The Great War (Surviving the Zombie Nightmare Book 5) (14 page)

She had been so focused on what was going on with his face that she hadn't even heard the two guards walk in. They each grabbed one of her arms and quickly lifted her off of the floor. Mandy kicked her legs and fought as much as she could but there was no escaping the hold they had on her. Fear easily found its way to her face as she was carried right up to Bullosky's demonic form. It was difficult to be certain of anything in her current frame of mind but she could almost say the demon was smiling.

“You are funny human,” he said in a deep tone of voice that sounded like a low rumble of quiet thunder, “To imagine you have any choice in the matter. You will be kept in place near me until your seed is produced and at that time you will have lived out your purpose on this earth. You will not escape and you will not survive. Perhaps you should have thought twice before agreeing to fight alongside demons!” He laughed and added, “Perhaps all of you should have!”

Once upon a time Eric actually would have enjoyed a long and leisurely drive down the open road with the windows down and wind blasting him in the face. As he looked out the window and accepted the masterful force of the wind against him, he was thinking about anything but the ride or the road. It was no secret that what he and Destiny were about to drive into was something that would change them both forever in an untold number of ways. Though he had professed no loyalty to the female warrior driving the truck beside him, it was impossible to imagine attacking a place as secure as Organic Ascendancy's headquarters without her.

Whether or not he felt like he could trust her was beside the point altogether because he simply had no choice. If at any point after they entered the military-style complex of O.A. Destiny wanted to betray him, she would have countless chances to do so. He knew damn well she would probably get him if she wanted to take him down in that way but something told him that she really didn't want to. If she did, she likely knew he would do everything he could to take her down with him.

The more desirable scenario would be for them both to somehow make it through the upcoming mess alive, recuperate somewhere and have a go at each other one on one for a final time. It would possibly be a tad of fun and certainly would be the only way to really tell which of them really had the number of the other one with all secrecy and trickery left behind. For now, it was the two of them in a war against a legion of warriors who were well trained along with an untold number of demons, zombie-demon half-breeds and probably a few regular zombies as well.

It wouldn't be easy to come out the other side alive and would certainly be impossible to come out the other side similar in some way to the way he was now. What mattered was not what happened to them however, it was most important what they were able to do to weaken the organization of O.A. as well as let the demons know who was coming for them. It would be a battle, but Eric wasn't worried about the battle. He had faced and killed all of them before and knew he could do it again. If they killed him then he would go down fighting. What bothered him was the unknown.

Each time he had gone face to face with anyone associated with the demonic Admiral Bullosky, something backhanded and twisted had surprised him. It was not only likely that something similar would be thrown at him this time as well, but it was expected. The problem was that it was impossible to prepare for something completely unknown. If he had the tendency to pray to the god and angelic beings who he fought on the side of, this would definitely be the time. As it was, he simply gritted his teeth and prepared for the battle of his life.

They had left the interstate system behind some thirty miles ago, the four lane section of road probably ten miles ago and now Eric saw that the paved section of road was about to end. The truck came to a stop on the gravel road under a thick tree canopy and Eric glanced in Destiny's direction, “Either this complex's brilliance has been vastly overstated or you've led me into a trap of back road, hick-mountain hell.”

There was actually a smile on Destiny's face when she looked over, and it surprised Eric that he sometimes forgot what had been the weapon she ever used against him: her stunning looks. That thought passed quickly enough as she answered.

“It probably looks like a trap but just remember that if I was leading you into a trap, you wouldn't see it coming,” she blew on her nails as she glanced at them, “It’s part of my charm.” With a quick glance back towards him she broke her little facade, “Look, it just appears this way here to help throw others off the trail and to allow the sensors around the area to hear any type of vehicle or foot traffic coming their way. The entire area is walled off not far from here and hidden under vines and electrical shock lines. This is literally the only way to get closer than we are right now and live to tell about it. Soon it will open up into a wide concrete paved area that is open in a way that ensures nobody would be able to flee without getting blasted into bits before they reached the tree line.” She unbuckled as she finished and stepped into the back of the vehicle.

Eric watched her go and then turned back around to examine the area. There was no sign of a sensor or a wall or anything that she mentioned. “Well, fuck if it isn't the most secure damn place on earth. I always thought that was just a load of bullshit.”

“Nope,” Destiny said as she sat down in the back near the soldier prisoner they were forcing to be their ticket inside and slapped him on the shoulder, “Curtis here can attest to it.” When nothing but silence came from him she followed with, “Well he could if he was talking. It doesn't matter either way. As soon as we get back here and in position, he will pull the truck forward onto the gravel and its game on. Get your smelly ass back here lover-boy so we can get this over with.”

