Mana Pool Snippets - Keystone

Part 5

“I have no name, yet,” they said, “but I’m one of Griffon’s stand-ins, his lieutenant, even if I do not exist, yet.”

“That man and woman working with him? Are you Roland?”

“Hadley.”

Jaruka shook his head and said, “Well I’m out of ideas.”

“Certainly, for you and the little one, because in a few seconds, you won’t be looking back at this planet very soon.”

“Huh?”

The confusion was just enough to catch Jaruka off as the zombies attacked him, jumping over the coffee table. Morgan raised his right hand and squeezed Jaruka’s wrist to almost breaking a few wrist bones. He yelled and tried to get it free, but Beth tackled him to the floor. The plasma pistol fell out of his hand and slid to the bottom stairs.

Andrea screamed and backed away. Of course, this is the stuff human kids can’t see. “Kid, run! Get out of here!” Beth screamed with an open mouth toward his throat. He managed to get his left arm free and grab Beth’s neck, keeping her from continuing.

He heard the door open and the little girl run off screaming.

The zombies had strength close to a certain woman Jaruka killed back at Area 51, except Morgan had the upper advantage. Both were trying to get to his neck, and certainly he would not allow that. But during his time at the dropship, alone, he devised countermeasures if he came across wild humans, or zombies for the matter.

He placed his other hand on Morgan’s face, tightened his grip on both, and said, “Shock top.” Code for turning on the embedded 450-volt tasers in the gloves.

He felt some electricity in his arms, but the rest raced through the zombies, each of them convulsing and rolling their blood shot eyes. Some of their blood ended up on his shirt. He managed to kick the two off him and scurry away. He was sorry for killing them with twice the amount of electric shock to kill a human, but it had to be done and Andrea had to learn to accept it. His heart was racing and had to take a breath.

Then the zombies woke up.

They stood up in seconds and shook off the strain, despite the broken backs. “Really? Electricity? Even that much power can’t kill these minions.”

“Crap,” Jaruka said. “But are you forgetting something? I can’t die. If I do, those spires will destroy a quarter of the planet. They might be hovering over me now because of this.”

“Oh we are well aware of the spires,” Beth said. “We want to make sure it does not happen. We want to keep our harvest flowing, which means you must leave with your life.”

“Harvest?”

Beth threw an ornate dresser with one hand at the alien. He ducked, but his leg caught it and he fell backwards. Without noticing, Beth was behind Jaruka and grabbed his shirt and vest. “Hey, hey, hey!”

Beth’s supernatural enhanced strength lifted the Halcunac over her. He was unable to fight her, even shifting his weight failed.

“But I can’t leave. Denverbay has me bound to this planet for intel work. I got back to my homeworld if you make me. I will die!”

“Oh. Too bad,” Morgan said without care.

Beth started laughing and Jaruka screamed while he was thrown out the window.

*****

Oh my god, there she is!” Katie pointed at Andrea running out the front door screaming. Scott stopped the Jeep. While he got out holding a baseball bat and Keeji running beside him, Katie had both her arms blazing with blue/white tattoos and Arana on her shoulder.