Dark Creations: Hell on Earth (Part 5) (4 page)

Sadly, their talents were not enough to overtake humanity as a whole.  He had known that from his plan’s inception and had added an additional dimension to his ascension to world domination.  He’d formulated a life-threatening plague. 

The super-virus he’d created was a genetically tweaked hybrid of both the Anthrax virus and the H5N1 bird flu, but far more contagious than either alone, and far more nefarious.  His deadly virus could pass easily between millions of people at a time, and would wipe out civilization, at least the civilization he had not created.  It would spread quicker than any virologist, geneticist, or epidemiologist would have time to identify it, much less stop it.  It would begin with flu-like symptoms that would rapidly degenerate to pneumonia and respiratory failure.  And the entire process would occur within the duration of the common cold. 

Terzini chuckled to himself at the notion of eradicating an entire society of people in just three short days.  He thought about how many people within the tragic society he sought to end bowed and prayed each day to a deity that claimed to have created the entire world in seven days.  Such utter nonsense!  They deserved to die for being weak-minded enough to subscribe to drivel as fictional as an entire planet being formed by an unseen, incommunicative figment of their imagination, and in a week, no less.  Fortunately, his virus would remedy their stupidity, for good.

His virus strain was both the endgame plan for humanity as well as the contingency plan.  Should he be discovered before raising the full might of his legion, should the army or another branch of government unearth his plot, he kept a creation readied for dispatch to a heavily populated major city on the East coast of the United States to release it.  There, the short-lived virus would overtake more than eight-million people, some of them tourists who would transport the illness to their home country, and spread like wildfire until every human being perished.  He took comfort in knowing that if he died or was imprisoned, man would still fall, and at his hand. 

The upside of his strategy was that he doubted he would be caught.  He’d taken extreme measures to remain obscure, had picked rural towns to overtake, rural towns with few inhabitants.  He’d obtained flu strains through foreign operatives connected to the late Franklin Terzini, but used only his drones to acquire his product.  As far as the world was concerned, he did not exist.  He was a phantom force, much like the deity many feeble-minded humans worshipped, existing behind the scenes, manipulating the present, as well as the future.  That is why his newly selected name was so fitting.  Lord Terzini held the fate of humanity in his hand, and he could not wait to crush it.  And crush it he would.

He had not released his plague yet, but would in due time.  For now, his teams were gaining control of towns, procuring and safeguarding their breeding ground.  If all went as planned, as he suspected it would, he would grow their numbers in a brief period of time.  Gestation time for impregnated creations was only a third of the standard nine months required to grow a human newborn and maturation rates were roughly ten times faster.  Those grown in development tanks would enjoy an even briefer stint and would reach full maturity in less than two months.  The numbers of his creations would multiply quickly and efficiently.  His target number of roughly five hundred thousand, a number he felt confident could endure setbacks and still repopulate the planet, would be reached in no time.  Then he would release hell on Earth to the humans that remained.

Between the epidemic he’d manufactured and his creations, Terzini would purge the planet of humanity and claim it for himself.  He had already begun the procedure, had overtaken the neighboring town of Caveat with the death of the last remaining family, and had descended on a second,
Taft.  Once the two additional towns that surrounded Taft had been secured, all locked by bodies of water and international boundaries, he would be free to grow his population of creations, to raise his army both by traditional breeding methods and by employing his predecessor’s development tanks.  

After
his number grew to five hundred thousand, he would release his chemical plague, a plague his creations were immune to and no human could survive.  He would quickly rid the world of human scum. 

Shots rang out in the distance and returned his attention to his short-range goal and meant that a second team had swarmed a nearby home.  One by one, the residents of
Taft would be picked off.  He smiled to himself, satisfaction swelling beneath his skin.  It was so easy, the conquering of the first town and now the second.  Hunting humans was proving to be an almost effortless process. 

Chapter 4

Gabriel knew there was something he should say.  But words escaped him at the moment.  His mouth had gone completely dry after hearing what Jack had said.  He had been shocked to find the man in his house in the first place, and what he’d said merely compounded it.  He was speechless. 

“What?” Gabriel heard Melissa ask and was glad one of them had managed to speak. 

“This thing with Terzini,” Jack spat his maker’s name.  “It’s far from over.”

Gabriel slid Melissa a glance and saw shock register in her features.

“Jack, I’m so sorry about Dawn,” Gabriel began as words rushed to him, though he remained uncertain of how exactly to proceed.  Jack was in a precarious position.  He’d returned from war with the horrors of battle still fresh in his mind only to have his wife and unborn son abducted then murdered.  To say he needed to continue delicately was an understatement.  “What happened was, well, there are no words for how awful it was.  What you went through was unimaginable.  But Terzini is dead.  We watched the building as it exploded with him inside.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.  Even in the dim light of the living room, he looked as though he’d aged considerably since Gabriel last saw him.  “I appreciate you all coming to her funeral by the way,” Jack said, his voice a hoarse whisper.  “You didn’t have to do that.  You didn’t even know her.  The fact that you came, well, it meant something to me,” he said and his voice faltered.

“We know you and you are our friend,” Melissa added gently.  “We know how much she meant to you, how hurt you were, and still are.”

“Look I know what you’re thinking, but trust me I’m not crazy,” Jack replied without the slightest trace of resentment.  “Terzini is back, and there isn’t much time.”

Gabriel knew that logically it would have been impossible for Terzini to have survived the massive explosion or the building collapse that had followed.  Yet Jack spoke with unwavering conviction, and he found a small part of him believing Jack.  In the darkest recesses of his mind he may have always suspected that a threat lurked on the horizon. 