Reluctantly Eric unfastened his seat belt and started walking towards the back. He took a moment to examine the uniform worn by the soldier. It was the first time he had really looked at it but the armored get-up was pretty fancy. It was greenish-black armor that appeared very cloth-like. His name was nowhere to be seen with a number taking the place where the name might usually be on his armor. It was one of only two removable things on the armor with the other being his awards patch that included a pretty little Organic Ascendancy insignia.

Looking at himself quickly, Eric noticed that his borrowed uniform was very plain and very unarmored compared to his. For a second he thought about demanding that they change but it would never work. He wouldn't likely be allowed through the checkpoint at the main gate without his number and official armor, at least not without a long delay while he was forced to explain and go through any number of preventative measures. He decided that he would just have to trust that the fool wasn't willing to die at their hands for whatever reason.

As he settled down onto his stomach in the back of the truck, Destiny laid down next to him. She propped up abruptly on one side and smirked, “Is laying with me everything you ever expected it would be lover-boy?”

Eric glanced sideways at her and flippantly said, “Pretty much, yeah.”

She kept her oddly good mood as she lay back down and said, “Hit it Curtis! Let's do this!”

“Wait!” Eric shouted before the truck could even be put into gear. He glanced at Curtis and said, “Don't fucking move until I say so.” He sat up and glared down at a very relaxed Destiny, “Why the hell are you so damn cheery?”

She shrugged, “What do you mean?”

Eric got the feeling she really didn't know what he was talking about. He said, “We are about to get into something that we both know is probably going to be the closest to death we have come for at least the last few months and you are laying there smiling and cracking jokes. What gives? What do you know that I don't?”

He watched as her brows furrowed and she gave thought to what he had said. It seemed that her eyes went through a range of emotions as she probably thought through what she was feeling and why. At last her expression grew more somber and she glanced at him with something that appeared close to sadness in her eyes. “Ever have a place that felt like home, like really felt like home?”

Eric nodded, “Yeah, several years ago I guess.”

“I'm going home,” she shrugged. “I just so happen to be going back to take care of the wrongs that have happened in my absence. The fact that it will mean killing people I considered brothers in arms bothers me a great deal, but you know what,” she shrugged and the faint smile returned, “It’s still home. That answer your question?”

Eric lay back down and stared directly at the ceiling, preparing for the odd feeling of waiting like a sitting duck while the most important part of this plan was left up to someone who was a professing enemy they had taken prisoner. Finally he answered, “Fuck, no, it doesn't.” After a beat he said, “Let's get it on, Curtis. Press go fucker.”

He glanced in the soldier's direction and saw a very strange expression on his face. It almost looked like a hurt expression but Eric eventually decided it must be akin to anger in one way or another. Just to make himself feel a little more secure lying like a fool in the back of the damn truck, Eric said, “Don't be a hero Curtis. Just do it like we said and you'll at least live as long as we do.”

Destiny elbowed him in the ribs, “He won't screw us over. Stop worrying so much, you're starting to sound like that Mandy slut on a whiny day. He'll at least wait until he has back-up before turning on us and by that time we'll be inside anyway.”

Eric had forgotten all about Mandy until that moment and it wasn't until then that he realized how much fun this had the potential of being. Wouldn't it be great if he got a free shot at that little deserter? He nodded as he finally felt ready for the mission and grew quiet as the sound of large wheels crushing gravel beneath them suddenly sounded like music to his ears. He couldn't think of anything outside of the first dozen things that would probably go wrong that would ruin this for him now.

A chill ran through his body as if his blood had suddenly grown cold. Perhaps it had, because business was picking up and it was about to be his favorite time of any day; time to kill fucking demons and zombies. A snarl came to his face as he waited for the gravel to end and the pavement to begin.

Within a few minutes the sound of gravel gave way to the low toned song of deep-treaded tires on concrete. Destiny reminded him that they were supposed to be laying face down when she turned that way herself. Eric slowly turned and tried to appear as if he were dead. It was already beginning to feel strange and he figured it would be quite a while before they were able to move.

“Lay as still as possible,” Destiny said in a whisper, “You never know what kind of sensors they have out here.”

Eric was already being as still as he could but he was at least glad to hear a bit of a normal tone in Destiny's voice. It was the first time she had sounded like she was getting serious about the mission. Shortly their speed increased and Eric took note that when their speed decreased, it would actually be time to worry and soon after that, it finally would be time to kick ass.

Dr. Cain had the greatest sense of dejavu as she listened to her planning expert, Mr. Peyton Terry, lay out the genius plot he had apparently come up with a little while ago. All at once she wondered how many times she had trusted this man to come up with a plan to get Organic Ascendancy through the toughest of times and how in the world she had ever come to listen to a demon instead of him. Perhaps it had been a terrible oversight on her part to bring the demon into the fray at all, though she was not ready to admit that because of how far they had progressed since the partnership. There were problems but she had expected some problems when literally making a deal with the devil.

