for the dome they had seen earlier. At the entrance way of the dome they found a large steel door. A covered security panel was set in the wall by the door.

"You can open this?"

"As the first human test subject they gave me emergency override authority. There should be an access point in the projection chamber that I can use to abort firing the projector. I've never been here, but my fingerprints and retina scans are on the company computers."

"Yeah, what does that mean?"

"I think so."

"Do it Dammit!"

Elias lifted the panel and placed his palm on the scanner." For a while nothing happened. Dee could feel herself sweating. Then the panel lit up and a moment later the door slid open. He looked around somewhat bewildered for a moment. When asked he just shook his head.

"Nothing, it's just so much bigger than the Alaskan projector." he looked around for second and then nodded, "There it is."
He crossed the room to a service panel and pulled it open revealing a computer set into the wall. The system status was immediately displayed. This was a dedicated terminal so there was no extraneous windows or menus to navigate. He took a moment to read the display. He tapped a reading to enlarge it and began cussing.

"What?"

"It's worse than I thought. According to this the batteries will rupture in three minutes. After that it is just a matter of minutes till the reactors destabilize. It is not fixing itself. I don't know enough about it to fix it."

Olly would probably be able to figure it out, but if Olly and Ally were doing as they were told the would be getting as far from here as possible.

"I think if I overload the emitters and let it fire as normal it will take the whole base with it." This dome has more shielding and is better built than the one in Alaska. The effects shouldn't go further than this base." He looked uncertainly at Dee.

"Don't look at me, I don't know anything about it!"

He turned and began tapping furiously at the screen.

"What will this do to us?"

"I don't know." The projector fired. The world dissolved into white light.

* * *

Allison several times tried persuade her brother to turn back, but Oliver would not allow it. He refused to even slow down. The electric Jeep was fully charged when they started out but its batteries were old and weak. They made it fourteen miles back the way they had come before it quit. Only then did they take the time to look back. They waited looking for any sign of their eldest sister. The sky to the northwest lit up like a sudden sunrise. Eyes watering and squinting against the flare they still stared until if faded. They didn't dare go back to check it out.

There were sealed dosimeter badges in the first aid box on the Jeep. Olly passed out three and they waited.

Three days they waited. The dosimeters never registered anything above normal background radiation. Ally was nursing the boy along and he was getting better, but was still not really answering any questions. On the thrird morning Ally woke up to find her brother gone. She spent half an hour cursing him and Dee and the world in general. It was late evening when he returned. He reported that there was nothing left but perfect half spherical hole in the ground where the base had been.

They sadly returned home. Ally cried herself to sleep that first night. She dreamed that Jewels was standing watch over her. She woke up to see the boy standing watch. Olly was asleep.

"Sleep now Ally Ally Oh" told her. She fell asleep thinking it just another part of her dream. It had to be, Jewels was the only one that had ever called her that.

* * *

Ten thousand years later.

They stared out at the desolate landscape. The remains of the base shattered behind them. They had spent the last three days getting as far from it as possible. The first day they had rode Penny as hard as they dared, but led her for the next day.

They camped that night without saying a word. Neither had seen sign of another living person.

She stayed up late mulling the situation over and keeping the fire going. She looked up suddenly to see twin green lights peering at her from across the fire. 'Great,' she thought to herself. 'Wolves'. It slowly stepped forward and its scarred blunt muzzle came into the light.

"Bo?"

The rottweiler stepped forward into the firelight and nuzzled his snout under her hand. She scratched behind his ears and he wagged his whole rear end in enthusiastic greeting. Despite everything Dee felt everything would be alright.

Elias woke early and found Dee and the new arrival already awake. He moved last night's coffee pot over the coals of the fire. Together the three of them watched the sunrise on this world they had inherited.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land Of Shadows: Chapter XXVII - Surrender

2011-09-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

Sandy helped the old man settle back into the couch in lobby. They had been here three days. She still had no idea what this place was or why they were here. But Puck insisted that the man and who had kidnapped the old man's daughter was headed here. Whenever she pressed him on the matter he would only mutter something about the man killing his father, sometimes he would say the answers were in his father's journals. The details all seemed rather fuzzy and would change and shift. She did not doubt that he was being honest, but she did doubt if he was being factual. The last few days he had been operating at a fever pitch. He had been driving like a madman and would rarely let her behind the wheel. She loved him but had begun to fear him.

The old man was barely hanging on. His belly was distended like pregnant sow's. She didn't have to open his shirt to know that his whole abdomen would be a massive bruise. She could see the little fuckers moving about just under the skin. He smelled like he was dead already. She checked the load on her .45, there was one in the chamber and five in the magazine. At most there would be four of them more likely three. It was time to end this. Puck would not like it. For some reason he had a soft spot for the old man. But he had gone off looking for something. She had only seen him a couple of times in the last two days

She flicked the safety off the Colt and looked to the old man. His breathing was labored. For a moment he looked at her and she could see clear lucid calculation in his eyes. She shivered despite the seventy-eight degrees of the lobby. But he faded out again and she though it was just her imagination.

Movement outside caught her eye. She moved to one of the big broken glass panels to see if Puck had found what he was looking for and come back.

She could barely believe her eyes. A man leading a horse, a woman, two teens and a younger girl were approaching. The youngest girl fit the description in the old man's daughter to a tee.

"Jonas, is this your ... " she started to turn and ask, and found him right behind her.

His eyes were clear and full of malevolent life. His shirt was now a bloody rag. She started to back away from him, but he moved with impossible speed. He grabbed her and pulled her towards him in a hateful embrace. She fought with him but somehow he managed to get her gun. She heard it fire even as she felt something slicing into her own belly. Something warm and slick found its way into her shirt and began cutting into her, frantically digging at her flesh.

In desperation she bit into the loose flesh of the old man's neck. She drew blood it filled her mouth with the foul taste of rotten meat. But he loosened his grip enough that she could get free of him. She kicked out and caught him in the hip. He lost balance and fell to the floor in a heap. But still she was being torn into by at least two of the abominations. She felt herself losing her balance. One of them was actually inside her now. She stuck her hand in her shirt to grab it and a pair of razor sharp claws sliced her index finger off at the second joint. She pulled her hand back stared at it.

She saw Puck burst through the doors at the north end of the lobby. And then everything faded.

* * *

Puck could no longer clearly remember exactly why he was here. He was going to bring more of his kind here, but why. He was was beginning to feel oddly disconnected with them. He was more than this withered black thing carried around in his belly. But even among his own kind he was never fully accepted. They obeyed him, they feared him, they were in awe of him, but they hated him too.

His memories were beginning to blur too. He was having trouble separating his and the host's memories. He even found phantom memories that he doubted came from either, possibly from a previous host, but he did not know for sure. He found himself making up stories and believing them. In his seven thousand years he had taken so many hosts, but it had not been until he was snatched from his home world and forced to take his first native host that he'd had so much trouble.

But with Sandy he found peace and acceptance. If he activated this human machine again, he knew that it would merge his world and the human world. Sandy would be torn from him. He decided that was not acceptable. This body would eventually die, but he could find a new host and stay with Her.

Yesterday he had found what he believed to be a control room. The power was even still on and the machines appeared to work. He had absently pecked at a few buttons here and there at random, but without being able to read he had no idea what if any effect he was having.

A gunshot interupted his thoughts. He sprinted through the maze of corridors he had been searching and slammed through the door. The old man with the belly full of workers was dead in a heap. Sandy was staring at her dripping red hand she had just pulled out of the bloody tatters of her shirt. He had experienced anger before, but rage like this was entirely alien to him. He rushed to Sandy and eased her to the carpeted floor before ripping her shirt open. He reached into the wounds in her belly and began yanking the infant wraiths from her belly. There were three of them. Each one he pulled out he squeezed in his fist till its little body popped. They slashed and stabbed at his fingers with the sharp little claws, but it was of no consequence to him.

He could do nothing for her, he fled from the horror of it but emerging from the front door of the building he found a woman staring at him with a weapon pointed at his midsection.

"You have to help her!" was the first thing out of his mouth. "Please hurry!"

Dee stood there in shocked wonder at this turn of events. The thing she had pursued halfway across the country was standing before her, hands dripping with blood and begging for her help. She could easily cut him in half with the submachine gun, but for some reason she was unable to pull the trigger. He turned and ran back into the building. She could hear him calling back to her to please hurry. Allison was out from behind the UPS truck screaming.

"That's him, for God's sake don't let him get away now!"

Whatever it was that had frozen her momentarily evaporated with that. She sprinted after him, expecting a lengthy persuit, but he had stopped just inside the lobby. The carnage inside told a confusing tale. A wasted looking old man sprawled on the floor, his guts spilling all over the carpet, a pretty young blonde woman with similar belly wounds had been gently laid out on the floor. The remnants of three emergent wraiths littered the floor around her. Dee was no doctor, she knew some first aid, but nothing that could help here. She turned to look behind her at the others.

Elias moved to the girl's side and began quickly examining her. It was hopeless. Too much blood had already been lost. Her liver was shredded, one kidney was gone and her large intestine bisected in several places. Even had he had a fully equipped trauma center with staff, he doubted that he would be able to save her. She shuddered once and was still. Elias placed a bloody finger on her carotid artery, felt nothing. Dee placed her hands over the girl's face and closed her eyes. She looked to her adversary and saw the utter devastation on his face. Though she wanted to hate him she suddenly found she could not, perhaps it was some sort of pheromone reaction like her father and Dr. Cooper had told her about, perhaps it was that he just looked so young and so lost.

But still it needed to be done.

She stood up and pointed her weapon at him. The safety was already off. She fingered the trigger. He lifted his own pistol. But he did not point it at her. He held it with the butt of the gun towards her.

Puck probed inwards and suddenly found that all lines of communication were open. Deek/Jewels welcomed a dialog with Puck. They conferred without any conscious words. The understanding was total, the decision, unanimous and equitable. But there had to be a certain degree of cooperation for it to be carried out.

Dee watched in with barely suppressed revulsion as a thin black appendage emerged from the young man's belly. He grasped it in one hand being careful of the stinger and it gently wrapped itself about his wrist. The young man tugged and the tail tightened its grip. It was clearly a painful process, but Dee was reluctant to interfere. She gestured them all to stand back. With a sound like a rubber glove being pulled off a greasy fist the parasite suddenly emerged. It was a tiny thing, fragile and helpless without its host. From head to the base if it's tail it was about eight inches and wrinkled, thin root like appendages trailed out from its body. When it was clear of the wound the tail unwound from the boy's wrist and he dropped it before he himself fell to the floor.

It let out one short keening wail before a single gunshot echoed across the lobby silencing it.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXVI - Showdown

2011-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Elias looked down at the trio huddled in the shadow of an overturned truck. They were just kids. The oldest would have been just out of diapers when he stepped into the projector chamber. The other two were barely older than his silent companion seated behind him on Penny.

They had obviously been through Hell. They were clearly exhausted and somewhat battered. A large Rottweiler lay with his head across the lap of the younger girl. The older girl clutched the handle of a beat up square case in her sleep. A shotgun lay across her lap.

The dog woke up as he stood there holding Penny's reins. Elias stood his ground as the dog started growling. The girl clutched at his collar even as she wokeup. In the time it took him to glance from the dog to the younger girl and then back to the older girl, she had the shotgun pumped and aimed at his face.

The standoff was brief, none of them really felt like putting any effort into a fight even had they been so inclined. They spend most of the afternoon talking and trying to stay cool in the shade. They were quite enthralled by his tale, but the younger girl, Allison, was skeptical. Dee, however was more quietly accepting of his story, as if it verified something she already knew or had heard. She told him of her own quest that had started out as simple vengeance, but had grown into something much more. Since it appeared that their goals were so intertwined they decided to travel together.

They camped that night in the partial shelter of the overturned truck. He finally did learn the girl's name was June when she opened up to Allison that evening. They were close to the same age. But he was still very concerned for the girl. The image that came most often to mind when he thought of her was a time bomb with the clock face painted over.

Being the only one not on foot Elias scouted ahead. He found a small town a couple miles south and returned to inform them. By that evening they had all re-equipped themselves from a small gun shop. The dry climate had preserved the guns perfectly.

* * *

The old man in the back seat of the tow truck was dying. Sandy recognized the signs. Puck seemed oblivious to it, but she could smell it.

They had picked the old man up at the side of the road, next to the smouldering carcass of a dead ATV. He had been raving about his kidnapped daughter. That was the only reason Sandy had not put a bullet in him already. She hoped to reunite him with his little girl before it was too late.

* * *

Deek/Jewels contemplated the old man for some time. It was decided that at the earliest opportunity he/they would wrest control from the parasite and eliminate this new threat it he/they could. He/they were stronger now. It was only a matter of time before they would be stronger than the invader.

* * *

The trip down through Texas was mostly uneventful. That had seen very few wraiths. The weather was warm but dry this far south and the wraiths liked humid conditions.

* * *

Global Power Management Systems Inc.

The five of them stood staring at the sign over the main entrance checkpoint. A chain link fence topped with rusty razor wire stretched off into the distance on either side. Empty aircraft hangers stood nearby, barracks had been replaced with low office buildings and Air Force fighter aircraft had been swapped for an assortment of private jets and helicopters, but the place still looked and felt like the military air base it had been. The parking lot was full of cars and unmarked company vans. But what really dominated the scene was the large domed building loomed at the center of it all.

Elias was the only one that knew what it was, he had spent enough time in the Alaskan projection chamber examining the latest test subjects to recognize this one. It was much larger and above ground, but it was close enough.

The other three looked to him, and he shrugged before leading Penny through the checkpoint and the empty guardhouse.

There was a circle drive at the largest office building, a glass and steel cracker box. A large awning shaded the entrance. A UPS van with six flat tires, ramp down and the rear door rolled up was parked near the entrance to make its last delivery. Behind it was flatbed tow truck. Dee was just beginning to think the tow truck looked out of place when a bullet slammed into the sidewalk at her feet. Bits of concrete sprayed her ankles and she ducked behind the UPS van. She was soon joined by the others.

"You know this thing is just a pop can on wheels," Allison informed her.

"Fine, you go out there and find me an armored car!" Dee snapped back at her. "Let me think!"

Their own personal time warp seemed to form about them as they scanned for any possible cover, but they did not even really know where the shooter was. Finally after what seemed like an hour but was in reality only six minutes Olly spoke up.

"We're pinned down and we have no place to go. Why hasn't he finished us off? If he got here before us he probably had plenty of time to set up a proper trap. Why wait?"

It was a good question.

Dee flipped the safety off her Colt SMG and stepped out from behind the van. She ready to duck back at any sign of movement. But nothing happened. The others were calling for her to come back. But she took a step forward instead. The big glass doors were just twenty yards away. She proceeded slowly, not knowing what their enemy had in mind. At ten yards she paused, thinking she heard something. She was ready to bolt when the door swung open.

What she saw was the one thing she was totally unprepared for.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXV - Boom

2011-07-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

Dee and Allison sat in the shade of the Flying J truck stop they had pulled into hoping to get propane for the Hummer's big empty bottles. They kept casting nervous glances towards the pumps where Olly was working on under the big military vehicle. It had been a week since Dotty had saved them all at the cost of her own life. In that time they had made it most of the way down across Oklahoma without really talking about it. But Dee had accidentally activated Dotty's security system while they were filling the propane bottles. Olly was disarming the system now. Dotty had never given them the ten digit code to disarm the system and her thumb was not conveniently available right now. Olly seemed confident that he could disarm the system. But something was bothering her about the whole situation.

"We killed her didn't we?" Ally had asked suddenly as Dee was contemplating whether of not any of the snack foods inside would still be edible. They had been shipped out of the factory months before the twins had even been born. But some of them had no natural ingredients at all or were packed so full of preservatives that they would still be fresh when the final trump was blown. She had just decided to chance the Pringles when Ally's question derailed her train of thought. She looked into her younger sister's face and saw the anguish and guilt there and knew that like a splinter under her fingernail, it would have to be dug out now before it could fester.

"Get this straight, those fucking monsters killed her, not us, not Olly, not you!"
"But if we hadn't ... she would still be back in Manitowoc in her lighthouse. She would still be alive!"

"You can 'what if' till your blue in the face and it won't change a thing. Dotty chose to come with us. It was her decision. She knew what she was doing. She saved our lives. She would not want us to waste that gift by wallowing in guilt." She felt like she was handling this badly. If only their mother were here. She would know better what to say.

They lapsed into silence. Dee glanced over to the Hummer again. It was shaded by a large awning sheltering the propane pumps. Beyond the Hummer were the big silver propane cylinders. It suddenly clicked in her brain why she was so nervous. She was about to call out to Olly to push the truck away from the propane tanks when she saw him emerge from under the truck. He turned towards Dee and started running.

Ally was still going on about being responsible for Dotty's death when Dee kicked her off the pop cases she was sitting on. Ally started to protest but caught the expression on Dee's face.

"Run!"

Ally wasted no time and rolled to her feet and ran.

Fifty yards and Ally started to slow down and look back.

"Keep going!" both Dee and Olly yelled at her.

A hundred yards and Dee glanced back over her shoulder. The look of terror on Olly's face spurred her on. Two hundred yards and Dee wanted to duck behind a lone boxcar sitting on some rusty tracks leading nowhere. But Olly shook his head. Anyone else and she would have thought they were being overly cautious. But that was not Olly's nature. The twins had both been taught the fine art of blowing shit up by that nine fingered master, Billy Parsons. So they kept running. She was wondering how much time they had when Ally suddenly seemed to disappear into the dry barren landscape ahead of her. She felt a moment of panic just before she too "found" the dry stream bed Ally had stumbled into. Ally was already scrambling towards a big round pipe that passed under the road to the west. Olly followed them in and sat down on the galvanized metal of the pipe.

"Cover your ears and breath real shallow." he ordered them. Dee was about to ask how long when Olly held up his hand fingers spread. After about a second he put one finger down. When he took his hand down and covered his ears Dee put her head down and exhaled, forcing as much air out of her lungs as she could. None of the really heard the explosion. It was more like being hit by a four ton water balloon filled with hot water. Had their lungs been full the sudden pressure of the shockwave would have caused numerous ruptures in their lungs. The first explosion was followed by two larger ones and several smaller ones. In silence broken only by the ringing in their ears the three of them stumbled up onto the crumbling blacktop. Olly was bleeding from both ears but did not seem to notice.

They stood on the road looking to the north where the Flying J had been. It was a flattened and smouldering ruin now. There was not even enough left to really burn. Debris was still raining down . The old boxcar was now about twenty yards south of where they were standing now. Dee looked at Olly and he just shrugged with an odd half grin on his face.

The three of the took stock and it looked rather grim. Dee was the only one with more than a knife with her shotgun. And she only had three shells for it in her pocket.

They would soon be crossing into Texas on foot and unarmed.

* * *

The girl tugged at Elias' shirt and shoved the binoculars into his hands. A thick plume of black smoke and dust on the horizon to the southeast. The explosion they had heard earlier this morning had spooked Penny and only a firm hand and the fact that she was carrying a two riders, their gear and supplies kept her from bolting. It must have been something big. The initial explosion sounded like a car bomb. He had heard a few of those back in the marines during basic training. Whatever it was had set off something else.

He pulled the reins to the left to head Penny in that general direction. It was not terribly far out of the way and he felt that it was worth investigating.

* * *

Elias was not the only one watching the smoke and wondering what it meant.

Jonas heard and felt the rumbling and looked up to see the pillar of smoke to the south. He didn't know if it was the man that had stolen his rebellious bitch of a daughter, but it was surely a sign. He did not think he had much time left. His left hand was a swollen red mess with ugly red lines just beginning to reach up to his wrist from the putrid stump of his left pinky. The abdominal pains from the little terror gestating in his belly were stronger and more frequent. And he was frequently blacking out because his blood sugar was fluctuating wildly. But he intended to die with his hands around her throat and let the abomination he was carrying in his gut finish the job. He climbed back on his battered ATV and followed the smoke.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXIV - Lane Ends Merge Ahead

2011-05-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

Sandy stared at the young man sleeping next to her. The man she had come to love in just a few brief days. She was worried about him, though he was sleeping peacefully enough now, he was frequently troubled by nightmares and would spend half the night thrashing about. Lines creased his forehead even now. She gently brushed the thick blond hair that had fallen across his face back. She wished she could help him, but he was as tight-lipped about his nightmares as he was about that nasty vertical scar on his belly.

His obsession with Houston was even more troubling. She had never been further south than Arkansas and that was bad enough. Her father had died under her own hand just two miles north of the Missouri border. It had been to spare him anymore agony and it often haunted her in her own dreams. But it held a not of pride for her too. She had been the one strong enough to do what needed to be done. Her brother's could not bring themselves to do it no matter how much their father begged. She and her brothers had burned his body and continued home. It could be worse though, he could be headed to Florida. Her mother was from Miami and said she had not heard of anyone coming out of Florida in ten years.

She got up and went about getting ready for the day's travels. It was a cool this morning but she had a feeling that by this afternoon she would be wishing the AC was working in the truck. She wondered why anyone in their right mind ever settled this far south. She did not realize that the blasted landscape they were crossing was the result of an uncontrolled wildfire that had swept the region two years ago, burning everything in its path. She only saw the patchy drought starved grasses and the stunted looking twiggy little trees that were only now big enough to be called saplings. There weren't that many buildings left standing along this stretch of highway.

By the time Puck was awake she already had breakfast ready. They were on the road again fifteen minutes later with him at the wheel. She was surprised to learn that he could not drive or read and she had set about rectifying that situation. The reading would take a while, but he had mastered driving within an hour.

It was nearing noon when Puck slammed on the brakes, jolting Sandy out of her nap. The reason for the sudden stop was obvious as soon as she opened her eyes. The behemoths blocking the road were at least twelve feet at the shoulder, their massive gray bodies forming a veritable living wall blocking the road. Their legs were as big around as a man's body. One of the beasts turned to them, its tusks gleaming in the sun. It sprayed a blast of dust from a pothole in the road up onto its back from its trunk and regarded them calmly as the others slowly trod across the interstate. Both of then just stared in awe as the herd of African elephants crossed majestically in front of them.

* * *

"Well, I'll be damned!" Deek and the old man exclaimed in unison. This was beginning to happen more often. Puck's growing distraction with the girl was giving them much more freedom of movement, but a strange thing was beginning to happen. They two of them were becoming as one. Two personalities cannot exist within the same confines of the human brain without problems. Deek was frightened tried to resist at times but Jewels viewed this with resignation. He did not know if it would necessarily be a bad thing but the loss of self troubled him. He had lost much since he had been taken over, and could never hope to be a whole person. Aside from being reduced in status to the equivalent of a disembodied hitchhiker, there were gaping holes in his memory. Deek had never been complete. But the alterations made to the boy's brain by the parasite and Jewels' presence would allow for the formation of an entirely new and whole person. Sadly, neither believed they would live long enough for this merger to be run its eventual course.

This crossed their converging minds in an instant, before they both returned their attention to the elephants.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Considering a Change of Address.

2011-04-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have been considering a change of address for my story blog. Blogger has been problematic from the beginning. The editor is cumbersome and does not like the inclusion of photos (such as my scanned journal pages). I am thinking about the feasibilty of moving the whole thing to facebook.

Any input would be welcomed.

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXIII - Oklahoma

2011-04-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Puck helped Sandy up into the truck. He had no idea why he did this, she was perfectly capable of climbing into the cab by herself. She smiled at him as she slid into the driver's seat of the of the big flatbed tow truck. He found himself momentarily mesmerized by the curve of her backside and the fit of her jeans. He tried to put himself in a clinical frame of mind by analyzing the musculature of her leg, but that backfired as he found himself remembering how strong and athletic she had been just this morning and a felt a rekindling of lust. This was tinted by a strong desire to see her smile at him as she had afterwards. That one smile had elicited feelings in him that were unfamiliar and frightening. Lust he understood, but not this. On impulse he reached out to snap her neck and once and for all put an end to this madness. Instead his hand caressed her neck and idly traced the shape of her ear. She shivered and told him that if he kept that up they would never get moving. He reluctantly fastened his seat belt and dropped his hand down into the seat between them. She turned and smiled at him saw the look on his face and the smile melted away.

"What's wrong, handsome?" asked Sandy as she turned back around to face him. But he had no answer for her.

* * *

Dee found the old relic in a recreation of an old trapper's cabin that had been built in the east wing of Bass Pro Shop. It was a 1930 Underwood portable typewriter. It was not as refined as her father's Olympia but it seemed to work fine, a little stiff from sitting but a shot of a aerosol carburetor cleaner in the segment and the escapement would loosen it up. A good machine oil applied sparingly only if needed because oil attracts dust. The ribbon was dry, but her father had taught her a trick to fix that. She should be able to find everything she needed here.

As the blizzard raged outside she found a quiet corner of the huge mall to update her journal. It was that or hang around camp listening to Allison and Olly bicker back and forth.

Dee closed the case on the liberated Underwood, leaving the half page she had typed in the case. Then she looked down at her fingers. It had been a bit messy but the WD40 had done the trick. A little bit sprayed on the ribbon had brought the ink out nicely. Now her fingers were stained from handling the ribbon but some alcohol would take care of that.

Tomorrow they would be on the trail again, but tonight she planned to unwind a bit.

* * *

Stepping across the Kansas Oklahoma border was like stepping from winter into summer.

They found a big cinderblock building just off the highway that turned out to be a gun store with an indoor shooting range. Elias and the girl both took the opportunity to replenish their stock of ammunition. The guns were all perfectly preserved in the dry climate. Elias selected a vintage Winchester rifle. It was a model he was familiar with and he could almost always find ammo for it. He tested it out on the firing range after a thorough cleaning.

In the basement behind some crates he found a steel door. There was a huge padlock hanging loose from the hasp on the door. He considered just closing the lock but didn't like the idea of sleeping here without knowing what was on the other side of the door. Inside he saw what looked like an old Cold War era survivalists bunker. It was well stocked with canned goods and dried foods.

A huge old rat was gnawing open a box of old crackers nearby, unfazed by his presence. But a rat this size was actually a good sign. No wraiths nearby. Elias tossed a rusted and swollen can of beans at the rat missing completely. The rat looked at the can, looked at Elias and waddled lazily off, unimpressed.

Back behind some large shelves and racks was what appeared to be a well decorated little girl's bedroom. There was an expensive digital camera on a tripod aimed at the bed. On a desk just outside the taped off "walls" of the bedroom was a computer and printer, also on the desk were a few hundred round .22 ammo boxes filled not with bullets, but micro SD memory cards. Easily hidden, easily erased. He had little doubt what he would find were he to open the files they contained. An open folder under the desk with some color prints confirmed this. He looked behind him and sure enough she was shadowing him. She had said maybe ten words to him since she had shot her father. He sometimes tended to forget she was even there except when they were riding. She would sit behind him with her arm around him or clinging to his coat. She was terrified of Penny.

He quickly ushered the girl out of the bunker and locked the door before she could see photos.

After checking all the doors and windows they turned in. Penny was stabled in the shooting range and they were camped in one of the gun shop's stock rooms. Elias was confident that they would be within spitting distance of Houston within the week. If they survived that is.

* * *

The haze of smoke from the fires surrounding them was making it difficult to see what they were shooting at, but the fire was the only thing giving them any light. A wraith burst through a glass window to Dee's right but was dead before it hit the ground, its head reduced to a pulpy mass by Olly's pump action shotgun.

"I'm out!" Ally shouted from behind the counter she had taken refuge behind. Dee yanked a .45 from her belt, clicked the safety and tossed it to her. The gun crashed through the glass display case in front of Ally. Carefully avoiding the larger shards of glass that threatened to sever arteries if given half a chance and ignoring the smaller pieced that bit into her fingers, Ally snatched the weapon, disengaged the safety and fired a couple of rounds into the head of a wraith that was being held at bay by Duke. Dee's rifle clicked on an empty chamber so she switched to her sawed off shotgun. It was a short range weapon that had to be broke open after each shot, but would knock down a charging bull elephant with one shot. She might be able to get one or two of them before she was out. Then they would be on her.

The wall to Dee's left exploded out, raining drywall and splintered two by four studs out. The biggest master wraith she had ever seen, with claws nearly 2 feet long, burst through and landed right in front of her. She pumped her remaining two shells into the head and neck of the thing before she realized that it was already dead. Light was now blazing from the whole in the wall as the roar of the Hummer's engine filled the room.

Dotty leaned out the door and yelled at them to for Christ's sake get in. They did not need a second invitation. But before they could get in Dotty suddenly stiffened and tried scream. Two long curved swords erupted from just under her breasts and all she could get out was a sputter. The claws yanked upwards pulling Dotty out of her seat. Another pair of claws lashed out and decapitated her as neatly as a guillotine. There was, mercifully, no spray of blood from her severed neck as her heart had already stopped beating. The beast was dead from four gunshots to the head before Dotty's head hit the floor. There was no time to grieve or even to gather her remains before they had to flee. Dee sadly had to yank Dotty's body from the driver's seat and leave it there on the tiled floor next to the wraith that had killed her.

Working on a new story post.

2011-03-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

I would like to apologise to my few readers for not getting a story post up in a while. Been very busy and just have not had a lot of time to sit down and put anything down. But I am curretnly working on the next chapter.

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXII - A Bad Day

2011-02-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

Jonas squatted on the pot trying his best to take care of business. But it just was not happening. Not like yesterday. Damn that dump had almost been a holy experience. He felt like friggin Superman for an hour afterwards. Like he could have run down to Park City or maybe even as far as Wichita and trotted back. But struggle as he did all he produced was one little minnow of a turd and that made that God Damned hemorrhoid itch like mad. He wiped his ass and then with one jagged thumbnail proceeded to dig at that sum bitch. He hit it just right and it was almost as good as sex. Not that he knew much about that lately. His wife had died eight years ago, screaming under the claws of a nightmarish Hell spawned thing. He dug at the hemorrhoid for a bit longer before wiping his thumb on the hem of his jeans.

Uncontrolled diabetes had rendered him impotent years ago. His feet were a constant pain and his digestion frequently troubled him. Scratching that damn hemorrhoid was damn near the only physical pleasure left to him on this cursed world. And now he was constipated again. He dumped a pitcher of old wash water in the toilet to flush it and went to see if that no good daughter of his had fixed supper yet. At twelve she was shaping up quite nice. A real pleasure to look at. At times he could even feel a stirring in his loins as he watched her, but his impotence was saving her from that at least. It didn't prevent him from giving her the back of his hand when she pissed him off, or just happened to be in the wrong place when he was in a bad mood. Like now.

The kitchen was quiet, empty and cold. It would be at least an hour before dinner could be ready.

"Damn that lazy child!" he muttered to himself as he went to the back door. She was spending more and more time out wandering lately. Especially in the winter when the monsters were holed up somewhere. She had probably gone out back to check on that runt piglet again. He would take the axe out there and put a stop that tonight. The sun was going down so he decided to take his rifle. There was snow on the ground, but you could never be too careful.

Standing on the back porch he could tell that she was not in the barn. The lights were all dark and there was no way she would be out there in the dark. At twelve she was still afraid of the dark.

There were a lot of factors that could have caused the closing of the day to end differently for him. He could have looked to east first and not seen the silhouette of the stranger on horseback, his daughter might have decided not missing or the generator might not have picked that time to quit. But the single factor that might have changed things the most would have been if he had just been able to take a decent dump tonight. That always put him in more pleasant frame of mind.

He would tend to the generator after he had dealt this this interloper. Probably just out of gas or something simple like a clogged filter. But it was just the perfect topper to an already crappy day. Right now he was pissed off, his daughter was nowhere in sight and here was this approaching stranger. He had to vent on somebody and here the Lord had supplied him with a perfect target.

As he watched the man come down off the highway he crept over to the corner of the house so he could watch him without being seen. He quickly crossed over to the remnants of the mobile home that squatted on the property to the west of his. He circled behind it and peeked out again.

The man had dismounted the horse to better navigate the maze of trucks and and broken down tractors in the yard of the house across the road. He crossed the road quickly and the man was still unaware of his presence. He seemed to be making his way directly to Jonas' house. In his paranoia he believed that he was probably here looking for his daughter's young pussy. He imagined the stranger lying in wait, watching his daughter go about her business, a pair of binoculars in one hand, his dick in the other. Well Jonas would be damned if he would let this stranger have her!

