The VIC IV
The building was essentially a taught strung tent hung from aluminum and stainless frames that were cabled together for structural support. The world above the office roof was a cavernous dark space interlaced along the wall with wire rope cables that connected to the structural supports. We were only 15 or 20 feet from the Warehouse overhead and cautiously made our way that direction down the support beams that held the wiring and cabling for communications and power. There was a wall that bluntly ended our travel at the entry to the warehouse.
I used my folding belt knife to slit the fabric for four feet or so and then had to reach through and slit the other wall for the same distance to let the bright lights of the warehouse shine through. Sliding through this slit into the open of the warehouse felt liberating. There were two offices that were on this South wall of the warehouse that we stored empty boxes on for use when we had to pack up FEMA stuff for later deployment. The boxes had been stacked along the front edges of the offices and provided a very nice screen to the current denizens of the warehouse. The door into the warehouse from the offices had a simple push bar to open going that direction and a mass of the dead was milling about on the floor and banging on walls.
We were stuck up here it seemed. On the other hand whatever was driving these things did not seem to have any interest in having them look up. I felt momentarily safe enough to try to sit down and collect my thoughts. I pulled up one of the larger boxes from one of the Dell servers and sat. Julia did not seem so relaxed.
“Ok…. Where from here then?” she whispered. I responded with a shoulder shrug and whispered back “I have no idea but this seems safe for the moment anyway, we need to buy some time is what I am thinking right now”.
I realized that some of the booming in my ears was from my racing heart. So much for blood pressure medicine, stuff like this was going to run your vitals pretty hard. The incessant booming on the drumhead of the building though was like a giant rhythmic heartbeat, slow but loud, BOOM BOOM BOOM.
One of the dead must have hit the electric button for the extra large garage type door in the middle of this bay and the door opened up tall and wide enough for a semi trailer to be backed in. Standing in the center of this door was the dark man in black, tall, and while he was still over 100 feet away, I could see he was pale but seemed substantial and not skelotonized as he had been the last time I saw him. “Lestat” I whispered…..
Moments later a commotion outside and three of the blackwater personnel were drug into the light of the warehouse. They had tattered clothing and were bleeding from various wounds, I could not see how bad any of them were. I did not have to wait long. Lestat began a hissing sibilant speech waving his arms and gesturing with his fingers using nothing that I recognized as words in the echoey warehouse. The men were pinned to the storage racks of that West wall and spread eagled upright, held by a dozen or more dead or fragments of dead. What happened next I really cannot describe, there are blank places in my memory. I heard the first scream, saw Lestat bob his head at the first mans chest and leave with a blood covered face and the rest of the victims shirt in his hands….. I looked away as the choir of screaming began. It took these men over two hours to die. The cramp in my forearm was Julia gripping my arm with such force it cut off the blood. We cowered in our aerie wishing there were things we could do to help. The continuing BOOM BOOM BOOM on the walls was unrelenting punctuated by flashes of lightning and thunder from the still monstrous rain deluge outside.
When I looked again, there were only fragmentary remains of one of the Blackwater guys, even the clothing was gone. The man in black was nowhere to be seen and what remained of the dead in the warehouse were a swarming pile over the few remains left. Literally they had consumed these men such that nothing was left. But more than that, the booming of the building was fading. Julia was still sitting on the end of my box with her hands on her ears and elbows on her knees facing the roof below us with her eyes screwed shut. I touched her forearm…her startled jump reminded me how afraid both of us were. “Have you got any ideas at all?” I asked her
“We just have to get out of here is all I know Steve…… I cannot let one of those things touch me” she said low and intent to me. “Then lets plan something eh?” I suggested.
Together we discussed our options we could see. Stay put, get to the outside and make a run for it, try to move to a safer location and did not believe in any of them as being safe enough to just settle for. Julia then had the real inspiration “Gators….. how about the Gators?”. Gators are made by John Deere and are at home in the swamps. Open cab, multiwheel drive, big balloon tires and reliable as hell. There were half a dozen of them on site, even around the building and, sitting parked at the far end of the row of shelving, one fresh green one was waiting. “Great, so how the hell are we gonna get that?” I asked ….