Still, she knew she had not always been willing to go so far to achieve a goal. Whether it was because she felt that time was short or because she had officially lost her mind, she couldn't tell. She was different to be sure. How far back did the insanity go? Was it really best to get rid of Destiny in the way she did? It seemed like the obvious choice to take down Nichols in light of having demons on hand and also having Cornell waiting in the wings to take his place. Was that something she would have done five years ago? Reanimating human beings was awesome and she knew she wanted it to happen but she also knew she would never even have thought of it several years ago.  Sitting here now around the table in her quarters on which nobody had ever eaten a meal, much less met to discuss plans, she could not remember for the life of her when things shifted but she still believed most of those decisions were the right ones.

To her thinking, it was very possible that she had been manipulated a bit by Bullosky but he had not altered her mind and of that she was certain and she had been willing to be manipulated a little by the demon if it meant advancing her cause. It was fairly obvious that Mr. Terry thought she possibly had been mentally altered somehow by Bullosky. While she knew that wasn't true, she also didn't want to blow him off when she was going to need him. After all, one thing she was absolutely certain of was that going forward they needed to rid themselves of the demonic influences among them since most of the usefulness had been gotten out of the partnership. They'd had their place and certainly had assisted O.A.'s move upwards but it was time to move on. That was where Terry came in and why she was willing to humor him his paranoid thoughts.

Terry had already told about how they would attempt to find Dr. Isaiah and convince him to rejoin their little group of Organic Ascendancy loyalists as he called it. That seemed as close to impossible as anything Cain could remember, considering the way he left the meeting room and yet that was the easiest part of the plan. As he went on explaining there were more than a few confused expressions around the room. She knew where he was coming from and also that everyone needed to understand what was going on for themselves so she remained silent.

The first question came from the new guy as Cornell asked, “Why do we suddenly not like where our partnership with the demons has taken us? I can tell you for certain that it has gotten a good bit of attention on the spiritual realm.”

“Really?” Terry asked, “Are the angels afraid of us all of a sudden?”

A smile came to Cornell's face, “Mr. Terry, angels are never afraid of anything. In any situation that presents itself, even the ones that have been surprising of late, they always have faith that they are on the side of the 'Most High' so they will be fine and will always be victorious in the end. I am simply saying that we are being talked about. Demons making themselves partners with a group of humans has happened before, and is even recorded in ancient texts, but it isn't so commonplace to see a group of humans reach out to the demons and that is what is puzzling to most on that realm. Having done something to garner that amount of attention would at least seem to be a good thing for us if indeed we are interested in leaving a footprint there.”

“That is the very problem that brings us here today Mr. Cornell,” Terry said. “It was never in our plans, nor in our spoken or written creed to simply cause a stir among the angelic beings. We are pledged to raise humanity to the same level they are currently on which is why we decided to partner with Admiral Bullosky.  It has not turned out the way we wanted unfortunately.”

Cornell said, “But, I'm still confused. Dr. Cain, you were just saying things were going well in the last meeting, that we were taking humanity to the next level. How did we get from there to suggesting that we do not need to cooperate with the demons who took us to that level?”

Dr. Cain knew it was time for her to speak up and set the record straight or at least do a good job of attempting to do so while keeping Mr. Terry satisfied. “I need to make something very clear to you and really to everyone eventually, though for now we'll just keep it between us. First of all, the fact that we have raised humanity to a new, and higher level is absolutely true. The only problem that I have been able to see is that there are troubled issues in the way we reached that new level. Of course I knew that it was possible and likely to be deceived by a demon. I just thought that I could remain in complete control the entire time without sacrificing my moral code and coming to decisions that I might not always have made before.”

She lowered her head slightly, “It is possible that I was partially wrong in that line of thinking. Don't misunderstand me and think I am suggesting we take a step backwards or that I am not proud of the significant steps forward we have made. In no way am I saying that. I simply do not like the impact it is having on Organic Ascendancy to work day in and day out with demons. I expect that some of the developments in Dr. Isaiah and others could be due to the inner-circle manipulations of Bullosky and his demons. I want to keep going in the same direction we are currently proceeding in, I simply want to do so without Bullosky or any demons.”

Mr. Terry spoke up, “I don't really agree with that Dr. Cain but that is not a surprise to you at this point. You suggest we go back to doing things simply for ourselves but keep doing the same things we are doing right now. Is that right?”

Cain nodded, “Absolutely.”

“How does that change anything?”

She glanced at the others around the table as she tried to figure the best way to approach this. It could not appear to anyone here that she was anything other than the boss. That, after all was the main thing she did not like about Bullosky's involvement, that some looked to him as her equal and Dr. Genesis Cain took a second seat to nobody on, under or above the earth. Still, she wanted to keep Terry on-board. Nothing would be worse than losing everyone from her inner circle and she wanted the planning genius more than any of the others. As destructive as it was to lose Dr. Isaiah, she really had gotten more out of the brilliant doctor than she ever thought she would have so it didn't matter that much, other than her selfish wish that he would have shared his little Destiny plan with her before leaving. She did want to keep the allegiance of the soldiers as well as the other important O.A. role players with her however and since Isaiah was not here anymore to execute whatever plan he claimed to have, it was up to her.

