The Holocaust Engine, page 41
FEMA Director Lauren Younger threw up her hands. “Then the disease gets the most out of the other half!”
“No, Director, you don’t understand. If the brain is dead, then the body stops. We’ve assumed that any interruption in the physical signaling stops the infected body, just like with the body of Dr. McCaffrey. No, don’t interrupt me. Somewhat like the classic zombie mythos. What I’m telling you is that the level of damage that this... this thing had to its nerve tissue would have made any connection between brain and body impossible. Imagine losing forty percent of the towers and still transmitting power from one city to the next. Eventually you hit an impasse on every line. His head may as well have been totally severed.” His finger stabbed out. “At this moment it is dead! It has to be!”
One of the CIA deputies muttered, “And cause and effect just left the building and now we all get to watch voodoo on the big screen.”
Then, from the back of the room, Mr. Fincher spoke. “Which gives us at least a part of why Operation Clean Sweep was assembled and why we didn’t go through channels.”
“I don’t get that at all,” said Deputy Director Wang. “All I’m getting is that we’ve left a significant number of our own people trapped inside with those things for almost a year now with barely any assistance and I’m still waiting for an explanation why.”
“Madam Director,” said Mr. Fincher, coldly. “The real theatre in this operation is still Cuba, which has yet to get its house in order and has a pretty neat slice of our entire naval fleet making sure nothing comes in or out. We were about to have a heart to heart with the Calzado administration and give them an ultimatum. That ultimatum would have looked a whole lot more menacing after we just bombed 13,000 of our own citizens or however many of them are still alive in there. A bombing that would have ensured that no one ever found out about the second strain.” Then he looked back to the Admiral. “The only real question now, Jack, is what on earth could have made you scrub the mission. And whether we should all get a really strong sedative before you lay it on us.”
Tisdale nodded to Murphy, who reached down between his legs into an attaché case.
The Admiral cleared his throat. “What you are about to be handed is a heavily redacted English translation of a memorandum sent from an asset in the currently contested Chechnyan zone. It should go without saying that nothing you are about to see leaves this room. Any leak will be aggressively investigated."
As the copies circulated, the seated dignitaries came alive with reactions: gasps and groans; Deputy Director Wang began to cry. “You did this,” she said softly, looking down at the paper. “This is your fault.” And Tisdale knew that she was probably referring to him. They grew louder. Several in the room stood. In a moment he would lose them. The Admiral called out for attention and cleared his throat.
“We were still monitoring movements inside of the containment area and debating a change in policy when we started getting rumblings that they’d somehow made contact with the outside world. The Joint Chiefs decided not to take any chances and put together Clean Sweep on the fly. Then we got this.” Tisdale took a deep breath. “In short it says that parties unnamed are offering eight Level Two bodies. The implication is that those bodies are currently not “active”, but the highest bidder could make them that way, or do whatever else it wanted with them. And that these bodies are already outside of our cordon.” His voice boomed as he tried to talk over the grumbling filling the room. “We’ve been able to trace the source.” He waited for them to settle down in order to hear the rest. “Key West. Specifically, from a satellite phone we gave to Police Captain Perry Nelson some months ago.”
“Then we have to find him!” screamed Danvers.
Tisdale gave a pained nod to the assistant FEMA director, “yes, Craig, that would be a good place to start.” He looked for a moment at Deputy Director Wang. She had just regained her composure. He sighed. “For those of you who do not know, Captain Nelson succumbed to what we believe was Level Two infection shortly after the massacre on Smathers Beach. His current whereabouts are not known, but spotters are active.”
“They’ll know him if they see him,” said Tisdale’s second with a scoff.
The Admiral met the CDC Deputy Director’s livid gaze. “The Captain had an abscess as the result of his combat injuries,” he said. “After he... turned he apparently took treatment matters into his own hands.”
“He’s only been seen once by spotters since his escape,” said Murphy. “The islanders have given him the name Cheshire.
“Like the cat.”
—-End of Special Sneak Preview—-
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THE HOLOCAUST ENGINE Series at Evolved Publishing
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To Carol and Crystal, for building the paradises we live in every day. We are better men and writers because of you.
To our families, who daily build something that cannot be broken.
To Dave Lane (aka Lane Diamond) and Evolved Publishing, for faith in us as writers and in our story. Thanks for pushing us forward.
To Gary C., John A., and Bob Y., for reading and cheering us on in the early part of this journey. We did it.
To every person who fights for a world bigger than themselves and makes sacrifices for something eternal. When you touch the transcendent, nothing is ever the same.
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Publisher Profile | Facebook (Author) | Facebook (Series)
I didn’t grow up wanting to write. In fact, when I finished college I’d all but stopped reading. Then I took a job at a local police department as a whistle-stop on the way to some great destiny, got hurt early on and, faced with long days of much-needed bed rest, limped into a local book store, and left with an armful of novels.
