Madman's Monster Read online

  Madman’s Monster, Book 2: The Hidden Amongst Us

  Michael Louis Weinberger

  Copyright by Michael Weinberger 2012

  Copyright © 2012 Michael Louis Weinberger

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the web, without express written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Published by Purple Mountain Publishing

  International Standard Book Number: 978-0-9837683-1-9

  Edited by Dan Hankison

  Cover Art and Formatting: Bill Kutcher: www.pbase.com/ibill

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  Dedications

  To Marc Glassman because everyone should have a crazy uncle to love, cherish, count on and be inspired by.

  To Kathy Glassman because everyone should ALSO have a crazy aunt to love, cherish, and remind them that the only rules in life are the ones that you make for yourself.

  And, of course and always, to Rebecca, Mikayla, Natasha who continue to put up with me and allow me to bring these stories to print.

  Acknowledgments

  There are a team of people that had a huge impact on the outcome of this novel. First I should mention the main editor of this novel, Dan Hankison, who took what could be construed as the digital version of chicken scratches that I typed and them made something legible.

  Next are my "quality control experts" who found themselves subjected to being used as everything from editors, proofreaders, soundboards, psychiatrists and proverbial shoulders to cry on. Fortunately, they are all family and were lovingly exploited as such. So to Mom, Dad, Rebecca, and Matthew, a big "thank you" for all you have done.

  Lastly, I feel it would be remiss not to mention the "Are you done yet?" squad that has stationed themselves ever vigilantly at the door of the Starbucks where I do the lion's share of my writing. To the whole gang I say, while giving a little extra recognition to Nan and Katie who were nice enough to each do a proofread of the book, "Yes! The book is done!"

  Introduction

  Excerpt from the journal of Steve Jacobs, 2012:

  Sitting by candlelight is something I haven’t done in years and the luminous glow momentarily made me nostalgic for a home that I lost decades ago. I smiled as I watched the flicker of the candle’s flame create shadows on the walls with the only sound in the room being the gentle breaths of the woman, named Lei, as she slept a few feet away from me. I thought about how much I love her and how beautiful she appeared in sleep as the old, familiar and unsettling pang of worry made itself known in my gut. I rolled the pen between my thumb and index finger for a bit as I considered the blank page facing up at me from the desktop. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath while searching for the nerve to begin, then I let the air out in a sigh and committed myself to write the words you are now reading.

  Truth be told, I have felt the compulsion to write down the history of my kind for decades, but what specific stimulation it was that woke me from my sleep tonight and motivated me to finally put pen to paper, I can’t say. If it had been a nightmare that woke me, then I have no memory of it, but I did wake to an overwhelming sense of dread that seemed to be coming from every part of my being. So, should the worst happen, I want there to be some record of who my kind truly are, as opposed to the stories that have chilled mankind and made them afraid of the dark. It is my deepest desire that someday mankind will understand that my family and I are brethren to humanity and not the predators or demons we have been made out to be.

  How did this misconception of who and what we are grow to such grandiose proportions? Fear, specifically of the unknown, is the most likely answer; however, let these words I write now reveal only the truthful and factual accounts, without embellishment.

  First, my name is Steve Jacobs and, by definition, I am a vampire.

  Perhaps you who are reading this are understandably skeptical of that revelation. I can’t blame you. After all, you’ve been told all your life that vampires are merely wonderful antagonists created as works of fiction that satisfy a guilty pleasure. In all honesty, the vampires you have read about or seen in the movies, are exactly that… Fiction.

  So let me tell you the three most important facts about myself and what it means to be a “real” vampire… in general terms anyway:

  1. As far as I know or can tell we are not demons, fallen angels, aliens or anything else that might be construed as supernatural. What we are, put simply, are human beings born with a particularly rare form of a genetic condition called Porphyria. This condition leaves our bodies incapable of properly making the “heme” portion of the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. As a result, we who suffer the condition have needed to supplement our own blood with “heme” from outside sources. As you may have guessed that means without ingesting the blood of others we begin to deteriorate into excruciating pain, madness and death. In the past we have done terrible things to satiate our needs and preserve our lives… you may note that I omitted the word “monsters” from the opening line of this paragraph. It was an intentional omission as my people have perpetrated horrible atrocities on mankind in the past and, at times, we more than earned that monstrous reputation.

