10-30 Chap 1 redux Moose42's MHI Fan Fiction *Spoiler Alert*

[moose42]

As I rounded our hiding place a wing hit me in the face knocking off my baseball cap and tossing me in the air.

Slight nitpick. Hes not wearing a helmet why?

Snipers don't wear helmets it just gets in the way. Normally he would be wearing one, but for this operation it just made sense to have a ball cap on. Marty and Sarge weren't planning on having to engage hostiles up close.

[moose42]

Ok here is the remainder of chapter 15, it is a bit short but I know you are getting your monies worth. Enjoy!


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Chapter 15 part 2

Ten minutes later the little girl was loaded into the helicopter and whisked away to the nearest hospital. Oddly enough the hospital was only a few buildings over but it was much faster via air.

We shed our armor in the stairwell and changed into street clothes. With our rifles in guitar cases and our armor in duffle bags to the casual observer we were just a couple of traveling musicians, a fairly common site in the city.

The plan was to regroup at an old hotel in the French quarter. Steve and I arrived first. I knew I was going to catch hell for disobeying Stan’s orders, but I was not about to let the poor girl get eaten by those flying nightmares.

A few minutes later the other team arrived and gathered in our room. As they wandered in I noticed Kat wasn’t with them. Stan was the last one in; as he closed and locked the door he barked. “Miller!”

I stood up and stood in front of him. The side conversations in the room evaporated as everyone watched our exchange. “Miller, do you think you made the right decision tonight?” I was surprised; he wasn’t yelling or lecturing me on usurping his authority.

I cleared my throat and tried my best to sound confident. “Yes I do.” I stood there in the eerie silence that followed. Stan’s face was expressionless but his eyes tried to bore through my own. After what seemed like an hour, it was probably only a few seconds, he extended his hand, waiting for me to shake it.

I took his hand and he gave me a firm handshake. “So do I.” he let go and turned to the group. “Who’s hungry?”

I slid up to Chris and asked, “So where’s Kat?”

“Oh hey Marty nice shooting up there.” Chris said as he adjusted his Sig P220 “Kat went with the victim on the helicopter, Sara needed an extra pair of experienced hands.” I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you know she’s an LPN?”

“Actually I didn’t.” What other secrets was she hiding?

The lower level of the old hotel housed an amazing southern restaurant. We sat in the ornate dining room at a large round table. I ordered some bourbon chicken that was incredible. Dan was sitting on my left, about halfway through dinner service, he leaned over and said. “Hey Marty it took some serious stones to do what you did up there. But I just have to know why you would risk the whole operation on some kid you don’t know.”

I sat for a moment, up on the roof I had been reacting more than thinking. “Be careful when you fight monsters, lest you become one.” I said flatly.

Dan leaned away a bit with a puzzled look on his face. “So now you’re a philosopher?”

I shook my head, “No that’s a quote from Nietzsche, I don’t agree with him on much but that one makes sense.” I shrugged, “I let someone I care for be turned into a monster, I wasn’t about to let a little girl be eaten by one.” I didn’t feel like talking about it anymore so I stuffed my face with another slice of garlic bread.

A while later Kat and Sara showed up, they both looked exhausted. Kat plopped down in the chair next to me. She knew what I was going to ask so she told me before I could. “Yes, she’s going to make it.”

“That’s great.” I replied, “It’s unfortunate that she is probably going to have nightmares.”

Kat ordered some spicy shrimp and rice and continued, “She was conscious for a while. The poor girl was rightfully scared to death. I held onto her and rocked her slowly while Sarah checked her injuries.” Katrina looked about ready to cry. “She was able to tell me her first name, Tamelle.” She took a deep breath and continued, “No little child should have to go through that kind of pain and terror. Ever!”

“Hey.” I spoke softly above the restaurant noise. “It’s ok.” I put my hand on hers, her smooth skin felt warm. “Look at it this way, maybe when she recovers she will think the whole thing was just a nightmare and go back to hunting Legos under her bed.”

