Chapter 66: Silver Bullets

The grounds of Hartley House were filled with the smoking remnants of the battle that had raged just two hours earlier. The repercussions were being felt on both sides and would continue to be felt for a very long time after the dust had settled on these once well-manicured lawns.

The wooden towers lay in splintered bundles, the remaining ultraviolet lamps still flickering over the blood-soaked bodies of the soldiers of The Brotherhood. The grass was glazed with a heavy sprinkling of ash and silver bullets. Swords, pistols and cloaks lay where the vampires had fallen.

In the remains of the carnage, a body was stirring. One soldier had survived. Keeping pressure on the gaping wound in his neck with one hand, he used his other arm to lift a reinforced wooden support off his legs and drag himself free onto an open patch of grass.

He thought back to the battle. He had killed at least five vampires before they climbed the tower and pounced on him and his squad mate. Fortune had smiled on him though. Just as a vampire had pinned him down and sunk its teeth into his neck, the vampires at the bottom of the tower had managed to loosen the tower from its foundations. The vampire let go and they all fell to the ground.

Then a thought occurred to the soldier. What happened to the vampire?

The soldier felt a powerful blast of air in his face. Dust particles pelted his eyeballs and shot up his nostrils when he drew breath. With his free hand he rubbed his eyes then looked through the criss-crossing remnants of his wooden tower to see a familiar gunship approaching.

It touched down on the drive and a small squad of soldiers jumped out. He knew what their job was: to recover the bodies and take them back to the regional headquarters for safe disposal. It was safe for The Brotherhood to assume that every dead soldier at Hartley House had been bitten and was about to turn into a vampire.

This soldier was still alive and he knew the doctor had been working on a cure. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank God his treatment is to cure vampires rather than kill them. If it worked on that cop, it must work on me.

He looked around him and saw one soldier leading the others, shooting silver bullets into the dead bodies and the others were zipping them into body bags.

Then he heard the clunk of wood on metal. The ruins of the tower were moving. An unholy scream tore through the air and in the shade of the ruins of the tower, the vampire that had attacked the soldiers at the top of the tower wobbled to its feet. It turned and looked at the soldier, who shouted for help.

The soldier that had been shooting the dead bodies ran over and pumped the vampire’s body full of bullets from his machine gun. The vampire didn’t fall to the ground and die though, and the soldiers looked at each other. The soldier lying on the ground knew something was amiss.

That vampire’s body is full of silver bullets but nothing happened. What’s going on?

‘Damn it,’ said the other soldier and drew his pistol. He pulled the trigger and the target reeled backwards. The vampire hit the ground and its body slowly dissolved. The soldier holstered his pistol and moved over to the surviving soldier.

‘You weren’t using silver bullets,’ the surviving soldier said, ‘all the soldiers here are going to turn, aren’t they? You’re one of them!’

‘That’s right, soldier,’ the soldier replied, then squeezed the trigger of his rifle and murdered the only human who suspected he was a vampire.

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Rebirth gets another great review - that's four in a row!

Rebirth has received another positive review, this time from Horror World...

"With smooth writing that flows at break-neck speed from the first page, REBIRTH is a highly enjoyable horror adventure of epic proportions that demands to be read in one sitting. I highly recommend REBIRTH by Scott McKenzie for anyone looking for a great summer read that spotlights a rising newcomer to the horror genre."

To read the whole review, visit the following link and scroll down to the bottom of the page:
http://www.horrorworld.org/reviews.htm

Rebirth is available from the following online retailers:

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Barnes and Noble - $15.25

Chapter 65: Arrival

An impressive formation of clouds hung above us in the blood red sky as the helicopter touched down. It was just after seven AM and we found ourselves on a landing pad on the top of a hill.

I looked around and saw a massive arsenal of military hardware. There was another gunship like the one that had picked us up from Hartley House and a wide range of other vehicles. Whoever The Brotherhood were, they were obviously well-funded but from what I’d seen in the last few hours, they could do with more experience in the field. They were well-trained to act like a military outfit but they had failed to effectively deal with the attack.

I saw a squad of soldiers running towards the other gunship. They piled in and it lifted off, heading in the direction that we had just come from.