Two decades later and I’ve served that police department as an officer, supervisor and, now, investigative lieutenant, all the while bleeding the book stores dry. As for the great destiny, I simply offer this: we are never fully human until we find some outlet for our innate creative impulses. My outlet is the novel, particularly the dystopian science fiction and horror stories that resonated with me those years ago. Perhaps, one day, I’ll find that something I’ve written has influenced another, the same as that armful of books once did for me.
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Publisher Profile | Facebook (Author) | Facebook (Series) | Twitter
As a child of Kentucky and Texas, bluegrass and bluebonnets share equal time in my blood, fueling a need for adventure and exploration, and a keen desire to see what is out there.
This is my third evolution as a writer, starting as a young boy inventing adventures for my toys and friends. In school, I wrote to fulfill assignments and map out the world. Now, I write for the same reason I read: I want to know what happens next.
Stories can make us laugh or smile, scream or cry, sometimes at the same time. In the best stories, we let the pages tell us what we need to see inside ourselves.
My fiction ranges from horror to historical, and I placed in a short story contest when one of my first stories found a home in Evolution: Vol. 1, published by Evolved Publishing. Outside of the Lone Star state, I won the Arkansas Writer’s Conference Special Award (2009) and the Creme De La Creme Award (2014) from the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation, Inc. for best overall story.
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Danger lurks outside Eden’s sturdy walls, in the land of the Soulless—a medieval world filled with witches, warrior kingdoms, and magic.
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Please enjoy this Special 2-Chapter Sneak Preview we offer below, or....
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RED DEATH Series at Evolved Publishing
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Chapter 1 – Aaliss
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Aaliss nearly growled, her mood foul. Weary from a long day, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, stuff her head under a pillow, and fall blissfully asleep. Instead, she found a note perched on top of her bed like a bad omen. She sighed and carefully unfolded the paper and read her young brother’s precise handwriting.
He wanted her to come to his lab, and although he phrased it like a request, he was really summoning her.
For a long moment she stared at her bed, tempted to slip under the sheets, but she really had no choice. Wilky would wait for her all night and the next day until she came for him, and she didn’t want him sleeping at the lab again.
She trekked across the Compound to his lab and stood before him.
Wilky crossed his arms against his thin chest. He was a good-looking boy with bright blue eyes, the family’s jet-black hair, strong features, and a thin muscular frame. “We’re starving them.”
Aaliss glanced behind her brother and into the holding pen. Three Guests her age, two girls and one boy, sat slumped with their backs against the wall.
They do look gaunt.
Somehow the unwanted thought bullied its way into her mind before she could prevent it. Wilky had a way of doing that—making her see the world differently, the way he saw it—and now, when she looked at the captives, she saw only skin and bones and desperation.
She waved at the Guests in what she hoped would be a dismissive gesture, but she failed miserably and felt a little foolish. “They’re Soulless, Wilky. The devil has claimed them. We’re not supposed to worry about the Soulless.”
Her words sounded hollow even to her, and a chill swept down her spine. She had begun to doubt Eden’s most fundamental teachings, which scared her. Once doubt crept in, where would it lead?
Wilky stayed silent and intensified his glare until his eyes carved straight through her chest and into her soul. He might be thirteen, but he had the eyes of someone much older and wiser, someone who knew truths he should never have known.
Time ticked on, the two locked in a silent tug of war Aaliss knew she would never win. Born stubborn, Wilky would stay, arms crossed and eyes glaring, for as long as it took for her to cave in.
A fire three years ago had claimed their parents, and she had been responsible for him ever since. Sometimes she wanted to strangle him, but he was her brother, and she loved him, and the two had forged a team of sorts. Piers, their oldest brother, completed the group, but he was... well, he was Piers, and that made him more of an honorary member of the team than a full-fledged participant.
They do look hungry.
She sighed. “Okay, I’ll find Piers and see if he can rustle up some food. But you know I’ll get into real trouble if a Priest catches me sneaking into the Parsonage.”
Wilky shot her a sideways glance and a small smirk.
They both knew she was too highly trained, too skilled to get caught.
“This can’t wait until tomorrow?” she asked.
He shook his head.
She groaned as she left the lab, retraced her steps through the Labyrinth, slipped her way to the stone circular staircase that led to the Parsonage, and cringed when she saw a full moon through a narrow window. She didn’t believe in superstitions as much as other people she knew, but a full moon portrayed an ominous sign. She didn’t scare easily, but the devil used the moon to create mischief, and a full moon meant danger.
No one else traveled the staircase at this time of night, so she crept up the steps unseen until she reached the top landing and a locked door. Unlike the other doors into the tower, which were made of wood, a heavy steel door protected the Parsonage where the Priests lived. A red light glowed by the handle, with a keypad to its side.
