Zombies versus Aliens versus Vampires versus Dinosaurs Page 2

Vice President Peyton Willis, formerly General Peyton Willis, formerly Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peyton Willis. It had seemed such a no-brainer for Michael to put him on the ticket. A beloved military leader with no political leanings, he could publicly endorse any policy Michael put forth with no accusation of “flip-flopping.” He fully complemented then-Governor Addison’s lack of experience in foreign matters, and Michael genuinely admired the man. Well, till he got to know him.

  For the General had one fatal flaw when it came to national politics—when asked a direct question, he spoke his mind with the honesty and integrity of a soldier. Lacking the cunning nuance that great political leaders like Michael must employ on a daily basis, Peyton actually found the practice distasteful. And although he had been a fine running mate—delivering every electoral state he had been counted on despite his many political blunders—it was clear by the end of the election that his partnership with Michael was to be no partnership at all.

  It was hard on him. Having begun his career as a young lieutenant fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, there had barely been a war since in which he hadn’t been involved be it combat or planning. He was a man of action, catapulted to the second-highest office in the land, without anything to do. His wife of forty years had passed away just a few years prior so, after spending his days doing nothing at all, he would return to a home that was empty.

  And so, the widowed warrior took to drinking, and the drinking made his honesty worse—or better, depending on your point of view—and it really ticked off the President. For there he was, on this all-important fund-raising night, surrounded by his own conclave of one-percenters, shooting off his mouth like the drunken clown that Michael had come to know him to be.

  “You know, it’s tricky what I, as Vice President, can say at a fund-raiser like this,” Peyton began, just slightly tipsy and feeling fine. “Because we don’t want it to look like we’re asking for bribes . . . because let’s face it, we kinda are. And thanks.”

  The captains of industry did not take to the comment well. Of course they wanted access, of course they wanted influence, of course they wanted what they wanted, and they were willing to pay for it. But calling it a “bribe?” That makes it a crime. That makes the President’s administration corrupt, and they part of the corruption. That’s not how the game is played! Their donations are their exercise of free speech as American citizens, and that’s all that should ever be said about it.

  What if something happened to Michael and this bozo had to take the Oval? they began to wonder. And the wondering made them nervous.

  None of this was lost on Michael—very little was ever lost on Michael. How drunk is the old drunk? Next he’ll be telling them we’ll be raising their taxes. Peyton had to be muzzled and fast, but Michael couldn’t walk away from the billionaires in front of him so he looked to Laurel for help.

  “I’m on it,” she mouthed to him then turned to the crowd. “Excuse me, I must go mingle. You can’t have us both to yourselves all night. But I’ll leave you with the one of us that matters.”

  And off she went, whipping across the room as she worked it flawlessly. “Love your gown, Emily . . . Congrats on the big promotion, Tom . . . Still on for lunch next Wednesday, Nora.”

  But she couldn’t get there fast enough because Peyton was on a roll.

  “And I’m the worst bribe there is,” he continued. “I have no power nor purpose in this administration. Give no advice, and I don’t know squat. Plans to get our budget through Congress? Don’t know. Trade negotiations with China? Beats me. Middle East peace talks? Who the fu–”

  “Mr. Vice President!” Laurel called out. “It’s been far too long!” And with that she took his arm and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Ah, the only member of the royal family worth a damn,” Peyton said warmly. “Well, your kids are okay. And the dog.”

  “We must catch up,” she said then turned to the offended rich. “Excuse us.” None of them seemed to mind as she whisked Peyton off to a quiet, empty spot across the room.

  “How we holding up, General?”

  “Gotta be honest, ma’am,” he began. “This is the most boring bachelor party I’ve ever been to.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. Despite all the friction between Peyton and her husband, she had always respected the ole coot.

  “Think maybe you’ve had enough?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll stop as soon as the strippers get here.”

  “You do know this is really a fund-raiser, right?”

