All Hell Read online

  All Hell

  a horror thriller

  Allan Burd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  The End…

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Excerpt from The Roswell Protocols

  Chapter 1

  My feet slip in the rain-slickened mud and I tumble end over end downhill past trees and boulders. It’s only by the grace of god my thick skull doesn’t crack like a walnut. Though it would serve me right. Tonight I was the textbook definition of fuck up. I had no one to blame but myself. Someone set me up. They knew just how to get to me and I blindly jumped into their trap. But I can kick myself in the ass later. Right now I need to survive.

  As soon as the ground levels out, I roll to my feet. It takes me less than a second to regain my orientation then I continue my mad dash through these unforgiving woods. Howls reverberate behind me like Mother Nature’s sick way of ringing the dinner bell and the joke is I can’t run far enough or fast enough away to avoid being the feast. Forest’s end is still a good mile away and even in the unlikely event I make it that far, the open fields that act as a buffer between these monsters and civilization would make me as easy to catch as a fish in a bowl. I run through the first grade math in my head. Six of them against one of me equals I ain’t gonna make it out of here alive. Not without one hell of a fight that the odds of me winning range from slim to no fucking way.

  For the third time in the last ten minutes I take a mental inventory of my arsenal. I’m holding my Lupara double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun tight in my grip like a security blanket. I have eight extra shells, all custom filled with pure silver pellets, in my waist pocket. My Tomcat and Px4 Storm, fully loaded with my homemade 9mm wolf-killers, are snug to my left hip and right thigh. I’ve got seven additional magazines bouncing around in my backpack, along with the assortment of handheld weapons I bring every time I hunt. I don’t think any of it is going to be enough. Not when all of them are on me at once.

  I’m a vengeful enough bastard where I’ll take a few of them with me, but in the end I’ll go down just the same. They’re just too fast, too strong, and too vicious for me to get all of them before they get all of me. I packed light. Too light.

  I look around for an edge. Some advantage I haven’t noticed yet that might make all the difference in the world. All I see is the same worn path through this dank, godforsaken forest that I saw on the way in. I’m vaulting a tree stump in front of me when I decide it’s time to change course. Straight ahead is nothing more than a dead man’s run, one I have no hope of surviving. I divert left, darting through the thicker, rougher terrain, in hopes it changes my luck.

  I slide my Lupara into the sheath I sewed into my backpack then whip out the Storm and waste one round hoping to get lucky. The empty silence that follows the shot mocks my desperation. I went off foolish, cocky, and now it is going to bite me in the ass… literally. I assumed I was dealing with a rogue, one lone wolf who strayed off the reservation, one sadistic prick of a werewolf who didn’t abide by the rules and had a funny way of killing. I should have known these monsters always work in packs.

  It’s just when I saw what it did to Old Man Jones, my thinking got crooked. I let logic get run over by pure emotion… rage. It brought back memories, bad ones, and I went from smart to stupid faster than my Mustang goes from zero to ninety-five.

  They howled again, six of them, one after the other that echoed toward me like a collapsing row of dominos. I hit the brakes behind a fat oak and listen closely to the last cry trying to calculate the distance between us. It was obvious they were close, just minutes away, but I still couldn’t spy them. Didn’t matter though. I’ve had enough encounters with werewolves to know they spied me. They had my scent. They weren’t going to lose me. And they weren’t going to settle for anything less than my blood. I sprinted away as fast as my small stride, midget feet, and compact frame would allow me.

  I pictured my tombstone. Here lies Silas Hill. Short man. Short life. But if any of the mourners knew the shit I’ve seen and the things I’ve done they’d have put my balls in a mausoleum.

  A row of brambles line up in front of me and I quickly realize where I am, the ass end of Smithfield farms. The spiked blackberry bushes in front of me are imported from Asia and produce the finest berries in the county. Smithfield’s makes a living selling them at a premium but they truly are worth it. Between those, picking pumpkins, and the hayrides, this place is one of the few, rare fond childhood memories that I have. My pa used to bring me and my brother here twice a month when we were kids. I still remember the layout pretty well. The stables are just a short distance away. Seems as good a place as any to make my last stand.

  I slip between the bushes, the prickly thorns nipping at my clothes. A sharp one rips through and gashes my left arm. I feel the liquid leak out of me and think the blood-covered blackberries will give the werewolves a delicious taste of what’s to come. The stable looms large ahead of me, like a lighthouse to a lost sailor. It looks old and rickety, as if the wind itself could blow it down, but I plan to use it as a fortress. I race to its wooden doors and toss aside the two by four it uses as a door lock. I open it a crack only to hear the snort of awakening horses. Their feet dance and clatter.

  I see how nervous they are and wonder if it’s me or if they somehow sense the death I brought with me. It dawns on me that this wasn’t a good idea. It’s not like I planned for it, but whatever I was thinking these poor horses weren’t a part of it. Though, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m about to slip inside when I spy another option… or more accurately smell one. If I’m going to come out on top, I need to have the element of surprise. That means I need to mask my scent. The manure pile is about five-feet high, which makes it taller than I am. There has to be at least a week’s worth of horseshit there. Only two types of people I knew valued shit this much; farmers, to fertilize their fields, and terrorist bomb makers, to fertilize their twisted ideals. I was about to be the third.

