Zombies versus Aliens versus Vampires versus Dinosaurs Read online

  CHAPTER NINE

  The official term was “undisclosed location.” Others referred to it as the “Vice President’s bunker” or the “VP’s getaway.” To Peyton, it felt more like a prison.

  It was spacious enough for it was built to house many important people for a very long time. Buried deep beneath one of the plains states, or one of the desert states (can’t tell you), it contained comfortable living quarters with full plumbing, a gym, offices, a Situation Room, and a large dining facility—all the comforts of home.

  Peyton sat alone in the large mess hall, a glass of Scotch in his hand, a bottle of Chivas Regal on the table. The few members of his staff that had been brought here with him were somewhere or other—he didn’t know and he didn’t particularly care. They too, patriots all, were rather miffed that they hadn’t been allowed to help in this time of global crisis, and Peyton felt as if he had let them down.

  Goddamn President, he thought.

  He refilled his glass as he realized that he had already consumed close to half the bottle, and it concerned him. “Do we have any more of these?” he asked the young Marine Lieutenant standing by the front door.

  “Would you like me to call up for another bottle, sir?” answered the boy whose sole assignment was to remain by the Vice President’s side day and night.

  “No, I’m just thinking ahead,” Peyton answered.

  He reached for the remote and turned on the TV on the wall. It was showing the same footage of the Key West massacre that had been playing all day. It was the third time Peyton was seeing it, but it was just as gut-wrenching as the first.

  It was an aerial view of the town showing insect-like soldiers gunning down innocent civilians with calculated efficiency and perfect military formation.

  “They’re killing everyone!” an offscreen reporter shouted over the batabatabata of the helicopter. “People, police, no one can stop them! Where’s the government? Where’s the Army? Where is anyone?! An alien group is pointing their weapons up at—at us!!!!! Get out! Get out! Get –”

  Then the screen went to snow, then back to the news studio.

  “The final words of WEYW reporter Jim Bannon,” said the anchor. “Aptly expressing the fear and loneliness we all share. Where is help? Where is anyone?”

  Forty years in the service, Peyton thought to himself. Three times decorated in Vietnam. Helped plan the Gulf War—the first one, the good one. Supreme Commander of NATO. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And I’m stuck here for the most vital military undertaking in the history of man.

  “Goddamn President,” the Vice President said aloud as he refilled his drink once more. “I never should have voted for him.”

  A side door burst open, and two Marine officers entered quickly and officiously. They approached Peyton, then stopped with a snap.

  “Sir, you have to come with us,” said the first with great haste. “The President has been assassinated.”

  “Oh geez, that’s terrible,” Peyton said. “Did I do it?”

  “No sir.”

  “Oh thank God,” he exhaled, relieved.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The ranch hands—black and white alike—were ending their day as the warm August sun set in the distance. They had been anxious to get home to their families ever since they had heard about the travesty in Key West, but the horses and cattle still needed tending. Besides, what could they do once home anyway, other than continue to conceal the sheer terror that they were already hiding?

  The breathtaking eighteen-hundred-acre sprawl known as the Long Tooth Ranch was a local treasure and source of pride. The creek for which the nearby town was named ran right through its center, rushing along rolling foothills, wooded forests, and plush green grasslands on which the cattle grazed. Trophy bucks, turkeys, and wild quail ran free, and the owner permitted anyone who wished it to hunt or fish at their leisure.

  Cuddled under the shade of a grand old magnolia tree was the main residence. First built in 1795, the Greek Revival-style home exemplified true Southern gentility. The interior was warm and expensive, an elegant mix of modern-day technologies and old-world charm. The exquisite master bedroom with its rich oaks and fine hand-sewn curtains boasted a gold-trimmed, sixty-five-inch flat-screen TV on its wall. If not for the fact that only a very few of the master’s most trusted servants were allowed inside, the room could have graced the cover of most decorating magazines.

  Also, if not for the shiny walnut coffin that lay in its center.