With stealth gained from years of hunting for his food, he got behind the stranger without being seen or heard. But he could not just shoot the man in the back and be done with it. It was not any kind of ingrained sense of honor that prevented him from blowing the trespasser to kingdom come.

No, nothing like that. It was because Jonas had long ago touched on a great truth. If you went to Heaven, everyone would worship the same master or his minions. It was pretty much an exclusive club. Unless you martyred yourself or had the pope declare you a saint, then you were low man on the totem pole. And Jonas had long ago given up the idea of going to Heaven anyway. But in Hell, the people you killed were destined to serve under you for eternity. The more people you killed the more powerful you were in Hell. Even before the disappearance he had done quite well for himself. Serving in Iraq had been quite profitable. He could kill any damn towel headed bastard and get away with it as long as he took certain precautions. Getting booted out on medical reasons for his diabetes had slowed him down, but not stopped him entirely. At the time all the people bugged out he had already twenty or more bodies tucked away here and there on the farm. Mostly drifters, drunks, drug addicts and salesmen. But his first wife and a state trooper were buried out there too.

The disappearance could not have come at a better time for him. He had just finished a putting trooper in the ground and turning his attention to his partner when he noticed that the second was not quite fully dead yet. He raised the shovel up above his head, being very careful to keep his eyes locked on the big man's eyes when the man just suddenly was not there anymore. There was a soft sound of air rushing to fill the void where he had been. His uniform remained. Jonas had dropped the shovel and stared as the uniform slowly caved in on itself. Being very careful not to touch it himself he had picked up the shovel again and prodded at the now vacant clothes. Not so much as a toenail remained. He had somehow been cheated out of this one. He would have been a good one too. Young and strong. It spooked him badly but there was still work to be done. He buried the empty uniform and placed the gun holster in a heavy ziploc bag just like the other one. He never knew when an extra gun might come in handy.

They had come by asking questions about a missing teenage boy he had buried the week before. And he felt at the time that his run was nearly over. It would not be too long before the police came with cadaver dogs and backhoes and forensic experts. Of course he intended to be dead before then, and maybe take a few more cops to Hell with him.

But it was not to be.

The disappearance had slowed him down, but it had not stopped him. He still managed to snag the occasional drifter. If they were alone they were fair game, if they travelled in a group, he usually doused the lights and let them pass. His second wife had been the daughter of a man that had passed through here that first winter alone. She had been docile enough after the first couple of times he had beaten her senseless. But when she had tried to run away with their daughter he just could not let that slide. He had tied her to a tree on a summer night and let the black beasties have her. She was too weak to serve adequately and her constant mewling was irritating enough on this side, there was no way he would want to put up with that shit for all eternity. But he didn't even bother burying the bodies anymore. He just left them where they fell if it were summer. The monsters took care of the disposal for him. In the winter he just drug the bodies out into the woods and left them somewhere. He was already planning where he would dump this latest trespasser.

"You just freeze right there in your tracks or I'll shoot you where you stand!" He ordered as he stepped out from behind an old Farmall and cocked his rifle. "You come her for my daughter I reckon. Well you cain't have her. Now you just march right on ahead there and tie the reins of your horse to that there tractor. She looks like a fine animal, wouldn't want her to bolt now if any sudden noise were to spook her."

Elias did as he was told and turned to face the man that had so easily taken him captive. He was not really a big man and he looked to have at least a decade on Elias, but there was an evil air about him. He remembered his father telling him that anyone can be dangerous. A ninety year old quadriplegic can best a trained Marine if he has a sharp mind and the will to kill. And Elias had no doubt that this man had the will.

Elias tried to think of some way to escape, but sometimes there just simply was no way out. The man was hanging just far enough back that he would have plenty of time to shoot Elias if he tried anything. He was directing Elias well away from anything that could possibly be used as a weapon or cover. He just walked where the man pointed and soon found himself in front of the steel sided barn to the southeast of the house he had been heading to. The man gestured Elias to open the door. The door screeched along its track but opened easily enough.

"Gonna haf to grease those wheels soon dontcha think?" The man asked. But it didn't appear to Elias that he was looking for any kind of response, so he kept silent.

He hesitated there at the edge of the barn's shadow and the man pointed the rifle at his knees. He stepped inside. The interior of the barn was pitch black. The door faced to the north so even had the sun been up or the moon been full, no light would have reached the interior. Elias had once thought himself above common irrational fears, especially fear of the dark. But in the last few years he had discovered sound reasoning to dread being caught outside when the sun went down. But this barn was somehow worse. He knew that death waited inside.

The darkness of the barn closed about him in an almost palpable sense. He stepped forward into the gloom waiting for his eyes to adjust. Just as dim shapes began to form in front of him a light flared behind him casting long dark shadows that danced menacingly across the jumbled landscape of the barn's interior. The dancing light calmed a bit as the farmer set the lantern on a nearby workbench bolted to the concrete floor.

Elias looked about the barn trying to find something that would help, but the crazy old man fired a shot into the concrete floor at his feet. Chips of cement sprayed across his pants leg, some of them even cut through to his shins. He yelped and jumped back.

"Look here!" Jonas yelled at the intruder. He wanted to be looking in the man's eyes when he put the bullet into him. Had to really, or it didn't count. The man was a tall and strong, a worthy addition. He raised the rifle and lined up the man's left eye in the sights of the rifle. He could feel the familiar surge in his loins as he pulled back on the trigger. It was the only time he truly felt alive anymore. He knew he would have to change his drawers afterwards, but that was ok. It was a further sign of the divinity of his purpose.

The gun thundered in the confines of the the barn. The corrugated metal gave back a terrible echo. His knees buckled and he collapsed forward.

Elias stared at the fallen lunatic for a few seconds surprised that he was still alive.

"Who owns who now you SICK BASTARD!!!" a voice shrieked from behind. Elias whirled around to see the owner of the voice and saw a young girl of perhaps eleven clutching a large revolver in both hands. She was bundled in a large parka and a what looked to be four or five pairs of sweats. And the expression on her face as she approached the inert body sprawled out on the concrete floor did little to reassure him that his situation had improved. She fired the gun with each step as she advanced on him but her hands were shaking with rage so that she missed each time. Elias froze so as to not draw her fire. When the hammer started clicking on empty chambers he moved, quickly removing the gun from her hands. She fought him like a wildcat for a minute or two, kicking and biting. Then she went limp. He started to set her down, but she resumed fighting. It was like one of those cartoons he had watched as a child, the cat buzzing and hissing around the dog like a mini tornado. He managed to get her pinned to the floor before she went limp again. He waited a few moments, expecting her to start up again at the first sign that he was letting his guard down. But when she began sobbing he knew the fight was over.

"I'm going to Hell now, I killed my father!" she wailed. Elias let her go for a moment. He turned the man over and checked his pulse. It was there, thin and weak but there. Elias could never bring himself to kill in cold blood. Self defence was one thing but to execute someone that was already down was completely different. Totally violated his Hippocratic oath. But he did not have a problem with letting his fate be decided by the elements. The last fourteen years had instilled him with a deep practical streak that would have been alien to him in previous years.

"Does that run?" he asked pointing to a big Yamaha electric ATV parked against the wall. It was one of the few things in the barn not covered with years of grime and dust. And it had a large cargo rack, presumably for carrying his kills home. In reality it was just as often used for carrying kills out into the woods. The girl nodded and he began loading the man onto the cargo rack. He was heavy, but at least his bowels and bladder had not cut loose yet. There had been a thick stand of trees across the highway that would do.

But first he had to go check on Penny and get her stabled.

The girl was still in the barn. She was silent and docile at the present. He led her into the house where she wordlessly sat on a couch in the living room. The house was well kept but dark. He asked her if there was a generator somewhere and she pointed back out to the barn. He lit some candles so he would not be leaving the girl in the dark.

After that was done he made a quick run out to the woods and tied the man to a tree a few yards in and quickly left. But not before he saw a couple of skeletal figures tied to their own trees. His conscience a little cleared, he hurried back to the farmhouse.

The generator was a well maintained Honda that started on the first try. The tank was full, so he had no idea why it was not running. He suspected that the girl had something to do with it. She was still a big question mark. He hoped that she would sleep tonight, but as exhausted as he was, he doubted that he would.

* * *

He woke suddenly, hurting all throughout his body. He tried to move his arms and found them bound. He was sitting on the ground tied to a thick maple tree. His feet were free, but he was too weak to try to push himself up. His chest hurt and his fingers were numb from the cold. The last thing he remembered was that traitorous little bitch shooting him. He looked down and saw the blood soaking the front of his coat.

It was a fight to keep his eyes open. Despite his best efforts he found himself drifting off.

Death was near and he would welcome it.

Pain flared in his side during one of these brief lapses. He rolled away from it and got to his knees painfully. He did not even notice that he had broken off a pinky doing so. A shadow moved nearby. It was a massive thing with sword like claws. He stood slowly to his feet to face the creature that would soon carry him to Hell.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XXI - Good Samaritan

2011-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

The roof of the church library had leaked and soaked the books. Its shelves yielded little of interest or use to him, but there was an atlas that was still intact and dry, He took some time to study it while the weather had him stranded. It was almost a straight shot from Hesston to Houston. Elias closed the atlas and set it back on the shelf, but the rotten wood gave out under the weight of the massive old book and the shelf collapsed. He quickly stepped back as the avalanche of books cascaded across the moldy carpet.

Not for the first time he found himself questioning the wisdom of this trip. But he had already put it off too long. After his last trip south he had vowed never to go any further south than the Kansas/Oklahoma border.

He had barely escaped with his life after he had walked into that nest of Shadows in Las Vegas. Some called them wraiths, some called them shades, demons, or ghosts. But whatever the name they were nasty characters.

At the time he had only been back three years, four years since everyone had been spirited away. He had been wintering at the Bellagio, staying in a suite which would have cost him half a year's salary for one night. But their rates were much more affordable now. He had an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower in front of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. But the huge fountain the Bellagio was so famous for was a bit of a disappointment. Now empty and dry, the pipes and pumps clogged with sand. The robotic jets forever stilled. Tumbleweeds littered the floor and the submerged lights now exposed and broken. The crystal clear waters of the artificial lake gone, a victim of the Mojave Desert.

But he was living the good life. Plenty of gas to run the generators. No need to hunt, plenty of canned and dried food to be found in the casino kitchens and nearby stores. In the whole winter he had been staying there the temperature had not dipped below thirty-six degrees at night and the days were sunny and warm.

Things had been great, at least for a while. Then it started getting weird. He began to feel like he was being watched. He had awakened one night sure that something had been in the room watching him. Nothing had been there when he cut the lights on. But when he got up to check things out he found that something had broken the seal on several five gallon water jugs and let them drain out onto the suite's kitchen floor. As he stood there watching water drain from the jugs a sprinkling of dust tickled his nose and he looked up in time to see a ceiling tile settle into place. He didn't sleep for a week after that. He abandoned the Bellagio and found a room in a smaller hotel. Someplace with a solid ceiling and less hidey holes. He also took to carrying a gun with him wherever he went, not just when he was hunting.

One day while gathering food he had seen a manhole cover slide and drop into place. He pried up the manhole cover and peered into the darkness. He unfastened a self powered LED flashlight and shook it a few times to charge it up before descending into the darkness. He memories after that point were vague and often tormented him in nightmares. He could not even recall escaping clearly. He could only remember weakly crawling out one of the flood tunnels. He had been badly mauled and had lost most of the gear he had gone down with.

That was not his last encounter with the shadows, but once he figured out that they didn't like cold weather he headed north.

Now here he was intentionally headed back into the heart of shadow territory.

He packed his gear, saddled Penny and headed out. The snow was knee deep but the sky was clear and the sun was warm. He had hoped to make it to the next town before sundown, but by the time the sun had started to get tangled in the naked trees to the west. There was a road to either side of interstate that had been severed by the highway. He doubted that there was any pavement under that snow. There were however a few farmhouses and steel roofed barns. He bypassed a farmhouse of more recent construction in favor of an older house with a large stone chimney visible on the west end, A metal barn with a sliding door sat to the southeast of the house. He should be able to stable Penny there. The sanctuary at the Mennonite church had developed a certain ... aroma after three days. He weaved his way through a maze of rusted trucks and derelict tractors. The thought of ambush never crossed his mind. It was far too cold for the shadows to out and even had it been warmer they did not like to go out in the daylight. The possibility of an insane gun toting farmer protecting his land from trespassers did not enter his mind either. Which was why he was so surprised when the one that had crept up quietly through the snow behind him ordered him to freeze.

* * *

Dee was never so happy to leave a church behind her. The chapel would have made a cheery enough home had one not encountered its previous occupants, but Dotty was the only member of their party that had gotten a decent nights sleep. The three nights in the Uni had not been much better. It had been somewhat cramped quarters when she was a child living with her adopted parents, but with four adults and a dog it had even more so. But tonight they would be sleeping in comfort at the Bass Pro Shop just off I-70. They were less than a couple of miles from her biological parents old home in Independence and the home she and her adopted father had been forced out of by the wraiths so many years ago. It was so tempting to engage in a little side trip down memory lane. But now was not the time. Perhaps on the way back.

They parked the Hummer one of the service bays of the boat shop on the west side. Dotty opted to stay with the Hummer while the rest of them explored and scavenged for supplies. They needed more propane for the lanterns and for the Hummer, ammo, arrows, kerosene, windshield washer fluid, matches or lighters, salt, soap, socks, new boots for Allison and Oliver and first aid supplies to replenish their seriously depleted first aid kits. And Allison announced that she had to have some feminine hygiene products which started a rather juvenile exchange between her and her brother. Dotty put a halt to that by the simple means of whacking both parties on the back of the head with a rolled up Spring 2027 edition of the SunTracker catalog.

Dee found herself at the main entrance on the north side of the building. The waterfall had long since quit running and the dried pool at the bottom of the falls showed no signs of life. But the huge fireplace and lounge would make a good spot to camp. A cold draft from a door that had been blocked open by a shopping cart needed attention. She shoved the cart out into the parking lot where it hit a boat trailer and spilled. She looked to the west and for a moment thought she saw a thin plume of smoke. It was perhaps a mile away unless she had just imagined it. The sun was little more than a pale disk behind the clouds and held little sway with the barren snow covered Earth. She was letting the gloomy weather get to her. She turned back inside and let the door swing shut behind her.

* * *

The cuts were healing, but the one ear was still a tattered mess and always would be. He had lost a toe, chewed off after becoming so badly infected that biting it off hurt less than leaving it. The belly wounds had been itching something awful. He was weak still. That was why he was such an easy mark for the coyotes that had been watching him. But they had not counted on the half wolf bitch that had been following him either. She was not full wolf nor man's lapdog. She was outcast from the pack. She had no love of wolves or dogs, but even less for the little coyotes. If she could deny them their fun and food so be it. She waited until the lead coyote made its move then leapt to the side of the big black dog. Her jaws closed on the back of the smaller animal's neck as it lunged for the hind legs of the dog. Her heavily muscled jaw clamped down and she threw her weight into a twisting motion that snapped the coyote's neck. It was over before it even knew it had been hit. The rest of the coyote pack broke and and ran. None of them were willing to challenge her. She was big for a wolf. She could have dominated her pack if her coat had been like the others. But her coat was white and her eyes pale and pink. They would not accept her.

She knew without knowing how or why that she would follow this strange black dog. He had a purpose and a direction and she had none.

He had silently watched the brief struggle, unsure of the intent of the newcomer. The exchanged greetings in the usual canine manner and the black dog began sniffing the ground, picked up a scent and began following it. She sniffed the scent too. It was faint flowery smell with an underlying musk, familiar yet strange. A primitive part of her brain associated this scent with trouble. But he was following it so she would too. It lead to a clearing where a small fire had burned. The scent pooled here and mingled with others like it but different. Most were female, but there was a male among them. Long shallow ruts ran to the south in a parallel line, and the black dog began to follow them.

Bo began to pick up the pace. His new companion kept with him and he moved forward more confidently.

© 2011 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XX - Someone to Watch Over Her

2011-01-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

They had been inside the Uni for a couple of minutes when Allison asked why it wasn't freezing in the camper. Dee opened up her jacket for a moment letting the warmer interior air get to her. It was indeed warmer in the Uni than it was outside, far warmer than could be accounted for by simple lack of wind. If memory served there was a thermostat towards the cab of the truck. It had a simple bi metal thermometer reading a balmy thirty six degrees. She realised that a warm breeze was drifting across her ankles and bent down to investigate the vent. Warm air was blowing gently forth. It stopped after a moment. She opened a panel next to the bathroom door and checked out the battery stack. Each battery had its own charging circuit and indicator. Six of the twenty four batteries were completely dead and another eight were only registering about five percent or less. But ten of them were showing at least half a charge. It was enough that the heaters were working, keeping the interior just warm enough to keep the batteries from freezing. There were solar panels on the roof charging them during the day. It was a testament to the engineering of the camper's electrical system and its controllers that they were working at all. Probably if someone were to go up on the roof and sweep the solar panels off they could get a little more heat inside. And the way the storm was picking up, they would not be going anywhere today.

She opened the door into the cab and found that the cab had fared far worse. The seats were a moldy mess and the dash was covered with snow from the holes in the windshield. She could see Olly approaching the camper. She imagined that they were getting concerned because she and Ally were taking so long. She pulled out her walkie talkie and called to Dotty, telling her to pull the Hummer up to the door of the camper. They would be spending the night. A few minutes later they were all inside.

The overnight stay in the Unimog turned out to be three days. Despite frequent sweepings of the solar panels they were only able to keep the remaining batteries charged up to fifteen percent by the end of the second day so they spent a lot of time huddled under blankets. But the storm ended the second night and the day broke with the crystal clarity you only get on cold winter days. The sky was clear and the sun was bright and the solar panels began to charge the depleted batteries. But the strain of the previous days use had been too much for two of the batteries and their indicators never rose past the red line. But the remaining eight had an eighty five percent charge by sundown. It was a good thing too. The snow had covered much of the Hummer and it would have be be dug out before they could proceed. By the time that was done nobody felt much like driving, so they spent yet another night in the Uni. The only consolation was that their opponent in this race would surely not be having any better luck in this weather than they.

* * *

He was losing himself. He had never experienced anything like this before. He had experienced sex before, but that was just mechanical function and instinctive animal experience. Mostly he just allowed the animal portion of the host's brain take over and perform the tasks necessary to get the job done. Over the years it had seduced and used quite a few women and men to get what he wanted.

But this time he had found himself not wanting to draw away and let the body take over. He was suddenly reluctant to hurt her. He held her naked body close to him as he kissed her lips, neck, and breasts. He knew she had never done this before and that just excited him more. He fought for control and distance, but found that difficult so for the first time ever he found himself losing control.

It was a glorious and disturbing experience that left him exhausted and rattled.

The weather had stranded them at restaurant in Independence. It was a large building, remarkably intact with the bonus of having a rather large fireplace in the dining room. They camped in the dining room in front of that fireplace. The restaurant had been part of a large chain that had prided itself on its home style cooking in an old country store setting. This had been lucky for them as many of the antiques on display had come in quite handy. An old oil lamp, some frying pans and some kitchen utensils had been put to use that first evening. In a store room they found a few dozen bundles of wood for the fireplace so they were quite comfortable.

It was after they had made love that first time that she had rolled over to look into his eyes and asked him a question that left him mentally scrambling.

"Don't you think it's about time you told me your name?"

It was only then that he realized how many holes there still were in his persona this time around. Desperately he searched but could not find it. What the Hell was it with these creatures and their incessant need to name things. Was it not enough that something just was? Must everything have a label? A name floated to the surface of his mind and he blurted it out without even thinking.

"Puck."

She giggled and for some reason he did not kill her.

That night he left the inflatable bed they had set up near the fireplace, relieved himself out back and returned to the dining room. He did not return immediately to bed though. He quietly pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it with his arms crossed over the back and chin resting on his arms. He stared at her for hours wondering what the fuck was wrong with him.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XIX - The Uni

2010-12-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

Dee found herself experiencing a sense of deja vu as they approached the small town where they would probably be spending the night. According to the map it was called St. James. It was about ninety miles southwest of St, Louis. They had been making good time, it was as if someone had gone before them and cleared their path of wrecked cars and such. It was not until she had bent down to pick up her father's journal after it had once again slid under the dash that she had realized that was exactly the case. Her father, along with many of their hometown's founders had done just that on their way up from Missouri years ago and there had been no traffic since then to clog things up again.

They had been unconsciously retracing their route since leaving Chicago. It was decided that the pursuit of James Nash's killer would be abandoned for now. They knew where he was going and it was hoped that they could beat him to it. She had read and re read the pertinent journal entries and hoped that her father was wrong. But she knew deep down that he was not. The catastrophe that had wiped out most of humanity had been man made.

The machines that had been used to work this horror had destroyed themselves in the process. But they were only prototypes. There was a secondary location in Houston that housed a bigger, more powerful machine. And it was just sitting there waiting to be used. Her father knew this because he had rescued a man that had helped build these machines. The man had been badly injured, but he had babbled about it constantly in his final delirious hours before dying. When he had been lucid he talked reluctantly about it, afraid that he would punish him for his role in the destruction of human civilization. But her father had learned enough enough to know how to go down there and shut things down. Or, for his killer to go down there and reactivate the machine. Neither her, nor her father knew if those that had been passed over once would be passed over again. Odds are they would, but no such guarantee existed for those born since. And even if they were not, would more wraiths, or worse, be visited upon them?

She shook her head and placed the journal safely in her pack and studied the road ahead.

They were coming to a bridge passing over the I-44. The wind was blowing something fierce and a sudden gust billowed snow from off the bridge and for a moment the road was lost. Dotty was at the wheel and slowed briefly. Then sped up again after the snow clear and a second later slammed on the brakes. A large bulky shape loomed in the road ahead. An ancient leftover from an era dead even before the disappearance. Dee recognised it at once. A Sherman tank. Its back was to them as they headed southward on the northbound lanes, but its turret could rotate three hundred and sixty degrees. And the Hummer was now skidding right towards it.

* * *

He sat in the passenger seat watching the miles fly by. The bleached blond jail bait sitting behind the steering wheel would not have been allowed to drive by the old laws. But things were a little less formal now and there were no police officers cruising about looking for underage drivers. Had one been around and foolish enough to pull her over, he would have been surprised by the hardware she had tucked away under the in various locations in the cab of the truck. A sawed off shotgun held to the door panel with Velcro straps, a revolver under the seat and a nine millimeter where the Delco stereo had once resided, not to mention the police issue Glock in the almost too large for her police issue gun belt strapped on under her parka.

The conversation was a bit one sided, but that seemed to be fine for both of them. All he had to do was nod from time to time and she just chattered away. He would be glad when the time to came to shut the bitch up. Unfortunately she was not compatible. But for now she was useful. She seemed smarter than his current host, she could read and was willing to take him most of the way to Texas. And he was sure that he would be able persuade her to accompany him further.

He had been making his way southwest across the overgrown parking lot of a big box store in Fond Du Lac, winding between battered old cars and rusting shopping carts. He literally stumbled into her. He had decided to climb over a flatbed truck blocking one of the aisles. He jumped down from the rusted diamond plate steel platform and knocked her down as she was carrying a bundle of liberated supplies from the box store. She had her gun out and pointed at him before he even knew what happened.

The two of them froze there for a few moments staring at one another. She smiled at his flustered expression completely misreading him. She put the gun away and said, "Well you look harmless enough."

* * *

Dotty managed to turn the wheel into the skid, take her foot off the brake and gas long enough for the big 37x12.5R17 Super Swamper off road tires to bite into the snow before gunning it again, just long enough to pull the Hummer off its collision course with the tank. Even so they clipped the forward edge of the tread with the right rear of the Hummer. Dotty tried to gun it again desperate to get away from the tank. Dee reached across and laid her hand on the older woman's shoulder.

"It's ok Dotty, it's dead."

"Dead ... are you sure?" She asked as she allowed the beast of a vehicle to coast to a stop.

"Positive. It's been dead for fifteen years now. Billy Parsons blew it up." She opened the door letting snow swirl into the cab for a moment. "I'll be right back," she told them before shutting the door leaving the other four human occupants to stare after her dumbly. Duke had quietly followed her out into the snow.

Aside from being almost buried in the snow the tank was as she had remembered it. Billy Parsons had stripped the fifty caliber machine guns and ammo before they left, but the tank was not what she was interested in. The big Unimog camper was just fifty yards away. Snow had drifted halfway up one side. There were holes in the windshield and it was sitting a little closer to the pavement than she remembered. Of course the tires were flat. She waded through the snow to the front of the vehicle. The steps leading up the door were not as far up as she remembered and it was not entirely due to the flat tires. She had after all only been five years old when she had stepped down out of this camper the last time.

The cab door was unlocked but the latch would not budge. That left the driver's side door which would have to be dug out or the main door into the camper section, which was slightly less buried. She opened it while Duke snuffled around the vehicle. It took some effort to push the door open past the snow. Stepping into the camper was like stepping into the past. It was all so perfectly preserved. Her father had been such a methodical man. Even while they were abandoning the Uni, he had take some time to neaten things up. His beloved old Smith Corona typewriter that had been fatally shot through the open cab door had been placed back on the writing desk. The platen and ribbon cover both bowed upward. There was a gaping hole in the back and the segment plate was broken in two. But as neatly as everything had been packed up and put away there had still been something left behind. Just inside the Uni's small bathroom was small pocket sized photo album. She picked it up and began flipping through the pages. She was unaware of the tears sliding down her cheeks. It had been so long, she had actually forgotten her mother's face.

She did not even have to turn around to know the light footstep on the stairs up into the camper were Allison's. She was the only one of their little group light enough to step up inside without making the weathered old springs creak and a stranger would have set Duke to barking.

"For a while, this was home. We had not yet found a safe place and we had to keep moving. It was small and cramped sometimes, but it was home. And Daddy was still alive. I helped kill a man to defend it. But it was already too late. He had shot everything up." She gestured towards the front of the camper and the tank beyond that, though the door between the cab and the living area was closed. There were bullet holes in the wall there. Many of the cabinet doors hung askew, having been knocked off their hinges. "I wanted so much for everything to just go back to the way it was before. Or at least to go back to our house back in Independence. Now I just want Daddy back." Allison did not know what to say, but her father had taught her that sometimes that was ok. She just climbed the rest of the way into the derelict camper and hugged her sister. Together they cried for all that had been lost.

* * *

Together Jewels and the boy Deek stared out the window at the girl. Jewels knew what the boy was thinking. It was dangerous, but it could work. Deek looked at Jewels and the old man nodded.

"Now we start fighting back." Deek said, smiling. But it was the smile of a stone cold predator.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XVIII - Zombie Dog Walker

2010-12-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

Of course, Sister Irene had decided to stay. She tried to talk him out of going, but he had insisted. He had thought to borrow one of the two running vehicles that she had somehow managed to keep going. He hoped that he would be able to find gas on the way. But she had instead led him out to a stable. Sheltered comfortably in the stable were three mares and a stallion. She wouldn't let the stallion go, but one of the mares she was willing to part with. After three unsuccessful attempts to mate with the stallion, all that she had produced was a deformed and stillborn colt.

She was a good solid chestnut colored Morgan Irene introduced as Penny. It had been a long time since Elias had ridden a horse. But, she was a steady horse and gave him not an ounce of grief for his clumsy attempts to pull himself up into the saddle. The last time he had been on a horse was back in the Marine corps. A girl he had been dating was a veterinarian that worked several ranches in around the vicinity of the base.

She would frequently exercise horses by riding out about the owner's spread. Her excuse was that this allowed her to spot possible problems. Like test driving a car. But she confessed to him that she just loved to ride but had no place for a horse of her own. She knew that some of the ranchers suspected this but allowed it anyway. She thought it was probably because they just didn't want to take the time to do it themselves. But Elias thought the real reason was just because they like to watch her ride. He knew he did. Kim was an attractive woman with an athletic build, but more than that, she was a born rider and more graceful in the saddle than most could ever hope to be.

During a two week leave she finally coaxed him up onto one of the gentler mares and gave him a few riding lessons. Like everyone else in his past, he had tried not to think of her too often, having long since given up hope that she was fortunate enough to have been spared.

It had been a couple of days since he had left the convent and Sister Irene back in Salina. He was now heading south to Houston hoping to get out from under an impending blizzard before it covered Eastern Kansas in a heavy white blanket. But if he didn't, at least he would not have to worry about the wraiths.

He had spent the night before in a Dodge Caravan that had come to rest under a tree some fifteen years ago just east of McPherson. The farmhouse he had come to that evening proved unsuitable. A tornado had ripped the roof off a few years back so the house was uninhabitable. There were not that many houses along this stretch of I-135. So by night fall his options were somewhat limited.

The little van was resting under a big maple at the end of the drive. Dirt and debris covered it to a degree that he could not determine what color it had been originally. But all the windows were intact. The sliding door was stiff and he did not think he would be able to get it open, but he slipped a couple of fingers into the track under the window and pulled out while pulling on the door handle. The door moved like it had sand packed in the tracks. The interior was a bit stale smelling but the door seals were still good. A few vacant wasp nests had clung to the sagging cloth head liner but he knocked them down and swept them out. He slept curled up on the back seat and stabled Penny in what was left of the nearby garage. It was not perfect, but it was the best he could do. The little van proved to be dry and a few candles carefully placed in cup holders with heavy foil bowls under them provided enough heat in the small confines of Caravan enough that he was reasonably comfortable, even with the front window cracked a quarter inch. But the next morning he had a few moments of panic when no matter how hard he tried, he could not get the doors open. He kicked out the rear side window and crawled out dragging his pack with him. He slipped on a layer of ice as soon as his feet touched the ground. It had drizzled in the night and froze on contact. The doors were frozen shut. It was a struggle to get back up to the house until he abandoned the drive and walked on the grass, His feet crunched through the ice with every step but did not fall ... much.

But tonight it looked like his luck was better. His going had been slower, even with four sturdy legs under her, Penny was not immune to the ice. She had not fallen yet, but he had not wanted to risk pushing her any further than necessary. But by the time the sun had started going down he had come to the small town of Hesston. A great many of the residences had been ripped apart by a tornado about five years ago, but the Mennonite church had been untouched. He brought Penny in through the big glass doors at the south entrance.

There the two of them rode out the blizzard that raged across Harvey County and most of eastern Kansas for three days. The church food pantry supplied all he needed for Penny in the form of canned wheat, oat meal and various vacuum packed dehydrated fruits and vegetables he found in plastic bins.

* * *

It had been quiet for some time. Deek had been following the old man's advice and laying low, but he just had to have a look around. The old man appeared to be asleep so he went to the window and peered out.

The lake was frozen over but a youth's lifetime experience hunting with his father told him that it was not yet thick enough to support his weight. It had snowed and the bike had been abandoned. To his horror, he felt his body moving forward to the frozen edge of the water and step onto the ice. A sudden memory of an incident in his childhood of his brother falling through the ice bubbled to the surface.

He stood there on the edge of the frozen little stream watching as his brother chased after the little deer. In the dim understanding of his six year old mind he knew it was wrong. But his brother knew better and followed his own council on this matter. When the ice cracked beneath him like thunder he stood there a moment in mute surprise before the rotten ice collapsed completely beneath him. He vanished under the cold black water. Deek just stood there not knowing what to do. He was still standing there when his father found him two hours later. The water was already filming over with ice.

The beast was three steps out on the ice when a loud cracking sounded. He froze and looked down at his feet. There were no visible cracks but he did retreat back to the shore of the lake and rethought his plans to cross the ice. He hunted around shore and found a large rock that was not frozen to the ground. It weighed about sixty pounds he estimated. He skidded it out onto the ice about ten feet. It sat there for a moment. Just as he had about determined that it was indeed safe the rock broke through and disappeared.

Deek watched, relieved as his captor seemed to change his mind about crossing the ice. He felt the old man's hand on his shoulder.

"You handled that well," he told him, but Deek had no idea what he was talking about.

The beast headed west along the lake shore. It was going slow. It did not like the cold and had bundles up so heavily it was almost immobile. The one lone slave he remaining of the trio he had started with had been unable to continue so he had shot it and was now travelling alone. But that was fine with him.