  “Then I guess I’d better keep drinking,” he said with a wink.

  Again, Laurel laughed—it was so hard not to like the man. But her laugh was cut short when she suddenly sensed a strange vibration, an odd feeling that something was off. Wrong. She tilted her head back and sniffed at the air. Sour.

  “Are you all right, Laurel?” Peyton asked, all kidding aside.

  “Yes, fine, fine,” she lied. “Thank you. Excuse me.”

  POTUS would have to put someone else on veep patrol for something far more pressing was at hand. She headed back to her husband to tell him she’d be leaving the party early—another migraine coming on, she’d say—then she shot a fast glance at a large, African American man in a dark suit standing against the wall.

  Secret Service Agent Denison had been protecting Laurel for a very long time and was the only member of the Montana security team that the Addisons had brought with them to Washington. He knew what all her looks meant without the necessity of words, especially this one.

  “Bring up the First Lady’s car,” he said into the microphone on his wrist.

  *****

  He was quite a handsome man actually, thought the crack-addicted streetwalker, if you’re into that whole well-dressed, pale-skinned, shiny-shoes kinda thing. He must be some kind of big-shot political freak coming down to the southeast side for some exciting excitement, but that could be good for her. He probably wouldn’t know the going rate so she could take him for an extra fifty—and that’s fifty her pimp wouldn’t know about, so a real fifty. Maybe she could use it to get into rehab, get herself clean, see her daughter again. It’d been how many years now? Damn, she missed her baby.

  “Hundred bucks, sugar,” she told the mark, hoping he wouldn’t know she’d doubled the price. “Plus hotel.”

  “No hotel,” he grunted as he dashed her into the alley. “Right now, right here.”

  “Simmer down, sugar,” she said with a smile. “Wherever you want it, but it’s the same hundr—“

  But he didn’t care what she had to say. He grabbed her shoulders, pinned her hard against the wall, and then opened his mouth wide to reveal his long, sharp fangs, ready to devour her!

  What the Christ! she thought as she gasped in terror. It’s a goddamn vampire!

  It wasn’t the pending loss of her own pitiful life that made the prostitute scream and struggle in mortal fear but rather the realization that her poor daughter would never know how much her mother actually cared about her.

  So she screamed and struggled, but it was no use. The vampire was just too strong. He leaned in for the kill, his sharp fangs less than an inch from her pimply, tawdry neck when a hand reached out from nowhere and threw him across the alley, sending him crashing into the garbage cans on the other side.

  The whore didn’t understand what had happened, but she didn’t care. She bolted off, certain this was a sign from God, vowing to the Lord Almighty that she’d go into rehab as soon as she could, right after her next hit.

  The vampire laid on the ground, covered with garbage, looking up at his assailant. And what he saw scared him to the depths of his dark soul. For there before him stood one of the most notorious vampire slayers in all of vampire lore.

  First Lady Laurel Addison was fresh from the fund-raiser in her fabulous gown and jewelry. The only difference was a burlap satchel slung over her shoulder, a wooden stake in each of her hands, and a look of sheer determination on her face.

 
“Didn’t you get the tweets?” she said to the creature. “D.C. is my town. Clean town. Vampires persona non grata.”

  The vampire knew it was kill or be killed, knew his chances against Laurel were slim—but if he could take her down with him, he would at least perish a hero.

  “Slayer!” he shouted as he charged her.

  Laurel dodged his assault with ease, slashing at his chest with her wooden stakes as he passed, but missing. But her own chest was now wide open to him, and the vampire charged again. Laurel leapt straight up to grab hold of the balcony above her then kicked out her legs for the vampire to rush past her below. She then let go and crashed down upon the creature, knocking him to the ground, pinning his shoulders with her knees to hold him in place. She raised her wooden stake to plunge it into his heart when she heard voices approaching.