  As I approach it, the stench hit me like a punch in the nose. Nothing like a smattering of rain to keep manure fresh. At least the softness of it makes it easier to waddle into. I holster the Storm and redraw the Lupara. I take a long, deep breath. Then I keep the barrel down and my mouth closed so neither clogs as I ease my way in, making sure every lovable inch of me is covered.

  I’m in deep shit, first figuratively and now literally. I always wanted to go out in style.

  Chapter 2

  Ten seconds head-to-toe in shit and my thoughts drift to what led me here. I was welcomed home by the smell of jack and vomit. My pa was comatose on the couch, snoring like a bull with too many rings in his nose. I threw a blanket over him and tidied up around him. Then, just as I was settling in, the phone rang. It was Sheriff Martaan.

  He wasn’t expecting me to pick up, but he seemed more than okay with it. He told me we were the first call on his list. That jolted me. My pa’s as big and tough as anyone, the guy you want on your side when you’re in a situation. But he’s also a short-tempered drunk who answers to no one but the corps. He’s not first on anyone’s list unless things are really bad.

  I told Martaan I’d be right there. I didn’t need to say a word about my pa. Martaan knew us well enough to know that if I picked up, Pa was probably sleeping one off. The location he gave me wasn’t too far away. I grabbed my slicker, my gear, and went for a stroll.

  I could tell the scene was bad even before I got on top of it. Jones’s old lady was wailin’ up a storm in the arms of Larry, the local preacher, while the sheriff was shaking his head, hat in his lap, sitting on a stump off to the side. There was no one examining the body or the crime scene. We weren’t just his first call… Martaan wanted one of us to be the first to see it. As I approached it, I immediately saw why.

  Jones’ body was laid out; arms spread wide, legs tight together, like our Lord and savior Jesus Christ hung out on the cross. He was gutted side to side, his innards spilling out like a deer being prepared for market. Three parallel gashes from ear to nose marked his right cheek. I knew I was going to find identical gashes on the other cheek even before I flipped his face over to look at the other side.

  I backpedaled. Martaan called us because a monster did this. But he didn’t know it was also personal. The way the body was left and the pattern of the wounds were identical. The only difference was the monster that did it. These claw marks were ripped, jagged. The one’s that killed my brother were clean.

  Martaan approached with a somber stride. He pointed to the lacerations. “Werewolves,” he spat, “so much for our agreement.”

  His presence tempered my rage. He was afraid. Los Agros was werewolf country. They occupy the woods wh
ile we uprights occupy the valley. But they don’t bother us and we don’t bother them. It’s been an unwritten treaty that worked well for years. Tonight’s murder might change all that. I bent down and examined the wounds more closely. I couldn’t find anything that disagreed with Martaan’s conclusion. A werewolf definitely did this. The only question Martaan had was why. The more important question I had was why like this?

  “Who else had access to the body?” I asked Martaan with a sharper edge in my tone than what’s ordinarily there.

  “No one,” replied Martaan. “Mrs. Jones was right here when it happened. They were walking home when the beast struck out of nowhere. Killed him, just like that, one swipe across the gut. The spatter pattern confirms it. Though why he rearranged him like that and scratched his face the way he did baffles me. Larry and I heard Mrs. Jones screaming and ran out but the creature was long gone by then.”

  Mrs. Jones broke free of the Preacher, came barreling toward me. “You find it, Silas,” she screamed. “You find that horror and you put it down. You kill it. Kill it dead.” Her fist came down on my shoulder and she collapsed into me.

  I’m four foot five and still people lean on me. But I understood. I didn’t know Mr. Jones that well, but it’s a small town so I knew him well enough. He was a decent man. He never did anything great, but he never did anything terrible either. Not so far as I know. He was a good husband and a good provider. He didn’t deserve this. I held her, awkward as it was.

  “You make it suffer too,” she added, wiping her eyes, regaining her composure.

  I looked her straight in the eye and gave her a slight nod, making it a promise I planned to keep. “Did you get a good look at it?” I asked her.

  “I’ll never forget it. It stared right at me when it put him like that… like it was rejoicing in my pain. Green glowing eyes, a scar under the left one, and a missing tooth. Dark brown coat, too.”

  “It’s my problem, now,” I told her. An officer draped a white sheet over the body, bringing a weird sense of finality to the whole thing. But to me, it was just beginning. “I promise,” I added. She seemed to accept that as she allowed Preacher Larry to throw his arm around her and remove her from the scene.

  The brief exchange brought things into focus. I re-examined the body. There was no mistaking it. The marks were different but the same. I was going to track and kill the beast, not just for Mrs. Jones, but for myself. But first he was going to give me some answers. I studied the ground surrounding the body. Two wolf prints, both upright, followed by alternating patterns as it came and fled. The beast approached all wolf, went full were for the kill then turned back into a wolf for a quick exit. The ground was wet so the trail would be fairly easy to follow.