He came to a little bay and and headed north along a small side road that lead up to a main county road. He had no idea what road he was on but knew the general direction he needed to go. He would have to get new host that could read or find a companion or hostage that could. The county road went due west in one direction and north east the other way so he turned to the west. Half a mile later the road ended in a "T" and he took the southern path. He took a few steps and pulled up short. There were fresh tracks in the snow. Wide tracks made by big off road tires. He deiced to follow them. Perhaps it was someone he could hitch a ride with or use.

* * *

They had planned to go into the little town of Elkhart Lake to find a place to stay for the night. But two tractor trailer rigs lay tangled under a blanket of snow completely blocking the J Road junction so they headed south along Co Rd P. They passed the thinly frozen lake that the town to the east had been named for. A short distance from that they came to a tiny stone chapel. It was set back a little bit from the road but the winter bare trees did little to hide it from Dotty's sharp eyes. She did not immediately see any access to the chapel so she backed up the road a bit till she came to a slightly overgrown drive leading to a parking lot. The south edge of the parking lot was about a hundred feet from the chapel. No one like the idea of leaving the vehicle that far from where they would be sleeping so they pulled the Hummer as close to the chapel as they could.

The chapel was a small stone building with thick walls and deeply recessed doors and stained glass windows. The front door opened on the east was a heavy iron bound wood affair with a small window and set in the top half and a pointed arched stain glass window at the top of the door. Directly above that was a little round porthole of a stained glass window. The gabled roof was steeply pitched to so it could easily shrug off thick winter blankets of snow. Inside they found that most of the pews had been removed. There were three stained glass windows on the north and south side, just after the third window was a large stone arch lending its support to the vaulted roof. A large wooden crucifix dominated the west wall. A fire place had been added to the south side where another doorway had once been. This would provide heat since the wall heaters were cold and dead. A once neatly organised kitchen area was set up around the fireplace and a bed was set nearby. Furs were filed here and there and there were a few work areas set up, some with unfinished projects still waiting to be completed. A small blue plastic kiddie pool sat in the center of the chapel. But what really drew their attention was the dead man hanging from the ceiling, directly above the kiddie pool. Suspended beneath him, hanging by a heavy chain leash and a steel choker chain, was a large German shepherd. Allison would forever think of him as the Zombie Dog Walker.

"Well, there's something you don't see everyday." Dotty whispered.

Dee was just glad that Duke was out guarding the Hummer.

It took them about an hour to find a ladder and get the dessicated remains down. Dee wished that Pastor Tom were here to say a few words, but they just settled on a moment of silence while the placed the remains in a nearby garden shed.

Although the others seemed quite comfortable once they had a fire going and the place warmed up a bit, Dee felt a little uneasy, like she was being watched. She wondered if she was just being paranoid.

* * *

He peered through the stained glass as best as he could but it was covered in a decade and half of unwashed dirt and grime. He did not dare to wipe any away for that would surely draw their attention. He thought of setting fire to the little chapel but it was stone and they could be outside and looking for him before it caught enough, besides that damn dog would alert them if he even tried. He would love to get a his hands on the fucking mutt too. But it was better that he just go. But there would be paybacks, oh yes.

He backed away with a sadistic gleam in his eye, unaware that he was being watched.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadoews: Chapter XVII - Awakening

2010-10-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dee awoke to the sound of a big General Motors V8 rumbling roaring to life. It was just beneath her by the sound of it. She was stretched out on the over sized center console of Dotty's Hummer. Allison was leaning over with a concerned look on her face. She could hear James and Dotty arguing quietly nearby but could not make out what was being said. Every part of her body hurt.

She tried to sit up but Allison pushed her back down like she was small child. She didn't realize how weak she was, but she must be pretty bad off if Allison could so easily restrain her.

"Notebook," she managed to whisper. Allison fished about for a couple of seconds and produced the spiral bound notebook Dee had found at the scene. She fell asleep again with it clutched to her chest.

Duke jumped into the seat vacated by Allison and nuzzled his head into the crook of her arm. He refused to move when everyone else got into the Hummer.

* * *

Sister Irene once again found herself staring at the man with shameful lusty thoughts. She knew she was going to have to spend the next several hours in prayer. There was no priest to hear her confession, grant absolution or assign penance. She just had to hope that her prayers to God would be enough. If it was not already too late.

He had recovered quicker than she had thought possible. He had the body like a Roman gladiator, strong and battle scarred. She turned away before she would more to seek forgiveness for.

She ran back to the kitchen in time to rescue lunch from burning. She finished it up and served it on one of the good china plates normally reserved for holidays. She took the plate back to him in main garage where he was working on the generator. It was looking like he just might get it up and running. It would be good to have lights and a freezer. Ice cream! She could have cream again.

She set the plate down on the hood of the Bishop's Oldsmobile. It had last moved under its own power fourteen years ago when she had used it for gathering supplies from town. It was using too much gas. She had siphoned it off to use in the little VW Bug she had found in town. But the Olds was serving quite well as a workbench and table.

Elias had spread a tarp out on the hood of the Olds and laid several of the parts he had been working on on top of that. While it was true that he'd had no formal mechanical training his father was always working on his old Camaro when he was home. And Elias had often been recruited to help. Besides when you got right down to it living creatures where just complicated machines. An internal combustion engine was child's play compared to the muscular and skeletal system of a human.

But this modified Stirling engine was completely different from any other engine he had ever seen. Combustion took place outside the piston and cylinder causing the air inside the cylinder to expand and exert force on the piston. Due to this arrangement it could burn just about any liquid or gaseous fuel with just minor adjustments to the fuel jets. But the jets were clogged and the combustion jacket was badly caked with carbon. Sister Irene had not been able to get it running since it quit three years ago. She had not known to, or how to, adjust the jets and the old gasoline had built up layer upon layer of carbon until there was just no room to burn fuel and the motor quit. The crankshaft used permanently lubricated ball bearings and the phenolic pistons were fitted in anodized aluminum cylinders. It needed very minimal lubrication on start up. The only thing he needed to do was clean the combustion jacket, and jets and make a few adjustments.

He had instructed the nun on how to do this if it ever needed to be done again. She had been watching him but he got the feeling that she was watching him for entirely different reasons.

He had just fitted the two halves of the combustion jacket on the block and was installing the air compressor. This engine was a heavy breather, it required a lot of air burn clean. He almost dropped the compressor when he felt a light touch at his elbow and turned to see Sister Irene's dark brown eyes staring into his. She looked away suddenly ashamed.

"Your lunch is ready." she told him quietly.

"You know there are other people out there. You don't have to live alone like this."

She turned back around to face him. "You don't think I know that? I hate being alone. I've always hated being alone. But I took vows..."

"Vows to who? You think your God wants you to be alone? Are you afraid that just being around other people that you will be tempted..." He stopped seeing in her eyes that the temptation was there. To just forget about her vows and abandon the convent, her duties and vows. He pulled her to him and kissed her then, knowing that it was wrong, not knowing why he was doing it. For a moment she responded, then she pulled away from him.

"Who are you being so loyal too?" he demanded. "God has turned his back on us if he ever existed at all! This isn't how it is supposed to end. I have read Revelations too!"

"But, this is not the end. It is only a test. Everyone is coming back."

"Denial of facts is not faith, it's stupidity!" He was as surprised by her slapping him as she had been by his kiss.

"They will be coming back, I've seen it. The will come back exactly as they left, naked and frightened. They will fall from the sky and tumble down the streets, And there will be nothing for them here. I have to do what I can to be ready. That is why God spared me!"

"And when will this miracle take place?"

"I don't know, but it will be the exact day and hour they left." That froze Elias. At first he had assumed this to be just a religious fervor or delusional fantasy. But what if she was right? It fit with everything he knew of the project, and he had not told her anything about it. Even in his fevered ramblings she said that he had not said anything intelligible.

He had thought that he was the only one sent forward in time because no one else had appeared with him. In the years since his arrival he had just assumed that whatever had vaporized the project facility had done the same to the people. But what if...

He began muttering a string of profanity that made Sister Irene blush. Now that the possibility had been raised the only way to put his curiosity to rest would be to go down to the company's headquarters in Houston and see what he could dig out there. He should have done it years ago, just to find out for sure what the Hell had happened, but the one person he had encountered from that area had said that Houston was infested with the wraiths.

"What's wrong?" she asked frightened by his sudden change of mood.

"I have to leave. I need to check on something. I don't suppose you would want to accompany me?" he asked already knowing the answer and grateful for it. He did not want to have to be worrying about her on the trip, and she was relatively safe here.

"Where are you going?"

* * *

"Houston," Dee repeated.

"Why Houston?" Allison asked.

"Because that is where Daddy's killer is going."

"How do you know that?"

"Because Daddy told me!" she handed Allison the journal. "Read it yourself." Allison took the journal and opened it to the folded over page Dee had used to mark the spot.

They had been travelling for two days now. Dee was not fully recovered, but she was able to sit up and walk with a pair of crutches Olly had fetched for her from a CVS pharmacy they had passed. The journal had been stained and torn in places from the rough handling it had received and some of the pages were out of order. It had taken her a while to find the answers, but when she did find them the implications of that entry scared her to the very core. She could see the same reaction now play out across Allison's delicate features.

"Daddy knew all this time? But why didn't he..."

"What, tell us and cause a panic? You know people would either panic about it now and make things worse or chalk it up to the ravings of a madman and ignore the warning. No, Daddy did the right thing. Tell a few select people and make quiet preparations."

"But we really should have done something about this before!" Allison protest.

"About what?" both Olly and Dotty asked, both feeling left out of things by this time. Allison handed the journal to her brother and told him. "About the end of the fucking world!"

* * *

In dark clearing in the woods moon light was spilling in drips and spatters on the forest floor. In one large puddle of moonlight a dark shape began to stir. It was large and slick with blood. Its dark eyes opened and took in its surroundings. It was alone. Perhaps for this first time in its life. Its litter mate, a constant companion since birth was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the master. It stood up, its legs threatening to buckle but still it managed to stand. It shook the leaves out of its short fur and sniffed the air. The scent was still strong.

Bo slowly followed Dee's trail out of the woods.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XVI - Left for Dead

2010-10-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

It had taken Allison so long to get around the woods, she half expected to find Dee waiting impatiently on the other side. But she was not there. She considered calling her on the walkie talkie, but did not want to in case she was trying to sneak up on the target. She settled in to wait.

* * *

Dee opened her eyes on a trial basis. When she found that she was not in the Lake of Fire Pastor Tom preached about, she sighed with relief. But that, like everything else hurt. She tried to sit up and found that her belly was a mass of pain. She had no idea how many times she had been stabbed with the little throwing dart. Only the short length of the dart saved her. But it still hurt.

As if in a drunken haze she took in her surroundings. It was dark and beginning to get cold. Through the hole she had blasted in the canopy of the tree was lying under, she could see a portion of the sky. In the moonlight that spilled through she could see Bo's lifeless body. Her shotgun was nowhere in sight and when she looked she found that her other guns were gone as well.

She tried to stand and was unpleasantly reminded of the bear trap on her leg. Her pant leg was soaked in blood, but she did not think that any major arteries were severed. But it was difficult to think clearly. She was tempted to just lie down and sleep. Just deal with it in the morning. But no that was not right. She tried to pry open the trap but the trap was old and rusty and the spring too strong. She felt around under the leaves and found a large rock. It took both hands to move the head sized stone. But she managed to get it up over her head and brought it down hard.

The pain was excruciating. But the rock had forced the spring back down and was holding it there. She yanked her leg free and kicked the trap away. It snapped harmlessly at her again and lay there. Blood, old and fresh painted its jaws a dark red and black in the moonlight.

She cut away her pants leg with a single edged razor blade she kept tucked away in the tongue of her boot. The wound was nasty looking. The jaws had bit deeply into the meat of her leg. But the bone was not broken and the bleeding was stopped except where the act of pulling the shredded denim away had re-opened it. She got up and stumbled over to Bo. Her leg supported her but screamed with pain at each step.

She was dizzy and faint and the poor dog looked to be about twenty feet below her as she looked down. Her head felt like a balloon about to float right off her neck. There was no sign of Duke. Things faded for a second and she decided to get moving. She wandered over to the dead stranger and found a notebook bound together with a plastic comb binder. Her mother had done that for her Daddy so he could keep his journal organized. She bent down to pick it up, her injured left leg up in the air behind her as a counterbalance as she scooped it up. For a moment she began to lose her balance and looked crazily about trying to figure out where she was going to land, but somehow managed to right herself before stumbling off in a direction she hoped would take her out of the woods.

* * *

Allison woke with a start, cursing herself for having fallen asleep. She quickly scanned the area to see what had awakened her. It was already dark. In the moonlight she could see a shadow moving about at the edge of the woods, it was too large to be one of the dogs. She snatched the night vision goggles from the dash. Sure enough it was a wraith.

She dove into the back and quickly loaded a missile into the mole gun. They only had about a dozen missiles so so had to make it count. The carefully centered the beast on the guns little LCD to let the missile get a good look at its target and fired. The sound alerted the beast and it broke into a run. But it was already too late for it. The missile swerved and followed it tracking its every move till it inevitably struck its target, whereupon it began to bore through the tough hide of the wraith. It attempted to dislodge it by rolling about on the ground, but that only drove it further into its flesh. That was when it detonated. The otherworldly creature was ripped apart.

She stared at the corpse and the blood matted grass for a few moments before making her decision. She locked the Volvo up and headed into the woods. If Dee was not out yet she was most likely injured and Allison would be damned if she would just leave her.

She found her a few hundred yards in. She was a bloody mess, but she was still alive. She was huddled at the foot of a tree with Duke standing protectively near her. Bo was nowhere in sight.

"dead." Dee told her just before she passed out. Allison ran back to the Volvo as fast as she could in the dark, to get the first aid kit. But a brilliant glow from the clearing at the edge of the woods warned her that something was not right. She stopped before leaving the shadows of the woods and stared.

The Volvo was fully engulfed in flames. A young man stood about twenty feet away. Closer than she would have wanted to stand next to a burning vehicle. Especially one running on propane. In the firelight she could see his features quite clearly. He was handsome but the insane grin on his face gave her the creeps. A wraith crouched at his side. He turned and looked directly at her. She knew it was impossible for him to see her, he would only be seeing spots after staring into those flames. But she slunk back into the woods a bit more anyway. He scanned the edge of the forest for a moment before he left heading south west with the wraith following like a faithful hound.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Working on story posts.

2010-09-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have been having problems with a mild (serious) case of writers block. I have worked my way through it and will be pubilshing a new story post soon.

Land of Shadows: Chapter XV - One Year Later

2010-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Chapter XV
April 19th 2028
08:00:01 am

Dr. Elias Hood appeared quite suddenly in the air over a half mile crater. Well, crater is not the correct word. A crater is formed from an impact that displaces a certain amount of soil and bedrock. It is seldom perfectly round. The impact, absorbs and deflects some of the energy. Picture the shape of half an inflated, round mylar balloon and that is the most common shape of a crater. This hole was perfectly round like inside half of a basketball. So Elias fell, shocked and naked about thirteen hundred feet, to the floor of the hole. It was fortunate that the bottom had been filled with dirt, debris and snow. And perhaps a lingering effect of the projector absorbed some of that energy too, but he survived the fall with only a sprained ankle and some bruises.

He was tempted to just lay there, but he knew he had to get moving, the cold was already leaching into his bones. His ankle was a throbbing mass of pain, but he was in excellent physical shape which was one of the reasons he was deemed a good test subject. He had served in the Marines about twenty years ago and had kept a strict regimen of exercise out of habit. Another reason was that he had never had any kind of surgery in his entire life. Still had is tonsils and his appendix as well as all his own teeth. Not so much as a filling. No serious scars either. For his age he was a near perfect specimen. Back in college he had been recruited by the head of radiology department for use as a medical reference. He was scanned from head to toe with all the leading edge (at the time) medical imaging equipment. He was probably in more modern medical texts now than Jonas Salk. When you have a perfect specimen for comparison it is easier to spot flaws or damage.

He did not waste time trying to figure out what happened or where he was at this time, there would be time for that later, if he survived. He reached a point where the walls curved up out of the accumulated dust and debris. The bedrock had a smooth, almost polished look to it. It was slow going, but he managed to pull himself up by using some cracks in the rock. He spotted what looked like a cave in the side of the crater wall about a quarter of the way up. If he could just make it there he could rest and maybe find some way to get warm, he just knew he was far too exposed here.

He knew even before he pulled himself up to the scorched tile floor that the cave was not natural. It was perfectly square, what had not crumbled when this end of the corridor partially collapsed. By the time he got there his hands were a bloody mess and the frigid temperatures only made it worse. His ankle was swollen to about double its normal size. All his abused body wanted to do was lay there on the tile floor, he was beyond feeling or caring about the cold. But that is the very thing that got him going again. As a doctor, he knew that in cases of hypothermia when a person stopped caring about the cold was when they were in the most danger.

He forced himself to get up. At first the best he could do was crawl which did not make it easy to get around and over the rubble partially blocking this section of hall. It was very dark in the corridor, rubble from the roof collapse blocked most of what little light that entered the severed end of the hallway. But he could make out some colored stripes running down the length of the corridor, these stripes would lead newbies to various places within the facility. He recognized the color combinations. The top stripe was green indicating the cafeteria, second one was red indicating the gymnasium (complete with heated pool), the third was a brown indicating dry storage and the fourth was blue. He had never looked at the directory to see what that was for though. There was a junction in the hallway up ahead He fumbled around in the darkness and found what he was looking for. At the end of each hallway or junction like this one, there was a compartment or cabinet set into the wall, in those cabinets were emergency kits complete with a flashlight, first aid kit and emergency phone. The flashlight batteries were still good. The phone was dead. He wrapped his swollen ankle in an Ace bandage and swallowed a couple of painkillers. As much pain as his ankle was giving him he wished for something a little more powerful like Oxycontin. He settled on some Excedrin he found instead.

He limped into the gymnasium, his imagination working overtime on the bizarre shadows thrown by some of the more complicated pieces of equipment. He felt about in the darkness for a few minutes before finding the door to the locker room. He knew he would find some clothes there.

He was quickly found his locker and was again grateful that he had spent so much time in the gym. The lock was a dial combination lock, which was good, because, although he knew right where he had left his keys, he had no idea where his keys were now. The locker he had left them was just outside the projector chamber and that space was now just empty air.

He found three sets of sweats in there and put all three on. He put two socks on his left foot, but could only manage to get one on over his injured right ankle and he did not even attempt to tie his right shoe, opting to just tuck the laces in under the tongue. He sat down on the bench and tried to remember the layout of the facility. He knew his living quarters were on the other side of the Projector Chamber. But try as he might he could not remember if there was a way to get from here to the other side without taking a corridor that would now just open up into that pit.

The base was dead, that much was obvious. Something had gone horribly wrong. He had no idea what. He was a medical doctor, not one of the physicists that dreamed this crazy idea up. But it looked like no one had come out to clean up the mess. The portions of the base not erased by whatever had happened were littered with empty piles of clothes. He could not bring himself to examine them too closely and stepped carefully around them whenever he came to them. He did take a closer look at one of them though. He had missed it in the darkness and kicked something solid out of the pile. It was slightly larger than a softball not quite round. Reflexively he grabbed at the object and found himself holding a man's artificial heart. There was only one person here that had a prosthetic heart, he had done several maintenance checks on him. He was a good natured man, always ready with a smile or a joke to lighten your mood. He had gently placed the heart back where he found it and backed out of the room. He was not a religious man by nature, but found himself saying a quick prayer for the man.

This had been a major corporate project with a yearly budget of well over a billion dollars. The company expected a return on this investment. There would have been an investigation. What could be salvaged would be. The remains of the facility would have most likely been deemed unsafe and demolished. Even in the remote Alaskan wilderness the company would not have just abandoned it.

He would investigate more later, for now he see if he could find something to eat. One of the three cafeterias was right next to the gymnasium and while he was sure all the fresh and frozen food was long gone over, there would be plenty of dry and canned food. Exhaustion caught up with him and he fell asleep in the pantry on top of some fifty pound bags of flour.

After four days his ankle was recovered enough to support his weight as long as he took it easy. He had lived off of dried food found in the large cafeteria pantry. The batteries of his flashlight gave out the first day, but he found several boxes of candles and used those. They also had the added benefit of heating the small office he had been sleeping in. It was not too cold in these man made caves, but it was not very warm either. The office had belonged the head chef and kitchen manager. It was a small but comfortable office with a desk, file cabinet and large leather couch that he was using as a bed.

The four days of solitude had given him time to think about his situation. He was pretty sure that he had been projected the full year forward in time as planned, because he was still alive. He was not an astronomer or physicist, but it had been explained to him in terms that he could understand. A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless another force slows it down, stops it or deflects. Even if an object is teleported in time or space, it still has that energy. Due to the movement and rotation of the earth through space, if that motion is not in alignment with the motion of the place the object "lands" in, it will continue on in the direction and speed it was already going. Thus an object that was on the day side rotating in towards the sun suddenly teleported to the night side that is rotating away from the sun will continue in its original direction until something stops it. The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1037.5646 miles per hour. This would shoot the object or person out into space unless he was stopped by a solid object first. There would not be much left to bury. The rotational speed was of course less here in Alaska. Here it was only about five hundred miles an hour. He did not know if that would be escape velocity, but as a doctor he had personally seen what a seventy-five mile per hour vehicle verses pedestrian looked like. Granted the car was moving, not the pedestrian, but there was a quote from one of his favorite movies that really fit. "Whether the pitcher hits the rock, or the rock hits the pitcher, it's going to be very bad for the pitcher'". And on top of that the Earth is moving 66,660 miles per hour around the sun. So if you appear on the earth at the wrong point in its orbit, it is either, whoosh, out into space or splat, you're a puddle. He had seen the video of what had happened to one of the early test subject as a result of a minor miscalculation. The poor Guinea pig's body was shredded as soon as it materialized inside its cage. The plastic cage exploded and bits of shredded Guinea pig and plastic sprayed all over the main window of the control booth. The skull actually embedded itself in the bulletproof plexiglass. Several of the booth operators were suddenly and violently ill. One tech, a rather large, round man with a beard had fainted.

He had busied himself gathering supplies for the trip back into civilization. He had tried calling for help, but all the base phones were out. There were no other phones. All personnel working at the facility were contractually obligated to leave any personal communication and data storage devices at home. They were not even allowed to take handwritten notes off base. Violation of this policy meant sacrificing all of one's pay, retroactive to the day he or she was hired. Anyone employed less than two years would be fined an additional three years pay. It would mean financial disaster. But still there had been a couple that had been caught. One was a ten year company veteran. Last Elias heard he was now working at a McDonald's to survive. The company had forced the sale of his home and personal property to get back what was owed. And still they were garnishing half his pay.

The location of the facility was classified. There were not even any roads leading to the facility, everything was brought in by cargo helicopter. Personnel were flown in and out in windowless helicopters to a small private airfield. People on the ground opened the door and lead them to a windowless van that took them to Anchorage International Airport. From there they could arrange transportation to wherever they decided to go, at company expense. The chopper pilot and the ground crew never exchanged a word. It was a long trip, made longer by the intentional variations of the route. The only ones that knew the exact location were the top level project managers, pilots and the control booth technicians. It's a little hard to input the target time and spacial coordinates when you don't know where the hell your are. But he estimated that the base was about 150 to 200 miles from Anchorage. Probably if he had paid more attention when they were trying to instruct in the fine art of navigation in boot camp, he could figure out exactly where it was. But his interests were elsewhere. His father had been a marine and his father before him. Both career men. But Elias had wanted to go to med-school. He knew that his father could not and would not pay for it so he had to find another way. And the marine corps educational benefits would help a lot. He signed up for a four year term, was granted the full fifty thousand dollars he was entitled to and enrolled in medical school. His father was not happy about it, but he knew his mother was proud.

It would be a long walk to Anchorage, but he didn't think that he would have to walk the entire distance. Since he really had no idea where he was, he decided that he would just head due south. He would eventually come to a road and find his way from there.

On the sixth day he figured he was as ready as he would ever be. But he had yet to be up to the surface yet. All the elevators that lead to the top were in the area of the crater along with the personnel stairs. There was a drive-in loading dock on the other side. Maybe, if he was lucky, he would even find a truck in there that would actually start. He would have to cross the crater to get there. But that would prove problematic. Despite a year of weathering, the upper edges of the walls were near vertical and he did not think he would be able to handle them well in the best of conditions.

There was a big laminated map of the facility in the Chef's office and he would take that with him. Peering out across the crater he could see what looked like a partial service staircase exposed on the opposite side of the crater. It joined a corridor just before disappearing. There were some service passages down lower that would open up a little closer to the bottom of the crater. If he found the right one he, it would save him the dangerous climb down.

He hesitated at the stairwell door, staring at the alarm box. Though he knew that no one would be around to hear the klaxon he was reluctant. There was a small chance that the battery would be dead, but it had only been a year. He paused a moment considering that. So much had obviously gone wrong it was rather silly to assume that just because he was supposed to jump one year that was actually what happened. Suppose, that instead of jumping ahead one year he had jumped ten or more. But then he considered the condition of the place and relative freshness of the canned food. It could not have really been much more than a year, two possibly, three at the most.

He decided to stop piddling around and just go. He pushed the paddle on the steel door leading into stairwell and even though he was expecting it, jumped at the sound of the fire alarm. The right key would shut it off, but he had no idea where to find it. Presumably the facilities maintenance or security staff would have a copy, but he did not feel like poking through those piles of clothes, especially considering the very real possibility that they were on the inside of the area that God had taken his over sized ice cream scoop to. He tried to cover his ears while he consulted the map but it was impossible to juggle the flashlight and the map too. He moved down a couple flights of stairs to get away from the sound. It did not help much. According to the map he would have to go down 3 levels to the water treatment plant. From there he would take the north service tunnel either to an opening in the bottom of the crater or all the way to the northern service junction, which would lead him up to the loading docks.

The alarm continued for about ten minutes and then just quit. By that time he had reached the bottom of the stairs. It had been slow going because of his ankle and the supplies he was carrying. He was also moving with caution because of the dark. There was standing water in the bottom of the stairwell, not enough to even cover the top of his shoes but enough to make footing somewhat treacherous. Stenciled onto the door were the words "WATER TREATMETN". Elias shook his head at the misspelling. The public education system was really a marvel. The door was very stiff, but it was unlocked. He had been afraid that he would lug everything down here and find that the door was locked.

The darkness on the other side of the door was unlike anything he had imagined. The weak light of the flashlight only enhanced the darkness. Elias had never really considered himself afraid of the dark, but he briefly considered turning back. Pipes and cables crisscrossed the ceiling and crept up the walls. Large pipes, bigger around that he was, shut off valves, control boxes and unidentifiable equipment cast shadows that seemed to devour what meager light he had. Water dripped almost everywhere.

The door had opened up onto a metal platform with a rail and stairs.

Stairs that led
down
into
the
cold
black
water.

He panned the flashlight around until he found the object he had been hoping to find. A pair of heavy rubber waders. They were hanging on a hook and next to them was a heavy keyring with a key fob that read "Keys I haven't Lost Yet". He stuffed them into his pocket and struggled into the waders. They were designed to fit over clothes but he had never worn them before and they were very cumbersome.

It was only three steps down but that put the water up over his knees. It took him a minute in the darkness to even find the tunnel. Movement was slow in the water and the heavy waders were not helping in that respect. But he was glad to have them. The water was cold even through his heavy sweats and the insulation the waders provided. He knew he would get chilled long before he got out.

The tunnel was probably about eight feet wide and eight feet floor to ceiling, but the pipes and such that ran its length took up a lot of space to so that in reality there was less than six feet floor to ceiling and maybe four feet side to side. The water he was wading through made it seem like even less. Mud and who knew what else had formed a treacherous sludge on the bottom so he had to move carefully.

In the darkness, it was easy for his imagination to begin to misbehave. So the first time he heard the clicking he dismissed it as just that. He stood there for a moment listening and heard nothing but the ever-present sound of water dripping. He moved on. After what he estimated to have been half an hour into the cave and maybe a quarter of the way across he stopped for a break. This was exhausting. He peeled open one of the candy bars he had brought with him and quickly ate it, washing it down with some bottled water. He stuffed the candy wrapper into the bottle, crushed the air out of the bottle and screwed the cap on tight before stuffing it back into his gym bag.

A series of clicks froze him. He waited listening. The clicking stopped for a moment and he was just about to move on again when a series of sharp clicks sounded again. He could not tell for sure, but he thought it was closer. It was probably some kind of cricket, he thought. The flashlight revealed nothing. He felt like a thousand tiny eyes were watching him. The clicking stopped and it became very still. Even the constant dripping of water seemed somehow muted. He knew he should not waste anymore time down here, but for some reason just stood there. A series of large ripples lapped at his waders. He watched them for a moment and swung the light around again. There was something bobbing in the water back the way he had come and he almost panicked, but it turned out to be a rubber boot, probably left by one of the maintenence workers. He turned to start back on his way and found himself staring into a pair of milky, blind eyes above a mouth full of needle like teeth.

The teeth were about four inches long a narrowed down to fine little points interlacing like the bars of a cage. It had the appearance of a large evil grin. What he could see of its body was serpentine. It just bobbed there, head swaying on a slender, but muscular neck, staring at him. Elias was completely frozen with fear. Suddenly the mouth snapped open and the creature let out a breathy hiss and reared back. Elias fell back into the water trying to get away. The head plunged into the water and he knew he was finished. Cold, wet and his ankle still not fully recovered, he was out of his element. No match for this apparition. But instead of sinking a couple dozen needle sharp teeth into his leg and twirling him around in an underwater death roll, the creature quickly popped it's head back up out of the water. Half a dozen writhing little ... things clutched in its mouth. They were trapped good, unable to wriggle through the gaps in its teeth they were effectively caged. Several tendrils in the underside of its mouth forced them back where they were swallowed whole. The creature once again regarded him with its blind eyes before sinking back into the water and disappearing.

An hour later he was back at the WATER TREATMETN doorway, stripping off the waders and his now water logged sweats. That was when he saw the three inch leeches stuck all over him. There were at least a dozen of them. They were easy enough to dislodge, but his stomache clenched in revulsion everytime he had to touch one of the slimy rubbery bodies.

Once again he was left naked and cold. He hurried up the stairs to where he had started. He knew he would be able to find some more clothes in the gym locker room. He was halfway up when he saw the emergency exit signs and started laughing. He had been so intent on the tunnels when he was looking at the map that he had forgotten about the fire exits. These stairs would lead up to heavy steel fire door. He vaguely recalled the fire exits being mentioned, but with this being a privately owned, top secret facility, fire drill codes were not enforced so the fire exits had been forgotten. There was most likely an alarm and cameras up there to discourage unauthorized exit, but he would deal with them the same way he had dealt with the alarm on the stairwell door.

One thing was certain. He was never going back down to those service tunnels again. In fact the sooner he got away from the remains of the facility here, the better.

It was a long hike to the other side of the crater. He had plenty of time to stare out across it. Looking down at the bottom of he he marvelled that he was still alive. He thought he could even see where he had landed. If he had landed facing the other way, he probably would have seen the service stairwell that he had spotted from the other side and saved himself a lot of trouble. But with the shock of his sudden appearance and sudden fall, he had not taken the time to adequately survey his surroundings.

He was pushing himself somewhat, he wanted to reach the other side before night fell and not just because of the cold either. His encounter down below had convinced him that, well, monsters did exist. At least here they did. He decided that confidentiality agreement or not, he would report what had happened here to whoever would listen. Projecting a man forward in time was one thing. Releasing unknown monsters into the Alaskan wilderness was another. Thinking about the aforementioned unknown monsters spurred him on a little faster.

He spotted a couple of buildings a few hundred yards from the edge of the crater on the other side. Though he had only see the larger one from the inside as he was lead into the helicoptor he did recognise it. Having never seen either of the two smaller buildings at all, he decided to investigate them first. There were a couple of pickups in the small garage, but they would not start. Most likely the batteries were flat. A small shed a short distance away housed a couple of snowmobiles, one antique with a pull starter that would probably be his best bet, but he was hoping for something with heat. He moved on to the large hanger where the helicopters were kept. There were usually a couple of trucks inside as well as the ramp leading down into the subterranean garage.