“I hope you’re right Moose.” She said as her steaming plate arrived. Kat took one bite when Stan’s cell phone rang.

I looked across the table and tried to follow the one sided conversation. “Owen… How’s the concert…” His face changed from a smile, to the face of a boy who just saw his dog being hit by a car. “Understood, we will be there as soon as possible.” He slapped his phone closed; everyone at the table stared at him waiting for an explanation.

“What is it Stan?” I asked, knowing I really didn’t want to hear the answer.

He closed his eyes and sighed, “Zombies.”

[moose42]

OK guys last post for a while, I will be in the woods till Saturday evening.


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Chapter 16
Bad Voodoo


Owens’ team was on their way back from the concert when they ran over a pedestrian. Unfortunately the pedestrian got up and tried to bash in the windows of their rig. We raced in our black Suburbans toward the cemetery, loaded for bear, or zombie as it were.

As we turned the corner in front of the cemetery utter chaos had erupted in the street. Police cars, fire engines, ambulances and a crashed bus were blocking the street. A police officer approached our stopped vehicles, Stan rolled down the window.

“Hey you need to turn around and go somewhere else; it’s a mess down there, some people got shot.” The officer sounded nervous.

Stan nodded and replied, “Yeah we know it’s a mess where here to clean it up. We’re special agents from MHI, we need to get in there and extract our team.”

“No can do sir, I’ve got orders to keep all traffic off this road.” The officer said as he peered into our vehicle. He must have seen our massive amount of weaponry because he recoiled back and his face turned white. He clumsily reached for his Glock.

“Hey dipshit, if we were the bad guys you would already be dead!” Stan yelled at him.

The officer had his pistol out of the holster, his hands were shaking terribly, Stan rolled up the window the bullet proof glass would easily defeat the hottest 9mm round. “Get out of the car NOW! You can’t have those guns here!” the officer yelled.

Stan calmly stated “This is America, yes we can.”

“What’s the plan Stan?” I asked with my hand on the door handle.

Stan shrugged, “I don’t think we will have to worry much longer.” He said pointing through the windshield. A large mob of zombies was running toward our position. In moments they tackled the officer, and broke his skull open on the pavement.

We were instantly surrounded. Grey fists pounded on the windows. Stan hit the gas and mowed down a wave of the undead. Dan in the second vehicle followed crushing more of the beasts.

I dialed Owens cell number and he picked up, “Hey we’ve got a serious street mob down here, where are you guys?”

“Marty? We see you; we’re across the street in an abandoned housing comp…” His voice was drowned out momentarily by a few gunshots. “…going to mark the building with a flare, see if you can keep your vehicles intact, and get over here. We wrecked ours. We’re barricaded in the top floor of this old housing project. We are …ing low on ammo, and can’t risk a push out to the street …have wounded.” It was hard to understand him amid all the noise on his end. The phone cut out, his battery had probably just bought the farm.

A bright green flare shot out of the third floor window of a nearby dilapidated building. We drove through the madness, bodies crushing under the tires. We pulled up to a building that looked like it had been abandoned since hurricane Katrina years ago. A dumpster full of moldy sheetrock and 2x4’s had been parked out front.

The press of zombies had thinned out a bit, but they were still a bunch of them. I rolled down my window, flipped on the weapon light on my pistol and fired out into the mob. Hot ejected casings flew around the cabin bouncing off the back of the drivers’ seat. In moments the slide locked back on my sidearm and I slapped a fresh magazine in.

Shots from above tore through the mob around our vehicles, it was clear enough that we could dismount. Stan gave the order and we left the vehicles and made our way to the entrance. My rifle still had the night vision scope mounted, but I had removed the suppressor, at this point stealth didn’t really matter.

Kim, Stan, Chris, and Kat made it to the building, while the rest of us laid down a withering hail of bullets to keep the undead at bay. Sarge, Sarah, Dan and I were next. We ran for the open double doors, I fired my rifle from the hip as we ran sending a massive amount of lead downrange. Sarah fanned her Colt, firing five rounds amazingly fast for a single action revolver, and dropped two moldy corpses.