“That’s impossible,” Alexandra argued.  “There’s no way that scumbag could’ve survived.”

“You’re right,” Jack agreed with her.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Daniella interrupted.  “You’re agreeing with her?”

“Yes I am.  And who are you?”

“I’m Daniella, Daniella Colucci.  I’ve been best friends with Melissa and Alex for as long as I can remember.  But that’s not the point,” she said and shook her head.  “What you said before,
that
is.  So you
do
believe this Dr. Terzini guy was killed in the explosion?”

“Correct,” Jack replied.

“But I thought you just said that he was back,” Daniella said, her frustration becoming apparent.

Gabriel could understand Daniella’s confusion and frustration.  She had only recently been told of their trip to California a few years earlier, and all the details that went along with it.  He and Melissa had told her of his origins, of his maker Dr. Franklin Terzini.  She had taken it about as well as Melissa had on the night he’d told her.  But eventually, she’d come around and realized he was the same person he’d always been, the same person she’d known and hung around with; the man her best friend loved and was going to marry.  He worried, however, that this new element, his fractured friend from what seemed like a former life resurfacing and speaking of war and Terzini returning from the grave, would push her beyond her threshold for acceptance.

Jack’s large hand slapping down on his coffee table startled everyone, and Gabriel knew that what was coming was not going to be good.

“It’s just a piece of paper,” he said and lowered his eyes to the sheet beneath his hand. 

Gabriel moved toward the coffee table, toward the paper.

“What’s this?” he asked Jack but was unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer.

“It’s that list we found, the one from the cop’s computer.”

“And?” Gabriel probed and didn’t feel relieved in the least.

“And there are sixty names on it.”

“Yeah, and all of them are dead.”

“Read the names, Gabriel,” Jack ordered.

Gabriel did not know what Jack expected him to find.  The names were no longer relevant.  It was a list of fallen creations, nothing more.  Reluctantly, he allowed his eyes to scan the list.  He read name after name.  Not one of them carried any significan
ce, until he neared the bottom.  At the end of the lengthy list, he saw it, a name that nearly jumped off the page: Franklin Terzini.  He felt his brow furrow and he sank back onto the couch, the urge to sit suddenly pressing.  It did not make sense.  He wondered why he hadn’t realized it before.  Why would Terzini’s name be on his own creation inventory? 

“What do you think this means?” Gabriel said more to himself. 

“What?  What is it Gabriel?’ Melissa asked.

He looked up at her and saw that worry had gathered her brows together; and rightly so.

“Terzini, Terzini’s name is on this list,” he said and hated to be the one to share potentially bad news with her.

“What does that mean?” she said blinking back tears.

“Well, if he is truly back, and has resumed his plans for humanity, it can only mean one thing,” he answered.

Gabriel noticed that she held the kitchen counter so tightly her knuckles had whitened.  He did not want to put her through this again, did not want to subject her to more horror.  If the warning that whispered across his skin and r
aised the fine hairs on his body like quills were right, if they would be up against what he suspected they’d be up against, than horror would likely be an insufficient descriptive of what lay ahead. 

“Gabriel, w
hat does his name on the list mean?” he heard her voice ask again.

The room had frozen, as though each person in it held their breath and awaited his answer.

“It means he recreated himself, that his deranged clone is out there, the same clone that killed my Dawn,” Jack answered for him.

A stunned hush befell the room and hung in the air like fog.  Gabriel looked up and met Melissa’s gaze.  Her eyes searched his, as though asking him whether he shared Jack’s belief that Terzini had, in fact, cloned himself as part of some sick emergency plan.  All he could do was nod slowly then silently beg her forgiveness with his eyes alone.

“That sounds about right, huh, Gabriel?” Jack said and tore Gabriel’s attention from Melissa.

“We don’t know that for sure. 
Maybe
Terzini cloned himself, and
maybe
he’s out there,” Gabriel said and didn’t know who he was saying it for more, him and Melissa or the rest of the people in the room.  “Right now it’s just speculation.”

“You saying you don’t believe me, after all we’ve been through?” Jack asked and somehow managed to do so without accusation oozing from it. 

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.  I don’t know what I’m saying,” was all Gabriel muttered.

His mind spun, whirling and racing dizzyingly.  He knew what his maker had been capable of.  He was living proof, after all.  The prospect of Terzini cloning himself as a contingency plan was not at all far-fetched.  Yet he’d felt obligated to say otherwise, to say that what Jack had claimed was just speculation. 

In the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Ryan’s hand going to his head, clutching it in disbelief.  His face looked like that of a man who had just been told his every nightmare, every fabled boogeyman, was real.  And Gabriel became convinced that his attempt to appease his friends with the notion of speculation had fallen flat.

“This can’t be true,” Ryan
mumbled.  “This is some kind of joke, right?’

“It’s no joke,” Daniella replied somberly.

“Damn right it’s not a joke,” Jack chimed in.  “He’s already wiped out a town and had his people take over.”

A collective gasp sounded from around the room.  He and Yoshi traded glances and Yoshi nodded toward Gabriel’s room. 

“What the fuck?” Alexandra erupted.  “What the fuck? I thought this was over.  I thought this chapter of our life was done!  Why don’t you report it?  Let the authorities handle it, you know Homeland Security, or the FBI or Santa Fucking Claus,
anyone
!”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Jack fired back.  “I have.  They thought I was crazy.  You know how that played out, the vet who has seen more war than peace, the one whose wife and unborn son were slaughtered.  Yeah, imagine how well that went.  They got right on it.  Especially Santa.”