Luck was with him and there was a generator inside with a handcrank starter. It had been scrupulously maintained beforehand and started on the third try, after he read the directions over a second time and found out what he was doing wrong. The heaters suspended from the ceiling started up a few minutes after the genny was running and within minutes he was warm for the first time since his arrival. As cold as it was he knew it could get much colder this far north. There was a battery charger and jumpstarter on a large wheeled cart. It was really nothing more than a large battery itself and needed to be hooked up for a while to be charged before he could use it. It w several hours for it to fully charge. As well as the one large cargo helicopter, there were four large trucks and an SUV to choose from. He started with the Suburban. But after three tries he gave up. He was pretty sure that the gas was bad. He looked over the larger trucks. One was a straight diesel, two were hybrids and one was a brand new fuel cell vehicle. A big four wheel drive International. There was a pile of clothes in the driver seat and a cell phone plugged into the power outlet on the dash.

He took the phone and plugged it into a power outlet at a nearby workbench. It powered up instantly, but it showed a 0% signal. He had never even seen a 0% signal. Not even while driving along the cell phone restricted zones of the I-70 turnpike last year, well at least two years ago now. Some states had passed laws enabling them to install short range cell phone signal scramblers along the lane marker stripe in 'high risk' areas that only allowed 911 calls through. Even in those areas he usually got at last a 5% signal. He decided to leave it to charge and check it later. He plugged the International in to the generator. It should not take too long, he hoped, for it to replenish the fuel cells.

He found a hot plate on one of the workbenches and finally fixed himself a hot meal of canned soup. Chicken noodle was not his favorite, but right now it was better than any meal served in any 5 star restaurant.

* * *

The International ground to a halt just as the trees parted. He had almost drive over a cliff yesterday and was a little wary now. There was not much in way of roads in this area so he had been following game trails and when necessary, frozen streams and rivers. This whole region seemed to be dotted with little lakes and they were all frozen over this time of year with ice several feet thick. Intellectually he knew that there was probably no danger, but having spent much of his life south of the Canadian border he was reluctant to trust it. He kept picturing the International crashing through the ice and his body being found frozen several hundred years later being put on display in a museum somewhere. This was a much bigger lake than the little ones he had skirted around. He estimated that it was about three or four miles across. At his current rate it would take days to get around it. And he didn't think the fuel cell would last that long. He decided he would have to risk it. The back of the truck was filled with food and survival gear, but he had no delusions about his chances of survival without the truck.

There were mountains in the distance, but without a map he still had no idea where he was.

He found the smoothest path down and eased the truck out onto the ice covered ice. As tempted as he was by the prospect of getting across the ice as fast as possible, he kept the speed down to fifteen miles per hour.

Halfway across he heard a groaning that sent a chill through him despite the truck's powerful heater. A loud crack sounded and he thought to himslef 'To Hell with taking it easy' and he pushed the accelerator down about three quarters. The International was a powerful truck, but it was not a fast truck. That was what saved him.

The big truck lurched forward, its four electric motors whining in protest. The speedometer jumped up to forty-five. Of course the wind chose that moment pick up and scour light, dry snow up from the frozen surface of the lake. Elias was suddenly driving blind. Even with the wipers on he could not see, it was like driving in a blizzard. He was convinced that the ice was going to drop him into the lethally cold water below. He plowed on.

The surface of the lake was not entirely flat. Snow drifts rippled its surface in places. Sometimes the truck rode up on them like a boat riding up a wave and sometimes he just rammed through them . The truck rode up one snow drift and Elias suddenly realized that it was not a snowdrift at all. He had ridden up the lake's shore and there just ahead of him was a line of trees. He slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel hard to the left. All four wheels of the massive truck locked up. It skidded out of control and slid sideways towards the trees. The right wheels dug into the snow and the truck tipped up on the right. The cargo box of the truck snapped off a branch of the nearest tree and the remainder of the branch stabbed through the wall of the box near the top. The collision sent a cascade of snow down onto the roof of the truck. The truck dropped back to the left towards the lakeshore the right wheels now leaving the ground. Elias could only stare out his window as the truck tipped more to the left. He threw himself as far to the right as the seatbelt would allow, not really beleiving for a moment that he had enough mass in his body to tip the balance, but the truck was suddenly stopped as if jerked by a chain and once again settled onto four wheels.

Elias sat there for a moment, waiting for the both the wind to die down and for his heartrate to shift from scared hummingbird to something a bit more sedate like a rampaging elephant.

Eventually the wind stopped howling and he could see again. He was surprised to see a cabin about forty feet away. He carefully climbed out of the truck to inspect the damage and found a tree branch poking into the cargo box. It had hooked the roof of the cargo box preventing it from tipping.

The trapper's cabin was small but well stocked. It would make a good refuge till he decided what to do next. And it had one priceless commodity. A map tacked to the wall with a pin marking a single location, Written in black Sharpie was the label "Middle of Fucking NOWHERE"

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XIV - ...in the Beginning...

2010-08-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

April 19th 2027
7:15 am
Somewhere in Alaska
Exact Location Classified

"Scan complete." The computer generated voice announced. The technician checked the screen and saved the imaging data for review after the experiment. It would be a year before they could do the comparison, so the imaging data would be saved in multiple redundant systems. It was a full body scan at the highest resolution currently possible. Probably technology would have advanced some and the next scan would be at a higher resolution, but that would be fine. The technician leaned in and spoke into the microphone. The MRI chamber could get rather loud so the subject was given earplugs.

"Okay, Dr. Hood the scan is complete." When there was no immediate answer he checked the vital signs, everything was fine, in fact respiration and pulse rate indicated that he was asleep. The technician shook his head in mild disbelief. Dr. Elias Hood was the only subject he had scanned with this machine that had ever fallen asleep during the procedure. He hesitated to wake him, but knew he would be anxious to begin. He left the control booth and crossed the room to the MRI tube. This was not your average hospital issue magnetic resonance imager. It was much more powerful, had a greater resolution and custom designed image enhancement software. Normal MRI images were based on the interaction of mobile hydrogen nuclei present in all living tissue in the form of water. But this unit could also extrapolate other elements based on the interaction of the hydrogen with surrounding elements. It was like the way an astronomer can posit the existence of an invisible moon orbiting a distant planet based on the movement of the planet. Not only can its existence be determined, but its mass and distance from the planet. This was on a much smaller scale, yet much more complicated. This ability, combined with multiple fields of view, increased resolution beyond the designers dreams.

It did however necessitate building a more powerful computer to process the information. The CPU core was the size of a man's face. It had cost about one point three billion dollars and eight years to develop. At 11.5 Thz it was the fastest digital imaging processor in existence today. The projector downstairs used twenty of them parallel. The motherboard was ten feet across and was not really a solid board. It had been custom built in five - two foot sections laid out side by side rather than stacked as had originally been designed. They needed to be flat for heat dissipation. All of it was extremely classified. Until the scheduled press release in six months, none of them were even allowed off the base without an ankle bracelet GPS device similar to those given to people under house arrest. The main difference was that convict's ankle bracelets were not bugged and loaded with neurotoxin ampules that could be remote activated. Not lethal, but very unpleasant. The company took security very seriously.

"Dr. Hood?" the tech gently nudged the man's shoulder through the sheet covering his body. He began undoing the restraints that held him absolutely still during the scan. Dr. Hood stretched and yawned once free. It had been a three hour scan so he was rather stiff.

"So, Jeffrey, how did the scan go?"

"Everything, looks good, the twins are doing just fine, you should have a normal delivery."

"Very funny, Jeffrey. Did you get the copies made?" he asked while Jeffrey helped him down from the narrow "baking rack" as it was jokingly called.

"Yes sir. Copies have been made and sent off to corporate offices and backed up in three different media forms here."

"Good, I don't want to have gone through that for nothing. Is the Projector Chamber ready?"

"I think it is, let me call down and see."

"Do that while I get dressed. Don't know why I bother though, I will only have to strip when I get down there anyway."

"Well it will be a cold walk down there and while that would not be a problem for me, I'm hung like a horse, other people are not as lucky as I am."

"Don't BS me Jeffrey, I did your physical when you started here two years ago remember?"

"Yeah, but it was cold in that exam room and Ms. Morgan kept staring at me. Bitch could freeze the balls off a brass monkey with that face." Their banter was interrupted by a chime from Jeffrey's watch.

"Well I better get going." Dr. Hood said before he shuffled off to get dressed.

"Hey Doc, see you next year!"

Down in the Projector Chamber it was even colder. The equipment had to be kept cool to function properly. Elias stood on the Projector platform listening while they ran the routine systems check. Not that there was anything remotely routine in what there were about to do. At least they were allowing him a robe while they were waiting.

"Any time Dr. Lacey." he said shivering.

"Now Elias, you know the preset is for eight o'clock." a voice scolded him from the the chamber's intercom. "We are almost done with the pre-firing system check." She peered through the booth's window at the man standing in the center of the chamber. His breath was visible as little puffs of steam. She checked the chamber monitors and turned to one of the techs and asked him if it would hurt anything to raise the temperature in the chamber by ten degrees.

"No ma'am. but it would take about an hour to do so. The environmental systems in there are just designed to cool the room, there are no heaters, we would have to pump in outside air."

"Hang in there Elias I will see if we can get you a cup of hot cocoa or something."

"Just have it ready for me afterwards, Ok? That and a thick steak and baked sweet potato. I haven't eaten anything in fourteen hours!"

"Well I don't think the cafeteria takes orders that far in advance, but I will see what I can do. It will have to wait till after the return scan though."

"Well be sure to take starvation into account when you run that second scan will you?"

"Oh, stop complaining Elias, you volunteered for this!" She turned her attention to chief diagnostic technician running the checks.

"How does everything look?"

"Everything looks fine, but I'm getting an echo on the number eight processor. It is shooting out repeat data on a twelve point three-five second delay. I can shut it down if you want:"

"The system can handle that?"

"The system can actually operate fully with only four of the twenty CPUs running. It operates faster with all of them running, but we should not notice anything with just one in a controlled shut down. It would actually be worse to leave it running and there be a problem, it could crash the whole system when the projector fires."

"Well shut it down then."

"Yes, ma'am." the tech turned his attention to his laptop computer, unaware that his laptop had been feeding corrupted code back through into the system while he was talking to Dr. Lacey. He had broken protocol by using his personal machine and not the isolated units provided by the company. The bug it had picked up from that porn site was mostly harmless little cookie designed to track track the websites visited and transmit the data back to the original computer through dummy servers. But the new host had no defenses, it was supposed to be a completely isolated system with no outside contacts.

"Number eight CPU is shut down, everything else checked outs fine."

"Ok get the control crew in here and get the generator's cycling up. I want us to begin on schedule this time, I don't want a repeat of the Guinea pig incident. I still have nightmares about that one!" The control crew filed in and all but the chief of the diagnostic crew left. The DC would remain to monitor the system and warn of potential problems in case they needed to abort. The generators were brought on line and the refrigeration units kicked up to maximum. The lighting in the chamber was increased to maximum and seven hundred sixteen video cameras were activated, all trained on the center of the chamber. The temperature in the chamber was now thirty-seven degrees.

A technician walked out to the center of the room to retrieve the robe from Elias. He now stood naked in the center of the room, very much aware that if he farted right now it would be recorded from every conceivable angle in high definition and preserved for all eternity on company hard drives.

The actual firing of the projector was anticlimactic. The generators reached their programmed output level of .25 gigawatts and maintained that for thirty seconds. Barely one tenth the design capacity for one of them and there were ten of them buried a hundred feet below them. The Projector Chamber was bathed in an intense white light that the cameras compensated for. Dr. Elias Hood was standing there in the center of the chamber one second, then he was not. There was a slight "thup" sound as the air around him rushed in to fill the vacuum but that was it.

"Well that was easy. Now, comes the hard part, waiting a year to see how this turns out. Of course there is ... " Dr. Lacey paused as a the sound of the generators stepped up. "Why are you winding up the generators?"

"That echo is back!"

"What! I thought you shut it down?!" The DC tried to tell her it was across the board now, all of the processors were doing it, but he never got the chance. The projector was now operating on its own, but now all the generators were running up beyond their designed capacity. The power management board indicated four Tera watts before the screen blanked out. All the lights went dead and for a moment it seemed like all the power had gone out, but then one noticed that the generators were still going and a roar that was more heard than felt washed through the booth from the Projector at the domed top of the now vacant chamber. They were all silent, looking out the booth window when it flared. None of them felt any pain of course. The pain receptors in their brain had been seared away before the signals could reach them. Some might have considered them lucky.

The projector was not not designed to take that much power, but when it was active it was not entirely stationary in time. It fluctuated back and forth a few thousandths of a second and this allowed it to handle much more power than its designers anticipated. The projector range was magnified significantly. It was really too bad the targeting computer was housed separately.

* * *

Sister Irene could only watch helplessly as the man thrashed back about on the bed, in the grips of a nightmare, perhaps some horrible glimpsed future, real or imagined or, and she felt this more accurate, past tragedy. She had found him mauled by a wraith, the dead beast not far from him. She had brought him home, cleaned him up and tended his wounds. But she was afraid that she was going to lose him.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter XIII - Trap

2010-07-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

The stench was awful. The fire was still burning in the north wing when they pulled into the parking lot. Dotty compared the aroma to that of an outhouse fire back on her grandparents farm. It was obvious that neither Dee or Allison were still here.

If Allison had still been in the school when the fire started Dee would not have left or rested until she had been rescued or recovered. Had she been rescued and still able they would have continued on their way as soon as possible. Had Allison been injured Dee would have returned albeit reluctantly to the lighthouse and they would have met up by now. In the unthinkable even that she would have been killed, Dee would have buried her before carrying on with her quest. And in their brief search of the school grounds they had not seen evidence of a new grave and Dee would have made no effort to hide it, Quite the contrary, it would have been in plain sight so she could easily find it and direct her mother to it as well if asked. Oliver was not the accomplished tracker that Dee was, but the deeply treaded tires of the Volvo left a trail a blind man could follow. They had an advantage over Dee in that regard. Dee was not making any effort to cover her tracks.

* * *

Dee looked back at the ruts they were leaving in the wet spongy ground. They had left highway 151 behind sometime ago following the faint trail of the mountain bike. It was against her nature to leave such an obvious trail, but they had other priorities.

She banged her head on the edge of the roof when the Volvo jolted to a stop without warning.

"Ow! What the fuck! Ally, when I let you drive I said ... " she turned around to see why the sudden stop and began cussing even more. A wall of trees blocked their path. Just at the edge of the woods a muddy patch clearly showed a set of narrow tire tracks following a game trail into the woods.

Dee got out of the Volvo and checked the load on her shotgun and grabbed a few more shells from a box on the dash. Bo and Duke followed her out of the truck.

"I want you to circle around these woods, try to get to the other side ahead of him. You keep in touch on the walkie talkie and let me know if you see anything. I'll try to catch up to him in there. He won't be able to go much faster than a person on foot and when he can't ride he'll have to push that bike around, and that will slow him down."

"I don't think this is a good idea, separating like this ... " Ally protested.

"And it was a good idea when you and Olly left me back there in that garage? This is our best chance to catch up to that thing and end this, now get going!"

Dee headed into the woods without waiting to see if Ally was obeying her instructions. Both dogs sticking close to her. The bike's trail was easy to follow among the twin crescent of deer tracks, the clawed and padded feet of foxes and the almost hand like prints of the occasional raccoon. A couple hundred feet into the woods the bike tracks sank into the soft mud an inch deeper as if the bike had stopped for a minute and sank into the soft soil. A single shoe print was pressed lightly into the ground and there were crushed dry leaves on the other side. The bike tracks moved forward for about five feet and stopped again. There the shoe prints appeared again and the bike tracks became fainter as the terrain grew rougher. He was on foot now. But no evidence that a wraith was with him.

* * *

Deek leaned against a tree near the stream. He and the old man had been running all day and both were beginning to tire. They had so far remained hidden from their captor. The old man seemed to know a great deal about the creature, he was telling him about it while Deek led the way. Deek stepped through the door into his bedroom. He lay down on the bed and pulled the cover up over his head.

"What are you doing boy? This place is too obvious, he'll find us here for sure."

"I gotta rest. Let me sleep old man."

"You give up now and you'll sleep alright, but not before that things eats you alive. Now get up off your lazy ass and get moving. We need to find a safe place!" Jewels pulled the cover off the boy and yanked him to his feet. The room dissolved around them and they found themselves in a room high room high above the ground. The city below was a busy crowded place with cars racing down the streets and dozens of planes flying overhead. Big jumbo jets and Jewels did not have to see inside them to know that they would all be packed with people. But underlying this image was another. This was a city, long abandoned and decaying. Chicago.

The boy had populated if from his imagination. Jewels could feel the memory. Deek's father had taken him up to the top of the Lake Point Tower overlooking the old navy pier amusement park. He had told him of the city teeming with people and cars. The boy, who thought himself stupid, had built an entire city in his mind and filled it with people and cars and planes and brought them all to life, at least in his mind. But his father had either exaggerated or the boy had built on his father's tales himself, but Detroit had never been this crowded. The monster would not think to look for them here and if he did, there were plenty of places to hide. They could rest here.

The boy went to a window, picked up a chair and threw at the window. It should have just bounced back, but evidently the boy did not know better, for the window shattered and they found themselves looking out, not at the crowded/empty city below, but at a forest as the creature used Deek's body to push a bike through a wooded path. Jewels found himself once again looking over this boy and reassessing him.

Up ahead they could see an old man checking a trap, he straightened and looked back at them. Deek started to yell a warning, but Jewels clamped his hand over the boys mouth.

* * *

Things were going quite well, he felt that he had not seen evidence of his pursuers for some time so he sent the wraiths to scout ahead. One came back to let him know that human had been found in the woods nearby. He got the location from the slave, as always it was a little cumbersome getting any useful information out of it. It was like trying to get navigational directions from a toddler. He then sent it out again to look for food and shelter for the night.

He was surprised to find the man exactly where the slave had told him. It was an older man, but not as frail as his previous host. He was old enough that he would have been taught to read before the humans had sent themselves away and dragged his ancestors to this wonderful place.

"Excuse me sir, can you read?"

* * *

Dee found the bike abandoned at the base of an old oak tree. She quickly picked up his trail again with the help of the dogs, but she found another set of prints too, and these were wearing heavy boots. She hoped the booted stranger would not meet up with her quarry before she did. She quickened her pace, the tracks she had followed in were less than four hours old, but these were just an hour old if that.

She burst into the clearing with her shotgun ready, but it was already too late. The old man had already become the monster's latest victim, his throat was slashed. But before she could fire her first shot, sharp steel jaws bit into her left calf and she dropped the shotgun. The shotgun fired uselessly into the leaves above her only serving to defoliate a portion of the tree. The boy the monster was currently using spun around to see Dee with her leg caught in a steel jawed bear trap. It was anchored to a heavy steel chain attached to a spike driven into the ground. Dee could move no further than five feet without getting the trap off her leg. To do that she would have to give it her full attention and he would surely close for the kill before she could free herself. The weapon was out of her reach having been propelled quite some distance by the powerful kick of the over packed load she was using.

The Beretta was holstered at her left ankle and she could not get it out past the steel jaws of the trap. She pulled out a throwing dart from the leather band on her wrist and threw it, aiming for the boy's eyes, but it passed harmlessly over his head.

She was normally better than this, but she not normally practicing with a steel jawed bear trap on her left leg.

He quickly ducked behind a tree, but not before she threw another. She did not know if it hit or not, but it was not enough to slow him down if it did. Bo and Duke were now after him as well. Bo circled around the tree to attack but a sudden yelp and he was thrown back out into the clearing where he thrashed about for a few minutes before becoming still. He saw him move to another tree and wasted another dart trying to get him. But he made the mistake of trying to cross too much open ground trying to get to something left in the clearing and she pinned his hand to a tree. She thought to finish him with her final dart but found the elastic loop empty. A sudden image came to mind of the dart pinning a bug to the window frame at home.

Realizing that she was now unarmed, the boy yanked the dart out of his hand and attacked. Dee tried her best to fend him off but she was just too hampered by the trap and blood loss. About the fourth, or was it the fourteenth time the little dart jabbed her she blacked out.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

New Story post going up tomorrow.

2010-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize for not getting a story post up in so long. After all the problems I have been having with my computers and not really having a chance to write in sooo long I had a hard time getting back into it when I finally did have a chance. But by the time I got the first paragraph down I was back in the groove. I hope you will all like this next chapter.

Back on Line!!!

2010-06-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

To any of my regular readers I may have left, I am now back on line. After weeks of nightmarish computer problems I have finally managed to get things fixed. Ok, not fixed, replaced. After my Toshiba died I tried to use my netbook, but if you own one of these wonderful little machines you know that they are not really suited for use as a full time work station. It was time consuming and left little time for writing. After two weeks of falling further and further behind I gave up and dug an older desktop out of the basement and set it up. It was an original Windows XP machine. I love XP but I have to admit that this machine was not working either. I had to install Service Pack 3 on it (it was still running SP2), clean off the hard drive run a defrag and several virus scans before I realized that I was beating a dead horse.

So broke into our emergency fund and stole $400 from it and purchased a new desktop.

It is about one rung up the ladder from a bare bones entry level machine, but it has a 500Gb hard drive and 3Gb of DDR3 memory.

I just hope the wheels don't fall of the van before our insurance settlement comes through on that, because, oh yeah, some idiot made an illegal left turn in front of us and wrecked our van. The perfect topper to this little chain of events is that while trying to repair a leaking carburetor my riding mower it decided to kick over all on its own. She while gasoline was spraying out of it like a fountain I was trying to get it to shut off. The spark plug set the fuel on fire. Foosh. I am back pushing a damn mower.

I should be able to resume regular story posts soon.

Land of Shadows: Chapter XII - Deek

2010-06-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

It took more time than Allison really felt they could spare, but Dee insisted that they bury Jewels. The corpse was pitifully lightweight, little more than a collection of bones with a thin leathery skin stretched loosely over it. It probably weighed less than seventy pounds. Neither one of them could bring themselves to look at the pitiful waste he had become. They laid him out on a sheet and wrapped him up. The grave was shallow but concrete paving stones borrowed from the patio laid over the grave insured that Jewels would rest undisturbed by scavengers, For a moment they both stood over the grave in silence. Neither had the words to express how they felt. So without a word they turned the tear streaked faces away to continue their mission.

They managed to track the little Ford to this house, where they found it parked in the front lawn crushing a Lilac bush. The little van was filthy inside and deep gouges in the plastic flooring and interior panels showed that he had been travelling in the company of at least two lesser wraiths. But the van was finished. It really should not have even been able to make it this far.

It was clear that the monster had another host, probably the "big white boy" Ally said Jewels had mentioned. A narrow set of tire tracks leading out of the garage indicated that he liberated a bicycle. He had obviously fallen a couple of times in the street and a double set of wraith tracks trailed alongside the tire tracks. A good mountain bike actually had an advantage over even the Volvo. It could cut directly through woods, taking game trails that a car or truck could never hope to navigate. It would also be far harder to track. If they only knew where the Hell it was going.

* * *

He had no idea where he was going.

He was lost. The boy formerly known as Deek had never been more than twenty miles from home and had in fact been wandering around lost when he had fallen into a nest of wraith bugs.

Bitten several dozen times he had been nearly comatose when the wraiths had found him.

He remembered being prodded and poked by one, its drooling maw hovering over his face, Tendrils that felt like wriggling hacksaw blades probing at his belly. He was sure death was not far off. He was not able to speak, but began praying silently. Suddenly another wraith, much larger than the first swatted it aside. The smaller one crouched and began circling as if it wanted to challenge the larger one but it abruptly changed its mind. He had been carried off to their nest and thrown into an empty tool shed. Half rotten meat was thrown in a couple of times a day and a water bowl was provided.

The possibility of being killed frightened him enough, but the unknown reason they were keeping him alive scared him even more. He knew he was not smart. He never had been. Everybody was always telling him how slow or stupid he was. But he knew that there could be no good reason for them to be keeping him alive.

When the door to the shed was suddenly thrown open and he saw an old black man standing before him with a lantern, he thought he had been rescued. Then he saw the three wraiths standing beside him. He then thought the man had been captured and he would have someone to talk to for a while until his fate was decided. But something about the way the wraiths were standing by the old man caused a little voice to speak up in his mind, telling him to keep his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open.

The old man just stood there for a moment looking in at Deek. He felt like a cow being appraised just before slaughter. The old man started to say something, but never got a chance. An explosion thundered out of the darkness, man and wraith all looked to see what had happened. Deek thought his opportunity to escape had come, but the old man turned his attention back on him before he had take three steps towards the door. He just barely saw the stinger of the near wraith lash out at him. The world fell out from under him but not before he saw the old man pull a gun and shoot the wraith that had stung him. The other wraiths just stared at the suddenly dead wraith, their tiny minds mulling this situation over. For a moment he felt a compassion for them, for they were obviously as confused as he was.

He did not awaken again for several hours. At least he thought he was awake, but he could not move or see. There was a sound more heard really than felt of gnawing. It scared him more than anything else for some reason. But then a voice spoke out to him from the darkness. It was a kind but firm voice and he knew he could trust it.

"Follow me boy, if you want to live." He wanted to tell the voice that he could not move or speak, but he was already moving. Without arms or legs he moved across a rapidly brightening dreamscape of sea and forest valleys he recognized from a storybook his mother had read to him when he was a little boy. He came to a clearing where monstrous wild things happily frolicked. A black man, thin as a sapling but not at all frail, stood in the center of the clearing where Deek landed. His age was impossible to discern for it seemed to change constantly as he stood there.

"Did you make this?" he asked timidly.

"No," said the now old man laughing, "you made this boy, you're God here, not me. I'm just an unwilling intruder."

The sun blazed down bright and hot, beginning to sear the landscape, but a thick bank of clouds billowed up bringing relief. "You got strength you don't even realize boy," but even as the flush of youth swept across his face, he looked worried, "We gotta hurry boy, there ain't much time."
Much had to be abandoned for the enemy to use, but the old black man assured him that it could not be helped.

* * *

He was slowly finding what he needed and the bike was getting easier to handle. He was furious that the boy had had never learned to read. Interpreting the maps he had found at the local library was difficult. So much was always lost in transition. He knew what he was looking for, but not where it was. The boy had seemed to completely surrender, which had its advantages and disadvantages. Everything was there for the taking, but there were no reference points. The struggle for control always led him to the best bits, but this was like breaking into vacant house filled with unfamiliar relics. If you don't see what the owner rushes to defend, you don't know what is worth stealing. So much was always lost in transition. He knew what he was looking for, but not where it was.

He would have to find someone to read the journals to him. He would once again dig out the location of the of the miraculous machine these creatures had built and use it. It was just a matter of time. He would remake this world in the image of his own. But with food!

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Happy Memorial Day?

2010-05-31T06:46:00.000-07:00

Today is Memorial Day. And wherever you go you will here people telling you to have a "Happy Memorial Day." Some of them mean well, but many of them are just trying to sell you something.

Happy Memorial Day.

Fuck That!

Memorial Day was not set aside so that we could party or have fun or save big at MegaMart on things we don't need. It's not to give us a nice three day weekend so we can take the boat out or go riding. Not that I begrudge anyone those activities. Memorial day was set aside to remember our fallen soldiers. Men and women who fought and died for our freedom, Most likely their final moments were spent clutching at wounds such as most of us see only on TV or the movie screen. They were in pain more severe than we could ever imagine. They were often in the company of other heroic men and women far from home but many times they were alone in their final moments. They cried out to God, they prayed, wept and longed to be safe at home with their loved ones. They did not set out with the intent to die for their country. Through an involuntary draft or their own need to serve, their country called them to service and they answered. They did this so that we could be safe and free.

So before you head off to that barbecue, out to the lake or to that big Memorial Day Sale, take a moment and think about them. Remember them in your thoughts and prayers.

Future Darwin Award Winners

2010-05-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

It seems like every other house in my neighborhood has at least 2 ATVs in the garage. Our street terminates in a dead end and there are no streets leading off the east for a few blocks. This means our street has less traffic than normal. So my neighbors look at this as an open invitation to race their ATVs up and down the street whenever the weather is good. I really have nothing against this but these idiots are going full throttle, rubber burning, front wheels up in the air. Being the father of 3 year old twins I have natural concerns, but I keep my kids inside or behind a fence and keep a somewhat overprotective eye on them. The thing is, these morons are not wearing a scrap of protective gear, no elbow pads, knee pads, goggles, or you guessed it, helmets.

I had decided to take a Darwinian view of the situation and keep in mind that with fewer idiots in the world there are more resources available for the rest of us. But now they are bringing the next generation into their world of stupidity. They happily send their preteen children out riding these ATVs without protection or supervision. And I am not talking about little detuned 50cc jobs either. These are full size machines (250cc and up). And these kids are in turn giving their friends rides, so there are sometimes up to four kids piled on one of these four wheelers tooling up and down the street. An hour ago I saw a Honda loaded with three kids headed down the street and come back thirty minuets later and all the kids were drinking from fresh QT fountain cups with two QT bags laden with various samples of junk food dangling from the handlebars. There are two Quik Trips close enough that they could have got there and back in the allotted time. One would involve getting out on a busy street during rush hour and the other would involve them getting out on an even busier street and crossing a highway.

The police were just out and talked to one of the younger riders and warned him about riding around without a helmet. Kid was bitchin' and moanin' about the cop harassing him when they left. Kid should feel lucky I was not the cop. I would have confiscated the ATV and made the parents and child both sit through a few hours of ER videos before giving it back.

I am not one of these wrap you kids up in bubble-wrap and keep them inside all day parents. I want my kids to be kids, have fun, take a few chances, live their lives. But is it too much to expect parents to take a few moments to make sure you kids aren't taking stupid chances. And if you can afford a brand new ATV you can afford a helmet.

As for the adults riding without helmets (motorcycle or ATV), I say that if you are that stupid, go ahead, just please don't reproduce and don't expect taxpayer money to keep your brain dead ass on life support for the next twenty years after you smash your head open on the pavement. I think we should have special "Idiot Licenses" for those people. They sign that they are aware of the risks involved and waive any and all state and federal aid to pay their medical bills when they end up in the ER. Let them and only them pay the massively huge insurance premiums.

But really, just ride safe, wear a helmet and make sure your kids do too.

Land of Shadows - Chapter XI: Sister Irene

2010-05-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

The air was hot and dry. Within a matter of moments her mouth was parched and her throat was raw. Breathing was painful as each draw of air took more precious moisture from her body. Her nasal passages were dry and cracked. She had a brief nose bleed. It stopped only because the arid climate quickly sucked the water from her blood, leaving a dry crust. The valley was deep and steep sided and the air was as still and quiet as a Pharaoh's tomb. The sides were as far apart as the tallest mountain and it stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. The floor of the valley was littered with what at first glance one would have assumed to be stones and dead wood. But Sister Irene knew them for what they were. Dry dead bones. Long leg bones, flat curved ribs, stony looking vertebrae, tiny little finger bones and large vacant eyed skulls that stared blankly at her. Bones so dry they would crumble at a touch. The grave of the world. The place where all the missing people had gone.

She climbed up to the top of a a large flat rock that has sheared off from the wall of the valley thousands of years before she was born. It alone was clear of bones. The sharp edges of the rock cut at her hands and feet and the sun baked stone burned her flesh.

As the lord commanded her, she stretched out her hand over the valley while His words flowed from her lips. "Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and I will bring flesh upon you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord."

And as she spoke these words a great noise began to rise up from the valley. A rattling and scraping, a grating and grinding as millions of bones began to seek out their mates and assemble themselves into complete skeletons. Sinew and muscle, blood vessels and nerves all began to stitch themselves around the skeletons covering the once dead and dry bones. Skin began to knit around the writhing bodies until at last, once again they rested, whole and perfect as God had made them. Millions of lifeless bodies lay about the valley. The eyes still stared just as blankly as when they were bare skulls. Nothing stirred in the valley except Sister Irene as she watched in awe and horror.

And again God spoke through her lips. "Come from the four winds O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."

As the last word echoed through the valley a sighing of wind began to sweep through the valley. It rose from a sigh to a roar from all directions as if a thousand tornadoes lay siege upon the valley. As with a tornado, the telling of it last longer than the actual event and it was soon passed. Silence once again reigned in the valley. For a few seconds at least. As one the bodies all took a first breath and that sigh was as the birth pangs of some unseen beast.