As we reached the building I noticed some of the beasts were running, while others were shuffling rather stiffly. I didn’t have time to figure out what that meant, so I slammed the door shut. In an instant the mob started to bash the door in. The lock had long since been broken, by looters. Sarge and I desperately tried to keep the door shut.

“Find something to bar the door with!” Sarge yelled. Dan and Kim ducked into a first floor apartment, two low muffled blasts of a shotgun were heard and in moments they were wrestling a large dresser out of the apartment. We wedged it between the door and the basement stair railing, I hoped it would keep them out for a while.

We worked our way up the stairwell, Dan and Kim took the lead, shotguns and submachine guns were good up close and personal weapons. We made it to the second floor landing without incident; unfortunately the stairwell up to the third floor was choked with rotting furniture, mattresses, and even a bicycle. We would have to cross the entire building to get to stairwell on the opposite end. Our weapon and helmet lights cast strange shadows down the hallway, the walls were festooned with graffiti, and garbage littered the floor in random piles. The hallway stretched more than a hundred feet long, many apartments were staggered on each side. Some doors were open, faint light spilling into the hallway from the street, others were completely dark, it was a close quarters combat nightmare.

“I say we run for it.” Kim offered. His light spilled down the hallway illuminating some colorful graffiti, “For a good time call…” the rest of the message was covered up by another tagger.

Stan shook his head, “Those rooms are probably full of undead if we run past we could end up ambushed by Zed’s.
“Owen said they had barricaded themselves in a room on the third floor. They wouldn’t have barricaded themselves without a good reason.” I added.

I pointed my rifle down the hallway and peered through my night vision scope, a lumpy grey shape was laying on a filthy mattress, at the far end of the hallway. It looked like a bum, but could have been a zombie I wasn’t quite sure. “Guys it looks like a human shape lying at the end of the hallway.”

A few muffled shots from a pistol echoed down from above. Sarge who was crouched in the stairwell watching the rear spoke up. “Guys, we should split up into two teams, have each cover one side of the hallway. We go into the apartments at the same time and eliminate any Zed’s.”

“That’s probably twenty apartments to clear!” Kim argued. “We don’t have enough time, we need to get to the roof and get on the helicopter.”

“Skippy called me and said they are having engine trouble, so no air support.” Stan said flatly, “Sarge has a good plan, let’s do it.”

I stayed in the hallway with Sarah; we each covered one direction, in case any zombies appeared while the teams cleared each apartment. The first two apartments on each side were empty. The teams entered each dumpy apartment; most were still furnished with pre hurricane furnishings, which were unworthy of looting.

As we moved on to the next set of doors I caught a foul stench on the air. The door on the left side had been ripped off its hinges and tossed in the hallway. Kat, Dan, and Sarge stacked up against the wall by the door. I was crouching in the hallway my rifle pointed at the stairwell, when I heard sickening wet sound of flesh and bone being gnawed upon. The teams were about to clear the next apartment when I raised my fist and said, “Hold up.” Both teams looked at me strangely. “Guys, there is something bad in the next room.” I whispered as loud as I dared. The sick noise stopped. Was I the only one who had heard it?

A deep animalistic growl echoed from the next room. They all heard that one. Whatever lurked in the next apartment grunted and broke a window. Heavy footsteps stomped toward the door. I grabbed Kat on the shoulder and started moving her backward. A massive grey shape crashed through the doorway, it pounded its massive chest like a gorilla and roared. It was once human, but its overgrown muscles bulged with massive green puss filled sores, tried to tell us otherwise. Its face contorted in a vicious snarl, blood and bone fragments covered its face. It’s eyes were completely white, no pupils.

I stood stunned for a split second until someone opened up on it with a twelve gauge. Then all hell broke loose. For a brief moment it shrank back from our attack. With a horrible howl it lunged forward swinging its massive gorilla arms. Dan was hit in the face and fell to the floor. We ran back down the hallway to the stairwell. Sarge opened up with his PTR-91, twenty rounds of silver .308 didn’t even slow it down. I bump fired my rifle emptying the mag in two seconds and I turned and hit the stairs running.