Julia turned and looked at me intently and said “If you suggest we split up I am going to kill you myself”….which actually put a smile on my face.
“This is no horror movie, kiddo” I said…”but I am not too interested in being anywhere alone at this time anyway”
I did not feel TOO bad about getting off the roof of the office build we were sitting on. There was a Laundry cart below us and toward the Gator that I could jump and land in. Should be quiet although I had no idea if the dead could hear anything or not. I felt like I could be brave enough to try to get out if the man in Black was not present. Julia agreed with a nod. “No time like the present, lets go before I lose my nerve” I suggested and again, got the affirmative nod.
I went first, landing softly in the laundry cart, stepping down and moving to my left around the cart. Movement to the periphery of my vision from the direction I had come did not sufficiently warn me and as I turned the body was already upon me, bony fingers clutching my shoulders, open susurrus mouth painting my face with malodorous gasses. I had time to get my hands out, sinking through the chest cavity to the bony spine and holding the dead at arms length through the missing ribs of its chest. The pressure on my shoulders increased exponentially, the bony fingers spikes into the meaty part of the back of my shoulders, inexorably pulling me into the creature. As my arms began to tremble I was staring into the eye sockets, noting that there were rudimentary eyes there, glistening and alive. This silent drama went on for perhaps another 30 seconds when the head of the dead did not so much be removed as it exploded. The POP of its disintegration was partially masked by the loud “NO NO NO” that Julia was focusing on the corpse. I saw her just as she reswung the baseball bat she had found in the warehouse and hit the body again just below the shoulder joints of the beast, disarticulating the upper torso and causing the collapse of the rest of the body.
“GO!” She said
Without further interruption I skulked crabwise down a row of shelving in the warehouse towards the Gator with Julia directly behind me. I was watching the last of the dead through the boxes continue to finish remains of the Blacwater guy as I approached the Gator. “You drive” she ordered and I was not in the mood to debate at this time.
The Gator has a little diesel engine in it, and requires no keys, you simply turn a starter and it runs, lever up for reverse and down for forward, the belt drive does not let it go very fast but it is faster than I can run for very long for sure. I had the Gator started and moving backwards just as Julia hit the seat next to me, I was backing out the door. One of the dead stood in my path and I hit him at perhaps ten or 15 miles an hour. The effect was impressive as the body went down and I could feel it grinding away under the vehicle as I exited the warehouse in full speed reverse into the rain.
Fifteen or twenty yards into the parking lot I smashed the brakes on… let the Gator slide to a full stop and began looking for forward. Julia was swinging from a seated position at two bodies that had arisen from nowhere and scored a direct hit on the first, hindering the second sufficiently that I found forward and floored the little ATV feeling the exhilaration of it leaping forward, its six wheel drive throwing mud in all directions.
We were a couple hundred yards from the front gate at that point, needing to round the front portion of the building in order to clear the gate at the front. The guard shack was a welded steel trailer that masked off the gate access from the buildings it protected. I rounded the guard shack at perhaps 20 mph and saw the man in black standing astride the centerline of the gate. He was flanked left and right by a phalanx of the dead. I so clearly remember his smile, and the extended canines glistening in my headlights.
“HOLD ON” I bellowed and whipped the Gator over to the left side of the gate causing Lestat to mirror my movement as I reached the gate he was still on the right half of the centerline on Julia’s side of the vehicle and I slewed the Gator back toward the centerline, within a couple feet of my collision with him, Julia launched the baseball bat with a two handed overhead fling that spun the bat directly at the head of the Vampire. His move to deflect the bat partially distracted him at our moment of impact and the gator rolled over this creature like a log in the forest and sped up the road trailing pieces of the dead phalanx of bodies at his side. I hit the centerline of the mud lane that was our only exit from this place and looked over my shoulder as the creature in black stood, turned to face my tail lights and strode purposefully down the muddy lane after us. Julia had turned as well and was watching backwards at him as I focused on finding the right slushy spots to hit and miss for the gator to go forward. Half a mile to the paved road was such a long trip. I hit the pavement at an angle and turned toward St Gabriel, pushing the Gator flat out. It did decent speed on the pavement, perhaps 25 miles an hour and as we let the miles slide behind us looking for lights and people I began to really have hope of surviving this night.