The bodies began to rise and and mill about. People clasped at one another to reassure themselves that they were indeed real. They walked and talked in hushed, fearful voices. At first they milled about aimlessly, but a panic quickly spread through them like a fire in dry leaves. The whispers rose to screams and hands that had just gently greeted and held neighbors began to pummel and tear at one another. They beat at each other and clawed and bit like animals. The atrocities committed against each other were beyond description. Men beat and raped the women and even the children. Women tore at the faces of their once beloved husbands and strangled infants they once cradled. Children swarmed on their elders like packs of wild dogs before turning on one another. But not all of those with the fresh breath of life in them had gone insane. A few sane faces showed themselves in the masses. Some tried to stop the madness around them and save who they could, but most simply tried to separate themselves from the seething madness around them. Soon only those calm few and some tattered remnants were standing. The insanity had consumed itself.

One final time God spoke to them, but though He spoke through her, His words were not for her ears. But those that heard His words fell to their knees and wept and she was glad she had not heard them.

She awoke with a cold sweat on her. She knew that there was an important task for her to do. She didn't know what it was, but whatever it was, God would guide her through, He always had before. She rose early knowing from experience that she would not be able to sleep anymore this night. She looked at the Baby Ben windup clock by her nightstand. By the faintly glowing hands of the old clock she could see it was three in the morning. She sighed and lit the lantern by her bed.

She hated when God cast her in the role of a prophet or saint from the Bible. It felt self-righteous and blasphemous, though she knew it could be neither, not if it came from Him. She opened her Bible and turned to Ezekiel 37, The Parable of Dry Bones. She stayed up till sunrise hoping to make sense of the dreams. She knew he was trying to tell her something important. Finally as she was fixing herself breakfast it came to her. She dropped her bowl and left it unheeded as she ran to the sanctuary to cry or pray or both.

They were coming back.

She didn't know when, but she knew this. As they were when they left, so would they return. All the billions of people that had disappeared.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Delay due to technical problems.

2010-05-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

I have been delayed again (obviously) in getting a story post done. My Toshiba laptop is slowly dying. It is just functional enough that I can delude myself into thinking that it is workable or salvagable, And Sunday night my DSL modem died. Nobody sells just a modem anymore so I had to spend $80 on a wireless DSL modem/router. I am trying to make due with my little netbook. I will be chaining myself to my computer and hammering out another chapter soon.

Land of Shadows - Chapter X: Elias

2010-05-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

The host body sat up and opened its eyes experimentally and found them to be in working order. It was so good to have binocular vision again. It let the dual sensations and emotions wash over it. There was an additional strange echo to it though. It could be from an inherent mental instability. The host was healthy, but stupid and weak willed. Usually though smaller minds tended to be more stable. Like bulky old computer chips running lower voltages. Slow but reliable. The takeover had been easy. A black wedge shaped head nuzzled under the hand of the host.

Still wobbly from the transition it yanked the host around like a marionette in the hands of an amateur puppeteer. Three sturdy young wraiths stood guard over him, a fourth stood guard at the door to the small house they had fled to. It checked its reflection in the dusty mirror over the little dresser. The young man staring back at him was young and strong. Handsome by most definitions once you got past the cuts and bruises. Dirty blond hair and blue eyes and built like a gladiator. He should have no trouble luring women back to the nest. Well not this nest. Thanks to that little red haired bitch. He would take his time with her if he ever caught her.

He looked down at his former host. So weak and frail. He found it hard to believe he had ever been desperate enough to consider that a viable host. The belly and chest cavity had collapsed in on itself leaving it withered and shrunken like a raisin.

"So this is what it feels like to look down at your own corpse..."

He returned his attention to his reflection. The wound was a bit sloppier than usual, but should heal fine.

After cleaning up and raiding the closet for some acceptable clothes he left the house with wraiths trailing after him. There was work to be done.

* * *

Dee and Ally were once again on the road. Ally's bike was lost so she was riding in the Volvo with Dee, Bo and Duke. They had not even tried to clean her cloths, they had just gone into a local Wal-Mart and got an entirely new outfit and a few spare changes of clothes. She had lost everything when the wraith had jumped her on her Honda. They had gone back to the scene, but her bike was a complete wreck and her saddle bags were ripped apart. Nothing was salvageable.

Ally wanted to go back into the school to see if Jewels had made it out of the fire, but Dee stopped her by pointing out that the little blue Ford microvan was gone. The wraiths were not able to drive and that left just one known possibility. It had to be assumed that Mr. Fisher had escaped. The wraiths certainly hadn't gone off joyriding in it.

* * *

"That can only be Ally," the boy told her as he lowered the binoculars to the rail. Dotty looked at the red haired youth and back to the thick plume of smoke to the west.

"I suppose you want to go after her?" She asked tiredly.

"I gotta know and the radio still isn't working ... "

"I told you not to mess with it."

"It's an antique, it uses friggin' vacuum tubes, I was just
trying to tweak it a bit!"

"Yeah, well you're gonna fix it when we get back. But first you're gonna load the truck."

* * *

There was something missing, the man thought as he walked eastbound through Kansas on I-70. He had long ago become accustomed to the stillness and absence of people, so that was not it. It was not until he came across a huge Corn King sign at a farm that it hit him. Corn, wheat and sunflowers took up more farmland in Kansas than just about any other crop. He had seen some wild sunflowers and acres of untended wheat grasses, but no corn. He was born prior to the disappearance, and possessed a high level of education even by the standards of that lost era. But he was unaware of the draconian marketing tactics of the seed companies that commercial farmers were forced to buy from. The genetically modified seed corn these companies sold to farmers would produce big plump ears of corn, but not a single viable seed. So large patches of fertile farmland now just grew weeds.

He strolled into North Kansas City barely a head of a storm. The single storey cookie cutter houses on this street were run down as he expected, but he spotted one on which the roof and windows were all intact. He avoided the waist high grass used the broken sidewalk. The front porch was heavily eroded concrete, but steps were usable and he didn't have to worry about his feet falling through rotted stairs. He let himself in through the unlocked front door. The furniture was dusty and the place smelled a bit of mold. Fortunately he had never suffered from allergies. He un-shouldered his back back and his M-16 and set them down, grateful to be free of their weight.

He chose this house mainly because of the big brick chimney he had seen from the street. There was a small stack of wood and a few starter logs near the fireplace. He checked the flue and was not surprised when a shower of debris rained down but a draft of air told him that it was clear. He pulled some wood from the stack, being cautious of spiders. He had gotten a rather nasty spider bite a couple of years ago. Once he had the fire going he began the task of skinning the rabbit he'd snared this morning.

The rain that had been threatening all morning finally started as he set rabbit up to cook. The clouds just to opened up and began dumping water by buckets, He hoped that the roof was intact as it looked. In the kitchen pantry he found several rusted and swollen cans and some well sealed containers of dry rice, flour and sugar and an extra special treat, an unopened five pound can of Folgers Colombian coffee! He had been out of coffee for a couple of weeks now and looked forward to brewing some to have with breakfast tomorrow morning.

He paused in the kitchen long enough to light his propane lantern before opening the door that he suspected would open onto a set of stairs leading down to the basement. The man was just tall enough that he had to duck his head to avoid banging his head on the corner where the floor and ceiling met in the stairwell. The basement was dry now but showed evidence of past flooding. It probably would not stay dry long with this rain he suspected. Aside from the washer and dryer and the other necessary appliances the basement was mostly empty. A few plastic storage bins were stacked up on a wood pallet to keep them up off the floor.

There was a pile of clothes in front of the open dryer and tumbled over basket. He could picture the woman (or man he supposed, sexist of him to think only a woman could do laundry) taking the load out of the dryer, turning to head up the stairs before suddenly being snatched right out of their clothes by some unseen hand, the freshly washed clothes tumbling to the floor. He looked away from the mold blackened clothes and once again prayed for forgiveness for the role he had played in the destruction of the human civilization.

Doctor Elias Hood retreated up the basement stairs, closed the basement door and latched it. He was in no way responsible for the creation of the machine that had been responsible for the disaster. He had just been the first human test subject. But he still felt a terrible debt was owed. And it was not over yet. The worst was yet to come.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows - Chapter IX: Out of the Fire...

2010-04-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

The weight holding the door closed suddenly disappeared and as she was sitting with her back against the door at the time, the door opened behind her and she fell backwards. She found herself flat on her back staring up into the jawless maw of a battle scarred wraith. The dim green light gave lent its countenance and even more sinister air, if that was possible. But what scared her most was the man standing beside the wraith with his hand resting lightly on the massive black shoulder. He flicked on large Coleman LED lantern and the piercing blue-white light stabbed at her eyes. The wraiths in the hallway flinched back from sudden light but stood their ground, casting almost fearful glances at the reed thin old man. She sat up and backed away from him until she found herself up against the far wall. In two shuffling steps he was at her feet. He held the lantern up so she could see his face clearly and she screamed. Not so much in fear but grief.

One eye had collapsed in on itself and the socket wept thick yellow fluid. Jewels' white teeth were now stained and putrid and gaps where teeth had fallen out showed through when he smiled. He was filthy and stank like a corpse left out in the hot sun too long.

"I told them to leave you be for a while Miss Ally. Wanted to make sure you was good and ready first. I think they resent me somewhat for it. They had already got me a new host lined up, a big white boy, strong as ox, probably just as smart too. But girls make better hosts, and one as young and healthy as you I could get a year or more ..."

"Over my dead body you sick Fuck!" she screamed at him, trying hard not to think about the sweet old man he had been.

"Tsk, tsk, such language, would your momma approve of you talkin to your elders that way girl? Well this oughta make you a bit more easy to get along with." He snapped his fingers and a wraith slipped up beside him in an odd three legged gait. It was carrying something. It appeared to be a small bait bucket. She could hear the sounds of them trying to find their way out. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were.

"I been in this body too long. It's falling apart. I was desperate otherwise I would never have picked such a wasted shell to use. I can usually make the swap on my own. But as much as I hate to admit it I need a little help this time."

He moved to where the wraith had set the bait bucket and held the lamp over it while he removed the styrofoam lid. She could see their shadows as they struggled to climb the sides of the bucket.

"These will do fine," he nodded to the wraith that had carried it in. He patted it on the head as one would a puppy and it nuzzled his hand. Ally's stomach lurched in revulsion. The wasted old scarecrow of a man kicked the bucket over before man and wraiths turned and left the room. The door slammed shut, plunging her once again into total darkness.

* * *

Dotty had been unable to sleep much the night before and had spent much of the night in the light tower watching over the empty town. She knew something was wrong when she saw the little red truck winding its way through town. She hit the kill switch for the mines on the little remote in her pocket and headed downstairs. It would relay through the main control panel downstairs. up the breakwater to the lighthouse.

She was stiff from the cold and moving slow. By the time she had got her jacket and boots on the Volvo was heading up the breakwater to the lighthouse. One of them was already pounding on the door when her hand fell on the heavy bar securing the steel door.

The young blond woman was carrying her red haired brother. He was frightfully pale. The other young woman was nowhere in sight. She had Dee lay him down on the one of the cots they had used on their previous stay that for some reason had never been put away. While Dee was doing that while she fetched her first aid kit. The kit was in a large steel ammo box. It was heavy but just about anything she could possibly need in an emergency was in there. He had already been stripped down but was wrapped in a blanket. She nodded approvingly at the bandages as she peeled them off. She had seen enough of them on herself to recognize them. The venom of wraith bugs, as she had heard them referred to while eavesdropping on radio conversations, suppressed the immune system. She had experienced this phenomena first hand. Secondary infection could be a major problem. The wounds would have to be cleaned out and watched very carefully. She knew several herbal concoctions that would help boost one's immune system as well as cleanse the toxins. She ordered Dee about like a general while she tended to the boy. But she could sense that she wanted to go back out. She had not said a word about what happened so far though.

"Well we've done what we can for him for now. But I'm guessing that you are wanting to go back and rescue your sis ... " she turned to find that she was talking to an empty room, the door was already closed and shortly she could hear the truck backing done the breakwater. Dotty went to the door and slid the bar back into place. Back up in the tower she watched as the red truck crossed the breakwater onto the mainland before she reactivated the mines.

* * *

An inspiration struck her while she had been sitting in the dark. In the faint glow she had seen a lock bolt at the top of the door. The wraiths were smart and stealthy for such large creatures, but they really knew nothing about construction or locks.

The pipes were slippery and her left arm was really quite useless at this point. But still she managed to hang on. On top of the stench of the room there was now the caustic tang of ammonia in the air and it was almost as bad, but it had seemed to be keeping the bugs at bay. She had knocked the bottle of ammonia off on of the shelves in her mad scramble to get away from the bugs. It had hit the edge of the floor basin and popped the cap off. After locking locking the door, she somehow found enough strength to climb up pipes get away from the bugs. The door could be unlocked from the outside of course, but she was pretty sure that one of them many keys fastened to the chain she had gotten from the wraith would fit the door and even if they knew about keys she doubted that they had other copies. It would be a while before they got through that door. She did not plan on being here when they did.

She hooked her left arm through a crook in the pipe, reached up and punched through the acoustic ceiling tile. A shower of dust and debris rained down on her. She expected the wraiths guarding the door to come pounding at the door to investigate the noise, but apparently they were expecting sounds of struggle so thought nothing of it.

Her left arm screamed in protest but she managed to pull herself up through the support framework for the ceiling tiles and from there onto an air conditioning duct. One room over she managed to get into the duct through a vent. They always made air ducts look so clean in the pre-disappearance movies she watched with Olly and Dee back home. But the reality was far less sanitary. For one thing rats also liked to use ducts to get from one room to another. She squirmed through the duct as quietly as she could. But the duct work was a maze and she had no light to navigate by. She was quickly lost. She had just given up hope of finding her way out when she fell down through a vertical shaft. She hit an elbow in the duct work and found that it was not designed to take this much stress. It broke apart when she hit and she fell hard onto the concrete floor.

The wind was knocked out of her but she suffered no additional injuries. She managed to squirm out of the duct she had fallen with. She hoped that she had not escaped the frying pan only to find herself in the fire. The wraiths liked cool dark basements to sleep in. But she was alone. And for the first time she since waking up in the janitor's closet she found herself in relatively clean surroundings. The floor was dusty, but dry and here was a musty smell to the air, like a basement in a long vacant house. She stumbled about in the dark till she bumped into a steel workbench. She felt about the surface and found scraps of metal a pair of pliers and and a bench mounted vice. There was square steel bar clamped in the vice with one end narrowed to a chisel point. It was as if the room had not been disturbed since the disappearance.

She bent down and started feeling along the floor. Her father had often talked about how creepy it was to walk into a house or store and find piles of empty clothes that the previous occupants had evaporated out of. Schools were mostly populated by children and teenagers. Of all the kids her age back on Door Island, she did not know a single one of them that did not carry a lighter, matches or a flashlight. She somehow doubted that this was a fundamental change in adolescent and teen psychology since the disappearance. She started searching pockets. She was hoping for a disposable lighter or book of matches but hit the jackpot on the second set of clothes she searched. She found a box of wooden matches and a candle in the large pocket of a heavy denim apron. On the fourth try she finally got one of the mouldy matches to light. She quickly lit the candle and was finally able to take in her surroundings.

In the dim light of the single candle she could see three rows of steel workbenches. Tools and half finished projects littered the work surfaces. There were were piles of cloths at each workstation. The high school metal shop. She quickly checked the doors. The door was unlocked and unblocked. She had no idea why this room should be untouched as it was, but she was thankful for it.

Owing to the fact that explosive gases were stored in the metal shop, the doors were heavy fire safe doors. The small rectangular windows were reinforced glass. She eased one of the big double doors open and peered out into the hallway. A jumble of broken duct work and tipped over lockers covered the front end of a car that had smashed through the wall of what she presumed to the the school's auto shop. The wreckage completely blocked the hallway.

She climbed over the lockers to check the door on the other side of the jumbled mess. Holding the candle away she peered through one of the small glass panels in the big double doors.

The corridor beyond was littered with debris and caked in shit. Several wraiths dozed on the other side. She jumped back from the window and checked the door. It opened out towards her and the front bumper of the car was pinning a row of lockers against the door. She sighed in relief. There was no way they would get through this door she thought.

She turned to go back to the metal shop and lost her footing when a warped locker door she was standing on shifted. She fell hard on one of the locker doors with a loud boom. The candle flew out of her hand. She sat in silence for a few moments praying that the din she had created had gone unnoticed. There was a muffled grunt and some snuffling from the other side of the door. Well maybe God was busy somewhere else.

By the time she made it back to the metal shop it was banging and scratching at the doors. She closed and locked the door, hoping that would give her enough time to think of something.

A thought occurred to her and she returned to the apron to get another candle before looking for what she needed. She found it after a few moments search, but it was locked behind a steel gate with the other flammable gases. She grabbed a hammer and started beating at the lock with it before she remembered the keys.

* * *

Dee pulled into the parking lot of the school just in time to see the fireball erupt from the back corner of the school. Fire spread through the school within seconds. Explosions rocked the building from one end to the other. Wraiths lept from upper floor windows only to be blown apart by explosions from the lower levels. Burning monstrosities ran out of doors and into the parking lot to expire in a smouldering heaps. Very few seemed to be making it out alive. She watched in horror as the building was quickly consumed. She could see no sign of Allison. She got out of the Volvo and stared into the blaze.

Some wraiths were making it out of the inferno, but they showed no interest in her, being concerned only with escaping the fire. Some escaped, but most she was able to shoot down before they got too far. No Masters escaped that she saw and the lesser wraiths were only as much a threat than any other large predator without a Master directing them. When at last she saw no further movement from the school, she sank to her knees. This mission of hers had been a complete, shameful failure. How was she going to break the news to Mom.

"Nice shootin sis!"

Dee whirled around to look at her sister. She was covered head to toe in filth and looked like she had been drug through a landfill by a speeding garbage truck, but still managed an impish grin. She looked at Ally, looked at the burning school and then back at Ally in disbelief.

"You did this?"

"Who knew wraith shit was so flammable?"

The two of them stared at each other for several seconds before the burst out laughing. When they finally managed to get themselves under control again Dee started to hug Ally, but pulled up short when she caught her first whiff of the malodorous muck covering her sister.

"You're riding in the back."

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

New Story Post Coming soon - I hope

2010-04-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

Tax season is finally over. This has been a very busy time for us. My wife has been working 12 hour days Mon thru Fri and 6 hours Saturday. I have been a full time stay at home dad these past months. I thought I would be able to keep up a regular schedule of story posts, but as my readers have learned this has not been so. I am hoping that with the end of tax season I will be able to resume a regular schedule again. I will be working tomorrow afternoon on a new story post and try to get it ready by Monday. Once things settle down again I will have more time for writing and should be able to build up a surplus of posts.

Thanks for your patience.

(insert sound of crickets chirping here)

Keith

Land of Shadows: Chapter VIII - In the Dark

2010-03-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Allison knew James was in trouble instantly. His back arched and he nearly lost control of the little Honda. He regained control quickly and twisted hard on the throttle. The bike shot forward. Allison tried to keep up but suddenly found that her bike was losing power. The pressure gauge on the propane gauge was quickly drifting towards zero. She tore her eyes from the gauge just in time to see the grandaddy of all wraiths shamble out into the alley in front of her. It was at least 600 pounds and four feet at the shoulder. The sword like front claws marked it as a Master. A glittering chain of metallic objects adorned its thick neck. She managed to avoid hitting it with the bike only by running into a small plastic trash can. The bike flipped end for end and she found herself tumbling through the air. She thudded into a solid wall that turned out to be the wraith. It felt like she had hit a lightly padded brick wall. Despite its bulk it moved as lightly as a house cat and pinned her to the ground ... literally. Its two right fore claws were driven all the way through her left arm and into the ground. It leaned in close to her, head tilted to one side to peer into her face. One eye was a complete ruin from a run in with a mountain lion years ago, but the other was a sparkling black obsidian, full of malevolent intelligence. Its breath was like a week old rotted corpse.

As if sensing that its hold was only as secure as the limits of the terror she could endure before ripping her own arm off to get away, it abruptly pulled its claws out of her arm. It quickly repositioned paw on her chest, claws resting on either side of her neck. There was no escape now. All it had to do was clench its two center finger toes and she would be effectively decapitated. But still she fought, she clawed and kicked and even bit at the creature. It just calmly stared down at her as she gouged its skin and tore out handfuls of the spiny hairs of its main. She grabbed at the necklace it wore in a vain attempt to strangle it, but the chain was far too weak and broke in her hands. This seemed to anger the beast and it swatted her to the other side of the alley. She was free, but only for a few seconds. By this time several lesser wraiths had closed around her. They pounced on her, piling on top of her en masse. She felt her ribs creaking under the weight. She could not breath and soon passed out.

She was surprised to wake up some time later. She had no idea where she was, only that it was completely dark and foul beyond her worst nightmares. She was covered in filth and seemed glued to the floor by a thick slime. Her conscious mind absolutely refused to speculate as to what the fuck it was and bitch slapped her subconscious every time it attempted to supply her with the answer.

She was briefly concerned about the possibility of her wounds becoming infected, but realized that it was highly unlikely she would live long enough for that to be a problem. She hoped that James had got away.

She had seriously fucked things up this time.

With great effort she was able to get one leg up and then her right arm. Twice her hands encountered irregularly shaped solid objects in the muck. She shied away from touching them. Maggots and other unidentified vermin writhed through the slime. She managed to roll herself onto her side and crawl through the darkness until she found a wall.

She had never been religious, she figured an all powerful God would have never let shit go down like this. Unless he was just a sadistic asshole. In which case she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. But as Pastor Tom had said one of the few times her father had managed to get her to go to church, when the Devil has you beat, you're screwed seven ways to Sunday and there's nothing else to do, pray. She could not think that the situation could possibly get any worse.

A memory of her father knelt in prayer when he thought he was alone came to mind. His multiple sclerosis had been flaring up again and the optic neuritis was really causing him some agony. He said it was like he had been staring into the sun all day. His balance had been off too. She had heard a thump from the study and went in to see if he had fallen. He was kneeling in front of the book case, some books scattered at his feet. She was about to call out to him but for some reason did not. She could hear him quite clearly even though he was talking softly. The floors were tiled and the walls were concrete block, with very little in the room to absorb or muffle sounds. A year later a couple of large area rugs and some additional bookcases would be installed and perhaps she might not have heard him.

It was a private moment and she always felt guilty for not leaving immediately. But for some reason she could not tear herself away. He knelt there for quite some time and she knew he had to be hurting, but when he stood up again he seemed stronger and did not have to steady himself on his desk.

She knelt in the darkness and filth as she had seen him she began to pray.

"God I know I have not been what you'd call a faithful servant. I'm not even sure that I believe in you. That probably doesn't really help my case here, but I feel I really should be honest. It's kinda become obvious to me that I have made some pretty fucked up decisions. Sorry about the profanity but I tend to cuss a lot when I'm scared. I really could use some help here. Barring that, if you could just give me some reassurance that there is something waiting for me other than a ... a ... a dark and empty silence, maybe this would be a little easier. Also could you look out for Dee and Olly for me? If it's your will that I die here, could I at least have an explanation when I get to the other side? I guess Your will be done. Amen."

Feeling very little of the comfort her father sometimes seemed to draw from his prayers, she leaned back up against the filth encrusted wall and drew her knees up to her chest. Something poked her in her right tit and she jumped, afraid it might be one of the wraith bugs under her clothes. She reached in with her right hand and found a bead chain like used for an overhead light pull with a few dozen keys dangling from it. It was the necklace the wraith had been wearing. She looked about in the pitch black gloom but could not see a door or window. She began to slowly feel her way around the edge of the room. As she did so the movement made her aware of every bruised and knotted muscle in her body. She wondered what time it was but when she checked her watch she found the crystal to be cracked and the hands missing. She could have been out for a couple of hours or a couple of days.

Despite herself she let out a single high pitched scream when she encountered a severed arm in the darkness. But considering the circumstances she didn't think that even Olly would have given her any shit about it. A few inches away she found the stump that she presumed the limb had been separated from. She found several other bits and pieces of what had once been people strewn about the floor.

In the darkness her she was becoming hyper aware of sounds. There was a steady dripping that she hoped was a source of clean water, an irregular ticking noise she could not identify, an occasional grunt from somewhere close by and the sound of a rat gnawing on something. She would have almost welcomed the sight of the rat. It was at least something familiar and normal. Despite living her entire life with their ever present threat, the wraiths were still mysterious and alien. You would ever look at one and feel that they belonged anywhere but a nightmare or a Bosch painting. She always thought old Hieronymus must have been a deeply disturbed individual.

She quickly found that the room was less than eight feet across and five feet deep with a door in the one of the long walls at one end. There was a spigot set in one of the wall at the end of the room away from the door with a basin set in the floor. The drip of water was coming from that spigot but not from the inside of the pipe but condensation on outside of the cool metal pipe. The water was foul tasting, but if she was here long enough she supposed she would get desperate enough.

She tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. The heavy door was hinged to swing out into the hallway rather than into the room. The hallway on the other side was lit in a faint green glow from an unseen source. Rather than provide any actual illumination it merely seemed to emphasize the darkness, but it was still somewhat brighter than the filthy utility closet she was in. There was a doorway directly across from her. The door was off its hinges leaving a gaping black hole. Despite her eyes being unable to penetrate the gloom she felt that the room was occupied. A shadow rose up from one side of the door and moved directly in front of her. The wraiths massive body fully blocked the door. It was was so absolutely dark that she could not make out any features. Just a vague silhouette. Two malicious glittering spots gave the only clue that it was indeed facing her.

It did not advance on her or make any threatening moves at all. It just stood there. Aside from the one that she had collided with in the alley she had never been this close to one before. And with the one in the alley there had been no time to think. But this was completely different. Mr. Parsons had been fond of telling stories about his encounters with the wraiths and her father had even reluctantly shared his experiences with her too. One common thread that all the close encounter stories she had ever heard was the feeling of dread and fear that these could generate. It was almost supernatural. She had always assumed that it was just a tall tale or exaggeration. Now she knew first hand that it was no made up fairy tale to scare the children. She could feel her will evaporate away like film of water on hot cast iron skillet. Her knees buckled and she let the door fall closed. With a small grunt the wraith laid down at the foot of the door. She could hear its leathery hide rasping against the smooth metal of the door. She knew as sure as if the door had been walled up with brick and mortar that any possible escape route would not lie in that direction. She collapsed sobbing at the closed door.

She slapped herself hard across the face with her left hand. It stung but was not enough. She repeated it several times till she knew her cheek would be red and puffy. She was angry now, furious at herself in fact. She punched the door a few times, but the fear had been driven under at least for now. She took a few deep breath to calm herself down and began to think.

* * *

Dee put down the binoculars and shook her head. James Oliver was still out and was unable to verify, but her gut told her that Allison was down there. It would be suicide to go in there now without a plan. And then there was Olly to worry about. If something happened to her then he would be helpless. She headed back out Calumet as fast as she could, not slowing down till she had passed Olly's abandoned Honda.

It would never run again. The oil injector that had been added when it had been converted to propane had clogged up at some point during his escape. The engine was completely seized up. Olly was strapped in back. She was headed back to Dotty's. She would leave him at the lighthouse with her before heading back to see about retrieving Allison. With as many bug bites as he had it would be a couple days before he was even able to put two coherent words together. It would be a fight to get him to stay if he woke up, but she would tranquilize him if necessary. He would be in no condition to accompany her for a few days anyway.

She refused to give in to the temptation to indulge in self-pity or recriminations for now. She hoped that this was going to turn out to be a rescue mission rather than body recovery.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

New Story Post Coming Monday

2010-03-26T06:15:00.001-07:00

I have finally finished the next chapter of the story. It is already saved on blogger to be published Monday. For some reason I had a lot of problems with this chapter, but I just finished it this morning. I will try to get back on a weekly schedule from now on.

Google This!

2010-03-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Like a great many people I regularly use Google. It's a great search engine. But do you ever pay attention to the autofill suggestions when typing in your search. I know that I usually don't. Not really. I scan them until I find something that looks closed to what I want but I don't really read them. These are the "Hot Searches" on Google. These represent a selection of the most searched for items that fit what you have typed so far.

There are really that many people out there interested in banging their own sister!?!?!?!?

If you are so hardup that you are looking on Google for help with your sex life, would it really be that much of a stretch for you to look outside your immediate family?

Land of Shadows: Chapter VII - Runaways

2010-03-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

James was roused from a fitful slumber by someone shaking him. He was not surprised to see Allison staring down at him. He glanced at his watch. Three thirty-eight. She had lasted about half an hour longer than he expected. She gestured him towards the back of the garage where there was a steel door just big enough to get the bikes through. He thought about arguing the wisdom of going out alone with her, but knew it would be pointless. As dead set as she was she would relent now only to go off alone as soon as he wasn't looking. At least this way he knew some one would have her back. They quietly rolled the bikes through the steel door. It would latch behind them. The two rotties watched them go quietly. They were trained to watch out for wraiths and other dangerous animals not two errant teens leaving on their own when they had no business doing so. Duke whined briefly at the door and then went and laid back down next to Dee.

They waited until they were well away from the quonset hut before starting up the bikes. If the sound did carry all the way back to Dee's ears they would be well away from there before she got around to going after them and there was no way the Volvo could catch up to them. James neglected to point out that Dee would know which way they were going. It would only piss Allison off to have a hole in her reasoning pointed out. Besides, he would not have been entirely comfortable leaving Dee clueless to where they were going. If he'd been given the opportunity he would have left a damn note or just skipped this ill advised endeavor altogether. Alli could be such a hothead and stubborn as a mule.

They continued out Calumet using only their night vision goggles. Even in the dark it was fairly easy to track the little microvan Dee had described. The condition of the road meant that it often had to cross muddy patches and leave tracks. No other vehicles had passed this way in years, so the tracks were obvious.

About a mile and a half down the road they came to a railroad crossing partially blocked by a train wreck. A west bound tractor trailer rig that was suddenly left unmanned had collided with a similarly staffed freight train. It had hit with enough force to knock a few boxcars off track. The remaining cars had piled up behind the others leaving a clear path almost wide enough for a small car to squeeze through. But not quite. A small car had recently come through and scraped off its passenger side mirror. The glass glittered in bright little shards on the dirty pavement. Allison looked at the shards of glass and a pair of tire tracks leading through the gap between the twisted remnants of the trailer and the box car and started through.

James did not know why he grabbed her jacket collar, it was just pure instinct. The little Honda continued on through the gap as Allison slid off the seat. Alli was protesting up until the point the wraith hit it from the side. The bike clattered to the pavement under the 300+ pounds of the beast. James was already firing. His first two shots missed, but the next three caught it full in the chest. This only succeeded in alerting it to his presence and making it angry. Although, truth be told, no one had ever seen a non-angry wraith before. Their lives were violent from conception to death.

The wraith stopped mauling the dirtbike and bounded towards them, its head down. The massive skull could be quite effective as a battering ram but the mouth parts were delicate and needed protection. By this time Alli had her Glock ready and began firing. It took another two shots to the skull to stun it long enough for James to put a bullet through the magic spot at the base of the skull to finally kill it. And it was a lesser wraith. They carefully peered out past the wreckage of the train to see if there were others but no significant heat traces could be seen.

They quickly inspected the Alli's bike. The only obvious damage was the smashed mirrors and broken plastic fairing on the left side. The bike started on the first kick and they continued on.

The trail was easy to follow. The little car had continued straight on Calumet heading into Valders. It had blown a tire on chunk of pavement. No attempt had been made to change it. From the look of the tracks it was a rear tire. James was beginning to feel faint sense of foreboding the further they went. It was too easy, he was making no effort to conceal his tracks. When they briefly lost the tracks where a small residential street he tried to voice this to Allison, but she refused to listen.

A faded and tattered banner hung from a light pole reading V-A-L-D, the rest being lost to the elements. Frayed nylon threads fluttered in the cool breeze. Neither one of them were very familiar with the area, they had never been further south than Kewaunee before this trip. Mr. Parsons had usually taken them north, where the colder weather made hunting and travelling safer. Even on the wraith hunts they had usually just gone west. James wanted to consult a map, again Allison was too impatient.