The beast roared and crashed into the railing, its breath was that of rotten meat, and eggs. We made it down the stairs back to the lower level when it tore off an old oil heating unit off the wall and tossed it at us. Kim was hit in the arm and he crashed to the ground screaming. I hastily reloaded my rifle as the rest of the team pumped round after round into the undead goliath. It stumbled when a load of buckshot shattered its kneecap, but it still kept coming. I aimed for its head and fired; my round went high and hit its hunched shoulders. One more aimed shot is all I needed, but I never got the chance. It lashed out with a massive paw and slammed me through a moldy graffiti covered wall.

I coughed as a nasty mix of drywall dust, cobwebs and mold, tried to suffocate me. I looked down; the lens of my scope had shattered when it hit a stud. I pulled on the quick release mount and tossed the nearly five thousand dollar paperweight on the ground.

The massive beast had its attention set on the main group. I sat up and realized that I had an almost perfect shot from the side. I snapped my M14 rifle up and aimed through the rear site, fixed the post in the center of the beasts head and fired. Its head whipped to the side but it didn’t drop. It turned around and yelled a horrible scream straight from the pit of hell. It lunged at the wall and tore into the studs snapping them like twigs. As I scrambled back into the room, my head hit something metal I was glad I had brought my helmet.

It was a rusty old propane tank. I quickly turned the nozzle and the flammable gas hissed out of the bottle. I picked it up and fired my pistol at the beast, igniting the stream of gas blasting it in the face with my improvised flame thrower. It fell back out into the hallway, thrashing around on the ground. I poured more fire on it as the rest of the team emptied every last round of ammo into the beast until it finally stopped twitching. I hardly noticed that I had burned my fingers, when I turned off the propane tank.

“Is everyone OK?” Stan called out.

Kim winced in pain, “Ahhh, Ahhh, I think my arm is broken.”

“Dan went down upstairs.” I reminded the group. I pulled out my knife and beheaded the foul beast, I didn’t know what it was but I knew I didn’t want to have to fight it again. “Does anyone know what the hell that thing was?”

Stan let out a sigh, “Yeah, that thing used to be a Voodoo shaman. Some of them summon undead and feast upon them. This one obviously became obsessed with the undead and caused this whole mess.” He spat on it, “The dammed things gain power by eating the flesh of the dead. When they end up like this we call them a Necro-devourer.” He pushed a shotgun shell into his now empty shotgun. “This was the biggest and meanest one that I have ever seen.” He shuddered, “Let’s go get our team.”

We found Dan sitting up in the hallway blood running from his nose. He didn’t know where he was, and we thought it best to disarm him. At the end of the hallway an old hobo wearing a strange brown mask was lying on what used to be a kids mattress. He had multiple zombie bites on his arms and neck. Soon enough he would turn and come after us. I pulled my XD and flicked off the safety. His eyes opened and he croaked “Please help me.”

“I am.” I said flatly as I put my finger on the trigger and took up the slack.

He stared at me his blood shot eyes filled with hatred, “You are a true bastard.”

“Yes I know.” I squeezed. He died.

Kat punched me on the arm, “Damn Moose remind me to not get on your bad side.”

I re holstered my pistol and realized my hands were shaking; I had just killed a man. I had just killed a man. Not a monster, or demon, but a human. He was doomed to become a zombie, but his heart was still beating. He knew I was about to kill him. I shook my head, what had I said less than an hour ago to Dan? “Be careful when you fight monsters, lest you become one.” Was I so cold and callous that I had become what we hunted?

We made it to the third floor without further incident and found Owens team barricaded in a room. There were a few zombies outside, but they didn’t even move toward us. We quickly dispatched them.

“What gives Stan?” Sarge said after dropping the last zombie.