  When the last trickle of the sun’s light vanished in the horizon, the casket door slowly crept open and Julius arose, feeling refreshed. He was wearing nothing but a red satin robe, and it took him but a moment to gather his bearings and remember where in the world he was.

  Although the original owner of the Long Tooth—as well as the architect of the main residence—Julius had to vacate his home every thirty years or so lest the townspeople grew suspicious of his immortality. He would return forty or so years after that, claiming to be his own son or grandson. He had been back now less than a year, and he was glad for it. He had always loved the New World.

  He hopped to his feet and walked to the small table by the window on which sat a tray with orange juice, toast with peach jam, and that morning’s edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—all which had been placed there only minutes earlier by one of his trusted servants. The orange juice held no nutritional value for him, of course, but he liked the taste and found it a pleasant way to kick off his night.

  What adventures lay in store today? he wondered.

  He casually skimmed through the nine-hour-old newspaper for something interesting as he used the remote to turn on the flat-screen, and it immediately grabbed his focus.

  “They’re killing everyone!” shouted the offscreen reporter over the batabatabata of the helicopter. “People, police, no one can stop them!”

  Julius watched transfixed as the Key West massacre unfolded before his eyes.

  This was far more adventure than he had counted on.

  “Where’s the government? Where’s the Army? Where is anyone?! An alien group is pointing their weapons up at—at us!!!!! Get out! Get out! Get –”

  Then the screen went to snow, then back to the news studio.

  It took Julius only a few moments to process it all, and then he immediately knew his next move.

  Leaving the TV on, he walked out onto the terrace and gazed upon the dark splendor of his Georgia home. Like a whip, he thrust out his arms causing his red satin robe to drop to the ground.

  “Come to me, my children!” he shouted at the night sky.

  His naked body glistened in the moonlight, every muscle perfectly defined, the actual model for da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

  “Come to me now!”

  The black sky was rendered even blacker as scores of bats emerged from all corners and flew to the vampire. They perched upon his outstretched arms, his head, his shoulders. They lay at his feet, hovered around his impeccable frame. Only once they were settled and all was still did he continue.

  “Summon our friends,” he commanded. “Summon them all. Summon them to where I shall be.”

  The bats retreated back into the darkness with the same speed with which they arrived, now on a holy quest to fulfill their master’s wishes.

  “Fly then, my children!” Julius called after them. “Summon our friends! Fly!”

  He returned inside to watch more of the news. Live aerial footage was now showing the alien army marching up Florida’s Highway One in perfect formation, seemingly on their way to devastate the next human town.

  And Julius proceeded to map out every detail of his plot.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Not too far away but much later into the evening, four young boys stealthily crept into the Heartsoot Creek Cemetery. It was just past midnight and Patrick, one of the two twelve year olds, was wishing that he was back home in bed.

  They were all aware of the recent events that plagued that day’s new
s, the events that had all the grown-ups a’buzzin’, but they were too young for the sudden proof of alien existence to be meaningful to them—didn’t everyone already know that? The grainy fifteen-second clip that kept playing over and over on all the channels was so short, and it looked kind of fake—not nearly as realistic as any of the Disney-Marvel movies.

  Their true concern for the night was the ghosts that they were hoping and dreading to encounter, and they had been planning their adventure for weeks.

  If one of the others said this was a bad idea, he would back them up, Patrick told himself. He just couldn’t be the first one to cower.

  “You sure we should be doing this?” asked Marcus.

  Marcus didn’t count, Patrick sighed internally. The kid was barely nine, along for the ride only because his big brother Jeb, the largest of the boys and their clear leader, had allowed it. Being the follower of a nine-year-old was just as bad as being the first to wimp out yourself, maybe even worse.

  “Don’t be such a chicken, Marcus,” said Joey, the other twelve year old.

  Darn it, thought Patrick. He had been counting on Joey to be the one to say something.