They had only gone maybe two and a half miles and the sun was already coming up. Light was glinting off a nearby water tower. The sun slowly hauled itself above the eastern horizon as they argued the matter in a parking lot. James could just make out the name Valders from the faded and flaking paint and rust of the water tower.

The town was dead silent. One would think that in a city devoid of people that would be the case. But in every empty abandoned town he had ever been in there was some life, some furtive little sounds. Cats would go about their business of hunting local rats, raccoons would be foraging in the undergrowth, moose and deer would be grazing in the grasses growing up through the crumbled pavement. Birds would be singing or fluttering about. But there was none of that here. James paused in his attempts to dissuade Allison from going further and took a good look around. Eventually even Allison noticed. She got back on her bike and started it up. To James unsurprised horror, she continued on into town. Left with the choice of abandoning her or following her, he did the only thing his conscience would allow. He too headed into town on what was beginning to look more and more to him like a fools errand, if not an outright suicide mission.

* * *

Dee locked up the quonset hut and headed out. She knew she could not hope to catch up to them in the Volvo as long as they were moving, but they would have to stop to eat or rest sometime. Bo and Duke rather sheepishly climbed into the front of the Volvo. The scolding she had unleashed upon them for not letting her know of the twins departure was still fresh in their minds.

* * *

The stench was almost overwhelming, even from the fourth floor window of the apartment building. Neither one of them had even heard of a wraith colony this big before. They had completely overrun the Valders High School building. There were only a few in sight but they were nocturnal creatures. Excrement and other waste was piled up under the windows and coated the walls. Tiny red dots dusted the waste piles. It was only after a few moments watching that they realized that these little red dots were moving that they realized what they were.

A crude pen constructed from broken furniture, dead branches and other junk confined about two dozen assorted deer, moose and cattle. Most had distended bellies indicating the impending birth of new wraiths.

As they watched a large bull began to bellow in pain. Several wraiths poured out of the main doors of the school. They swarmed over the walls of the pen and gathered around the doomed bull. As first they thought the wraiths were going to take down the bull in a feeding frenzy, but they just squatted there in a rough circle, each clutching a wad of wet dripping matter in one clawed fore paw. It looked to be crudely butchered meat from some unfortunate creature. The bellowing of the poor bull became more desperate as its birth pangs increased. Some large mass began to writhe about under the skin on its side. Suddenly a pair of blood drenched claws burst through the thick hide of the bull, it was soon free and clear of its fleshy prison and rapidly followed by five others. One was obviously smaller and weaker than the others. It was quickly set upon by the other five. James expected the adults to intervene on its behalf, but that was merely the hardwired human reaction to protect one's offspring and expect others to react in the same manner, but they just stood back and let the other juveniles tear apart the helpless runt. It was only a matter of twenty brief seconds before it was completely devoured and they turned their attention to the dead bull. All that was left when they were done were the skull and bones too large for them to swallow whole. And they were still hungry. That was when they started to turn against one another. It was only then that the adults interfered. Two of them waded into the fighting juveniles, clubbing them with their tails, head butting and kicking them with their balled up paws. It looked to be quite brutal, but was actually calculated to do very little actual damage. But they were effectively separated. The other adults approached the little abominations with the still dripping hunks of meat and began feeding them. They would fling the football sized hunks of meat at the newborns. The infants would open their mouths wide enough for an adult man's head and the meat would disappear. It was both fascinating and repelling. When they had gorged themselves so thoroughly they could barely move the adults bent down, mouths opening wider than James would have believed possible and scooped the infants up. Carried in such a way,only their snouts were visible. After this grim display the entire assembly trooped back into the school building. Little red dots were already congregating on the bull's carcass.

Allison tapped his shoulder and pointed. It took him a few seconds to see what she was pointing at. In the faculty parking lot there were several cars. This was to be expected, school had been in session when the Disappearance had occurred. But one vehicle stood out. A little Ford microvan with a ragged remnant of a blown rear tire and far too clean to have been sitting exposed to the elements for several years. They had found him, but now what?

It was standard procedure to torch wraith nests, but this one was huge and better organized than anything ever seen before. They would never be able to get close enough to set it ablaze even if they had enough gasoline to do so. It was clear that the rules of the game had changed.

The only option now was to go back and report what they had seen.

The two of them quietly crept downstairs. On they way up they had not noticed any wraithbugs but by the time they reached the third floor landing there were dozens on the stairs. They simply sidestepped them careful that none dropped on them from above.

At the second floor there were hundreds and they were spraying the steps ahead of them with the bottles of Windex they had picked in a Dollar General this morning. Anytime the Windex touched one of the black and red bugs it started flailing about or running in circles trying to get away from the deadly poison. But it was rapidly becoming clear that they would run out of Windex before they ran out of wraithbugs. And more were appearing.

They decided to just abandon the notion of shooting their way out and just run. Fortunately they both had good boots and gloves. They squashed countless bugs under their heels going down the stairs. So many that their boots were getting slick and putting them at risk of falling. Their gloved hands slid along the rails, knocking bugs off by the dozens. They burst from the stairwell and raced for the big glass front doors. They realized before they got there that the lobby was empty, completely devoid of black and red bugs. They paused there in the lobby for a moment wondering what had happened to them. When no wraiths rushed in from the adjoining corridors Allison pushed open the door and the rushed to the alley where they had parked the bikes.

The wraiths attacked as they approached the bikes. They were completely blocking one end of the alley and more were coming, they were dropping down from the fire escape and roof. There was a fence at the other end of the alley, but the gate was off its hinges leaving just enough room for a bike to get through. Ally fired off several shots into the mass of wraiths approaching as he started his bike. Then he emptied a clip while she got her started. When he was sure that she had hers running he headed for the gate. He dared not even look back to see how she was doing, the alley was too full of the monsters. One leaped out from behind a dumpster as he approached the gate, but he managed to get past it. He heard one round fire from Ally's gun and risked a glance back after he cleared the gate. He saw her toss the gun away to get better control of the bike and zip clear of the gate just half a second after him.

They whipped around the corner and were home clear, or so he thought. That was when he felt twin barbs of searing pain in his neck and back. He had not noticed the bugs fall down the back of his jacket. He fought against the pain, it was all he could do to keep his focus on the road ahead and the bike under him. He did not stop until he realized that he had just passed a red blur that had to be Dee heading into town in the Volvo. She turned around and came back to him just as he dropped the bike. He staggered to his feet and stumbled towards the oncoming truck. His vision was constricting to a narrow point and he was barely aware of the Volvo screeching to a halt directly in front of him and Dee jumping out. She was shouting something in his face and shaking him painfully. He made out the word Allison and pointed back the way he had come, only then realizing that she was nowhere to be seen. He had lost her. His vision finally constricted down to a bright white dot, like an old CRT television as it died, and slowly faded out leaving him alone in the dark.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Another Rant - Soda Tax

2010-03-09T07:43:00.001-08:00

Was listening to the radio this morning and they were talking about a proposed tax on soda. Many communities already have a tax on soda in place and more are considering this. Philadelphia mayor Michaal Nutter has proposed a 2 cent per ounce tax on the sugary beverages and California Democratic Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez has introduced a bill to tax them. As the obesity epidemic gains more press and more communities become desperate for tax revenues I expect this will become a popular trend. After all it's for the public good right?

Wrong. The FDA already regulates what is and is not safe to eat, but now the government will tax us on consuming that they deem to be unhealthy too? And who decides what is and is not healthy? Today it is pop, but there are already proposals to tax pizza or other fast foods. Do we want some militant vegan PETA freak trying to get a tax on meat, fish, poultry and dairy? Do we want allergy sufferers proposing a tax on wheat, shellfish and peanut butter? Should the lactose intolerant force a tax on milkshakes next?

And none of this addresses the real issues of dietary economics. People living near or below the poverty line can scarcely afford a healthy diet rich in fresh fruit, vegetables and unprocessed foods. They are sometimes doing good to just put food any on the tables. Pasta is cheap and filling, but is often just empty carbohydrates, canned vegetables keep well and are inexpensive and convenient but are often lacking the nutrient values of their fresh counterparts. Processed meats also keep well and are less expensive than fresh meat but are often full of preservatives, MSG and sulfites. All of these things could be considered "bad for you" so should we tax them and make it even harder for people living in near poverty just so we can feel like we are helping people stay healthy or fill the town coffers?

Instead of taxing the consumer for buying "unhealthy" food maybe we should concentrate doing things that will lower the cost of healthy foods, penalize food producers that manufacture crap food, and educate consumers on making healthy choices.

But that will never happen as long as the American consumer is willing to be lead like sheep to an early grave in a super sized coffin, or taxed into starvation.

Story Update and Brief Rant

2010-03-08T19:29:00.001-08:00

I will be posting a new chapter in my story soon. Been rather hectic here. And I have to admit that I have recently become addicted to FaceBook. But I just purchaced a little Asus EeePC. It's a tiny little netbook about the size of a highschool text book. I could get online with it if I set it up, but I have intentionally not done so. It will be perfect for writing, no distractions.

And now for the rant. I am holding in my hand a letter from the US Dept of Commerce, US Census Bureau. The letter is to inform me that in about a week I will be receiving a letter from the US Dept of Commerce, US Census Bureau containing the Census forms. So it's a letter telling us to expect a letter. Our tax dollars at work. It even has messages in 5 different languages at the bottom. Yeah, these should read "If you're reading this because you can't read English, Go the Fuck Home!" But I am often accused of politically incorrect.

But to the story update. I am going to try to get a few posts ready. If I can make a point to sit down with my new toy and type up at least a couple of pages a day I should not have any problems. Fewer distraction more focus. At least from my computer. My son just threw up in my lap about half an hour ago while I was trying to write this post. Of course the only way the new computer could have helped with that is if I were to use it as a shield. I will be trying to get another scanner soon so I can resume the typecasts as well.

Keith

Land of Shadows: Chapter VI - On the Road Again

2010-02-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

Jewels was losing the fight. He'd been running a fever for days now. A throbbing pressure was building up behind his eyes and he was having trouble seeing clearly. He was weak and trembling but the parasite was driving him relentlessly. Jewels knew he was going to burn out soon, but his defenses were crumbling. It would just be a matter of days if not hours before the parasite had him ... completely. The lines were finally starting to blur between host and parasite.

The newborn wraiths were huddled in a corner piled up like firewood. The lobby of the Maritime Ford repair shop was glass fronted with no head, so it was as cold inside as it was outside. The five young wraiths were sluggish from the cold but that was fine, just made them easier to control. At one day old they already weighed forty pounds each. He had managed to save all but one of them. When he sensed the time was drawing near he had snared a large dog. It was just enough to satisfy the needs of their first feeding frenzy. Since then they had been eating everything in sight.

The dealership service bay had gone green before the disappearance. Solar panels on the roof provided most of the power in the garage. Many of the panels on the roof had been damaged but there still enough working to operate the hydrogen fuel cell maintenance systems. There was even a fuel cell vehicle hooked up to the system all he had to do was flip a switch. And now he had the knowledge to do so.

* * *

Dotty sent them off with a picnic basket full of good home cooked cuisine. But before they left James had done her a favor to make up for upsetting her while playing with her cell phone. Using some parts he had in his pack from an old laptop computer and a USB hub he downloaded the video and other pictures onto a makeshift digital video player. Everything was saved onto a memory card. She could now view the pictures and videos on a larger screen and not worry about the phone losing power and erasing the stored images. Plus it could now be transferred to any device with an SD memory card. Dotty had studied electronics enough to install some aftermarket accessories on the Hummer but she confessed that she was not confident enough to risk opening the phone up. She stood over James' shoulder the whole while, fussing like a mother hen despite Dee's efforts to distract her. He had tried to do it in secret but Dotty was more of an early riser than he had anticipated. It was only Dee's presence that had kept her from grabbing her shotgun and chasing James out of the lighthouse. But when he set the finished product down on the table and turned it on, she clapped her hands and squealed like a schoolgirl as the video played out on the seven inch screen.

Dotty watched the red truck as it drove down the breakwater. She wondered if she would ever see the three of them again. She hoped so, she had forgotten what it was like to have guests. Perhaps it would be best if she did head north. But not till spring. She had already laid in her supplies for the winter and did not want to have to start over again and risk falling short in the coldest part of the winter. She watched until they were out sight before closing the door and sliding the bar into place. If it had been warmer she would have considered going up to the tower, but a gust of wind howled across the lake and convinced her that the best place to spend the morning was huddled in front of the woodstove under a blanket with a book and a cup of hot cocoa.

* * *

At the edge of town Dee stopped and handed out a pair of military issue walkie talkies to the twins and sent them out in opposite directions to see if they could find any signs of Mr. Fisher's passage. She would head out Calumet and wait for them at the at the WI 42 intersection.

The thing would naturally want to head south, but the direct southern route would take it too close to the lake shore, the more assimilated the parasite and Jewels became, the more its natural aversion to water would drive it inland. She was betting that it would start heading west.

She stationed herself at a crumbling farmhouse on the southwest corner of the intersection. The Volvo was parked on the south side of the house. She had a good view of the road between the house and a tree but would be concealed from anyone passing from the north and east until they were past. She poured herself a cup of coffee from the thermos Dotty had given them this morning. She cut the motor and settled herself in under a blanket in the driver's seat. She would have much rather left the engine running for the heat, but could not afford to waste the fuel. She turned the volume up on the 2 way radio.

Despite her best efforts she found herself drifting off. Cool damp weather like this just about always triggered a hibernation reflex in her. She chugged another cup of coffee got out of the Volvo to walk around for a bit hoping that would wake her up. She stood on the porch of the big colonial farmhouse, careful of the rotting floorboards and scanned the highway for anything moving but saw nothing.

She soon found herself peering into the windows of the large house. Inside the house looked exactly as the homeowners had left it. Save for a thick layer of dust. Miraculously all the windows were still intact. She allowed herself a moment to imagine the family that lived here, busily working through their day, getting dressed having breakfast going about their morning chores and then suddenly, poof, they were gone. She could see a pile of clothes inside the door, an insulated coffee mug set on an end table near the front door. A feral cat was napping on a coat near the door. A yawn and a stretch and the cat glared at her. At least that meant there were no wraiths nesting in the basement. Cats would no more take up residence in a wraith's nest than squirrel would sleep in dog's house. The cat displayed no fear of her and she saw no reason to disturb it.

She was pouring herself another cup of coffee when she saw it whiz past. It was a quiet day, a breeze was whistling through the trees, but even that small sound was enough that she would never have heard the little fuel cell powered microvan. She bolted to the Volvo but put her foot through a rotten board and tripping, cussing even as she fell. The dogs were now howling at the front passenger window fearing that she was being attacked. She managed to extricate herself from the hole in the porch, barely glancing at her scraped shins and torn pants leg, she just wanted to get to the truck before, a) Jewels got away, and b) the dogs broke through the window trying to get to her.

The dogs calmed down as soon as she was in the truck. The propane fueled Chevy V8 failed to roar to life on the first try or the second, but on the third try the engine caught. She automatically thought she would have to take it in to Jewels for a tuneup, and that just made her all the angrier at the monster that had taken him.

She jammed the Volvo in gear and floored it till she was on pavement. The little microvan was designed for efficiency rather than high performance, still it was rapidly pulling ahead of the Volvo. Even on smooth pavement the fastest she had been able to push it was 51 mph and at that there had been a disturbing thrumming sound coming from the axles. The microvan was able to easily dodge the worst of the potholes without losing much speed while she had to bounce through them. She radioed the twins but got no response, either they had gone out of range since last time they had checked in or were unable to hear her over the racket the little two strokes their bikes had. She watched with growing frustration as the microvan increased its lead. There was a sudden flapping sound coming from under the doghouse and the steering wheel suddenly became a heavy dead weight. She bounced through several potholes before she was forced to admit that the chase was over. She let the Volvo slow to a stop as the radiator boiled over and the Volvo lost power.

She cut the motor and listened to the water boil out of the reservoir. All the idiot lights on the dash were lit up. She slowly got out of the Volvo, closed the door and tried to count to 10. She made it 6 before she started kicking the Volvo and cussing. The dogs just stared at her through the windows as is she had lost her mind.

* * *

James cut the motor and coasted into the driveway of the farmhouse Dee had told them about. But she was not there! He leaned the Honda against a tree near the front porch and walked about the overgrown yard. He spotted Dee's thermos on the front porch. The lid was off and the cup was sitting on a window sill, still full of coffee. That, a broken board and a torn scrap of denim indicated that she had left in a hurry. A pair of deep wheel ruts in the squishy ground pointed to the northwest. It was obvious what had happened. He pulled out his walkie talkie and called out to Allison to get her but over here so they could catch up to Dee. The Volvo could go anywhere, but it would not set any land speed records getting there. It should be easy enough to find her.

It only took a few minutes for Allison to get there but he was already waiting for her on the highway and they took off westbound on Calumet together. Dee had left a good pair of muddy tracks for them to follow. A little over four miles down the road James signalled to Allison to look ahead and sure enough, just up little ways was a fire engine red brick on wheels. They pulled up alongside the Volvo and found it empty. Locked doors and a puddle of fluorescent green liquid under the front end told them all they needed to know.

As luck would have it, there was a small junkyard a short ways back the way they had just come. As expected they found Dee and both dogs searching the scrapyard and its buildings for parts to get the Volvo running again. After hearing what had happened James offered to continue after him, but tempted as Dee might have been to catch him she refused. In despair she informed them of her decision to end the pursuit. They were both angry but Dee told them they had already spent too much time on this.

"Besides, I have a bad feeling that we are heading right into wraith territory. I haven't seen anything larger than a rat since I broke down, Bo and Duke are antsy and ... and I ... I think J- ... Mr. Fisher is making a beeline for a nest of them." She gathered up the parts she had looted and headed for the big roll up door.

"So, are you heading back tonight?" Allison asked

"We are heading back as soon as I can get the Volvo up and running, but only if we can get it done before nightfall. I don't think it would be a good idea to go out after dark."

It took most of the afternoon to get the serpentine belt and tensioner replaced and fabricate a new upper radiator hose from some straight hose, clamps and a couple of plastic elbow joints. Then they had to refill the radiator and check it for leaks. A battery charger in the back provided the extra amps they needed to get started again. By that time the sun was starting to go down. They pulled the Volvo into the garage to wait for morning.

The garage was a large quonset hut with corrugated steel roof sloping down to form the walls. It was large enough to house major construction equipment and it was mostly full of derelict trucks, buses and parts. There were some holes rusted in the top of the building on the west end. Big enough to provide ventilation for the small fire they built in steel drum that had been used thus before. The light from the fire cast eerie, dancing shadows on the interior walls of the garage that did little to settle Dee's nerves. She really doubted that she would get any sleep that night. Despite her anxiety she did sleep, and awoke to find herself alone, only Bo and Duke were left keeping her company.

The twins were nowhere in sight.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Death of a Scanner

2010-02-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

I am sorry to announce that my scanner/printer/copier has committed suicide. This tragedy occurred yesterday afternoon following the repeated failure of the machine's printer. As most electronics sold in this country, this printer was made in Japan. As most Japanese warriors this machine had a highly developed sense of personal honor and it could not live with its failure. So while I was attempting to find the problem it suddenly wrested itself from my grip and flung itself to the hard concrete floor, whereupon the glass scanner platform shattered. It died instantly.

What this means for my blog is that I will not be able to post typecast segments of my story until the scanner is replaced. This is especially irritating because I just spent $70 on a new toner cartridge for the stupid thing.

Keith

Land of Shadows: Chapter V - Dotty

2010-02-15T10:05:00.000-08:00

By noon Dee and the twins were struggling to get the Volvo unloaded, they had long since given up trying to extricate it from mud. They were getting the last crate of gear from the back when a thick cable landed in front of Dee, splattering her in the face with mud. There was a double click as the twins swung around their rifles and disengaged the safeties.

An elderly woman looked down at them from the edge of the pavement. They had been so absorbed in their tasks they had not heard her approach. The dogs had been awake all night and were currently asleep in the tent. Beyond the old woman, a massive Hummer H1 still bearing it's military markings was parked idling.

"If you kids hook that on your bumper I can pull you out. Unless of course you'd rather just play in the mud there all day. Wouldn't recommend it though, that water's a might chilly."

She stood at the edge of the pavement looking down at them waiting for them to make up their minds. She nodded and turned back to the Hummer when Dee picked up the hook and connected it to the "D" ring on the rear bumper. The winch in the hummer was powerful, fully capable of pulling the massive vehicle straight up a tree if needed. But the Volvo was no lightweight either and was stuck good. There were several tense moments when it bogged down and the cable pulled as taught as a giant guitar string. Dee had to bite her tongue in order not to jump all over her brother as he stood over the cable. Had it snapped he would have been cut in two by the recoil of the heavy cable. But the old woman warned him away from it for her. Little by little the Volvo was pulled free. The muddy water drained out of the interior and it stood on the broken pavement covered from door sills to roof in black muck. A perfect match for the three of them.

"Name is Dorothy McBee, but you can call me Dotty. I saw your fire this morning and I thought ya'll might need help. And I reckon I was right. Ya'll are goin to come home with me till you get your rig running again." Dee started to protest but realized just in time how foolish it would be to refuse.

"But none of ya'll are riding with me till you get cleaned up a bit."

So they drew straws to see who would steer the Volvo. James lost. Dee and Allison toweled off the best they could and changed clothes. James and the two dogs rode in the Volvo as it was towed behind he Hummer.

"How did you know that we wouldn't just kill you and steal your truck?" Dee asked once in the cab of the Hummer.

"I'm a pretty good judge of human character usually. You looked like you could be trusted. A young woman and a couple of kids are genrally speakin not goin to be a big threat, unless givin reason. Now iffin you'd been a man alone I'da been a tad more cautious in approachin ya. Besides you see that keypad under the radio there?" Dee looked at the indicated area and nodded before the old woman continued. "Well iffin I had'na punched in a ten digit code or thumbed the screen the explosive charge under your seat would have blown the rig sky high the moment the key was turned. Ya might kill me but you wouldn't steal my rig."

"Well don't you think it might be a good idea to tell people that in the first place?" Allison asked from the back.

"Now that's a helluva way to start a conversation now ain't it? Howdy folks, my rig is wired to blow up iffin you try to steal it. Pretty weather we're havin! Kinda starts things off on the wrong foot don't it?"

"Did you rig this up yourself?" Dee asked, impressed by the seamless installation in the Hummer's dash and simultaneously uncomfortable by the indicated placement of the explosive charge.

"Yep. Been livin on my own for the last fifteen years. Didn't know nothin about electronics before, but I know how to use a card catalog at the local library. Good thing for me the librarian was old school and didn't trust computers."

She slowed the Hummer almost to a halt at the northernmost marina entrance on the east side of town and turned right into the parking lot.

"You live at the marina?" Dee asked.

"Not exactly." she said as she continued on through the parking lot and started out across the breakwater. There were signs up warning "Unauthorized Entry Prohibited - Protected Species Habitat" but the old woman paid no heed to the signs. In this day and age it was sink or swim anyway. What concerned Dee was the condition of the breakwater. Nearly two decades of unchecked erosion had narrowed it severely in places. But it was just wide enough to accommodate the Hummer and thankfully narrower Volvo. Dee glanced back at James to see how he was doing. He looked tense but not panicked.

"Now let's hope the batteries in this thing are still good." she said holding up a what looked like a garage door opener and shaking it, "Damn rechargeable batteries don't hold a charge like they used to. I guess we'll know soon enough."

"What do you mean?" Dee asked feeling a little uneasy about their hostess.

"Got this breakwater mined to keep to black beasts away. This remote deactivates them. Well most of the time." She pointed to a particularly narrow section of the breakwater. "Missed one a month back and blew a trailer load of firewood out into the harbor."

Dee assumed that she was pulling her leg until she saw the submerged remains of a trailer and a few pieces of wood scattered around the rocks. She kept her mouth shut about it though so as not to panic Allison.

They travelled around the artificial wetlands that had been created almost by accident by the dredges dumping mud and debris cleared from the harbor. She saw several goats on the little island and a couple bread trucks parked out in the grass they were using for shelter. When they came to the breakwater leading to the lighthouse it became apparent that they would have to do something different. There was just enough room at the base of the lighthouse to park one of the vehicles. If the Hummer towed the Volvo in that would leave the Hummer blocked in. Nobody wanted the one running vehicle, probably the only running vehicle in town, blocked if they needed it. So they used the Hummer to push the Volvo in and parked the Hummer behind it.

The lighthouse was of course a very utilitarian building, but numerous potted plants gave the whitewashed concrete and steel structure some color and some patio furniture made the concrete platform look less like a military installation and more like a home. A wall on the left side of concrete slab in front of the lighthouse entrance provided partial protection from the wind. There was a heavy steel door just under stairs that led up to the second floor. There was a heavy steel lock securing the door that was probably as old as the lighthouse itself. A large pontoon boat was moored at the far end of the concrete platform the lighthouse had been built on. The old woman pulled out an old style skeleton key and rattled it around in the lock till it popped open swung the door out with a rusty squeal. They had been expecting a cold and damp, almost cave like environment inside but were surprised to enter a warm, dry and pleasant dwelling. When the lighthouse had been closed all the equipment had been removed leaving bare cement walls and steel supports. But Dotty had gone to great lengths to make the lighthouse a home. Area rugs covered the bare cement floor and it was furnished in early American decor. Wood partitions separated the living room from the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom. At least half a dozen bookcases were visible from where they stood, all filled with old hardcover books. A large woodstove dominated one corner of the living room. A large antique chest was decorated with what were obviously treasured family photos. The sole pieces of modern technology visible were a CD player and strangely enough a cell phone, both plugged into a UPS running off a power outlet affixed to one of the steel structural supports. A generator could be heard from somewhere inside.

But what really drew one's eye were the dozens if not hundred of wildlife sketches and watercolors. They adorned every wall and brought color to even the darkest corners of the former lighthouse. They were the best that Dee had ever seen. Most of them were local birds and waterfowl, some deer and elk. But one of them just chilled her to the core to look at. It was a wraith stalking a great blue heron. It was a pencil sketch done with near photo quality and the moment was captured perfectly. The wraith was crouched low in the grass as the heron stood in seeming ignorance of its impending doom, but you could see that the eye had just flicked back and seen the otherworldly predator. It was like a frozen image on a TV and you expected that the next frame would be a violent flurry of activity as the heron took flight while the wraith lunged. Whether or not the heron got away remained to be seen.

Dotty crossed the room to the stove, opened the cast iron stove door and threw in a "Pine Mountain" fire starter log and a couple pieces of natural wood. Soon the woodstove was radiating a toasty warmth as Dotty bustled about setting up a pot of coffee for them before disappearing into the kitchen. She cheerfully cooked them a supper of roast duck, wild carrots and onions and bread with butter and cheese made from goat's milk.

Over dinner Dee told Dotty of the mission they were on, hoping that the old woman might have seen something from atop her light tower, but she had not.

The old woman was a bit peculiar, but Dee thought she would have fared far worse on her own for so many years. She pulled a couple of cots out and several blankets for them to use and left it up to the three of them to decide who would get the couch and who would get the cots. She even brought some blankets out for Bo and Duke.

Dee protested that they really had to get going, that they could not afford to tarry any longer than necessary.

"Nonsense!" the old woman proclaimed, "It's gonna get cold tonight and the old man you're after ain't gonna go too far tonight. You get some rest and in the morning we'll fix your rig up and set you on your way proper. No goin out half assed and gettin yourselves killed cause you wasn't properly set." She left no room for argument.

Technical Difficulties - again

2010-02-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

Been having computer problems this week so I am running behind on my story posts. Will get the next one up ASAP.

Land of Shadows: Chapter IV - Things That Go Moo In the Night

2010-02-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

They were arguing once again so of course no one saw the cow that had wandered out into the road until they were almost on top of it. They were crisscrossing the southern half of Manitowoc by this time and still had seen no sign of their quarry. There had been a few heat signatures, the larger ones they checked out, but anything smaller than a child they ignored. They had wasted a lot of time investigating feral dogs, raccoons and even a small black bear (which led to a rather hasty retreat).

The cow really had no business out wandering the streets. At this hour most self respecting cattle were asleep, huddled together for warmth and protection. So its sudden appearance in the road was totally unexpected. James was driving and yelling back over his shoulder to Allison as she manned the roof turret. Dee was trying to get some sleep on one of the two bunks in back. The cow materialized on the road and James panicked. He jerked the wheel hard to the right and the Volvo veered off the pavement, bounced through a ditch and across some railroad tracks before coming to a halt deep in a small pond that had formed between the tracks . Dee was thrown out of the bunk and was lucky enough to land on Allison's and James' packs rather than the ammo boxes. Allison heaved up hard against the inner rim of the gun turret hard enough to leave a technicolor band of bruises just under her left breast.

Alisson climbed out through the turret and slowly slid down the side of the Volvo realizing even as she did that it was a mistake. She was now waist deep in ice cold water, well not entirely. The mud was knee deep. She tried to climb back up but could not get her feet out of it. Bo and Duke had already launched themselves from the truck and were shaking themselves dry on the muddy bank of the muddy little pond. Dee emerged from the side door cursing ferociously. Muddy water was already flooding the interior as the Volvo sank deeper into the muck. She grabbed Allison by the arm and hauled her back into the vehicle. Her boots were left behind never to be seen again. The began arguing as soon as Allison was aboard.

They both realized at the same time something was wrong. Dee flew out of the truck and standing on the step bar opened the driver's door. James was still in the driver's seat, his thin frame crumpled over the steering wheel. At first Dee feared the worst, but she found a good strong pulse and he was still breathing.

Between her and Allison they were able to get him out of the Volvo and over to muddy ground. He was a little banged up but Dee didn't think he had any serious injuries. At least she hoped that he did not.

They hauled what gear they could out of the Volvo and set up camp.

"Now what the hell happened?" she asked and was surprised when James answered.

"Damn cow in the friggin' road!" he croaked out, shaking his head and wincing as if his brains were in danger of rattling out.

"A cow? Allison take Bo and Duke and check it out."

"But ... it's just a cow," she protested, not wanting to leave the warmth of the small tent they had set up.

"Are you that dim, you've gone out on dozens of hunts with Mr. Parsons and and have not picked up even the basic?!" She closed her eyes and took a few deep cleansing breaths to damp down the exasperation. "Domestic cattle don't survive separated from their herd unless ... "

"Unless they are infected." Allison finished, embarrassed at having to be reminded of something so basic. The wraiths would leave them alone until they popped and ordinary predators wouldn't touch them because they just didn't smell right. She exited the tent and called to the dogs standing watch just outside the feeble light of the fire they had built.

"Find the stinky wraith boys!" she ordered. The dogs sniffed about for a few moments, picked up a scent and headed out across the road with Allison close behind them. A few moments later gunfire echoed through the dead city. A total of seven shots rang out. Allison returned shortly afterwards. Dee had already waded out to the Volvo and retrieved one of the five gallon gas cans. The gas contained in the can had long since turned into turpentine but it was not going to be used as engine fuel. Allison took the can and headed back out. Bo stayed with Dee and Allison took Duke with her.

Half an hour later the glow of a bonfire could be seen to the east. It was really too damp to worry much about the fire spreading out of control.

Allison fed as much brush and dead wood into it as she could find. She knew she did not have to completely incinerate the cow, she just had to make sure that the remains got hot enough to kill off any embryos she missed. The smell was foul and she was positive that her clothes were going to smell like burned and rotting meat forever. Maybe she could find some replacements here in town. She was already going to have to replace her boots. She missed those boots. The moccasins she was wearing now would not be sturdy enough. And besides, without the extra two inches the boots gave her she felt really short.

The cold morning air carried the clacking sound of her sister banging away at their father's old typewriter. The sound carried with it a wave of nostalgia. The typing would go on for a few minutes, there would be a pause as she imagined her sister pausing so check her surroundings and make sure there were now nasties sneaking up on their camp. Not that Bo would let any get near without alerting her.

She was exhausted by the time she headed back to camp and the sun was already coming up.

She had checked in regularly with Dee and her older sister had nagged at her each time, but the relief she saw in her eyes when she finally walked back into camp told her that she had been worrying over her like a mother hen the whole time. She suddenly felt guilty for all the grief their impulsive actions had caused.

The old woman lifted the cast iron pot onto the old wood stove and threw a couple more pieces of wood in the fire. She stirred last nights stew one more time before heading up the stairs to the tower. Last nights supper would make a good early breakfast. It had been another sleepless night.

