Enjoy - And vote. Don't forget the watty awards rank stories not only by reads, but also by activity so getting votes from all the readers actually helps a ton. I know I messed up by leaving such a large gap between postings - but I hope everyone can still go back and vote on these new chapters. I was averaging 20-50 a chapter before I went mia for so many months.
Blur, everything was blurry, he couldn’t move anything—he felt some sort of pole up against his back, he couldn’t figure out what was going on. “Commander?” the man tried to speak, feeling a sharp pain in his chest, “Commander?” he chocked. He managed to sway his head just enough to flop it down, he could make out red in his vision, and a few shinny strips dangling from his chest. “I didn’t sign up for this,” with all his strength, he looked up. More red, there were bodies, lots of bodies. “Commander??” panic filled his voice, “I volunteered to help kill the monsters, I didn’t sign up for this!” he cringed, red started to run down his chest, whatever they did to him, it started bleeding.
His eyes started to clear; he could make out more definite shapes. In front of him were bodies all right. It was his entire squad—dead. For the first time he could smell, he smelt gunpowder. He struggled, tried to move his hands, blinked, then, it was there—a hideous face, yellow jagged teeth, it was covered in blood and filled with holes: a monster. It was at that moment, the moment before the monster’s teeth closed in on his throat that he saw what happened. The beast slayed them all, maimed and ripped apart his comrades. And for some sick reason he was left strapped to a pole like a sacrifice. Teeth closed in on his neck, and in the moment his life ceased to exist his ear heard one last sound: click
“Success! Success! Success!” a computerized voice repeated over and over, a terrified Commander peaked out of the old airport control tower, the monster, she didn’t think it would go after everyone else first. Her ears were still ringing from the screams while the Ghoul tore apart the entire squad outside of her locked door. For some reason she lucked out, it spared her, and it went for the cadet, Samuel.
“Success! Success! Success!” the voice continued. The voice was being broadcasted all across the country now. Millions of people had been glued to radios for hours listening to the news of the experiment. The entire nation of Redeme was leaning on this test, hoping it would work. It was called the Extermination Method; the plan was to embed a small bomb in a man’s body—a bomb set to go off when the person’s heart stops suddenly.
She stumbled over to the control board and slammed a button that turned off the automated voice. Then her trembling fingers pushed and held another button. “Cadet Samuel Elison will be remembered. Remembered as the man who revolutionized our warfare. But also as the man that sacrificed his life to save an entire nation. I am looking at the results now, at least forty dead, but among them—the Ghoul,” her finger slipped off the switch, and she did her best to reclaim her posture. She could sense the entire country cheering over the first human victory against Ghouls. This would change everything.
***
It wasn’t until the chilly next morning that Lilly reappeared at the fake rock in the desert. When she arrived all the vehicles parked in the desert were gone and the tent was taken down, the only thing that remained was the rock.
Lilly had gone back to her hotel room back in the USA for the night, where she managed to clean up herself, and get the blood off her clothes. She didn’t like being in the underground fort, the shifting halls and thin corridors scared her, she had gotten so used to jumping, and was afraid she’d forget she can’t within the maze and kill herself in the thin halls.
With a fresh pair of black jeans and jacket Lilly waited with the hood covering her head. The rock moved and a man slowly climbed out of the hidden hole. Once he was out he smiled at Lilly and popped a lit cigar between his lips, he was the same mysterious man from the corner of the tent a few days ago. He flashed a metal object in one hand; he had a red button, and smiled at Lilly. As he walked towards her a more familiar person pulled himself out of the hole, Sir Kelton.