  “Slayer!” the voices shouted as two new vampires emerged to save their brother. The first knocked Laurel off the fallen vampire while the second moved in for the final kill. She back-flipped out of his way with lightning speed, grabbing hold of the other who she shoved against the wall. She raised her wooden stake once more, then proceeded to ram it into his heart.

  The vampire hissed and transformed into mist, virtually invisible and utterly incorporeal. Laurel’s wooden stake sailed harmlessly through him, bashing against the brick wall behind him with full force, shattering to dust. The other two then morphed to mist as well, converging upon the First Lady to her imminent doom.

  With all seeming hopeless, she quickly reached into her satchel, grabbed a handful of an ancient beige powder and threw it at the lot of them, rendering their physical forms to return—and just in time to spot one of them flying at her at full speed, fangs poised for the kill, barely a foot away. She buckled her knees and dropped herself prostrate to the ground as she thrust her remaining wooden stake upward, nailing the creature perfectly in his heart as he soared past above her, taking her weapon with him as he crashed against the brick wall, already dead.

  One down, two to go, she thought as she raced toward the corpse to retrieve her weapon, but she was grabbed from behind before she got there. Pinned in a full nelson, helpless! She struggled ferociously but despite her many skills, her impeccable physical training, and her vast knowledge of the creatures’ foibles, she knew she could never overpower one with sheer strength. And although she had a free hand, she held no wooden stake, no weapon with which to fight. The vampire who restrained her sprouted his fangs and salivated as he moved to tear into her infamous neck flesh while the other charged at her fast.

  In one fluid motion, she used her free hand to grab hold of her silver crucifix necklace and whisked it back and upward, jamming it hard into the forehead of the vampire who held her. The creature screamed in mortal agony as his skin sizzled, smoked, burned aflame, a crucifix tattoo permanently embedded above his eyes. And before he even fell to the ground, she kicked out her right leg as the other monster charged chest first into the wooden heel of her Louboutin stiletto.

  It took all her strength to yank her designer shoe out of his heart before he hit the concrete, his evil existence done with forever. Panting, exhausted, two enemies dead and one writhing on the ground, Laurel looked down on the pathetic creature with pity. Then she raised her leg high and stomped down hard upon his chest, driving her expensive wooden-stake heel deep into his heart, ending him too.

  Secret Service Agent Denison stood patiently by the parked limousine outside the alley awaiting his Mistress. The moment he saw Laurel approaching, he opened the back door for her to enter.

  “How’d it go, ma’am?” he asked with polite deference.

  “The usual,” she said with a shrug as she got into the car.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Okay, from the beginning,” said the NASA administrator with the annoyed tone of someone who’d rather be in bed so early on a Monday morning. “Tell me how you’d tell it to the President.”

  Jean-François stood at the front of the conference room, and he knew it was make-or-break time. His budget was already small for NASA, and he needed significantly more funding to take his project to the crucial next level. He also knew that it was on the top of the cut list because Raymond Saticoy, NASA’s fifty-five-year-old head honcho, simply didn’t like him—probably the French thing again.

  “It’s okay,” said Gloria Ames softly with an encouraging smile. Gloria was the deputy administrator, Raymond’s number two, who had initially found Jean-François’s theories preposterous like everyone else. But she went from his biggest critic to his greatest supporter once she saw his data. A true scientist, Jean-François thought admiringly, unlike their boss who was a true bureaucrat.

  “Go ahead, Jeff. It’s okay,” she repeated.

  Jean-François took a deep breath. He was a scientist, not an actor, and he hated these dog and pony shows. Why couldn’t Raymond just read his report? It was written so much better than the Frenchman could ever say aloud. But he knew that life at NASA didn’t work that way, so he took another deep breath and began.

  He nodded to Lance, the only other person in the room. Lance sat alone at the far end of the conference table hovering over his laptop. He pecked at a few keys, prompting a map of the Orion Arm of the galaxy to appear on the LCD television on the wall.

  “We spotted the first wormhole by accident several years ago,” Jean-François began as a red dot popped onto the galactic map.