The lighthouse was a bit isolated, the only access without using a boat was the narrow breakwater that extended from the lighthouse 200 yards to the northeast to the man-made wetlands at the north of the harbor. The beasties would not cross it, particularly when the tide was up and the breakwater was just barely above water.

But it had its drawbacks too. It could get cold awful cold if she let the fire burn too low and there was nothing to break the wind when a storm was blowing.

The lighthouse was quite sturdy. The original lighthouse had been built on a sturdy steel frame, not even enclosed on the bottom half, but later a structure had been built around the main steel supports, the bottom half of which was concrete while the top half was steel with steel shutters over the windows. When she had found it, it had long been locked up by the Coast Guard, deemed obsolete and unneeded. But it suit her purposes quite well. Of course the light itself was long gone, leaving the tower empty. But there were no ships coming in to warn. The last ship to enter the harbor had been a derelict freighter that drifted in about six years ago. It had run aground on the southern breakwater. It was still there. The storm that had brought it in had battered it against the stone and concrete without mercy and it sank. The prow was still visible above the water.

She unscrewed the cap from her thermos and poured herself a cup of coffee before picking up the infrared binoculars she had picked up at a from a display at an Army recruiting office a few years ago. She looked out over the town scanning north to south. There were a few heat signatures out there. Mostly deer she suspected, but a few bulkier masses. Not a lot of activity yet, no like there would be come summer. She suddenly saw a flare of heat coming from the tracks down by the old bottling plant. The binoculars were good but it was over half a mile away. A smaller form separated out from the blaze of the fire. A person by the looks of it. He or she moved off a bit from the fire and then back several times apparently feeding the fire. A smaller heat source bounded back and forth. A dog to be certain. It had been a long time since she had talked to another living soul. She was aware of a settlement to the north, she had heard their radio broadcasts. But she had never been what you would call a "people person".

Maybe she would pay them a visit. She finished her coffee and made way once again down the stairs.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

p.s. sorry about the title for this chapter. it was late and i was tired.

Delay in Story Post yet Again : (

2010-02-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

I fully intended to get a story post up today, but it has been one of those days where one thing goes wrong after another. Had to take my sister to a doctor appointment that lasted twice as long as it should have. Completely lost the typed portion of my story so I will have to redo that and even if I had that in my hand and finished, my scanner is not on speaking terms with my computer. Will have it up tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

Keith

Story Update

2010-01-29T03:31:00.000-08:00

I would like to apologize to my readers for not having a story post up this week. Just been feeling rather wiped out this week. I will have one up on Monday. Promise.

Keith

Do We Really Need To Pretend We Still Like France?

2010-01-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

I knew it was coming. Somebody out there had to start criticizing the United States for helping out in Haiti.

And I was right.

It comes of course from an expected source. Alain Joyandet, France's International "Cooperation Minister". Joyandet (I will not grant him any honorifics) has accused the US of "occupying" Haiti. This from a country that raped Haiti for nearly a century, culminating in a bloody slave revolt in 1804. Joyandet also seems to have forgotten France's own occupation of Algeria from 1830 to 1962, or the occupation of Indochina from 1858 to 1954, an occupation that fractured the region and probably eventually led to the Vietnam War. Another item he forgot is America's role in pulling France's ass out of the fire in WWII. But schools in Europe are now de-emphasizing America's role in WWII, teaching that we only lent humanitarian aid and emphasizing the fact that the US was trying to remain neutral in the war. Never mind the millions of US soldiers that were killed in Europe.

This Joyandet asshole even physically attacked a US air traffic control official after a French plane was turned away because the Port-au-Prince airport was overtaxed and a safe landing was impossible. I suppose he would have blamed us if we had allowed the plane to land and it had collided with another plane killing all aboard and wasting billions of dollars in sorely needed resources. The plane was able to return safely the next day and land.

I figure it is just a matter of time before some dumb ass conspiracy theorists come forward and present "proof" that America somehow rigged the earthquake so we could gain control of Haiti.

It is times like this that I truly believe that the US should pull out of the UN and tell the rest of the world that they can just solve their own problems from now on. The US spends more in foreign aid than any other country and yet when we are in economic trouble the rest of the world points and whispers that we are just getting what we deserve.

I am not saying that the US is perfect, it is far from it. We are after all the youngest of the world powers. But we have come a long way in 234 years. My question to the rest of the world is this, how far have you come in this time and where would you be without the US? Be honest.

Keith

Land of Shadows: Chapter III - Hide & Seek

2010-01-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

Very much aware of the danger, Dee took a lantern up to the roof of the bar to signal to the twins as they approached. With no other lights on in town the glow of one small lonely lantern was easy to spot. They came down from the north east end of town, same as she had so she was sure that they had followed the same trail she had. But they had taken a Hell of a chance travelling at night, relying only on speed and night vision goggles to get safely through. It was foolishness such as this that proved in her mind that she was right to not invite them in the first place.

She got out her own night vision goggles to watch their approach. They were not using headlights as those would only draw further attention. The light source was not powerful enough for long distance in the active mode so she switched to enhanced passive. It gave her a headache if she used them too long, but at the rate they were coming it would not be long.

She watched the two fiery silhouettes wend their way through the streets, the motors of the bikes glowed white under them. A large red blob popped out of an alley just ahead of them and Dee shouldered her rifle but the angle was bad, she could not get a clean shot. It suddenly turned and she could make out its shape better. A thick chest and four spindly legs. She could not see the antlers but knew it was just a deer. It bounded over a derelict Toyota and quickly lost itself in another alley across the street. The twins did not even slow down. She lowered her rifle and began heading down.

She met them in the parking lot behind the bar. The three of them stood facing each other for a few tense moments without saying a word.

"You two dumb shits have no idea what you're getting yourselves into do you?"

"We just came to help! He was our father!" the girl shot back.

"Just cause he wasn't my blood don't mean he was not my father too! Now get those bikes loaded up on the truck."

"Are you taking us back?" the boy asked dejectedly.

"I don't know yet, either way, I want to be on the road before the sun comes up! There's wraiths out there so try to be quiet!" The two of them glanced about nervously before Dee barked an order at them to get moving and went inside. She went upstairs to get her gear and hesitated for a moment at the typewriter before setting down at the little writing desk.

She typed furiously for a while, got up looked out the window to check on the twins progress. She nodded and returned to her typewriter. She typed a couple more lines before taking she sheet out and adding to the notebook with her earlier writing.

She carefully returned the machine to its case and took everything down in to load in the Volvo.

"Get in the back of the truck" she ordered them. To top everything off she had forgotten bring her coffeepot so she was operating at a caffeine deficiency.

A wonderful aroma carried by a brisk morning air was coming from the open driver's side door of the Volvo. She peered inside and saw, sitting on the huge doghouse between the front seats was a small 4 cup coffee maker plugged into the inverter. The coffee was from a vacuum packed "brick" the twins had brought. She had no doubt this was intended as a bribe. Well it wouldn't work she told herself as she poured the steaming rich brown liquid into a stainless steel insulated cup. She would drink it, but she would not go easy on them. Not one damn bit.

"Ok, you can come along, but you do everything I say, don't make me regret letting you tag along, don't give me any shit!"

They grinned and quickly piled into the Volvo. Allison called shotgun and received no argument from James. At fourteen he was already 5 feet 10 inches tall and 115 pounds. He looked somewhat how she had always pictured Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow, and his lanky frame was somewhat crowded in the front seat. The radio gear in the Volvo was installed behind the front passenger seat, meaning it was permanently adjusted as far forward as it would go. The already limited legroom was diminished to the point where he would have been sitting with his knees crammed into the dash or wedged against the doghouse and passenger door. With their additional gear there was now barely enough room for two people to sleep back there. But that was ok with her. She fully intended for one of them to be awake at all times. Either driving or standing watch.

* * *

He had listened to the motorbikes coming into town from the manager's office of the motel he had found on the east end of Manitowoc. He had hoped to meet up with at least a small pod of slaves foraging in the area. He knew by smell there were some in town, perhaps even a nest nearby. But either they were just not aware of his presence yet or their masters were being too lax in discipline. There was also the possibility that they were group of unclaimed beasts, what the human vermin would call wolflings. If that were the case then it would be difficult to get what he wanted from them. But not impossible.

This body was getting too worn out to carry on much further. He was as disgusted by the physical weakness of this host as he was impressed by its strength of will. He knew it possessed the knowledge to get at least one of the many vehicles in the parking lot running, but would not let him at it. When he was not blocking him from it entirely he was leading him around in circles with distracting snippets of memories baiting him with tidbits of knowledge that on the surface seemed related but in actuality lead him down unrelated dead end paths. All of his other hosts had been much younger. Simple minded fools in comparison.

When his previous host had lain dying in that old drug store, the feeble old man had seemed an easy target. He had gone into the drug store looking for something to help preserve the host for just a few days longer. But the host had very little knowledge of pharmaceuticals and was nearly completely illiterate. Even had the host been a fully trained doctor and willing to help, it was too late. He again wished that he was able to take more knowledge from host to host. But really he was lucky to be able take basic language skills.

The old man had approached without apparent consideration for his own safety. He had been entirely too trusting. But the host was young, perhaps the youngest one he had ever been fortunate enough to stumble upon. And the humans were so compassionate about their young. The old man had apparently encountered his kind before and recognized the danger as soon as he got a good look at him. Or more likely it was the smell of the host's deteriorating body that alerted him. But by this time he was too close and too slow to react. The stinger had ripped through the belly and struck the old man just under the chin. In a matter of seconds he was paralyzed and ready for takeover. It was a frightening experience as always. He was so vulnerable at these times and so exposed. Though they had been in a sheltered spot it was still very cold and the frigid air sapped his strength. He almost did not make it in time.

Now in his current state there was no way he could hope to get ahead of them without help. But if he just laid low he could let them just slip past him in their hurry to find him. That would work just as well. He returned to the recliner in the motel office and pulled a blanket up over himself. Several dozen horribly stale candy bars were in a bag on his lap. They were nutritional voids but they would supply the host with simple fuel for energy to carry him a bit longer and that was all that mattered.

A short while later a scratching at the glass door alerted him to their presence. He could see the shadow of it looming just outside the door. He let it in because it was too stupid to figure out how to open it by itself. He groaned as he saw its gravid state. He had maybe three days with it.

There would be no others around, that was just the way it was. Not even the slaves were stupid enough to want to be around when juveniles first emerged to devour everything in sight. But he had learned a few things from the humans that would keep him alive during that initial feeding frenzy. He commanded the slave to stay where it was and searched out a cleaning supply closet and found what he needed there. Then he curled up on the floor with the pregnant wraith and went to sleep. Had someone walked into the motel lobby at that hour they would have been treated to a most disturbing image.

* * *

Dee was already in a foul mood when they left and spending two hours arguing on the radio with her mother did not improve her mood. But after searching the north side of Manitowoc all day with no sign of Mr. Fisher she was becoming more and more frustrated. She knew he could not have gone too far on foot. There had been other wraiths in the area and their scents were confusing the dogs. She decided to wait till after nightfall and do a search with the night vision goggles. She returned again to the bar she had camped in the night before and rest before resuming the search. One of the twins suggested something that she had already been considering. There was not a mechanic on Door island that was better than Mr. Fisher at getting an old rust bucket on the road again. The possibility existed that he was already a hundred miles away. If they hadn't found him by morning she would continue south and hope to pick up the trail again.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Running Late on Story Post

2010-01-18T06:08:00.000-08:00

I am running a little late on the story post this morning, will try to get it out this afternoon.

Feedback Wanted

2010-01-13T19:05:00.001-08:00

I have been putting story posts up here since May of last year. I have recieved a few positive comments which I appreciate very much. But so far these comments have mostly been from one person.

The comments have dried up over the last month and I am beginning to feel like I am talking to myself. I would love to get some feedback positive or negative, something to let me know that someone is at least reading it. Have I made a huge mistake taking my story in this new direction? Are the story posts too infrequent? Am I wasting my time?

Land of Shadows: Chapter Two - Unwelcome Company

2010-01-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

The day had dawned bright and clear, but clouds had begun rolling in from the southwest and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. The bridge was open and as she drove past the checkpoint she waved to Micheal Eastland. She smiled slightly at herself remembering the crush she used to have on Micheal. They were still good friends but he was married now and they had a little girl at home.

There was a line on the southeast end of the bridge. Returning hunters by the looks. Some she knew, some she did not. Little by little the town was growing.

She turned west onto Maple looking for any clue as to which way he could have gone. At the intersection of Madison she stopped the Volvo and got out. Of course Bo and Duke tried to get out but she ordered them to stay in the truck. The pavement was in pretty bad shape here, there was more pothole than road in fact. The mud held numerous tracks left by vehicles that had come through the intersection, but all sets were incoming save one remnant of a track. It was a big 4x4 too. A small glint of metal gleamed from one of the ridges formed by the deep tread of the tire. It was a small spiral of steel like something formed by a drill bit. Even at 94 he was the best diesel mechanic in town and was pretty good at metal fabrication, so with the help of a couple of younger assistants he was kept pretty busy in his shop. He was always covered in small metallic bits, and his truck, when not in use was parked right there in his shop.
She pulled out her walkie talkie and pressed the talk button.

"Hey, Mike, you were on the bridge Thursday right?" His response was hesitant and he sounded so embarrassed she truly felt sorry for him.

"Yeah. I didn't know what he had done, so I just let him through. I'm sorry, if I had known..." She interrupted him before he could continue cutting himself down.

"I just need to know if anyone else left heading south." She knew that a log was kept of all the people that came and went and the direction they were headed in case something happened and a search party needed to be sent out. She waited patiently there by the tracks. She could almost hear him rifling through the pages on his clipboard.

"No he was the only one. Said he was going to get some supplies from town and might be gone all day." Dee thanked him and turned off the radio before he could apologize again. The tracks turned south on Madison so she did too. The tracks quickly faded on dry pavement but every time he drove through a large pothole he left fresh tracks for her to follow.

* * *

They came to an abrupt and unexpected stop halfway between Two Rivers and Manitowec on Wisconsin 42. This stretch of the highway was also known as Memorial Drive as it ran along the lake shore. The view was breathtaking this morning but neither he nor his captor had paid it any attention. Jewels was experiencing a moment of satisfaction at his captors' consternation. The creature was beating at the truck with a crowbar in a blind fury. But the current situation was not the truck's fault, nor was it even the fault of the tree that had suddenly sprung up in the center of the highway. Things had been going too easy for the last few hours and it had not been paying attention like it should. This was quietly encouraged by Jewels.

Jewels had no real control of his own body anymore but if he worked real hard he could exert some influence or cause some distraction. He found that by bringing his attention to an itch between his shoulder blades he could magnify to proportions that the parasite could not ignore and it would be distracted until the opportunity to do something about it arose. Which is exactly what he had been doing just before the truck hit the maple tree that had just been a seed stuck in a crack in the pavement when most of the world population had checked out.

The truck had not been going more than twenty-five when it struck the tree, but that had been enough to destroy the truck. Only the fact that fastening the seat belt was was such an ingrained habit had prevented them from going through the windshield. Jewels found himself wishing they had been going faster. That would have ended things right there. They had been forced to exit on the passenger side because the driver's side door would not open. The buckled fender was butted up against the leading edge of the door. It would take more strength than the parasite could have forced out of Jewels' thin frame on the best of days to open the door. He was forced to climb from one bucket seat to the other and maneuver past the gear shift and and the shifter for the transfer case. Getting out of the truck he slipped and fell hard on the pavement.

During the parasite's subsequent tantrum against the innocent truck Jewels found that he had control of his voice.

"Are you going to be finished sometime soon?" he asked in a startlingly calm voice between what were becoming almost desperate gasps for breath. "For such a superior life form you have an amazing short temper." This only renewed his unwelcome guests rage and he smashed out what was left of the windshield and knocked off the mirrors. Jewels could feel his blood pressure raising at an alarming rate. He could picture his escalating heart rate as a car's tachometer, the needle getting dangerously close to red line. He wondered how much goading it would take to push it over the top. What would a stroke feel like?

"You maggots are nothing without someone else to carry your stinking broods. You build nothing and destroy everything you touch."

"Shut up old man!" his voice screamed. Jewels thought he had touched a nerve and continued.

"You're vermin, ugly, filthy and stupid, no imagination, why the fuck we're so scared of you I just don't understand. You are cast offs you live like cockroaches in swarming over a shitpile ... "

"Shut up you old Fuck!!!" his voice shouted, barely recognizable. Jewels could feel the rage flowing from the parasite. It was squirming inside him, churning in his belly. He thought maybe he might have a chance. Piss the thing off enough to blow a gasket. But suddenly the rage just evaporated and it reasserted control.

Jewels could only sit there helplessly as it restored his full sensory inputs. He was suddenly aware of the pain in his joints, his hips. He realized how seriously neglected the stump of his leg had become. Ulcers had formed between his stump and the prosthetic. If not taken care of soon the infection would require that the rest of his leg be cut off. But then he realized that the parasite had just a little more planned for him. He watched in horror as his left hand laid itself on the cab of the truck, his arthritic fingers making a fist but with the pinky extended just over the edge of the passenger side doorway. The right arm reached out, grabbed the door and slammed it viciously. Jewels screamed. This time it was fully his own cries of pain he was hearing.

Having no choice but to proceed on foot he limped off to the southwest. If his leg held out he would make it to Manitowoc before dark.

* * *

Dee pulled up alongside the wrecked truck feeling grieved and relieved at the same time. She fully expected to find his dead body slumped behind the wheel. But the truck was vacant. She carefully examined the scene. Very little made sense about it. The damage to the truck was extensive, but a lot of it was unrelated to the accident. A crowbar lay across the hood. Somebody had just really wailed on the truck. Jewels was not really known for having a temper, but then again he was not really known for turning on his best friends and killing them either. She tried to open the driver side door and found it jammed. Crossing to the passenger side she opened the door and gasped at the sight of the blood spattered on the door frame. A mashed little finger fell out of the door to the crumbled pavement. She felt suddenly ill. She was not normally a squeamish person but this was a special case.

There were no other tracks about and her adversary was not in sight so he must have left on foot. The blood was dried so several hours at least had past. But he was on foot so was losing his head start advantage. She went back to the Volvo and let Bo and Duke out. She gave them a scrap of one of Jewels old jackets for the scent and let them out to sniff the area. Bo was confused at first and Duke was totally lost. The parasitic wraith had changed Jewels' scent and it was throwing the dogs off. She led Bo over to the blood spattered door. He sniffed around a bit at first then began heading southwest as she expected.

She drove into Manitowoc as if expecting to be ambushed at any second. But she did not see any sign of him. 'Too much to hope for that he might have crawled off somewhere and quietly expired' she thought to herself and immediately felt guilty for it. Once again she wished that this task had not fallen on her.

It was five thirty when she entered town so she started looking for a place to hole up for the night. Navigating through towns was tricky enough in daylight. As well has having to maneuver around abandoned vehicles in the road, there was crumbling pavement, occasional trees growing up where they had no business being and areas where the road had collapsed entirely. At night it could be impossible. But Maritime Drive was relatively clear. At least until it abruptly ended at 10th Street. Three trucks had piled up at the intersection. Only the fact that one of them had collided with a south bound cement truck on tenth had kept them from tearing through the chain link fence alongside 10th and continuing on into the river.

She idled there for a moment considering her options. The intersection was blocked completely.
The bar caught her eye. It was on a sturdy looking two storey brown brick building at the corner on the north side. The awning served as the bar sign and half of it was missing so it simply read "Bar". The windows on the first floor were all barred and most of the glass was intact on this side. It looked to be as good a place as any for her to spend the night. She backed up and pulled into the parking lot on the east side. There was a long covered porch along on this side with four doors that opened up onto it. They all proved to be locked. She let Bo and Duke out again.
"Check it out boys." she ordered, and the dogs quickly began sniffing about the building. She circuited the building with them, a shotgun cradled in her arms. But the dogs never hit on any suspicious scents. She paused at the front door of the bar, trying to peer inside past the bars and the dust but could see nothing. The door was locked, the bar had not been open yet. She sighed and pulled out her lock picks. She could pick a lock but would never have been able to make a living as a thief. After five minutes the lock finally gave up, she felt it was more in sympathy than because of her skills. She was just glad old Bill Parsons was not around to see how long it had taken her, or Heaven forbid, the twins. Either one of them could pick most locks in less than thirty seconds.

Bars were usually good, secure havens and she had often camped in them when out scavenging. They have easily secured points of entry and few windows. This one was pretty much as she pictured it from outside. The bar counter had polished marble top with oak panelled sides and brass rails and fittings. The beer taps were either antique or reproductions. A mirror covered the wall behind the bar so the bartender could keep one eye on the patrons at all times. Bottles and glasses stood in neat rows on the shelves behind the bar. A stage towards the rear served for live band performances or Karaoke nights. Tables and booths provided the seating. Sixteen years of dust covered everything.

But that just made the one clean spot on the counter stand out from the rest. She slowly spun around expecting to see Jewels standing behind her with a crowbar, ready to cave in her skull like he had done to her Daddy. But there was no one there. She felt slightly silly for scaring herself. Bo and Duke would have let her know if anyone were here. There were boot prints on the dusty hardwood floor but they were not fresh. A few weeks or months maybe. And the "clean" spot on the counter was the same. A Crown Royal bottle and a single shot glass stood sentinel on the counter there. The bottle was about three quarters full. She hoped that the bar's one remaining regular customer would not choose tonight to visit his favorite pub.

She searched the building and finding it secure decided it would be a good place to camp for the night. She unloaded some essential gear and supplies from the Volvo. There was a large studio apartment on the second floor. The bed was not too dusty. Stairs led up to a door opening onto the roof. She retrieved a pair of binoculars from her pack downstairs and surveyed the area.
The sun had gone down by this time, it was a cool night. The air was crisp and clear. No street lights or stadium lights to soften the falling darkness. Stars shone by the millions, possibly billions she thought. Anyone that had grown up before the disappearance would look at the sky in wonder. For decades man had been losing the stars to the growing city lights. But to Dee it had been like this ever since she could remember. It was beautiful, yes, but it was a beauty she sometimes took for granted. The moon was about 3/4 full so there was enough light to see the creature moving around about a block away. It was big and shadowy and it moved in absolute silence. It did not seem to be alert to her presence, but she would have to be quiet. Where there was one, there would be others. She rechecked the lock and the basement. There was very little she could do to secure the Volvo any more than it already was so she just left it. She would trust the dogs to alert her to any dangers. She looked over to the streamlined silver case and briefly considered banging out a journal entry. It was so tempting. As never before she felt the need to have that connection with her father, but she determined that it would just be too dangerous at this time.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Land of Shadows: Chapter One - Goodbyes

2010-01-04T05:00:00.003-08:00

Portions of this story will be published as typecasts. These are typed pages that have been scanned into the computer as an image file. These are crucial to the story and should be read in the order they are published. I was having problems getting them to load right but figured it out. Just click on the image and a full size image of the page will be displayed.

The sound of typing, tentative at first, but with growing intensity echoed through the quiet and street. The few people that passed the old house stopped for a moment as if hearing a familiar song, one that brought back pleasant memories of happier times. Occasionally a passerby would stop and look towards the house as if considering climbing the stairs and knocking on the door, but none did. On the covered front porch were a few boxes and a some large envelopes of the type used for greeting cards, sympathy cards in this case. There were even a few wreaths made from local wildflowers as well as some Peace Lilies that could only have come from a greenhouse.

Of all the houses on the street it was one of only three that was not covered in drifts of dead leaves. New shingles showed where the roof had been patched in several places. The house itself looked to have been sorely neglected in the past, but unlike its neighbors it was in the process of being repaired. And fortified. Broken windows were boarded up and heavy new shutters had been installed on all the first floor windows. Thick steel bars covered the basement all windows like cages. New boards stood out in sharp contrast from the more weathered lumber of the porch itself and the steps were all new. A faded real estate sign leaned against the front wall of the house.

The inside of the house was simply decorated, almost spartan. The hardwood floors had recently been sanded and refinished and the walls bore a fresh coat of paint. The overhead fixtures gave no bright warm glow, they were dead reminders of a dead era. The rooms were instead lit by candles and oil lamps. The sound of the typing came from an upstairs bedroom, the room was bare of all furnishings save a single office chair, a small propane heater and a grey steel typing stand. It had two sections that would fold down at the sides when not in use, but at the moment both sides were up. On the left side was a stack of fresh 8 1/2 by 11 inch printer paper. On the right side was a large insulated mug of hot cocoa spiked heavily with DeKuyper's Buttershots. If one were to be as rude as to read over her shoulder one would notice many errors at first but as the reader progressed through the page the errors became less frequent.

Between the stack of paper and the spiked hot cocoa, there was a much used Olympia typewriter, burgundy and cream colored with chrome trim. It had been considered a relic from the past long before the disaster that turned the rest of the world into a ghost town, but it still worked like its designers intended. Sitting in front of the typewriter was young woman with blond hair and grey eyes. She had a slim athletic build and obviously spent a lot time outdoors. She was dressed comfortably in a flannel shirt and sweat pants, her shirt was unbuttoned revealing what some might take to be a sloppy appendectomy scar on her abdomen. Big fuzzy bunny slippers kept her feet warm. Though the rest of the room was a little too warm from the propane heater, the floor was cold. Her eyes were red from recent crying and as she reached the end of the page and read what she had typed fresh tears began to flow.

Her full name was Delores H. Mason, but even her adopted father did not know what her middle initial stood for. Not that it really mattered.

She pulled the typed sheet from the machine and slipped it into a folder. It was to be the first of many typed pages to go into her journal. She closed the typewriter case and crossed the room to the propane heater. It had a larger twin downstairs. The burn was clean enough that no venting was required and a built in carbon monoxide detector would theoretically alert her to a problem, but she didn't trust it enough to leave it burning unattended. She carried it into the master bedroom but did not bother to light it again before burrowing under the thick quilts piled on top of the bed.
In one fluid motion the dart was pulled from her wrist sheath and flipping through the air. The red and black bug was pinned to the window frame with an audible twang. She decided to just leave it there till morning.

* * *

With his headstart he felt that he could afford a few moments to rest and pulled the truck off the road. The thing had once been been a much loved and respected member of the community,but those days were over. He knew what he had been forced to do had condemned him, but there was no going back. He again tried in vain to regain control. His deeply lined face was pale and contorted in agony for a few moments reflecting the internal struggle. For a long time he sat there in rigid silence. Suddenly his face lit up in triumph as one gnarled arthritic finger, then another released their grip on the steering wheel. Then with a scream he threw himself across the bench seat of the old truck sobbing. After a few moment he straightened himself up in the seat.

"Nice try old man. You're strong, I'll give you that. Don't worry, I'll only need you for a little while longer, once I find a stronger host you won't be needed any longer." The voice was without emotion and the face was a dead mask, but if one were to peer into his eyes they would see black pools of despair.

The monster put the truck in gear and once again headed down the road. Fatigue was irrelevant. He had to get back to the nest soon.

* * *

She awakened in a tangle of blankets. Her alarm clock would not be going off for another hour hours, the sun would not be up for another two. She felt like an old sweat sock and soon realized that she smelled like one too. It had been a restless night. She threw some more wood into the firebox of the makeshift water heater she had built. The whole system was gravity fed and supplied through the rainspouts. She had about half an hour before the water was hot enough for a shower. Just long enough to fix herself breakfast.

At first glance her kitchen appeared to be very modern, save the antique cast iron wood stove which stood where a stainless steel range with glass cook top had been. On closer examination the old wood stove was actually one of the few functional appliances in the kitchen. A small generator in the basement kept the refrigerator upstairs and a chest freezer in the basement going. They were the only things she was willing to spend her fuel rations on.

But this morning she didn't even bother cooking, just fixed herself a cold sandwich and large insulated mug of coffee.

After showering and dressing she left the house in a somewhat baggy pair of camouflage pants, a black sweatshirt, boots and an old Army jacket. The camo pants had a lot of pockets and all of them were packed with the necessary items. Like everyone on the island she never went anywhere unarmed. She was carrying two incendiary grenades, one fragmentary grenade, a small bottle of windex, a very nice Gil Hibbon Wilderness Survival knife that had been a present from her father, a small first aid kit, a Metaba Model 6 Unica autorevolver and a Beretta 9mm. One of the reasons this island was so secure was that anyone over twelve had a gun and knew how to use it. Any suspicious looking animals were shot on sight and checked out by Dr. Cooper or one of her assistants.

She kicked the starter on the old Honda motorbike she used around the island. It would not do for her hunting trip. The Honda started with its normal cloud of blue smoke. Its two stroke engine was about used up, the reed valve was leaking and the rings were worn. Perhaps she would let Mr. Parsons fix it up for her while she was gone. She crossed town to her parents house and parked the bike around back.

Like most of the early post disappearance settlers of the island, her adoptive parents choice of dwelling was more dependent on security and defence than comfort and convenience. It was a concrete block building with steel gates over the doors and windows. It used to be a business But as the island became more secure, additions were made. Like the covered deck on the side of the building that dominated half of what had been a parking lot. Her father used sit out there on summer evenings enjoying a cool breeze. Emily would sit at his feet, dutifully alerting him to any pending visitors or trespassing squirrels.

Emily was out on the porch this morning, sleeping in her accustomed place at her father's now vacant chair. At the approach of the familiar Honda she opened her eyes and struggled to her feet. Like most big dogs, the years tended to weigh heavily on her. She was arthritic and slow to get moving, but her eyes were still bright and alert. She probably should not have spent the night out on the deck but Beverly had not been able to get her to come in that night. She had run a small space heater outside so that Emily would not get too cold.

The big dog so wanted to go bounding across the lot to greet Dee, but no longer had to ability. It was sometimes heartbreaking for Dee to watch her childhood companion struggle so. Bo and Duke however did come bounding out to greet her. They were Emily's latest and last puppies. They were no longer puppies though, being three years old.

Beverly came out so see what the commotion was about and smiled at the sight of Dee on her knees wrestling with the two Rottweilers. The smile quickly faded. She knew why Dee was coming. She also knew that despite all her arguments to the contrary Dee would be leaving to hunt down her father's killer. She did not object to him being hunted down. It was necessary and inevitable. She just did not want this unpleasant duty to fall upon Dee. But she knew that she would be giving Dee everything she asked for no matter how much she disagreed.

She surprised herself when Dee asked the expected favors by simply reaching into her pocket and pulling out the key to the Volvo.

"Take Bo and Duke with you. They are the best dogs your father ever trained. I don't know if they are as good as Emily, but they can track a wraith better than any dog on the island."

"Are the twins around?" Dee asked glancing about as if expecting to be ambushed.

"No, I sent them to stay at Stacy's for the next couple of days."

"That's probably a good idea." If anyone on the island could keep the twins in line it was Stacy. In the early days after the disappearance she had found and successfully cared for toddler on her own for several months and even after joining the group she was very self sufficient.

Dee performed a quick, but complete check of the Volvo before pulling it out of the garage. Depending on when they grew up most people think of Volvos as either boxy family oriented sedans and stationwagons, or sleek new, Eco friendly cars. This fell into neither category. The Volvo C303 was a Swedish military off-road vehicle and while it was boxy in the extreme, it was not a family grocery getter. Its Mercedes built diesel had been replaced by a propane powered, turbocharged Chevy V8. A roof mounted turret would accommodate a wide variety of guns and all the glass had been replaced by one in thick bullet resistant plexiglass. A hitch mounted cargo rack would carry whatever gear would not fit inside the vehicle.

She spent a couple of hours packing things into the back of the Volvo. Food, ammo, a few changes of clothes. She hesitated for a moment upstairs and at the last minute decided to take the typewriter with her. She secured it in its case and grabbed an unopened ream of paper. She took one last glance in her room before shutting her door. Beverly had promised that the twins would come by and make sure the house was taken care of.

The small dart pinning the bug to the wall was left forgotten. The acidic fluids from the bug's foul body would in the days to follow severely etch the thin blade and stain the wood window frame. Dee would cuss herself for her carelessness afterwards.

She was unaware of two pairs of eyes watching her as she headed for the Oregon Street Bridge.