Finally she decided on an approach and looked up, “As you yourself stated Mr. Terry, we plan not simply to make the celestials look in our direction but rather to raise ourselves to that same level of existence. While the partnership with the demons and Bullosky has certainly been something to serve their needs and the demonic admiral certainly had his own designs for the deal we made, Organic Ascendancy also had the same selfish desires for the partnership. We have frankly gotten exactly what we wanted from this. Has it cost us something as well? Of course it has but we had to do what was necessary to take these steps and take them quickly. Now that we have done what was needed, we will count our losses, distance ourselves from Bullosky and move on towards our ascension. If you can find and convince Dr. Isaiah and others to profess their devotion to us, go ahead and do it, but we certainly are not going to consider ourselves failures because a few key positions need to be filled. We march onward!”

The military man and Mr. Cornell pumped their fists at what she said and while he did not seem fine with what was spoken, Mr. Terry at least was not arguing at the moment. It seemed like the perfect time to assume that the session was a victory and to move on with their planning session, until the door slammed open and a guard walked in with two other guards flanking him. For a minute Dr. Cain wondered if others had turned on her but when they spoke she knew exactly what was happening.

“Forgive the interruption Dr. Cain and everyone,” the guard said in a serious voice, “But we have just received word that one of the vehicles that was sent out on special assignment recently has returned.”

Dr. Cain knew it was the job of the General in the room to respond so she waited a beat. Just as he should have the General stood, “Young man, your orders were clearly that there would be only one reason for you to storm through that door and that is in case of emergency developments either inside this room or elsewhere on the premises. Surely you do not expect to keep from being punished severely for this intrusion.”

“Forgive me sir,” the guard said with a nod downward, “But there is more.”

“It damn well better be good,” the General said.

“The vehicle normally carries a team of several soldiers but this one only has one O.A. soldier inside. The other two bodies are deceased,” the guard said and then finished before anyone could interrupt him, “The soldier claims they are the bodies of Eric Bayne and Destiny.”

The eyes of everyone in the room quickly turned to Dr. Cain who was feeling the opposite of everyone else at the small table. She could see the look of hope and looming victory in their eyes. Mr. Terry's expression showed a small amount of disappointment likely at the thought of Destiny having gone the direction she chose to go in but even he seemed excited. For the first time in weeks or probably months, she felt like she really had the people in her charge looking to her for one of her great bits of instruction or perhaps they wanted to celebrate. Cain felt nothing like that because she was the only one at the table that knew for a fact that Destiny and Bayne had been alive when the missions searching for them started. Was it possible that they were really dead? It could be that several teams met up and only one survived a long and drawn out firefight with the two warriors ending up being finally killed in the end. It was also possible, very possible that they had killed everyone but the one they left alive but Cain doubted that an O.A. soldier would go along with any such ruse. In the end she only spared a small grin for those at the table and said, “Have every team you can spare go to where the truck is and check out the story. I don't want to officially celebrate their deaths until I see their dead bodies for myself. Move!”

Everyone scattered at her command but she remained in her quarters, saying to the guards at the door, “Close and lock the door behind you. I will monitor the situation from my personal office.” When she was all alone, Cain went to her computer where she could pull up monitors that would show video surveillance of the bodies or the battle but when she tried to pull them up nothing happened. After a few moments a demonic face came on the screen with a message:

Surveillance System is Down

Cain quickly called the main security detail who reported that everything had just gone down for them as well. They were blind. Everyone in the complex was blind to what was going on. Cain slammed her hand on her desk and grabbed a hand-gun on the way to her door. She would have to actually go see their rotting corpses for herself.

**

A demon dressed in soldier's clothing walked into the darkened room, “Reporting the mission a success Admiral. The entire complex is dark and it would take the best tech-people in the world a week to revive the primary and backup systems.”

Admiral Bullosky nodded at his soldier, “Good work. Continue with the plan as stated.” The soldier left the room and Bullosky waited for the next development in his plan to unfold. When he had heard that a soldier had arrived with the bodies of Eric Bayne and Destiny, he knew exactly what was going on. After all, he had resources that Dr. Cain did not have and eyes in many more places around the virus-sickened world. With the complex dark, O.A. would be scrambling to find out the truth with their greatest warriors and Bullosky would carry out the final part of a plan that was destined to end with the real death of Bayne at long last. With a smirk he thought that sometimes it was a really good idea to make a deal with the devil; at least it was when you were a demon.