“The summoner is dead; when he dies the zombies he raised return to their graves.” He pointed out the window, “Take a look.” We gathered around the window, in the pale glow of the street lights the massive horde was shuffling back to the graveyard. They crawled back into their tombs and coffins to rest again.

“Weird.” I said to no one in particular as Sarah began tending to the wounded. What a hell of a night it had been.

[moose42]

Hi guys here is the first part of chapter 17. Enjoy.

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Chapter 17
Thanksgiving

The news media covered up the New Orleans zombie incident as a booze fest gone wrong. Kim with his broken arm was reassigned to the company office to do payroll and research. I didn’t envy him, sitting at a desk knee deep in paperwork was a life I had gladly left behind to kill things that go bump in the night.

Thanksgiving was just around the corner and I was dreading going back home. Lying to my family was not something I was looking forward to. My mother was distraught; Mike’s cover-up story was that he had disappeared with some friends from college and had turned up missing. My sisters would be in town for thanksgiving, and so would my Uncle Bob. Yes I really do have an Uncle Bob, doesn’t everyone? He flew F-4 phantoms during the police action in Southeast Asia.

Katrina, wanted to come with me to thanksgiving, her parents were on a tour of Europe, something they had always wanted to do ever since the kids were out of the house, so she didn’t have a place to go. I could already envision the endless barrage of questions from my family as soon as we walked through the door.

Our flight touched down at the Boise airport at three in the afternoon. Thankfully we were back on solid ground. Sitting in the seat next to me Kat said, “So, Marty are you ready for this?”

I swallowed a gulp of air, “No.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “I don’t really want to lie about all this.” I pulled the collar of my turtle neck down showing the scars on my neck.

We retrieved our bags and dragged them through the airport, and out into the main concourse. Uncle Bob was waiting for us, on time as usual. I was glad to see him; it had been a couple of years since the last family reunion. His hair had thinned a bit and was all but grey now but he still had the bearing of a proud strong man who you could always depend on.

We embraced and he slapped me on the back, “Marty! Good to see you boy!” he stepped back and looked at Kat, “Who’s your lady friend, aren’t you going to introduce us?” he said as he elbowed me in the ribs.

I coughed, “Umm, yes Uncle Bob, this is Katrina. Katrina, Uncle Bob, the best Uncle a boy could have asked for.”

They shook hands, “Nice to meet you Bob. You can call me Kat.” She smiled and we started walking towards the parking lot.

We stuffed our suitcases into the trunk of the Lincoln Continental and made our way to my former home. Despite me height I was the one stuffed into the back seat while Kat sat up front next to Bob.

“So what do you see in my nephew anyway?” He asked her out of the blue. I felt like objecting but thought better of it. He had been like a second father to me when I was little.
Kat didn’t say anything for a while, I didn’t know if she was embarrassed, or didn’t want me to overhear. She glanced back at me and then to Bob. “Well, ever since we met he has always tried to protect me, even when I didn’t really want him too.” I hadn’t expected that. “Oh and he makes me laugh.” You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried.

We arrived at the old house where I grew up. The paint had changed a few times, and the trees were a bit larger, but it was exactly like I remembered. When I last left home a few months ago it hadn’t really seemed important. But life was different now, somehow things had changed. The simple things I had always taken for granted were now more important forever. I remembered that unlike all previous family gatherings Michael wouldn’t be here to play with my sisters kids.

Kat opened my door. “Hey Marty you ok?” I blinked a few times and muttered that I was fine. Bob hauled Katrina’s suitcases out of the trunk and headed for the front door.

Upon entering we were swarmed by my little nephews. Four little kids from two years old to seven were happy to see their uncle Marty. They ran up and jumped on me; I crouched down and grabbed them in a big hug. They were really great kids, cute, inquisitive and full of energy. Spending an evening with them could tire out the most dedicated marathoner.

My older sister Anne came in from the kitchen, the smell of thanksgiving turkey wafted in after her. “Hi Marty!” she beamed, “Oh and who’s this?” she said looking at Katrina, “You didn’t tell us you were bringing a girl home with you!”