© 2010 R. Keith McBride

Chrysler has betrayed U.S all

2009-12-31T09:20:00.000-08:00

I just read a story on AOL autos that I find disturbing. Chrysler has announced that they have no intention of repaying the massive government bail-outs that were given to them at tax payers expense. Their reasoning. They never received those loans. Those loans were given to the "Old Chrysler" company which is in bankruptcy. But after Chrysler received these loans, they formed a "New Chrysler" company to continue operating under and that if America wants to collect on those debts then they will have to go after the "OldCar Co." While to some this may look like savvy business practice, to me this is more reminiscent of a snake shedding its skin.

In doing this Chrysler has voided all public trust. I would never buy from a company that is so morally and ethically bankrupt. I would not trust them to do business in an honorable manner or stand behind the products they sell.

I would urge every employee of the "New Chrysler Corporation" to demand that the management do the right thing. For them to continue on this path is shortsighted and stupid and will eventually lead to the downfall of the company which will mean more unemployed autoworkers.

On the flipside GM is announcing that it will not only repay the dept, but do it earlier than anticipated and will once again be able to sell stock to the public in 2010. They have an aggressive payment schedule and will be presenting the government a $1 billion dollar payment before the end of this year and repay the remaining 5 billion by the middle of next year.

So which company would you feel comfortable purchasing a car from. A company that is making a strong effort to repay its debts or one that is trying to hide behind some legal loopholes and screw the American taxpayers (you).

Keith

Link to the story on AOL.

http://autos.aol.com/article/chrysler-gm-bailout-repayment?icid=mainhtmlws-main-ndl5link4http%3A%2F%2Fautos.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fchrysler-gm-bailout-repayment#writewrite

Story Update

2009-12-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

For those following my story, I am working on it as fast I can.

Expect some big changes at the beginning of the year.

For starters I will no longer be posting on a daily basis, at least not until tax season is over. We have no baby sitter this year and I will be watching the kids at home. This means I will be severely curtailing business operations and may not have time to write as often as I would like.

There will most likely only be one story post a week and story posts will be up on Mondays. But the posts will be longer than previous posts and I may be able to post extra installments on occasion.

As for the story itself ... expect a lot of changes. Life, death and betrayal, and that is just the first chapter.

Christmas

2009-12-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

I seriously meant to post some kind of Christmas greeting yesterday, but so busy. It was a much better Christmas than I expected. It has been a brutal year and a December has been doing its best to get in a few last minute digs before surrendering. We lost my mother in law in late November, my oldest friend lost his wife of twenty years, quite suddenly, just a few days before Christmas. My wife's cousin lost her husband on Christmas day. No warning at all, she tried to wake him up from a nap and he was gone. Just like that.

And the flu has made its rounds in my house this week. Persistent bug too. I rarely get sick and this one had me floored for a day.

And now here I am trying to wish my readers a Merry Christmas and I screw that up and miss posting it.

But despite everything, it was a good, Christmas. That day, when our family was together and we were able to set our troubles momentarily set aside and just enjoy one another's company. But I will be praying that 2010 is much better than its predecessor.

Keith

Story update ... again

2009-12-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

I have been working on the next book in this story. In reviewing the unposted material written so far, I determined it all to be complete and utter crap. I have scrapped it and am starting over. So far the new material is flowing much better and looks to coming along well.

Comments are now open to all.

2009-11-30T20:10:00.000-08:00

I have changed the settings to allow anyone to leave comments. Unfortunately, as I have learned on another blog I run, this will necessitate me having to moderate the comments. I have had to intercept SPAM comments and SPAM porn and other undesirable content.

We Miss You Millie

2009-11-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

The woman woke up in a garden. It was lush, almost tropical. Peaceful and comfortable. She turned her head to take in her surrounding, expecting even as she did so for the action to bring a wave of nausea and pain. But she did not know why she expected this. A dim memory of being in pain for such a long time rose up, but it was faint and elusive. She dismissed it as unimportant. The bed of clover she had awakened was cool and sweet smelling. She almost felt guilty for falling asleep on it. She reflexively used a nearby stone bench to pull herself up on, realizing as soon as she stood up that she needed no help. Even before she had gotten sick she would have needed help to stand ... sick? Had she been ill? Again she just could not remember. She gazed in wonder at her hands now. They looked so young. In fact she felt like a teenage girl again.

She decided to explore this marvelous place. A small path meandered through the shrubs and flowerbeds. A rose bush caught her eye and she stopped to smell them. She had always been allergic to roses, but knew these would be safe, they were so pretty and smelled wonderful.

A small dog trotted down the path towards her. He was a friendly little thing and she recognized him instantly, but he had been dead for ten years now. He stood at a bend in the path and barked once at her before trotting back up the path. She followed him and came to a small courtyard. The floor was brick and there was a wrought iron table in the center with matching wrought iron chairs. A young man and a small red haired girl were sitting at the table. The man was drinking from a tall glass of iced tea while the little girl ate cookies. The girl was giggling and her laughter was quite infectious.

The little girl suddenly turned and spoke to the newcomer, "Nammaw, you're here!" she dropped her cookie, which the little dog eagerly scooped up. The child ran to her and she scooped her up hugging her, for she knew instantly who the child was. Her first granddaughter. The one that had fought so hard, but passed so young.

"She's been waiting for you just forever. We all have." her brother told her smiling. She could see her other two brothers just coming down the path into the courtyard.

She suddenly knew where she was.

A voice powerful as thunder yet gentle as whisper spoke to her.

"Welcome home Millie."

My mother in law passed away around 2 am this morning.

She will be missed here.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

I would like to take some time to say a few things about the Thanksgiving. Too often it is easy to lose track of what the holiday is all about. There is all the cooking to be done, the preparations to be made, not to mention holiday parades, sporting events and other distractions. So many people have begun to think of Thanksgiving as just a signal to begin getting ready for Christmas. Too few of us actually take to the time to reflect on what the day is all about.

This year promises to be less than festive for my family. We are preparing to lose a beloved member of our family. My mother in law, a woman whom I have never heard utter an unkind word to or about anyone, who always made anyone in her house feel welcome and who I actually got along with better than my own mother, is enduring the final stages of pancreatic cancer. She is not expected to make it through the week. Every time I hear the phone ring I am afraid that it will be bringing the sad news of her passing.

But I am wanting to focus on the things I have to be thankful for this year.

I am thankful for having a roof over my head.

I am thankful for a wife that I love and who loves me in return and has stood by me for 20 years.

I am thankful for my two healthy children (even when trying to wrestle them into a bath)

I am thankful for every second I got to spend with our firstborn daughter and being able to hold her when she passed.

I am thankful that the doctor who told me I had a brain tumor was wrong.

I am thankful that after 10 years of using a cane, God saw fit to heal my knee and I no longer need that stupid cane.

I am thankful that it looks like there may soon be a cure for for Multiple Sclerosis.

I am thankful for my few loyal readers and the support they have offered.

There are really so many things I have to be thankful for that I do not believe I could ever list all of them. I am even thankful for the hardships in my life because they have helped to bring me to where I am now.

I would invite my readers to comment on what they are most thankful for this year.

In closing I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Story Update - again

2009-11-24T21:20:00.000-08:00

I have been working on the next book in this story and I think that I will be ready to begin posting again January 1st. I have already scheduled the first two installments and should have at least a months worth of posts ready to go by the time the first one is posted.

Story Update

2009-11-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

I would like to thank my few loyal readers and assure them that the story will continue. But I will be taking my time on the next story posts. I feel that quality was sacrificed too often in this first book in the interest of getting a new post up every day. I would like to take my time with future writing and get a little ahead so I don't feel as pressured. I am still enjoying writing this and do not want that to end. I am also working on a couple of parallel stories with a whole new set of characters.

Dead Land Journal April 19th 2028

2009-11-23T09:18:00.000-08:00

Today marks the one year anniversary of the disappearance. It passed without fanfare or celebration. It was a day like any other Spring day.

Kyle flew me up to Beaver Island Monday morning. We landed in St. James Bay and tied off at a small private boat dock. Elliot Marshall met us there and I was surprised to find him in a wheel chair. He never mentioned it but really I suppose why should he? I don't introduce myself to total strangers by saying 'Hi, I have Multiple Sclerosis'. As first responder to the scene of a house fire it fell on him to rescue a girl from a second floor bedroom. Not exactly by the book, but what was he supposed to do, let her burn? The closest firetruck was still ten minutes out. She would be dead by then. As a reward for his efforts, he took a bullet in the back. He never did find out why the girl's father shot him since the house collapsed on the man seconds after he pulled the trigger. It does make his survival all the more impressive. Even before the disappearance it was not easy for a wheelchair bound person to get around. But he does not complain.

He led us back to his van, a very well equipped vehicle with a ramp, lift and handicap controls. He does not even have to get out of his chair to drive it. He just wheels up to the steering wheel and a pair of clamps engage on the chair to hold it in place. There was a woman in the van waiting for him. There was a rifle with scope leaning near her seat and I have no doubt that she had it trained on Kyle and I during our introduction. She introduced herself as Meridith and even after we shook hands I got the impression that we were still on probation in her eyes. I imagine that there was quite an argument between her and Elliot over whether or not she would accompany him down to the boat dock to meet us. She seems rather protective of him.

It was a short drive to the hotel they are staying in. It overlooks the bay on King's Hwy. They have power, water and food. We met several of the survivors and they all seemed friendly and in good health. But Elliot tells me their fuel is in short supply. Meridith looked somewhat disapproving at Elliot for revealing this to us. Beaver Island was never heavily developed or populated, so there just was not a lot of fuel on the island. And a lot of what there was on the island was lost to heaters being left on after the islands inhabitants were gone. They are in the midst of setting up a steam generator. The island is about twelve miles long six wide, mostly forested so wood is abundant.

I still have my doubts about how clean the island is of wraiths.

I did come away with a few ideas for trade. I think we could trade fuel for venison and other fresh meats from time to time. Of course I plan on restocking Door Island with deer. We just need to capture some live, make sure they're clean and release them on the island. We can also trade salvaged manufactured items since that is also something they do not have in great supply.
All in all, I think we made the right decision in founding our own community here rather than joining theirs.

We returned late afternoon yesterday. There was a large turnout for our return. Kyle put the plane down in the bay and we were met at the dock by Katherine. I was surprised when she had us submit to a scan with the ultrasound. Mike was even standing by with rifle ready to shoot us if we refused. It was very unnerving and I experienced a certain empathy for those we had subjected to this indignity. But I relented as I recognise the necessity. She pronounced us clean and Mike heaved sigh of relief.

We did mark the anniversary occasion by announcing that we were opening the town of Sturgeon Bay up for settlement. There has been a sudden exodus from the freighter as people have been gone out house hunting.

Many of the old conventional ideas of what make a good home are no longer valid. Instead looking at how many bedrooms, bathrooms and such, we find ourselves thinking in terms of 'how well can this place be defended? Is there anyplace where they can get in? And are there adequate escape routes in case they do get in?' So instead of considering the two story Colonial across the street, Beverly and I are looking at a former business location on 2nd and Nebraska. It has a large retail floor space and a huge garage. The building is of concrete block construction and only has two large windows, those have a heavy stainless steel mesh roll up gates that cover them. The three doors are all heavy steel and it would take a battering ram to get through them. There is plenty of room for us and Dee. I will be installing solar panels on the roof this spring to power the place and a wood burning stove for heat come winter. I will also have to lay in a supply of firewood. It is going to be a busy year.

It will feel strange to live in a separate house again. You get used to the sounds of other people snoring in neighboring rooms, getting up in the middle of the night and muttering on their way to the john (yes I mean you Jewels).

Of course due to events on back on the 9th we postponed our wedding. But we rescheduled it for the 22nd. That will be this Saturday. Beverly is frantically planning and has enlisted the aid of all the womenfolk.

I am beginning to think there is real hope for the future and I think now is as good a time as any to wrap up this journal. As I close the book on this year I realize that there are still so many unanswered questions, but that is life. I will continue to keep a journal but it will be continued in a separate volume. Right now I need to concentrate on my family.

By the way, one other thing I forgot to mention, Beverly is pregnant. She just told me this morning. Have not been able to wipe this silly grin off my face all day.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Sorry, No Story Post

2009-11-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

I was not able to get a story post in this weekend. Too busy to sit down and write. Will get one up by this afternoon.

Dead Land Journal April 16th 2028

2009-11-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

There are a few new faces around here this evening. We got a radio call this morning from a group of people wanting to join out little community. We readily accepted.

Katherine, Billy and I met them at the bridge. There were a few uncomfortable moments as we explained the conditions under which we would allow them onto the island. Our requirements were really quite simple. Everyone was required to submit to an abdominal ultrasound.

Absolutely no exceptions.

There was one man that flatly refused on religious grounds until he realized that he would be left on the other side of the bridge alone and would be shot on sight if he crossed without permission. But it was really his pregnant wife that convinced him. She just simply walked back across the dividing line on the bridge to stand with her husband. He looked down on her eight month belly and sighed. He decided that he would not risk his wife and unborn child's safety for his religious beliefs.

Katherine has recently found an old Vscan handheld ultrasound she was eager to try out. It's rather big for a handheld unit, about the size of one of the original flip style cell phones. But it is pretty rugged. She took each person into a large van parked on the island side of the bridge and spent a few minutes examining them. Each person came back looking somewhat relieved but the pregnant woman was smiling and crying at the same time, so I guess she got some good news or at the very least an absence of bad news.

The total count was three women and four men and thirteen year old boy. He is already checking out Stacy. I am going to have to keep an eye on that. The adults seem eager to join in the community and each one has asked what they can do to help. So I have set some to patrolling and set up a guard on the bridge. The others are out gathering canned goods. The houses and other buildings we have already checked are all marked with a "X" painted on the front doors. The doors are locked up and the keys are in the mailbox. Any houses with broken windows are left unmarked as they cannot be guaranteed safe. Those foraging are ordered not to go into any building that has not already been marked or has any broken windows.

Right now things are going well enough that I am planning to have Kyle fly me up to Beaver Island. It is just a little over a hundred miles so it won't take long. Looking forward to meeting Elliot and seeing how they are set up, maybe get a few ideas.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal April 14th 2028

2009-11-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

We have have killed three of the wraiths by luring them into a trap baited with several dozen small, live animals in cages. We set up at Louisiana St and Co. Rd B. There are or were several restaurants in that area and with no one running them the rat population has flourished. I figured that they would be drawn to that area. They seem somewhat stupid and could not resist the easy prey. Billy and Mike were laying in wait nearby and shot them as they approached. The bodies were quickly carried away so as not to reveal the trap.

The three juvenile wraiths were immediately taken to Katherine for examination. But I suppose that terminology is no longer truly accurate. These are different from the first wraith Katherine dissected. These are the first full term wraiths she has had to examine. They eat a lot and grow very fast, but she says they will never achieve the full size of an adult wraith. She now says there are two classes of wraiths. The lesser wraiths and the Masters.

The lesser wraiths are sterile, stunted things. Their reproductive organs are virtually non-existent, their fore claws are much smaller making their hands much more useful at grasping and their venom is much less potent. Their brains are not as developed as the masters.
She is still trying to puzzle some things together. Not the least of which is Mr. Tyler. Katherine says that he most likely has a mutated wraith controlling him. If it has the ability it will look for another host and other than us there are no animals on the island that fit that bill.

I have given Billy the go ahead to blow the other two bridges and raise the Oregon Street Bridge. I will also have him take care of some small boats that are jammed up in the southeast end of the canal. I don't want them using those to cross over into our territory.

I strongly suspect that Mr. Tyler has left the island though. I really don't know what is going on with him, but if he has any intelligence whatsoever he will realize that we will shoot him on sight. I want him killed by whatever means necessary. I know Katherine will want to examine him but if it comes to a choice between completely incinerating him and letting him go I will sweep up the ashes and give them to Katherine myself.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal April 9th 2028

2009-11-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

I am sitting her staring at the new typewriter Beverly found for me and wondering how to even begin. It seems a shame to start out a new machine with such a tragic entry, but this deserves a real machine, not some lifeless electronic thing. It's a nice typewriter too. A burgundy Olympia portable with a rather aerodynamic case reminiscent of the streamlined cars of the early 50s. I actually like it better than my old Smith Corona, may it rest in peace.

But I guess I had better get down to business.

I was right about Mr. Tyler in one respect. There was something horribly wrong with the whole situation. I was assuming that he was molesting those kids even though I saw no evidence of it. All I had were vague suspicions and a general sense of unease. Finally this morning I decided to do something about it. We had not seen him or the children outside the house they had take residence in for three days. I dragged Katherine out of the lab she is setting up in one of the smaller holds and took her with me. I figured that if the kids were really sick she would be needed.

The bus was parked in front of the corner house Mr. Tyler had taken residence in on County Road B and 6 th Ave. It was was the type of Victorian house that looked to be the inspiration for countless doll houses and fairy tales. But I doubt that was the reason for Mr. Tyler selecting it. The house was an old house, very solidly built and had large fireplace and coal pellet furnace. Very well suited to current conditions.

And it was just crawling with red and black wraith bugs.

They were all over the big covered front porch, exterior walls and the roof. Katherine took one look at the house and pulled out a small bottle of Windex and began to douse her cloths with it. I followed her example then took out a large hand pump sprayer I had filled with the stuff shortly after Katherine had demonstrated how effective it was. I dreaded going in there but really we had no choice.

I sprayed a path clear on the porch, being very careful to spray above us as well. The front door was locked. This should have been a bit of a surprise but it wasn't. No one answered when we called or knocked so I broke the window and sprayed the area around the door knob. Once inside we found that the house was actually somewhat clear of the bugs. They seem to be leaving en mass. There was a stench in the house of rotten meat. I already had a feeling what the source would be. This was confirmed in the master bedroom.

All six of the children were upstairs tied naked on the floor of the master bedroom. What was left of them anyway. The juvenile wraiths and the insect larvae had pretty much rendered them unrecognizable. As heartless as Katherine can seem sometimes, she has a soft spot for children. I heard a small sound escape her and looked over to see her sobbing. I caught her just in time. She almost dropped to her knees in her extremity of grief. But there were bugs all over the floor in the bedroom and despite the Windex they would have bitten her in self defence. She leaned on me as I guided her from the room. I felt like breaking down myself, but was not allowed that luxury. If I had just put the pieces together earlier maybe these innocent children would still be alive. At the very least I should have demanded that the children be examined earlier.

A crash from downstairs alerted us to the fact that we were not alone in the house. There were at least six wraiths on the loose and one of them was in the house with us. Katherine quickly pulled herself together and I was thankful that I had not brought Beverly with me. I love her dearly, but I don't know if she would have been able to pull herself together as quickly. I think Jewels and Pastor Tom are the only two members of our group that would have been able to recover as quickly as Katherine or I. I'm not saying that I am so much better than anyone else, in fact sometimes I think it is the opposite. I can at times be just a little too cold blooded. Since Lisa died I developed an extraordinary ability to shut off my feelings as easily as some people flip off a light switch. Unfortunately sometimes when you cut them off it can be a little hard to cut them back on. Which is why I am reluctant to do so unless I really need to. This was one of those times when I really, really needed to and I was able to clamp them off before they could render me useless.

Katherine pulled out her gun and we quickly made our way out of the house. There was garage out back with a couple of gasoline cans and a five gallon can of paint thinner. I decided that would do just fine. I was a beautiful old house. It would be a shame to see it go up in smoke, but we had to contain the beasts as much as possible. We split up, Katherine circling the house clockwise, while I circled counter clockwise. We liberally splashed the walls and both porches with gasoline and paint thinner. The bugs shied away from the caustic liquid but since they had no wings were not able readily escape. When we met at the back Katherine pulled out a book of matches. Still holding her gun in one hand she bent one match over to the sandpaper strip and popped it back up with her thumb. The match flared to life and she tossed it to the stairs she had just doused. My dad used to do that but I never could master it.

There was a flurry of activity from inside as they tried to find a safe way out. A crash from above alerted us to one of them trying to escape to the roof of the house directly north. It made it only to be shot dead by Katherine. It would appear that her shooting lessons have paid off.

That was when we heard a man screaming behind us, demanding to know what the Hell we were doing. It was Mr. Tyler of course. But Mr. Tyler was not looking too good by this time. He looked pale and thin. His eyes were sunken and dark. Dark splotches covered his exposed skin. He had several wraith bugs attached to him. One dangled from his ear like a grotesque earring. I reacted without thinking and shot him several times, but he just got up and ran away. Katherine hit him with a flying tackle that would have made a pro football player proud. Then she started screaming and rolled off of him. A thin black appendage was stabbing into her chest from the man's torso. It disengaged and I saw a sharply pointed stinger waving at the end of it. He bounced to his feet faster than someone in his apparent state of decay had any right to. I wanted to run after him but I could not leave Katherine alone in her condition. I called the others on my walkie talkie and told the others what had happened and to be on the lookout for Mr. Tyler. I gave the order that he was to be shot on sight.

I dragged Katherine out to the Volvo. I was not able to manhandle her into the truck. The floor is almost three feet off the ground and I was not at my best. So I just propped her up against the front wheel and waited for her to wake up or someone to come help.

As I waited I watched to make sure there were no other escapees from the burning house. As I waited I contemplated the new situation. We now had an unknown number of juvenile wraiths running about the island. As much as I would like to believe that they have all been killed in the fire I know that Murphy would not allow us off the hook that easily. We only knew for sure that one was dead. There were at least six to start with. From what we have seen in the large animals, usually only two or three survive. The stronger wraiths start killing the weaker individuals before they even emerge from the host. The surviving wraiths then feed off the corpse of the host. They don't attack each other once they are out of the host. At the very most there can be twelve, but that would be a very generous estimate. The oldest child was perhaps ten.

Trying real hard not to think about that too much right now.

I think we can safely assume that there are five of these things running about the island now.

They will need food.

I think I have an idea.

Katherine has recovered completely from the sting? Mr. Tyler gave her. The effects of the venom seem to be rather mild and short-lived. We gathered up the body of the wraith Katherine shot and she is examining it now.

We still need to deal with Mr. Tyler.
　
© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal April 5th 2028

2009-11-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Talked to Mr. Tyler today, tried to urge him into coming to stay on the boat with us until we are finished surveying the island, but he is adamant about providing the children with as normal a life as possible. He says huddling on a freighter is not his idea of normal. He also says the kids have come down with a case of the flu and he does not want to expose Dee and Jeanette's girl to it. It sounds just feasible enough but I still don't like it. Something is very wrong there.

We still have not checked the island out so we don't know how safe it is. All of the men, as well as Beverly and Stacy are out patrolling, looking for signs of the wraiths. Kyle is doing aerial surveys while those of us on the ground check out anything suspicious he finds. So far we have not seen anything to worry about, but it will be a week or two before we finish.

We now have all of the amenities on the freighter. While none of us know a thing about boats or life at sea, an engine is an engine and we got the big diesel generators fired up to run the on board systems. So we have power and running water. The ship is a freighter, but it does have some passenger rooms as well as crew quarters.

The ship has weathered well with only some minor cleanup needed, although there is a broken window on the bridge. I have been spending some time on the ship's rather sophisticated radio equipment. I would like to get communications with others set up and I think I could with this equipment.

Katherine has been working alone quite a bit lately. It makes me nervous when she isolates herself like that, but this morning she came to me with a bottle of something that will repel the wraith bugs. It smells like Windex, when I commented on that she said that was exactly what it was. Windex is apparently toxic to the bugs and they will not come near anything that smells like it. Avoiding the bugs will not give complete immunity from implantation, but increases the chances that the wraith embryos will not be able to survive in a human host.

We gathered up all the empty clothes and bundled them up. Tom said a prayer over them and we placed them in a metal box and dumped them overboard. It is easy sometimes to become desensitized to it. All those empty clothes are not just so much unwashed laundry. Each little pile is another life cut short by whatever caused this disaster.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal April 1st 2028

2009-11-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

We finally crossed the Oregon Street drawbridge over to Door Island yesterday. There are two other bridges onto the island, all three are drawbridges, but the Oregon Street bridge is the newest and the only one that completely separates the two sides when raised. The 42 highway and Michigan Street Bridge both feature a section that raises and lowers as needed. The gap is still spanned by the bridge and can be climbed. But the Oregon Street Bridge raises in two halves. If the island looks secure we are going to blow the other two bridges and raise the bridge. Billy is pretty sure he can take down the bridges easily enough. I just hope he can do it without blowing up the whole island.

There is a freighter docked at the Sturgeon Bay port. We just spent a few hours checking it out and it is clear. We will take up temporary residence there while we check out the island.

Mr. Tyler balked at the idea of sharing lodging with us. Says he could not impose. But the ship has plenty of room and an ample supply of canned and dry foods. Even after explaining that to him, he still wants to find a place for him and the kids. I am not alone in my misgivings towards him, the others are getting the feeling that something is not quite right with Mr. Tyler. But he has been very careful not to give any of us a chance to talk privately with the kids. The only thing we know about them is the names he gave us. The kids all look healthy, well fed and none of them have any obvious bruises. All we can do at this point is just keep an eye on him.

We don't have the manpower to check out every basement and every inch hiding place on the island, but over time we have learned what to look for. In large cities the wraiths feed on rats and other small animals in plentiful supply. In rural areas they look for large game for breeding purposes. There does not appear to be any large game here and despite being a port town we have not seen an over abundance of rats. Also the wraiths tend to pick a spot close to their nest to do their business and the odor from these droppings can be rather strong when the weather is warm. So all we really have to do is follow our noses.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal March 24th 2028

2009-11-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

Been on good old Route 66 since about middle of Illinois. Pulled into Chicago this morning. Jewels insisted that we make a slight detour so he could see Wrigley Field, probably for the last time in his life he said. On the occasions when he would visit his favorite uncle when he was a boy, they would both go to a Cubs game if they were in town. I saw no harm in it. Kyle had to set down anyway to refuel. There is a park with baseball diamonds east of the stadium. We decided to camp there. I've never been to Chicago so I played tourist while Jewels told us about the city his Momma and uncle had grown up in. The stadium long overdue for some renovations before, was now a sad sight to see. But looking at it through Jewels' eyes it was beautiful. He made a point of telling us about the scoreboard. It was pretty much exactly as it was back when it was built in 1937. No giant TV or LED displays. Just hand painted numbered cards changed by hand. The stadium lights were something of a controversy when they were installed in 1988. Traditionalists didn't like them but it did allow for the first night time game was started on August 8, 1988, but due to rain had to be finished the following night.

We let Dee and Emily run loose in the now overgrown outfield while Jewels partially fulfilled a life time dream of running the bases. He wasn't able to run them, but he, well hell, all of us walked the bases with him, as he recounted those glorious summer days he spent here with his uncle. They would eat popcorn, and he would drink pop while his uncle downed a few beers. They would cheer He would sometimes sneak a sip while his uncle was distracted. They would cheer on Dick Ellsworth, Ernie Banks and George Altman or hurl insults at the Mets if they happened to be playing. In my mind I could see the game being played out as Jewels wove a verbal tapestry. The hot summer sun, the smell of popcorn and beer and the crack of the bat. I was never much of a baseball fan, but right then I realized I would give my right arm just to sit in the nosebleed section of any packed stadium in the country and watch a ballgame.

On the way out of the stadium we made a point stopping by the souvenir stands and getting a ball cap for each of us. Yes even Katherine was wearing a cubs cap when we left. Kyle a die hard Yankee fan skipped getting a cap but did pick up some baseball cards.

Stacy was the first to notice the new bus parked next to Katherine's RV. It was an old yellow and black school bus just like the thousands of others we have seen sitting on the sides of roads or in parking lots. But this one had not been there when we parked here.

A man and six kids stepped out of the bus as we approached.
So we have almost doubled the size of our party now. The man's introduced himself as Mark Tyler. He seems quite eager to join our group.

The kids seem ok, but there is something I do not like about Mr. Tyler. Spidey sense is tingling. No wait that is just my butt falling asleep in this chair. Seriously though the guy just seems a little off to me.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride

Dead Land Journal March 23rd 2028

2009-11-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

I have been using a laptop computer that Beverly found for me in one of the motel rooms. I lost both my computer and my trusty Smith Corona Sterling. As tough as it was, the Sterling proved not to be bullet proof. Not against a 50 caliber round at any rate. I really don't know why the computer was dead, maybe a power surge?

We still have not figured out why someone would bother trying to rob us. Anything anyone could possibly want is just lying around waiting to be picked up. Unless they are the type to just enjoy screwing with people. Lends credence to Katherine's theory that us leftovers are all mentally imbalanced or were drugged at the time.

We are in St. Louis. Even after all this time it is still eerie to pull into a major city and be greeted by complete silence. Like KC there are significant portions of the city that have burned. But we have not encountered any wraiths so far.

Billy quickly found a replacement van for himself. It's an old International Metro delivery van parked in front of drugstore back in St. James. The sides are painted with the drugstore name and logo and it was probably used more as advertisement than actual delivery. But the old International flathead six was replaced with a more modern 350 Chevy V8. The engine started on the first try once we replaced the battery.

I'm still looking for something. I guess maybe I'm being too picky. But I need something that can house Beverly, Dee and myself and still take a certain amount of punishment. The Uni was just about ideal, but I don't think I am going to find another one like it anytime soon.

For the time being we are riding with Mike in the tow truck. This is a new one to replace the one that was smashed up by the buffalo back in Stockton. It's a big GMC with a four door cab.
Katherine has me pumped full of steroids right now. For my knee and my optic neuritis. The stress and injuries caused a flare up and my eyes both feel like they are about to pop out of my skull at any moment. I have not been able to sleep and I feel edgy. I snapped at Dee a couple of hours ago and she ran off crying. Beverly gave me a reproachful look before going after Dee to smooth things over. I feel like crap about it now. Yes, Dee was being noisy and slightly obnoxious, but that is all part of being a kid. She did not deserve for me to yell at her like that. Katherine warned me that I would be irritable, but this goes beyond that. I am afraid that I will fly into a rage and hurt Dee or Beverly. So I am going to quit taking the steroids. I can live with a bad knee, and would rather go blind than hurt either one of them.

Looking for a safe place to spend the night because we really don't have accommodations for everyone right now. Katherine's RV is huge especially when the sides are popped out and fully extended. But the medical equipment eats up a lot floor space and it can take half an hour to get the extensions out and properly set up, then another half hour to get them back in. Experience has taught us that we may sometimes need to move in a hurry and might not have time to fold it up before we leave.

Passed something on I-44 that looked like a couple of big wire cages. Don't really know that the heck those are but we didn't stop to look. Will have to go back and look later. Looks like
There are quite a few motels in the St. Louis area so we should be able to find a place to stay.
I just saw something that might meet my needs. Will have Mike or Jewels take me back this way later.

Gotta close this up, we are pulling into a Drury Inn parking lot. Will probably pick this up later tonight.

11:13 pm

We just spent most of the day cleaning up a mess left by some sick bastard.

Jewels drove me back to look at vehicle I was interested in, a Volvo C303 painted fire engine red. It had a Mercedes six cylinder diesel in it Jewels was familiar with. We were able to get it running easily enough. It looked to be in pristine condition. but needed a new radiator hose. Fortunately this being a rather uncommon vehicle here in the States, the previous owner kept a box of spare parts in the back. Belts, hoses, brake pads, that kind of thing. I know reading back through my journal it may seem that I have had amazing luck with finding running cars, but I usually don't write about the dozens of cars I look at before finding the right one and this time was no exception. I have looked at a lot trucks, vans and RVs the last couple of days that I thought would be perfect but turned out to be duds. I was not getting my hopes up. But once we replaced the hose and coolant we were able to get it started. It is not as big as the Uni but but I think it will do. I don't intend for us to actually live in it. It just needs to last till we get to Door Island.

I know I have strayed off subject again. I guess I am not eager to recall it.

The big cages I saw back on I-44 were part of Carr Lane Manufacturing. The factory itself was flattened by a large plane, but the cages were left intact. I still don't know what purpose they served, but lately someone has been using them to suspend bodies from. They were not dead when they were hung though. They were tortured and raped, men and women alike. There were five of them. They were not all killed at the same time, but a few weeks apart. The most recent was only a few days ago. And it all looked a little too familiar.

Katherine examined the bodies and says at least one of the killers was also involved in killing Christina Tudor. I was hoping those twisted fucks had been down in Springfield, but no such luck.

© 2009 R. Keith McBride