  “I’m not chicken, you’re chicken!” Marcus shot back.

  As they snuck deeper into the graveyard, Patrick wondered if he should have listened to his mother and avoided these boys altogether. Both his parents had gone to college—his father was one of the only two lawyers in all of Heartsoot Creek—and his mom thought it beneath him to be friends with the offspring of ranch hands, truckers, waitresses, and hillbillies. How could he make them see that he was the only kid in school who wasn’t the offspring of ranchers, truckers, waitresses or hillbillies? And he had no intention of living his life without friends so he had no choice but to prove his mettle.

  Besides, other than being a little crazy—like crazy enough to waltz into a graveyard looking for ghosts—these boys were okay, despite what his mother said.

  “No, you’re a’scared of the ghosts,” said Joey, his teasing of little Marcus growing relentless.

  “Lay off him, Joey,” Patrick said, coming to the tike’s rescue. Right is right. “He’s just a little kid.”

  “Butt out, Patrick.”

  “C’mon. We’re all a little scared.”

  “I ain’t scared!” Marcus piped in. “’Cause there ain’t no such thing as ghosts!”

  Great, thought Patrick. He had said it out loud. Darn that Marcus.

  “Is such a thing, though,” replied fourteen-year-old Jeb with the quiet wisdom that comes with age. “Ghosts. Yeah, seen ’em with my own eyes. Plenty times. But best not be ’fraid ’cause they feed themselves on our fear.”

  “Whoa,” said the other three in frightened unison.

  The boys continued their trek through the darkness, their tiny key-chain flashlights being their only source of illumination, unaware that they were approaching a large, slimy, sticky puddle of green pus that they couldn’t possibly see—Mary’s alien blood from her encounter with Julius three nights prior.

  It was nothing but dumb luck that caused the first three to step right over it, but the luck ran out for poor little Marcus who stepped right into it, tripped on it, and landed face first in the slimy green goo.

  Joey and Jeb immediately began to laugh. Only Patrick felt for the poor kid.

  “Shut up! It ain’t funny!” shouted Marcus.

  “It’s hysterical,” laughed Joey.

  “Burn in hell, Joey Thomas!” Marcus shouted as he stood up and flung a handful of the slime into Joey’s face.

  “Hey!” yelled Joey.

  “Come on, guys, take it easy,” Patrick cautioned. “You’ll get the ghosts mad.”

  “He’ll be a ghost when I’m through with him!”

  Joey lunged furiously at Marcus, but big brother Jeb intervened to cut him off. “Calm down, Joey. You ain’t laying no finger on my li’l brother.”

  “I sure as hell am!” shouted Joey. “Look what the little retard done to me!”

  But Jeb wouldn’t have it, and easily held the smaller boy back. But in the struggle, much of the green slime on Joey got smeared onto Jeb. No one thought this particularly meaningful at the time.

  “He may be a little retard,” Jeb said with authority as he raised a clenched fist aimed at Joey’s nose. “But he’s my little retard, and you ain’t touchin’ him. Got it?”

  “I’m a retard now?” asked Marcus, more hurt than before.

  “I’m protecting you, stupid,” Jeb answered.

  “That’s it. I’m going home. I’m telling Ma.”

  Marcus turned around and started back out of the cemetery. Jeb quickly shoved Joey aside and raced after his little brother in true fear. Ma would beat the crap out of him if she knew about their little adventure—he’d get it bad for traipsing into the graveyard at night, but he’d get it even worse for having brought little Marcus with him.

  “Don’t do that, buddy,” he begged his kid brother. “C’mon, I brung you with us, dint I? I’m making you one of the big kids. Don’t make me wrong fer it.”

  Marcus had every intention of savoring the moment of big cool Jeb being at his mercy, but suddenly something felt off. “Jeb, I feel funny,” he said in a plea for help.

  “You know what?” Jeb replied as the same odd sensation began to sweep over him. “I do too a little. Okay, kiddo, let’s go home. This was a dumb idea.”