In the next few moments the level of estrogen in the room became overpowering. My mother, my sisters, Anne and Kimberly, Bob’s wife, and Katrina began talking about, pregnancy, children, periods, and all other manner of things that a wise man should leave well enough alone. Bob and I ducked into the one refuge we had down the hall.

The bedroom at the end of the hall had been Grandpa Miller’s room when he stayed with us. My mother thankfully hadn’t dared change a thing since his passing. The walls were covered with mementos from the Korean War. I picked up a picture off the desk; it was of my grandfather and three of his buddies when he was wearing a much younger man’s clothes. They were bundled up in heavy coats, standing knee deep in the snow. I was about to put the picture down when I took a closer look at another young soldier in the picture. I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was Stan Adams!

How could he have been fighting alongside my Grandfather in Korea? He didn’t look a day over forty. “Bob?” I turned still holding the picture, he had settled into grandpa’s ancient green recliner. He looked up as I handed him the dusty picture frame. “Bob, do you know this man standing next to grandpa?”

He leaned in close and adjusted his bifocals. He thought for a moment, “Yeah I do. He’s probably long since passed away.”

I had known Bob long enough to know that he was hiding something. “You aren’t telling me the whole truth, there’s something about this man you don’t want me to know.”

“Are you calling me a liar boy?” He growled his usually sunny disposition had vanished.

I met his gaze and replied, “I know about Grandpa. He didn’t work for the power company.”

Bob leaned back in the dusty old chair, and peered intently at the photo again. “Marty, you always were a sharp kid growing up. I can see there is no fooling you. But all the men it that picture are long since dead.”

I was getting tired of his games. “That man next to grandpa is Stanley Adams; I know that because I talked to him two days ago. By looking at him you would swear he wasn’t a day over forty years old. What is he?”

My uncle set the photo on a little table next to the lazy boy. “Marty, I don’t know what Stan is. All I know is that he and your grandfather worked together after the war.”

“Killing monsters?” I offered.

Bob looked a bit surprised, “Yes they did. How did…” his question hung in the air.

“Katrina and I work for Monster Hunter International.” I said flatly.

Bob smiled, “I always knew one of you boys would follow in Lee’s old footsteps.”

“Did you hunt?” I asked him.

The older man shook his head, “Not exactly. Just suffice it to say that if I told you all the details about a mission we went on to attack a steel mill in Vietnam; I would be divulging beyond top secret information that is still classified to this day.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Let me guess the Soviets probably had a lab where they were trying to use monsters to help the Vietcong fight the war and you guys were supposed to put it out of commission.”

Bob grinned mischievously, “I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of a Russian bio weapon laboratory, in Southeast Asia.”

(More to come when I get around to it.)

[moose42]

And now Uncle Bob's harrowing experience in Vietnam.


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Chapter 17 Part 2

The turkey had been devoured and the pumpkin pie was fighting for room next to the mashed potatoes. The kids were sitting on the couch in the living room watching some animated movie about a fish looking for his dad. It had been a great thanksgiving dinner as always. The women in my family all knew how to cook; Miller family gatherings always had a veritable smorgasbord of tasty and fattening foods.

I leaned back in my chair and absently scratched the scars on my neck. Unfortunately, My mother Kate happened to notice them. “OHMYGOSH! What happened to your neck?”

I looked at her sheepishly, “Umm nothing, I’m fine.”

“No you are not fine!” She reached over and grabbed at my turtleneck. “What did you do here?”

I sighed and tried to come up with a good lie. “Umm I was doing some wood working, and…”

Kat blurted in trying to cover for me, “Water skiing accident.” I glared at her, she just shrugged her shoulders and gave me a ‘not my fault’ look.

“Marty, don’t lie to me.” She gave me the evil eye that only a mother could do. I wondered if mothers got together and taught each other how to melt your resolve with a glance?

I cleared my throat; it was time to let them know. “Michael did it.”

We sat in an awkward silence for a long time, the kids’ movie blared “Fish are friends not food.”