She approached warily and peered through a small window. The full moon reflected back at her as if spying on her, waiting for her to be discovered. She had no excuse to visit the Parsonage this late, and if the High Priest caught her, she would get in trouble. If he suspected dark motives, her punishment would be severe. Still, she had come this far and could not disappoint Wilky. She said she’d go, and she kept her promises.
She pressed six on the keypad three times, and held her breath as the light turned from red to green. The combination for the lock changed daily, but a glitch in the system allowed three sixes to work every time.
Wilky had told her the secret.
She had no idea how he had discovered it. She assumed he must have overheard someone talking about it, but when she asked him, he would not say.
“I must be crazy,” she muttered to herself, and exhaled as she edged the door open just far enough to peek down the hallway.
Flickering candlelight danced through the corridor, casting shadows that looked like living creatures, as misshapen and dangerous as those that lived in the Zone—the heavily wooded buffer area between Eden and the Soulless.
Aaliss patrolled in the Zone. As a Guardian, part of her job was to make sure the Soulless never learned of Eden’s existence. In that darkness, she was one of the dangers for the unwary. Not so here in the Parsonage. Priests ruled in Eden.
She focused on her destination and ignored the shadow creatures, willing them away. You are not real. With no one in sight, she slipped into the hallway and glided toward the fourth door on the left.
A tall, thin Priest knelt at a small wooden altar in the small chamber. Two years older than Aaliss, the handsome nineteen-year-old wore the robe of the newly initiated Priests. He had many of the same features as Wilky—chiseled chin, short straight black hair, and bright blue eyes—but that revealed only part of her brother’s story.
The fire that took their parents had severely damaged the other half of Piers’s face, the side not visible from the doorway. Half his body had been badly burned, leaving him disfigured and suffering with weakness and pain in his left leg and arm.
Relieved to find him alone, she entered the small prayer room and silently closed the door behind her. As the smallest and plainest chamber in the Parsonage, it had just enough space for the small altar, a chair, and perhaps four people standing close together. Although simple and small, it was Piers’s favorite place to pray. She’d known she would find him here, as he always prayed before he went to sleep.
He knelt on alternating black and white marble tiles. All the floors in the Parsonage were made from the same tiles—white for truth and purity, and black for lies and evil. Just like the Priests’ robes—the initiates wore black with white sashes, and the fully-ordained Priests wore white robes with black sashes. Only black and white existed in Eden—gray and the doubts that accompanied it had no place here.
She crept toward him, shadow-quiet, a sly smile creasing her lips. She could move like a ghost when necessary.
His lips moved as he concentrated intently on his prayers. He knelt at the altar, his back rod straight with his head bowed piously.
When she had snuck close to him, she poked him on the shoulder.
He leaped forward with a start and let loose a soft shriek.
She forgot about the moon and the shadow creatures, and laughed freely while he scowled at her. It felt good to laugh; she so rarely laughed anymore.
“Are y-you crazy?” he stammered as he straightened his black robe. “You almost sent me to the next world!”
“You’re always so easy to startle.” Her smile faded as she studied her brother’s face and lifted her hand to touch him. “You have a bruise on your cheek.”
He looked away before she reached him. “What are you doing here? You could get into real trouble.”
She balled her hands into tight fists. “Did he do that to you?”
“I spilled the Sacred Drink yesterday. I was careless. My leg gave out, so I had to be taught a lesson. The Book of Jacob tells us it is a sin to waste food.”
“But it was an accident. He has no right to hurt you. Doesn’t the Book also tell us to be kind to our fellow Edenites, always, especially those who are hurt? ‘Care for your brothers and sisters, always, for in this world you are each others’ keepers against the Soulless ones.’” She narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to teach him a lesson about following the ways of the Book.”
Piers turned and gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Ally. It doesn’t hurt, and I spilled the Sacred Drink. Besides, he is the High Priest. The Creator speaks through him. Sometimes he must be severe to teach the proper lessons. There’s a plan, and the Creator has given us the High Priest to explain it to the rest of us. These mysteries are hard to understand, but we must accept them.”
She softened in his grip and spoke false words. “You know what’s best.” She still wanted to teach the High Priest a lesson, maybe punch him in that round face and feel her knuckles crush his flat nose, but she told her brother what he wanted to hear. Life was hard enough for Piers without adding to his burdens.
He smiled with the only side of his face that could, but it made her feel better.
When he released her, he stepped backward and frowned. “Your hair looks long.”
Guilt ripped through her. As a daughter of Eden, she knew the consequences of bending the rules—shame and humiliation if caught by a Priest.
She smoothed her black hair. “Hair grows. I’ve been gone for two weeks!”
“Your hair is almost touching your shoulders. You know the Word. Vanity is a sin. You should cut it before anyone notices.”