‘What’s going on there?’ I asked Captain Stein.

‘That’s the recovery team,’ he replied, ‘Now the sun’s up, they’re going back to Hartley House to clean up the mess before anyone finds out. They’ve got a lot of work to do today.’

A squad of soldiers marched up a long ramp leading down into the mountain. A burly man in uniform, Commander North, led the squad, shouting ‘Left! Left! Left, right, left!’ and the soldiers all marched in time, their thundering footsteps breaking the silence that was left behind once the helicopter had been shut down.

They reached the landing pad and surrounded the helicopter, their hands resting on their guns but not aiming at us. I could see they were ready to blow away anything that looked like a vampire: it was written in the concentration on their faces. I wondered how many of these soldiers had seen as much action as we had seen in the last twenty four hours.

Not many, I bet.

Captain Stein got out of the helicopter and saluted Commander North. ‘Welcome home,’ said the commander.

‘Thank you, sir. It’s unfortunate there aren’t more of us.’

‘You’ve got the doctor, that’s what matters. Good job, Captain.’

I had been hoping the regional headquarters would have been run by someone with a bit more sympathy but it appeared to me that Captain Stein and Commander North were crafted from the same mould.

Agent Simpson and I got out of the helicopter behind Doctor Owen. Commander North took one look at me and turned to Captain Stein. ‘Who the hell is this sorry looking son of a bitch? He looks like he’s on his last legs,’ he said as though I wasn’t there.

‘This is Detective Tom Ryder,’ he said.

‘A cop?’ he said, continuing to ignore me.

‘Yes. His work helped us to track down Doctor Owen.’

Commander North moved over to me. We shook hands and the bandage on my neck must have caught his eye. ‘Jesus Christ, he’s been bitten. I hope you know what you’re doing, Captain.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Captain Stein, ‘the Doctor is going to work with Detective Ryder. We hope this opportunity will present us with the data he needs to finish his work.’

‘I hope you mean the primary treatment, Captain.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘He’s your responsibility, Captain,’ said Commander North, then looked me in the eye, ‘Son, if you start trying to eat my men, I’ll put you down in the blink of an eye. Got it?’

‘I’ll try my best not to.’ I said dourly.

The squad led us down the ramp towards the heart of the regional headquarters. As we descended, I saw more heavy military equipment including a huge array of firepower: cannons, racks of rifles and crates marked ‘explosive’. Most of the vehicles looked clean and new.

Has any of this equipment ever been used? Would any of these soldiers know what to do with it if there was an attack on the base?

‘How are The Brotherhood funded?’ I asked Agent Simpson.

‘How do you think?’

‘The government?’ I speculated

‘It’s bigger than that. The influence of the vampire community stretches all over the world.’

‘So there is a link with the World Health Organisation? Once this all kicked off, I assumed it was a lie to get us to work together.’ I said.

‘No, not at all. You’d be surprised at the other problems we have to deal with.’

‘One surprise is quite enough for now.’ As far as I was concerned, the other problems of the World Health Organisation could wait a little longer. I didn’t want to think about all the other monsters out there in the world that until now I thought existed only in the realms of fiction.

We were marched down long corridors, past many doors into the heart of the base. The place wasn’t decorated at all. The walls were bare grey concrete and there were no furnishings or signs anywhere. I wondered how long The Brotherhood had been based at this location: it felt like they could leave at any time and leave no trace at all. After seeing the attack on Hartley House, I could appreciate the need for immediate evacuation.

We were led through one of the blank doors into a cold, empty room. Commander North moved to the front of the crowd and everyone else in the room faced him, awaiting his address.

‘I would like to start off by welcoming the newcomers to our outpost. Some of you already know Agent Simpson and I’m sure you are all aware of Doctor Owen’s work.’

He turned to me. ‘Detective Ryder here was instrumental in rescuing the doctor from the hands of our enemies. I would like to thank him on behalf of The Brotherhood for all his hard work. Unfortunately for him, he was bitten in the course of his investigation.’

No sooner had the words left his lips than all the soldiers in the room turned to each other, murmuring in hushed voices and firing cautionary glances in my direction.