  “A wormhole is like a shortcut through space and time,” Lance said helpfully.

  “I know what a wormhole is,” Raymond replied annoyed.

  “You said we should say it like we would to the President.”

  “Fine. Go on.”

  Jean-François started again, “It was roughly six light-years away –”

  “Which means that at the moment we saw it open and close, it had actually happened six years earlier,” Lance explained.

  “You do get that I run NASA, don’t you?” Raymond snapped.

  “Let them talk, Ray,” Gloria said insistently.

  “We searched for others, but it was like a needle in a haystack,” the astrophysicist continued. “Two years till we found the next one,” he said as another red dot popped onto the screen. “Then another year till we found two more.” Pop. Pop.

  “Then we noticed something startling. The wormholes were forming a single line.” A curved green line appeared on the galactic map, connecting the dots, visually displaying Jean-François’s thesis. “So we extended the line outward, and we discovered that there were wormhole remnants everywhere along the way.” Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

  “But how far back, how long ago did these wormholes begin? we wondered. So we extended the line in the opposite direction, backward in space, back in time so to speak. Now that we knew where to look, now that we had a precise track to follow, we were able to scour with precision every photographic plate, print, or sketch of the area from past research of other projects. And lo and behold, in the faint corners and ignored parts of so very many of these images lay the wormhole remnants we had been seeking.” Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

  “It’s called ‘precovery,’” Lance piped in. “Short for ‘pre-discovery.’ It’s the process of using –”

  “Will you stop already?!” Raymond barked at the boy.

  Jean-François raised his hand to his protégé—he’ll take it from here.

  “The furthest remnant we found was on a photographic plate from research done in 1986, which we calculated at close to fifty light-years away. This is not to say that the wormholes don’t go further back than that, only that we have yet to find any plates to support it.

  “And it all begged the question: if the wormholes in space are akin to one side of a door, where is the other? So, on a hunch, we studied the Earth for the same phenomena.”

  “Wanna hear about the cool equipment I invented to do it?” Lance piped in boastfully.

  “No,” Raymond yawned without even looking at the boy.

  “And our theory
proved valid,” Jean-François went on. “Not only were we finding wormholes appearing and disappearing with alarming regularity, but each wormhole on Earth perfectly matched one specific, unique counterpart in space. The size and shape, the spectral composition, the temperature, the duration of its very existence. So this green line—clearly the source of the wormholes—seems to be the pathway of some interplanetary vessel. Which would in turn imply that extraterrestrials have been visiting us for roughly fifty years, if not more.”

  On screen, the green line continued to jut out across the stars, faster, faster, with red dots popping up all along the way, the camera swish-panning across the galaxy to keep up.

  “And if we continue to extend the line forward, we can see that the vessel itself is heading straight . . . toward . . . Earth!”

  And there it was on screen—the green line stopping at our very doorstep.

  The room went silent as they awaited Raymond’s response. It was only a matter of seconds, but to Jean-François it felt like hours.

  “That’s a giant assumption, fellas,” the boss said at last.

  Jean-François and Lance were crushed. Gloria was exasperated, frustrated beyond belief, angry.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” she said forcefully. “You don’t think there’s enough here to warrant amping up this project? Ray, there’s something going on out there and we should know what it is.”

  “Then why haven’t the guys at SETI found it?”

  “For all we know they have!”

  “SETI tracks radio waves,” Jean-François calmly interjected, fully prepared. “We can’t determine what kind of waves the alien vessel emits, if any.”

  “There is no alien vessel!” Raymond shouted with finality. “Guys, this is exactly what you’ve been bringing me for years. I can’t take ‘aliens’ to the President.”

  “Then we should at least bring him the wormhole findings,” Gloria offered as a pale compromise. “I still don’t know why we didn’t years ago.”

  “Because anyone who hears this will make the same unsubstantiated leap you did, and then we’re right back to where we started. Aliens.”