We hit the Mobile gas station 20 min later at the intersection of 30 and 75 and pulled into the lighted pump area of the gas station and drove to the parking. Julia asked the cashier to call 911 and we waited inside till the highway patrol arrived. She spoke to the patrolmen as well, since my attempts at telling any part of the story rapidly got incoherent , literally a string of nouns without verbs, “bodies, Lestat, the dead, man in black, blood, oh blood”. Half an hour after that a group of cars and a swat team headed back to the VIC. Gratefully I did not go.
Dawn lit the VIC with Julia and I sitting in the command van for the State Highway patrol. Federal Police cars surrounded us and perhaps 50 vehicles and a hundred armed personnel were up and down the access to the VIC. I could see the smoldering remains of half of the barracks in the rear of the VIC, apparently they were on fire when the SWAT team arrived. I had to tell this story 50 times in ten hours it seemed like, had to pee in a cup, and take a breathalyzer test as well. Julia’s story apparently matched mine for 50 times because right at dawn they put us back in the same van and drove us to the location.
A man in the black uniform of the Federal Protective Services opened the sliding door and sat with us for a second looking at his notes. He looked us directly in the eyes then and alternating his gaze between us explained what he knew.
“We have no indication that anyone was killed inside the facility. While there is extensive damage to the facility there is no sign in the places you indicated deaths occurred that any such deaths in fact happened there. There are thousands of body parts of the dead lying everywhere, almost completely in parts as if they exploded, and there is no sign of a man in black, toothy or otherwise inside. Do you wish to amend any part of your statements to us?”
“No” we chorused
“This event has been classified by the Federal government. You may not speak of this event to anyone. Do you Understand?”
I nodded, Julia was quiet, then “But what happened here then” she asked
“I have no true idea, but I cannot believe what you say is true. Our investigation will continue and you will make yourselves available to additional questions as they occur. Do not leave the vicinity” he said
With that he left the van, and motioned for a driver to take us. I was delivered to my apartment and have not seen Julia since.
I keep watching for news of unexplained deaths south of Baton Rouge, but then, did I ever hear of them before? I have no idea what this was, who that person was, where he came from or even how I lived when those others died so frequently. Lestat abandoned his cohort so easily that I presume they were tools for him to return to some state of being that allowed him to leave…… but what do I know of his motivations……There are no neat strings to tie up this story, simply, it happened and then he disappeared. I wonder if his work will show up again in the devastated South of the state. Going North seems a good idea now, winter or no, surely nothing like this could ever happen in Colorado. I can sleep now some, if the lights are on and nothing goes bump in the night, perhaps one day that will fade and I will feel normal again.
I used my folding belt knife to slit the fabric for four feet or so and then had to reach through and slit the other wall for the same distance to let the bright lights of the warehouse shine through. Sliding through this slit into the open of the warehouse felt liberating. There were two offices that were on this South wall of the warehouse that we stored empty boxes on for use when we had to pack up FEMA stuff for later deployment. The boxes had been stacked along the front edges of the offices and provided a very nice screen to the current denizens of the warehouse. The door into the warehouse from the offices had a simple push bar to open going that direction and a mass of the dead was milling about on the floor and banging on walls.
We were stuck up here it seemed. On the other hand whatever was driving these things did not seem to have any interest in having them look up. I felt momentarily safe enough to try to sit down and collect my thoughts. I pulled up one of the larger boxes from one of the Dell servers and sat. Julia did not seem so relaxed.