  “Yeah.”

  The two brothers walked off, leaving Patrick and Joey to follow along or to continue on the adventure as a twosome.

  “Well I ain’t going in there with just you,” Patrick told Joey, feeling fortunate to finally have the out he’d been craving all night.

  He was the only one of the four boys who hadn’t come into contact with Mary’s blood, and he had no idea how fortunate he was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The cruise ship was somewhere in the mid-Atlantic as the earliest rays of dawn peaked up over the horizon, the sun itself still buried across the sea. Two spectacularly beautiful women leaned on the rail, gazing out upon the marvel with feelings of delight and loss.

  “We had better head down,” said Prague, an exquisite blonde woman with ocean-blue eyes, milky white skin and a supermodel body. “We must get below deck,” she repeated in her ancient Slavic accent when her lover failed to respond.

  “He’s never summoned us before,” said Africa, making no attempt to move.

  Her skin was dark as night, her brown eyes rich and seductive. Her curly black hair fell along the back of her perfect hourglass figure and down to her lusciously round buttocks. Her natural smile could captivate the world—and it did for almost every moment of the night and concealed day. She was the fun one, the prankster, bringing warmhearted laughter and smiles to all her kind, her only sadness coming moments before the dawn because she knew she would never again see that most astounding beauty of creation. And with the sun soon to rise, she was sullen once more.

  “Do you suppose it is because of the aliens?” she continued to her beloved.

  “It must be,” Prague answered. “Now, come. We best get below.”

  Prague started off but Africa remained.

  “Don’t you wish you could witness it once more?” she asked. “Just once?”

  “That’s what movies are for.”

  “I know, but a real sunrise. Don’t you wish that just once more we could –”

  “No, I do not!” Prague said forcefully to stop her ingénue from pursuing such nonsense. “And nor should you, young one. No good derives from such juvenile fantasies. Now come.”

  Prague extended her hand to lead her lover below deck, but Africa merely turned her head away, clearly hurt by her mentor’s tone.

  Prague instantly realized that she overdid it—Africa was no longer the innocent that she had rescued in ancient Carthage so long ago. She returned to the railing and leaned over by Africa’s side. “Do you regret it?” she asked softly.

  “The life?” Africa asked in resp
onse. “The life with you? No, not at all, my darling. It’s been an exciting, magnificent journey—and I’d be long dead and forgotten otherwise. It’s just that sometimes I think about the old days too. Don’t you ever?”

  “I used to,” confessed the older vampire. “Then I met you, Africa.”

  Africa smiled. She took her mentor’s hand, ready at last to go below deck to safety, when two very inebriated men arrived on deck.

  “Holy hell!” said the first drunk upon seeing the beautiful vampires. “Look at the two ’a ’you! Just wanna do ya both right now!”

  For some reason unbeknownst to anyone, his drunken friend found this very, very funny. “Shut up, dude,” he blared through his loud chortles.

  “No, I do, bro,” said the first drunk. “I mean, hell, look at those tits. Just wanna bury my face in ’em and go aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!”

  Prague looked at Africa and calmly asked, “Hungry?”

  “I could eat,” Africa answered with a playful smile.

  Then Prague turned to the drunks and said, “Follow me, boys. Today’s your lucky day. Meow.”

  She headed below deck as the drunks followed, exchanging high fives. Africa brought up the rear, doing her best to keep her fangs in check until that perfect, final moment when she could devour the poor, wretched souls.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By now, the people of the world knew everything.

  They knew about the destruction of the military facilities. They knew about President Addison’s assassination, along with the assassination of close to sixty percent of the planet’s leaders. They knew about the Key West massacre, the Key Largo massacre, the Florida City and Homestead massacres and every massacre in between, and they knew that the aliens had spread west across the state while still marching north—a massive moving embankment systematically killing every human in their path with no one to stop them.

  The panic and confusion that the Alien Commander had sought was in full force across the globe.