‘Quiet please,’ said Doctor Owen, ‘He’s okay now. I have given him a dose of the treatment I’ve been working on. As soon as we can have access to your medical facilities, we will continue the testing.’

Commander North looked troubled. ‘I take it you gave him the secondary treatment?’

‘Of course,’ he said.

Secondary treatment? I thought. What’s the primary treatment?

‘A soldier will be standing by wherever he goes,’ said Captain Stein, ‘The chances are that he will still turn into a bloodsucker. No offence, Detective.’

‘None taken.’

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Chapter 64: Regeneration

Roxy hung up and Marcus took the phone out of her hand. She was lying on a metal operating table, with a team of her brothers and sisters clad in medical robes leaning over her mutilated body, preparing it for regeneration.

Two of her brothers lifted her body off the treatment table and carried her over to a small bath. They sat her down on a moulded seat on the edge of the bath and let her stumps hang down. One of her sisters picked up a hose that was hanging in a long loop on the wall, placed the end in the bath and turned a tap on the wall.

Within a few seconds, cool, dark blood started to pour from the hose into the bath, covering what remained of Roxy’s legs. The sticky blood worked its way up to Roxy’s hips and stopped. The medical staff cleaned themselves up and threw their blood-soaked robes in a basket that was taken away by a servant. As they left, one of them turned to Roxy. ‘You’ll be okay but try to rest. Conserve your energy. We’ll be back to check on you in an hour.’

‘Thank you very much,’ she said, her voice conveying a mixture of relief, disappointment and exhaustion.

Only Marcus remained in the room. ‘How do you feel, Roxy?’

‘I’ve felt worse,’ she said, ‘I’ve been in worse scrapes than this.’

‘Yes you have, haven’t you? What was the news?’

‘It was another one of our insiders. He’s going to make sure all of the bodies make it through the recovery process without being treated.’

‘So plan B is a go?’

‘Yes sir. One hundred percent.’

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Chapter 63: Skinner

Another soldier finishing the night shift, another mobile phone taped to the back of his desk drawer.

Another vampire infiltrator at the regional headquarters of The Brotherhood.

Private Skinner had been working in the communications room and heard all the details of the attack on Hartley House. Private Lambert had done a good job but unfortunately the mission had not been completed. He had taken out one of the gunships and allowed a large squad of his brothers and sisters to almost completely wipe out an outpost.

But the primary target had escaped. The attack was all for nothing. His brothers and sisters had died for nothing. Private Skinner knew that now would be his time to join the fight.

Private Skinner called Roxy and she barked at him before he had the chance to say anything.

‘Where is the target?’ she asked, her voice laced with anger and pain.

‘On his way here. The helicopter is about twenty minutes away,’ he replied.

‘You know what you need to do. Our cause depends on you now.’

‘I understand. Is everything okay?’ he asked, but didn’t receive an answer. The line clicked and she was gone. Private Skinner turned his phone off and returned it to its hiding place.

Our cause depends on you.

Skinner was nervous and excited. He had trained for this moment for a long time. He was going to come face to face with the doctor. The primary target. He must not fail.

He already had his orders from The Brotherhood. He was part of the disposal team who took care of bodies that had been bitten or infected. The recovered bodies provided Private Skinner with all the human blood he needed to keep him going. He had never killed a human or fed on the blood of the living.

After a twelve hour shift, he felt the familiar pain in his stomach. He grabbed his stomach with both hands and sat down. His face contorted with agony and he fought against the hunger. The almost uncontrollable desire to feed on human flesh and blood.

The door opened and his room-mate, Private O’Brien, ran into the room, wiping shaving foam off his face with a towel. ‘Damn it, I’m late again!’ he cursed.

Skinner had got to know Private O’Brien well over the last two years. They worked opposite shifts and rarely saw each other, but when they did they got on like a house on fire.

O’Brien looked at his room-mate, who was still doubled over on the side of his bed. ‘Hey bud, are you okay?’

‘Just a bit of indigestion.’

‘Too right. It was that dinner last night. I’ve had dodgy guts all day.’

‘Yes, that must be it,’ said Private Skinner as he struggled to his feet.

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