“You did such a wonderful job, such a wonderful job,” the man with a cigar muffled, with a very southern accent. This was the first time Lilly saw his face under the brimmed hat, white with a scruffy red beard and thick eyebrows—this man wasn’t Russian or Iraqi—he was… American? “I’m the man behind the switch, the one you’ll be taking orders from for now on. You can call me Hector. Oh, I’ve got plans for you, big plans. None of that crap your last, holders, put you through—you and me, we’re going to be great. We’re going to rule the world, watch it burn.” Kelton fumbled with something in his hands behind Hector and unfolded a paper to hand to him, “But first, I need to do some house cleaning. Here is a list of cities,” he handed her the sheet of paper, “Create your little monsters in each of these cities, we’ve got a few… loose ends… hiding out across the world, after that you come back and report to me, then the real fun starts.” He chuckled and tipped his hat, making sure she got a good look at the list. Lilly looked into his eyes. he was aged but still strong, his eyes drooped a bit, as if he was tired, and his voice sounded a bit strained, like he was putting up with a lot—but it wasn’t his voice or age that stood out, it was the fact that he didn’t look anything like the rest of the people around him, like the rest of his recruits.
Hector, he didn’t just look American, he looked like someone she’s seen before, someone in history books—pronounced dead. He was a scientist, no, the scientist that created the failed force shield that destroyed America. He was the cause of the American downfall, the final loose screw that blew up the American Industry. He killed millions, flattened cities when the generators were activated. It was said the outrage from the chaotic event caused riots for years and that the genius inventor, Howard Geolettin, was pulled out of his home and had his throat slit in the streets, the body remained there for over two weeks before the rotten remains were finally scrapped off the cement. How could he be here? He was dead!
Hector noticed the flash of recognition in Lilly’s face, “I wouldn’t go there if I were you, just follow orders like a good little monster and lay waste to them cities.” He shuffled his shoulders and adjusted his old leather jacket on his shoulders, apparently the conversation was done, he turned away, and Kelton followed behind him, without ever saying a word. Lilly thought Sir Kelton was the bad-ass in charge of this operation, but to see him pretty much liking this guy’s boots—now that was surprising.
Lilly looked down at the paper she was handed, the list was about twenty cities long, she was to hit all of them within a few days—giving her almost no rest. The orders at the top of the sheet said approximately fifty ghouls per city, to do them in order, and to start in two days.
Lilly retreated to the underground maze shortly after Hector and Sir Kelton descended down the ladder. She had two days of peace before she had to start killing again. She wasn’t looking forward to the slaughtering of innocent people, yet at the same time her teeth tingled, as if they couldn’t wait for the moment to start. Once she got down to the blast gate she shoved her hand against the scanner, now that she was no longer a threat to the hideout she was placed into the computer and granted free roam in its halls.
The gate dropped and Lilly let go of the ladder. Landing softly on the pads below, she went for the locked door and opened it. After squeezing through the thin tunnels, she reached The Middle and went across to the mess hall. She exited the tunnel in a large room that looked like a school cafeteria. Most the tables were empty but a few men and women were scattered along the tables on the walls. Lilly pulled the hood off her head and let her hair fall past her shoulders, she went for the start of the line to get herself some food. After a plate she got a serving of eggs and toast she went to an empty table near the center of the cafeteria, away from everyone else in the room. She pulled out the list and glazed over the target cities, she was going to have a hard time ahead of her.
Lilly sighed and looked up, she noticed a guy with black eyes heading for the table. Alle. “Hey,” he said as he sat down. This was the first time she’s seen him since their cross-Asia adventure.
Lilly noticed how much better he looked with a shaved face and a fresh pair of clothes. But she also knew what he was, a hired gun for Hectors dirty work—she really didn’t expect him to talk to her again, his job was done when she got safely to the base, yet here he was. “Hey,” she responded without looking up from the sheet.
“I never thanked you for saving my life.”
“Yeah, well—you did the same for me,” her eyes locked in disgust on a pair of American Cities near the center of the list. She concluded to strike them last, as if giving her own country a small head-start actually mattered.
“My eyes,” Alle said, trying to start another topic.
“As far as I know it’s not permanent. They should go back to normal in a couple of months, or years.”
“And yours?”
“Mine, I’m afraid, are permanent—once they get this bad they never go back, or at least not back enough to be noticeable in my lifetime.” Lilly folded the paper, noting that she was going to have to attack cities on six of the seven continents. She had gotten bored of the list; she had two days to figure out how to tackle it.
“What’s that?” he asked, eyeing the paper as he bit into a slice of pizza.