  Rage bubbled within me. This thing had a lot to answer for. The sheriff wanted to know why it broke the truce, Mrs. Jones wanted revenge, and I needed to know what it had to do with the death of my brother. I told the sheriff I would hunt it tonight. He’d have enough on his plate trying to keep the townsfolk from full panic. The quicker we knew what was going on the better. I raced home, got what I thought I’d need, and returned.

  “I’ll be back in the morning with answers,” I said to the Sheriff. “If not, well, that’s an answer too.”

  “You don’t want backup?” Martaan asked.

  “You know I work alone. But be prepared to call in all of your reserves. This could be the brink of war.”

  I saw his adam’s apple undulate before he steeled himself. Werewolves were nasty business that no one wanted a part of. “Damn, let’s pray it’s not. Good luck.”

  “Good luck to all of us,” I responded.

  I lowered my nose to the grindstone and followed the trail. The bastard made it easy, like he either had nothing to worry about or didn’t care. Even so, once I hit the woods things got a little trickier. I had to be careful. I didn’t want to encounter any werewolves other than this one. My hope was that the lone wolf wouldn’t be going back to the den. I made sure I stayed downwind at all times.

  Yet, something went wrong.

  Though, as my eyes peer out from the manure pile, as I wait for the pack’s imminent arrival, I still can’t figure out what. I hear the howls again. They’re louder and the echo drags on. They’ve moved into open space. I figure it’ll be less than a minute til we see how this all pans out.

  Chapter 3

  A minute’s a long time when you’re waiting for death. Given the line of work I’m in, I should have figured my last words would be with a monster.

  I had tracked the lone werewolf for hours. Only once did his path cross with others of his kind and those tracks were a lot older. I was more convinced than ever I was dealing with a stray. That was the best case scenario. I just had to kill it and life returned to normal. I could tell by the spacing and depths of its tracks that I was closing in. I climbed a tree, found a perch, and scouted the area. There he was, lapping up lake freshwater not more than 20 yards away.

  He was making it real easy. Killing him would have been a snap, but I wanted him to talk. That meant not doing too much damage where he couldn’t cooperate, but doing enough so he couldn’t fight back. I needed to operate. I silently reached for my Cat. With the crimson trace laser sighting I could shoot with the precision of a surgeon. I slipped the suppressor over the threaded barrel and started with the right hind leg.

  The bullet sliced through its joint and anterior ligaments, almost completely severing his leg below the knee. It dropped with a muffled yelp. My next shot turned its front paw into pudding. It was squirming on the ground, trying to get away. I placed another in his ass to settle him down. Both of us knew his time was up. The only question was whether his secrets would expire with him. I jumped to a lower branch then swung to the ground. His green eyes glowed, just as Mrs. Jones said, and the scar ran longer than I imagined. I pressed the barrel of the Beretta against his floppy ear.

  “Fuck you, Silas,” snarled the wolf.

  I was only mildly surprised the bastard knew who I was. I had a reputation and this wasn’t my first time in wolf country. “Glad you know me,” I replied back. “On the other hand, I couldn’t give a shit to know you.”

  The wolf grimaced, more laughter than pain. “Well, ya ain’t gonna forget me now.”

  Its teeth snapped at me. I pulled my arm away and cracked him on the side of the head with the Beretta. My bullets were made of silver. The handle of my gun was not. The blow hardly hurt him, but it did get my message across. “Why’d you kill him?”

  “That’s the food chain, dipshit,” he said.

  I pushed the barrel into his ear. “Why like that?”

  He grimaced again. “Just sending a message. The old man made a good piece of paper.”

  “From who?” I demanded.

  “Someone who cares,” he snarled.

  “Are you going to get specific or do I end this now?” I put a pound of pressure on the trigger, knowing he could hear it.

  His green eyes locked with mine. “You really don’t know. And I can’t tell you.” We both heard leaves rustle in the background. “Better hurry up and kill me now before you’re deader than me,” he added.

  The fucker grinned and my eyes widened with the realization that I’ve been played. I heard a twig snap not too far away. Mr. Jones was more than a message. He was a lure. “Fuck!” I muttered.

  Scarface was laughing so hard he started choking. It really pissed me off. I put a bullet in his brain and rabbited. They’ve been on my trail ever since.

  Now I’m in deep shit and who knows how many pounds of it. I hear them snaking their way through the brambles despite what I’m covered in. I spit out, trying not to think about the crap that just crossed my lip. I ready my Lupara. The first one enters my field of view. Everything I’m sitting in is about to hit the fan.

  Chapter 4

  The full moon and open sky make it easy to see the death that comes my way. The pack leader has a coat of shiny brown fur that reflects the moonlight. He looks healthy and well fed which means he gets what he wants when he wants it. I mark him the alpha dog and give even odds he’s going to be the most dangerous. He whiffs the ground, nodding in the direction of the stables. The leader and the point man. In my head I call him Scout.