“Ok…. Where from here then?” she whispered. I responded with a shoulder shrug and whispered back “I have no idea but this seems safe for the moment anyway, we need to buy some time is what I am thinking right now”.
I realized that some of the booming in my ears was from my racing heart. So much for blood pressure medicine, stuff like this was going to run your vitals pretty hard. The incessant booming on the drumhead of the building though was like a giant rhythmic heartbeat, slow but loud, BOOM BOOM BOOM.
One of the dead must have hit the electric button for the extra large garage type door in the middle of this bay and the door opened up tall and wide enough for a semi trailer to be backed in. Standing in the center of this door was the dark man in black, tall, and while he was still over 100 feet away, I could see he was pale but seemed substantial and not skelotonized as he had been the last time I saw him. “Lestat” I whispered…..
Moments later a commotion outside and three of the blackwater personnel were drug into the light of the warehouse. They had tattered clothing and were bleeding from various wounds, I could not see how bad any of them were. I did not have to wait long. Lestat began a hissing sibilant speech waving his arms and gesturing with his fingers using nothing that I recognized as words in the echoey warehouse. The men were pinned to the storage racks of that West wall and spread eagled upright, held by a dozen or more dead or fragments of dead. What happened next I really cannot describe, there are blank places in my memory. I heard the first scream, saw Lestat bob his head at the first mans chest and leave with a blood covered face and the rest of the victims shirt in his hands….. I looked away as the choir of screaming began. It took these men over two hours to die. The cramp in my forearm was Julia gripping my arm with such force it cut off the blood. We cowered in our aerie wishing there were things we could do to help. The continuing BOOM BOOM BOOM on the walls was unrelenting punctuated by flashes of lightning and thunder from the still monstrous rain deluge outside.
When I looked again, there were only fragmentary remains of one of the Blackwater guys, even the clothing was gone. The man in black was nowhere to be seen and what remained of the dead in the warehouse were a swarming pile over the few remains left. Literally they had consumed these men such that nothing was left. But more than that, the booming of the building was fading. Julia was still sitting on the end of my box with her hands on her ears and elbows on her knees facing the roof below us with her eyes screwed shut. I touched her forearm…her startled jump reminded me how afraid both of us were. “Have you got any ideas at all?” I asked her
“We just have to get out of here is all I know Steve…… I cannot let one of those things touch me” she said low and intent to me. “Then lets plan something eh?” I suggested.
Together we discussed our options we could see. Stay put, get to the outside and make a run for it, try to move to a safer location and did not believe in any of them as being safe enough to just settle for. Julia then had the real inspiration “Gators….. how about the Gators?”. Gators are made by John Deere and are at home in the swamps. Open cab, multiwheel drive, big balloon tires and reliable as hell. There were half a dozen of them on site, even around the building and, sitting parked at the far end of the row of shelving, one fresh green one was waiting. “Great, so how the hell are we gonna get that?” I asked ….
Julia turned and looked at me intently and said “If you suggest we split up I am going to kill you myself”….which actually put a smile on my face.
“This is no horror movie, kiddo” I said…”but I am not too interested in being anywhere alone at this time anyway”
I did not feel TOO bad about getting off the roof of the office build we were sitting on. There was a Laundry cart below us and toward the Gator that I could jump and land in. Should be quiet although I had no idea if the dead could hear anything or not. I felt like I could be brave enough to try to get out if the man in Black was not present. Julia agreed with a nod. “No time like the present, lets go before I lose my nerve” I suggested and again, got the affirmative nod.