After a while my Anne broke the silence, “What do you mean Mike did it?” She made slashing motions with her hand. “Like with a knife?”

I looked at Kat, she looked away, this was my baby. “No with his teeth.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “My little brother isn’t missing, he’s a vampire.”

I explained his abduction, and subsequent attack in the basement of MHI. I told them that I wasn’t really in college. That Katrina and I had been working together to kill monsters. When I finished I intently stirred the bits of leftover green-bean casserole around on my plate.

The fish in the movie chanted, “Swim down!” at that moment I would have gladly taken their place in a fisherman’s net.

“But, monsters aren’t real!” Kimberly protested. “Mike is missing and you’re making some sick joke about it? What the hell Marty?” She shook her head and stood up from the table. “Kids, get your shoes on!” She yelled into the next room.

Kat put a hand on her arm, “Sit down Kimberly, Marty is telling the truth.”

My mother was on the verge of tears, but I could tell she believed me. Bob took a deep breath, “Everyone needs to calm down, running off in a huff isn’t going to solve any problems.” Kimberly sat down, red faced.

“What I am about to tell you is classified beyond top secret.” Bob took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. After a moment, he continued. “The government has known about monsters for a long time. When I was flying F-4’s in Vietnam most of my missions were your regular splashing MiGs, and bombing supply routes, that sort of thing.”

I was sitting on the edge of my seat. “Then one day we had a briefing with some special operations types. We were told that the mission we were about to undertake was of supreme importance.” A few beads of sweat appeared on his brow. “A soldier without rank or name gave us pilots the briefing. He said that we weren’t actually going to bomb a steel mill, like our paperwork said. He told us that the Russians who supported the North Vietnamese had built a lab in Thai Nguyen, a town north of Hanoi.”
Bob began to breathe heavily.

“This lab was a bio-weapon lab, but it didn’t create poisonous weapons. No, no. They were using it to create monsters to kill American soldiers. They were creating Lycanthropes, and strange horse like demons called Tikbalang.” Uncle Bob took a long drink of water and continued.

“Our goal was to destroy the lab from the air before the monsters were scheduled to be released on our troops. The full moon was that night, we attacked during the day on March 10th of 1967. Our commanders were hoping we would be able to kill the beasts before nightfall.” Bob paused trying to gather his thoughts.

I probed for more, “Uncle, why would they tell you about the monsters? Why not lie to you and tell you that you were bombing a steel mill?”

He nodded, “I wondered that myself, but they said that we had the right to know since there was a good chance we would be shot down, we needed to know what we were dealing with. They issued us silver bullets for our .38 revolvers, and silver inlaid survival knives. That’s when it hit me that this wasn’t some sort of cruel joke. Monsters were real and the damn Russians and North Vietnamese were trying to use them to kill our boys.”

Bob looked at Kat and Me, “At that point they gave us the opportunity to turn down the mission. None of us did. On the way to the target we encountered some heavy anti-aircraft fire, Captain Amen’s, and my ride was hit by some flak. Paredo and Wayans, our wing men took a look and asked us if we wanted to turn back. We didn’t.” Bob seemed to be reliving that flight; his eyes were looking far off into the distance.

“We made it to our target, the dammed monster factory. The air was black with flak; this lab was important to the enemy, so they had placed hundreds of guns to defend it. We plunged through the madness and dropped our bombs on target. Our plane shook violently as we were hit twice more by anti-aircraft fire.” Bob wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“We turned our damaged jets back toward the safety of our base in Thailand. I looked at the fuel gauges, we had taken a couple of direct hits and we didn’t have enough to make it back to base. In fact we were probably going to land in the blasted hornets’ nest below us.”

“Amen, and I were about to punch out when Paredo had a crazy idea. He radioed, ‘Don’t bail out! I’ll push you!’ We looked over at him and I thought he had lost it. Paredo told us to lower our tail hook and he would push our damaged plane with his windshield!” Bob’s eyes started to tear up. “He didn’t tell us that their plane had also been damaged, and that he was flying on only one engine. He could have let us bail out, and limped his plane back to base, but he wasn’t about to leave us behind, to deluxe accommodations at the Hanoi Hilton.”