  2. Once we learned how to control our condition, my kind flocked together and invented ways to preserve ourselves without having to assault others. One of the more ingenious ways to accomplish this was to partake of an occupation as a barber surgeon. Bloodletting was one of the most popular healing methods from the Middle Ages to less than one hundred years ago. This practice left gallons of blood to be disposed of and allowed for my kind to easily interact with mankind without worry. As long as the ingestion of the drawn blood was done in secret, no one was any the wiser of who and what we were. Unfortunately, it was a confrontation with the Inquisitors of the Catholic Church in 1528, which led to the discovery of our secret. We have been damned as devils straight out of hell ever since. My people ran for their lives as mankind attacked us with genocide as a goal. We left the cities, towns and villages to live outside the walls of humanity in secret communities crafted in cave systems and old mining tunnels. Many of my kind are still living hidden and away from humanity even now, but more and more of our young have begun to leave the safety of our “off the grid” communities and live among you.

  3. The last thing you need to know about us is that all of the other things you have been taught about us are, for the most part, crap. We aren’t the undead, can’t de-materialize, or change forms with that of a bat, wolf or other creature. We can’t fly. We don’t have fangs. We don’t have superhuman strength or speed. Garlic, holy water, crosses and other mythical items supposedly used to smite or destroy a vampire are pretty useless. If you stab one of us through the heart with a wooden stake, yes, we would die, not because of being stabbed specifically by a wooden stake, but rather because something was stabbed through our heart. On the other hand, our condition did have one very interesting side effect on us. It turns out that after years of needing to survive on the blood of others our bodies evolved as hostile environments to bacteria and viruses. As a result we do not get infections of any kind as the organisms literally die on contact with our blood. Aside from the obvious immediate benefits of this predisposition, the lack of stress on our organs makes my kind enjoy extremely long lives. We look about half the age we truly are and the reality is that we truly are as physically youthful and vital as we seem to be. Th
ere are rare exceptions to this rule as some of us just keep going and going, without aging. This is an extremely rare quality and only a handful of us ever develop this predisposition; however, one such exception would be the founder of my particular community. His name is Alphonso Diemo, but we all call him “Alpha”, and he is supposed to be nearly six hundred years old. He insists he isn’t immortal and can be killed as easily as any of the rest of us. Although sometimes I have trouble believing it. To give you an understanding of how rare this trait is, Alpha will quickly point out that the only other person in our community known to possess it was a man named William who, along with his wife Abigail, was killed in the confrontation with the Inquisitors back in 1528.

  In any case, with those three simple facts revealed it is easy to understand why the world, led by big religion, categorized my kind as demons. What else could we have been in a world without science? Unfortunately, just as science had become advanced enough to vindicate my people and afford a remedy for our ailment, we were betrayed. It was a doctor, named Phineas Whelan from whom we had sought assistance, who discovered both our secret true nature and the unexpected quality our blood possesses. Doctor Whelan betrayed us by reporting his findings to a Pharmaceutical Company, called Pharmanetics, who hunted us down in order to kidnap as many of my people as possible, then hooked them up to machines and harvested the blood right out of their veins in order to make medications for humans. The anti-biotic and anti-viral medicines were expected to perform miracles on the sick and net the corporation billions in profits. In the end it had come down to Alpha, my best friend Chris, and me, supported by those who remained of my kind, to storm the Pharmanetics building and free those of my people the company had abducted. When it was over, we had managed to free everyone, but Dr. Whelan escaped… and not before killing my friend Chris in the process.

  It is said that if you find one true friend in your lifetime, then you have done well. Chris was my friend, my true friend, and I have been hunting that bastard Whelan ever since. I swore to my friend as I stood over his grave that when I find Doctor Phineas Whelan I will go “old school” on his scrawny ass and show him why, even though my people are not demons, we did at one time earn a reputation as monsters.

  Chapter 1

  The Chonburi Jungle near Bangkok, Thailand.

  Rain. More rain. It was as if the skies were literally on a spigot that had been turned to its fullest opening, as the rain came down in sheets. The men had been trudging through the jungle for over two hours, which in dry weather would have only taken forty-five minutes. There was nothing to be done about it. The jungle floor had been saturated by the unrelenting rainfall and was now little more than a shallow pool of mud sucking at their boots with every footfall and refusing to let go. Each of the nine men was exhausted from the effort by the time the lights of the camp could be seen. Still, each was a seasoned professional and they broke into their predetermined groups of three before moving into their assigned positions around the camp.

  Craig Stanton pressed the button on the wireless transceiver he wore in his ear in order to speak with his team, each of whom had a similar device.

  "Position 1, confirm," he whispered as softly as he could.

  Within seconds, the barely audible whispers of the other three-man-team leaders acknowledged his transmission, confirming their positions. Craig lifted a third generation night-vision monocular to his eye and scanned the large encampment, which he and his men had surrounded, for any signs of life.

  Craig and his men had been hired by the client to work a typical "snatch and grab" mission focusing on the computer systems, as opposed to a human target. The goal had been to infiltrate the "laboratory" inside the camp and secure the main computer, with its hard drive intact, along with any auxiliary data they could lay their hands on. It seemed simple enough of a mission to Craig but, when the client had specified that a heavily armed security force protected researchers in the camp, Craig realized achieving the objective was going to be a bit trickier.