I went first, landing softly in the laundry cart, stepping down and moving to my left around the cart. Movement to the periphery of my vision from the direction I had come did not sufficiently warn me and as I turned the body was already upon me, bony fingers clutching my shoulders, open susurrus mouth painting my face with malodorous gasses. I had time to get my hands out, sinking through the chest cavity to the bony spine and holding the dead at arms length through the missing ribs of its chest. The pressure on my shoulders increased exponentially, the bony fingers spikes into the meaty part of the back of my shoulders, inexorably pulling me into the creature. As my arms began to tremble I was staring into the eye sockets, noting that there were rudimentary eyes there, glistening and alive. This silent drama went on for perhaps another 30 seconds when the head of the dead did not so much be removed as it exploded. The POP of its disintegration was partially masked by the loud “NO NO NO” that Julia was focusing on the corpse. I saw her just as she reswung the baseball bat she had found in the warehouse and hit the body again just below the shoulder joints of the beast, disarticulating the upper torso and causing the collapse of the rest of the body.
“GO!” She said
Without further interruption I skulked crabwise down a row of shelving in the warehouse towards the Gator with Julia directly behind me. I was watching the last of the dead through the boxes continue to finish remains of the Blacwater guy as I approached the Gator. “You drive” she ordered and I was not in the mood to debate at this time.
The Gator has a little diesel engine in it, and requires no keys, you simply turn a starter and it runs, lever up for reverse and down for forward, the belt drive does not let it go very fast but it is faster than I can run for very long for sure. I had the Gator started and moving backwards just as Julia hit the seat next to me, I was backing out the door. One of the dead stood in my path and I hit him at perhaps ten or 15 miles an hour. The effect was impressive as the body went down and I could feel it grinding away under the vehicle as I exited the warehouse in full speed reverse into the rain.
Fifteen or twenty yards into the parking lot I smashed the brakes on… let the Gator slide to a full stop and began looking for forward. Julia was swinging from a seated position at two bodies that had arisen from nowhere and scored a direct hit on the first, hindering the second sufficiently that I found forward and floored the little ATV feeling the exhilaration of it leaping forward, its six wheel drive throwing mud in all directions.
We were a couple hundred yards from the front gate at that point, needing to round the front portion of the building in order to clear the gate at the front. The guard shack was a welded steel trailer that masked off the gate access from the buildings it protected. I rounded the guard shack at perhaps 20 mph and saw the man in black standing astride the centerline of the gate. He was flanked left and right by a phalanx of the dead. I so clearly remember his smile, and the extended canines glistening in my headlights.
“HOLD ON” I bellowed and whipped the Gator over to the left side of the gate causing Lestat to mirror my movement as I reached the gate he was still on the right half of the centerline on Julia’s side of the vehicle and I slewed the Gator back toward the centerline, within a couple feet of my collision with him, Julia launched the baseball bat with a two handed overhead fling that spun the bat directly at the head of the Vampire. His move to deflect the bat partially distracted him at our moment of impact and the gator rolled over this creature like a log in the forest and sped up the road trailing pieces of the dead phalanx of bodies at his side. I hit the centerline of the mud lane that was our only exit from this place and looked over my shoulder as the creature in black stood, turned to face my tail lights and strode purposefully down the muddy lane after us. Julia had turned as well and was watching backwards at him as I focused on finding the right slushy spots to hit and miss for the gator to go forward. Half a mile to the paved road was such a long trip. I hit the pavement at an angle and turned toward St Gabriel, pushing the Gator flat out. It did decent speed on the pavement, perhaps 25 miles an hour and as we let the miles slide behind us looking for lights and people I began to really have hope of surviving this night.
We hit the Mobile gas station 20 min later at the intersection of 30 and 75 and pulled into the lighted pump area of the gas station and drove to the parking. Julia asked the cashier to call 911 and we waited inside till the highway patrol arrived. She spoke to the patrolmen as well, since my attempts at telling any part of the story rapidly got incoherent , literally a string of nouns without verbs, “bodies, Lestat, the dead, man in black, blood, oh blood”. Half an hour after that a group of cars and a swat team headed back to the VIC. Gratefully I did not go.