“Work.”
“Work? I thought your job was to save us from the army?”
Lilly rolled up the sleeve on her good hand and scratched at the red skin surrounding the bracelet. The bracelet has been irritating her skin for quite some time now and as the days passed it seemed to get progressively worse.
“That pretty,” Alle said between bites of pizza, pointing at the gold and diamond bracelet. “Who gave it to you?”
“A dead man,” Lilly slowly played with the eggs in front of her. She hadn’t eaten much at all in the last few days. Then asked Alle, “Do you know anyone in Baghdad? What’s left of it I mean.”
“Why yes, my entire family lives around the edge of the city center, just out of the blast zone.” The blast zone from that nuclear suicide bombing some time ago—it wasn’t particularly a large bomb, not enough to destroy the city and set radiation over all the land, but it was enough to kill a large chunk of the population and leave the center-most bit of the city uninhabitable.
“Tell them to run. Tell them to run as far away from the city as they can, as far away from people. Tell them to get into their cars and keep driving.”
“Why, what’s going to happen?” Alle stopped eating, his question was rushed.
“Like I said, work.”
Alle scooted closer and leaned over his food, “Do you have to?” he whispered.
Lilly’s picking at her arm drew too close to the bracelet and pain zapped up her wrist. Her fingers instantly jerked away from the metal and the sleeve fell back over her wrist, “Yes,” she said as she slowly twisted her wrist around, trying to remove the awful sensation.
“Can’t you just break free, do what you want?” Alle leaned back in his chair, realizing Lilly was not going to do the hushed conversation.
Lilly slid the glove off her right hand exposing her bones, and rubbed the white bone with her other fingers, letting Alle see it. “There are some deals you can’t break free from,” she flexed the bone and rolled down the sleeve to examine the grey skin that separated the rest of her arm from the bone. The dead skin had slowly moved up her arm, and was now well past her wrist. She quickly slipped a peak at the line that went up her arm, it had shrunken in size but the skin still looked just as bad as the day she touched the devil, the skin even peeling in spots.
Once done examining her bone hand she rolled the sleeve back up and slid the black glove neatly over her hand. “I, I never noticed that before,” Alle stared in disbelief.
“Yes, and neither did any of them” her eyes glazed over the cafeteria, “It’s called the power of persuasion.”
“Well then, persuade those in charge to stop whatever is going to happen in Baghdad.” He obviously had no idea. Did any of the people in here actually know what they are being paid to do? Who was actually paying them?
“There are some deals I can’t break free from.”
“What was this deal, and with who?”
Lilly finally finished the eggs. After a long pause and for the first time, she revealed what the deal was, “With the Devil. I killed myself oh so long ago. The deal was, I thought at the time, simple: ‘the Devil will give me a second chance at life, if when captured and bound by any type of device I don’t fight against it, try to break free, and I have to do everything the person who captured me commands me to do.’ Well with reasonable barriers of course—nothing that would certainly kill me or harm me of course, the Devil wouldn’t want that. And this,” she pointed at her left hand, “Isn’t any normal bracelet. I thought it’d be easy, no one was going to capture me, I’d make sure of it—but after one cold night in Russia, I found out firsthand how wrong I was.”
“And there is no loophole in this deal, no way to stop being forced to do terrible things?”
“There is one. I can’t fight against it, or try to break free. But someone else can.”
“What do we have to do?”
“I’m not sure if anyone’s seen it, but there is a button—two of them actually,” Lilly leaned over the table, finally dropping to a hushed voice. Even if she could control everyone in the room to simply not listen she can’t do much against cameras, “They’re silver boxes with a single red button in the middle—otherwise unmarked. These buttons are the switches that hold me hostage in combination with the diamond bracelet. If someone can find them, steal them, and run from the fort I am under their command.”
“For you, I’ll see what I can do,” Alle smiled at Lilly and stood up to take his tray to a nearby trashcan. He stuck the tray and plate on the rack above the can and left the cafeteria. Lilly looked down at her empty plate and pondered. Maybe she did have a chance after all.