“We lowered our tail hook and Paredo pushed on it with his windshield. It actually worked! We were still falling out of the sky but it we were going to make it out of the hot zone. After a few moments our jet was completely out of fuel and our engines flamed out, we were flying a dead brick. Amen and I tried to keep our jet steady when Paredo radioed over to us that his windshield was beginning to crack.”

Bob swallowed hard, “I told him to stop pushing, if their windshield broke our landing hook would have impaled him, killing him instantly. Paredo wouldn’t quit, he figured out that he could push on the tail hook where the radar dome met the bottom of the windshield. He pushed our doomed aircraft for about ten minutes.”

“We radioed for air tankers but there was no way they could have reached us in time, we had no choice but to bail out in Laos. A couple of Jolly Green Giant helicopters were scrambled from Thailand, but we weren’t out of the woods yet. We ejected at six thousand feet, and my back got messed up from the ejection seat. As I was floating down in my parachute some armed guerrillas took some shots at me, a couple of rounds zipped through my chute, but they didn’t hit me. Unfortunately they would be hot on my trail as soon as I landed.”

Bob absently rubbed his lower back for a moment. “I crashed into a tree and hung upside down for a few moments before I cut myself free and dropped headfirst into a couple of shrubs. That’s when I realized how messed up my back was. It felt like I had been hit with a blob of napalm. I struggled through the pain and ran, I didn’t have much time, Charlie would find me if I stuck around.”

“I wasn’t sure where Amen was at the time, we both ejected at the same time, but when I landed I didn’t see where he had made ground. Our flight had been delayed due to inclement weather and night was fast approaching. The Jolly Green’s were unable to get to us; because a couple of nearby anti aircraft emplacements would fire at them any time they tried to get close. The A-1E’s and F-4’s were busy with other engagements, so we were on our own for the night.”

Bob couldn’t speak for a moment; he seemed to be reliving the terror of that day those many years ago. “Later at dusk I stumbled upon Captain Amen. He had broken his ankle when he hit the ground and wasn’t able to walk very fast.”

He took another drink; sweat was running down his neck. “When the full moon came up that night I’ll never forget the horrible howl that the werewolf made. We hadn’t killed them all, we figured out later that they had already forward deployed a few of their first test subjects. We ran as fast as we could, I helped the Captain hobble forward, but the beast had our scent. As the infernal beast grew closer, and we knew he would soon overtake us, we turned to fight the blasted monster.”

“When it burst through the bushes we were ready for it. It leapt for me, and we fired. The little .38 special bullets hardly even slowed it down, even loaded with silver bullets. As it pinned me to the ground, I saw my life flash before my eyes, its claws shredded my flight suit and ripped large gashes into my chest. As it was about to bite my throat out, Captain Amen charged the beast, with his broken ankle and smashed into it. They wrestled on the ground as I hurriedly reloaded my pistol. Amen, was holding its jaws shut, while it started to tear him to pieces. Somehow he managed to hold its head still and I fired all my remaining rounds right into the damned things brain. As it lay twitching on the ground we cut its head off, and tossed it into the river. So yes, monsters are real.”

Nobody spoke until the kids’ movie ended and they ran over to tell us that the little orange fish had indeed been saved.

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If you would like to read about my Uncle Bobs actual experience in Vietnam follow this link. First Lieutenant Robert Houghton is my Uncle. He has told me this story many times, I never tire of hearing it. I changed the names in my FF a little but I tried to do it justice.

[moose42]

So is anyone reading this anymore? Should I quit posting?

Lemme know thanks.

[randy]

Yes! No!

[Jennifer]

Still reading and enjoying.

[moose42]

Thanks guys, I hadn't gotten any feedback in a while so I didn't know if people were reading.

[Precision]

we are still reading. The story is good and improving so there isn't much to critique other than grammar and silly spelling so we (I) don't.

keep it coming.