Dawn lit the VIC with Julia and I sitting in the command van for the State Highway patrol. Federal Police cars surrounded us and perhaps 50 vehicles and a hundred armed personnel were up and down the access to the VIC. I could see the smoldering remains of half of the barracks in the rear of the VIC, apparently they were on fire when the SWAT team arrived. I had to tell this story 50 times in ten hours it seemed like, had to pee in a cup, and take a breathalyzer test as well. Julia’s story apparently matched mine for 50 times because right at dawn they put us back in the same van and drove us to the location.
A man in the black uniform of the Federal Protective Services opened the sliding door and sat with us for a second looking at his notes. He looked us directly in the eyes then and alternating his gaze between us explained what he knew.
“We have no indication that anyone was killed inside the facility. While there is extensive damage to the facility there is no sign in the places you indicated deaths occurred that any such deaths in fact happened there. There are thousands of body parts of the dead lying everywhere, almost completely in parts as if they exploded, and there is no sign of a man in black, toothy or otherwise inside. Do you wish to amend any part of your statements to us?”
“No” we chorused
“This event has been classified by the Federal government. You may not speak of this event to anyone. Do you Understand?”
I nodded, Julia was quiet, then “But what happened here then” she asked
“I have no true idea, but I cannot believe what you say is true. Our investigation will continue and you will make yourselves available to additional questions as they occur. Do not leave the vicinity” he said
With that he left the van, and motioned for a driver to take us. I was delivered to my apartment and have not seen Julia since.
I keep watching for news of unexplained deaths south of Baton Rouge, but then, did I ever hear of them before? I have no idea what this was, who that person was, where he came from or even how I lived when those others died so frequently. Lestat abandoned his cohort so easily that I presume they were tools for him to return to some state of being that allowed him to leave…… but what do I know of his motivations……There are no neat strings to tie up this story, simply, it happened and then he disappeared. I wonder if his work will show up again in the devastated South of the state. Going North seems a good idea now, winter or no, surely nothing like this could ever happen in Colorado. I can sleep now some, if the lights are on and nothing goes bump in the night, perhaps one day that will fade and I will feel normal again.
posted by Steve Morse- Adventures in Disasters at 5:09 PM
8 Comments:
Too real!
Steve I am afraid you have spent way to much time with that mort outfit and far too much time at that vic location. Have you ever seen the movie with Jack Nicholson, The Shining took place in a hotel in Colorado. Rumor is that it was a true story. How about Alfred Packer that that one is a true story.
Now lets back up a little to your dinner of frog legs. They were probably very delicious. Some day I will tell you the proper way to eat frog. Pickled watermelon isn't bad but it is just the rind that they pickle. As for your dinner companion I envy the fact that she had gator sausage. I have heard that gator tail is just one of the most scrumptous things to eat. I have been told it is a lot like lobster. I am hoping to go south somtime near Mobile, Alabama and hope to try some then. If not maybe when I go to Branson in July.
I think if you want to go North where none of that bad stuff happens you might try Montana. Of course we don't have many things happen up here where FEMA MAN would need to come to the rescue.
Santa
Have you ever considered sending your stories in to be published? You had me from the very beginning. I am not a big horror fan but, I would read ANYTHING that you write. Keep up the great adventure. I am looking forward to reading more of your work.
You had me scared to death. I would hate to work where you work. It must be so creepy. Tell me more. :-)
Great story! Enjoyed it! Dot
Steve- I never would have thought that your first foray into fiction writing would be a vampire tale. As I recall, you never had a lot of interest in reading Anne Rice.
Very entertaining, keep it up!
Nan he knew who Lestat was so he must have seen something that triggered all this. I am waiting for another posting it has been too long now. I believe everyone has enjoyed the blog. Let's cheer for more.
Mary/Mom
Well... Interview with a Vampire (at least the Tom Cruise movie version) spent quite a bit of time in the New Orleans area. Unless you get introduced to a vampire you are not likely to know his name. Don't you all assign nonesense names or generic names to people or other encumbrances to your day if you do not know their real names?? What else would you call a vampire from New Orleans?... Thanks for reading the story.
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