  Not that his team couldn’t handle it. Craig had assembled his team from men he met while working security in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each man was a former soldier with the necessary experience for what the job required. If the need to "go loud" arose, Craig knew each of his men was morally equipped to do whatever necessary to achieve the mission's goal. After all, professionalism was as much a part of being a mercenary as it was in any other proper occupation.

  Craig looked at the images that flowed into his night-vision monocular (with HD television definition and clarity, albeit limited to a black, green and white screen), and his brow furled into a frown at the sight that greeted him.

  The camp appeared abandoned.

  No guards swept the perimeter with dogs. No silhouettes of men eating their evening meals or mulling about inside the illuminated canvas tents. No signs of guards standing watch from the towers or in front of the building that appeared to be a solid rectangular block of concrete, stretching nearly the entire length of the camp. If that particular concrete building had possessed any windows or skylights it might have looked like a large industrial warehouse, but instead the lack of those structures gave it more of an ominous feel not unlike that of a prison. The rest of the camp was made up of tents in the fashion of those generally utilized for a more consistent, long-term placement, which made the permanence of the concrete building look incredibly out of place.

  "What the hell is this place?" the man to Craig's right whispered.

  "No idea," Craig replied, "but it looks exactly as it did from the photos we were given."

  "Except there had been security in those photos." Craig turned to see the third member of the team staring through his ITT Gen 3 Night Vision scope mounted on his Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifle.

  "Surprised you can see anything through that thing with all this rain coming down."

  The man grunted, "I can see enough to be able to locate the targets if they were there, but I don't think I'd risk a shot."

  Craig nodded, "then put it away and get your close quarter gear out."

  "We going loud?"

  Craig considered that option. "Going loud,” meant the team wouldn't bother trying to sneak their way in and moving covertly to their target. Instead they would open fire on the camp from the safety of the trees and kill everything that moved before storming the concrete building, which their bullets might not penetrate.

  Craig frowned, "Not yet. I want to know what's happening in there."

  The sniper had already disassembled his rifle and was storing it away when he whispered, "Does it matter?"

  Craig turned to his man, a questioning look on his face.

  The sniper continued, "I mean, it isn't in the mission objective to keep anyone alive, right? We perforate the entire place, pick off whatever's left, grab what we need, and get out. Easy money."

  Craig nodded. It was a simple, straightforward plan and, from all appearances, one that might even work. His only problem was that he didn’t know why the client would have gone to the expense and trouble to hire experienced, expensive professionals, when just about any thug would do. Hell, there were enough of the former Khmer Rouge left in this part of Thailand that could have pulled the plan off for a quarter the cost. So why bother with the likes of him and his men?

  Craig shook his head, frustrated by the unexpected lack of security forces and considered the possible scenarios. He decided there were only two possibilities; either something had happened within the camp that caused the personnel to alter their routine, or everyone who had been in the camp had, for some reason, needed to abandon it. Actually, there was a third possibility, which was that the client hadn't been completely forthright in telling Craig every detail about the camp and its purpose, but that couldn’t be dwelled upon for the moment.

  "Boss?" the man to his right spoke softly as Craig considered how best to proceed.

  Craig pressed the earpiece and spoke in that same whisper as earlier.

  "Target acqu
isition status report."

  "Clear," came the first reply from the leader of the second team followed soon after by another voice in his earpiece from the third.

  "Clear."

  "What the hell?" Craig hissed as he felt his heart begin to pound harder in his chest, "team three, do you have a visual on the lab?"

  "Confirmed."

  "Do a perimeter sweep along the fence line, then cut through and check the compound around the exterior of the lab."

  "Copy that."

  Craig nodded, "Do not enter the lab under any circumstances until the rest of us have a chance to move in for backup. Understood?"

  "Copy that, boss."

  The radio went silent as Craig used his night vision to sweep the jungle where team three had been taking cover. Craig watched as, exactly as they had been trained, the trio of men in Team 3 broke from the tree line in low sprints before coming to rest evenly spaced out along a portion of the fence.

  Craig could hear the voice of the man he had just been talking to in his earpiece, "The fence appears to be set up for electricity, but there is no juice at the moment.”

  Craig's frown deepened. The lights were on in the camp and the sound of generators could be heard humming over the usual night sounds of the jungle. So why would an electrified fence not be in operation?

  "Copy that," Craig whispered back, "proceed."

  The trio removed multi-tools from their belts and began to cut their way through the links until a large enough hole was created for them to slip through. No warning sirens sounded or voices were raised in alarm as each man passed through the fence, carefully moving deeper into the camp while covering one another on their way to the lab.