The Mulligan Planet (3 page)

We continued on into a short
hallway, its walls a bright white, “I take you to cafeteria, get
you something to eat?” I immediately felt unbearably hungry, I
laughed to myself for not knowing I needed food until I was told,
“That would be great.” I said with a much stronger smile than
before. We turned into a room with three circular tables, a tinted
window and a counter. The room immediately reminded me of the small
take away shops that I'd enjoyed over the years. “Take a seat, I’ll
get the food.” I nodded and walked over to the table closest to the
window while Gregorvich walked over to the counter, I sat down and
watched out the window. I allowed myself to go blank, just let
everything go, I let myself believe that all this was completely
reasonable and made complete sense, it was something that I'd
learned to do many years ago as a coping mechanism, getting turned
into a vampire and having to become a nomad with a passive
aggressive five hundred and something year old after spending the
better part of my formative years in splendour, you know, other
than the war, well... wars, was somewhat perspective altering.
Gregorvich walked over holding a folded newspaper while balancing a
container of gravy on top, sat across from me and ripped the top of
the newspaper to reveal a large pile of chips. “Dig in.” I slowly
ate the chips in front of me, “Dig in, go nuts, you must be hungry.
You’ve no one to disgust here.” He flashed me another of his huge
smiles. I was hesitant at first, then I doused the chips in the
gravy and began to shovel them in. “I am so hungry.” I said through
muffled mouthfuls, “You would be, I don't know how I'd go without
food or drink for four days.” I processed what he said while
continuing to shovel food, “You mean to tell me you didn't have me
on some sort of drip while I was out?” Gregorvich pulled a face as
if he were thinking about the question and began shaking his head,
“No, can’t say we did, sorry, we were kind of… we were exhausted,
sorry.”

I think I would’ve had a panic
attack if I weren’t so intent on forcing as much food into my body
as possible, I could’ve died because these guys were tired. “So
what exactly is it that we do here?” Gregorvich shrugged, “Bit of
this, bit of that. We specialise in… suicide mission. We do what
others cannot; we are much more suitable for missions when they
would have to send in twenty regular soldiers.” I finished the
chips and wiped my mouth with a napkin, “Were you a soldier before
you were recruited?” he shook his head and smiled, “No, not at all,
I was mortician, southern Russian. I served in World War II, but
that’s it.” I decided to go a bit more personal, “When were you
changed?” his face drooped slightly, “Seventy three years ago, I
was twenty seven, I was dying, frostbite, had gotten lost and
walked for hours before I found a cottage, that’s all I remember, I
woke up in a dirty hotel room in Moscow with a note pinned to my
pillow, '
ty vampir seychas, pit’ krov’, vyzhit’,
says I am
vampire now, and I need to drink blood to survive. Roughly,” he
smiled again, “but hey, if not for it I would not have seen you
decimate the chip and gravy population.” Holy crap this guy smiles
a lot. Then I had it, a plan, “I have a plan, for the mission.” I
was so excited, and from the look on his face, so was Gregorvich,
“I get the team, you wait right here.” I’ve never seen a man shoot
from a chair that fast before, and I've seen men tied to chairs and
had cannons fired at them. My chest flushed with pride, I don’t
know where it came from, it must've been something to do with him
bringing up the second World War, some kind of stratagem sent off
through my brain by a simple set of words that ended up kick
starting memory association, one minute completely blank the next I
was developing a plan.

I scooped up my left overs and
looked around for a bin, saw one in the far right corner and made
for it. I was about a metre from it when I felt a hand fall on my
shoulder, I turned to see a man of about 6’1 with a slack jaw, eyes
rolled into the back of his head, dirty blonde hair and thick
angular features, “You will die in the city…” he struggled with
each word. I looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and fear,
“What was that?” His eyes rolled forward to reveal dark blue eyes,
he tightened his jaw into a smile, “I’m just screwing with you, I’m
Sergeant Jason Minks, I run Alpha team and I understand you give me
my orders.” He thrust his hand out, I looked at it for a moment
before I realised what he wanted me to do with it, “Oh, yeah, two
seconds.” I spun around on my feet and threw the scraps in the bin,
turned to him once more and shook his outstretched hand, “John
Prince. Glad to have you on board.”

I began to walk back to the
table with him following, “I’m about to go through the plan with
the others if you’d like to have a listen.” He smiled and nodded as
we took our seats, “Better than getting it in the briefing packet,
I never can understand those things.” I nodded, “Yeah, always
easier to hear it than to read it, and you can’t ask paper
questions.” We sat in silence for a good five minutes. Damn,
Gregorvich was taking a long time, “So what will my team be doing?”
I looked up, “Um, primarily transport, and then support for the
majority of the mission...” My team coming through the door
interrupted me, “…I’ll explain it in a moment.” the team pulled up
chairs around the table while Wolfgang looked over exceptionally
eagerly, “What’s the plan?” I took a deep breath, “Ok, our first
target is the condo, it’s quiet, out of the way.” I gestured to the
other vampires in the room, “We’ll be chuting in along with our
weapons from a cargo plane toward the pool,” Jason scratched his
neck, “Where do we fit in in this part?” I smiled lightly, “Don’t
worry, I haven’t left you guys out, I’ll need you to come in
through his front door shortly after we’ve breached, I’ll signal
you when we have.” Jason nodded, “Yes sir.” Kate raised her fore
finger, “How are going to get to the city after this? Last I
checked it’s about an hour and half drive from the beach.” I
couldn't get over how gorgeous this girl was, I nearly stumbled on
my words again as I struggled to maintain my commander voice,
“We’ll be attacking in the early morning. I noticed that he didn’t
have a car anywhere near his house, but there’s an enclosure a few
metres from the condo. I’m hoping that’s a garage.” Gregorvich
smiled, “This make sense, there’s still a few days before the
meeting, I can do drive by, see if is garage, and what vehicles
inside, that way less guessing, less chance for mistake. What you
think?” I nodded at him, “Sounds good. Also, I realise you guys may
be worried about being outside during the day, but I figure as long
as we have a massive feed the night before, stick to the shade we
should be fine, especially seeing as barely any direct sunlight
makes it into the city until midday.” Wolfgang piped up, “Yeah,
I’ve made through an entire day just by wearing copious amounts of
sun block, and we have blood storage, every living soul on base
donates weekly to keep us going.”

“Well that solves the problem of
getting the blood. Alright, once we’ve cleared the condo we move to
the city, Gregorvich you’re with me, Wolfgang and Kate, you’re with
Jason and his squad. Gregorvich, once we’re to the building we’re
going to have a briefcase filled with explosives, something that'll
make a lot of smoke but have enough force to clear the lobby.
You’ll hold a remote detonator, I’ll drop the case at the building
entrance and you’ll blow it. Kate, Jason and Wolfgang, I need you
guys to follow us in a van or something of the like, once we’ve
blown the case you’ll drive up and give us our weapons. At that
point I’ll need Jason and his team to cover the door and layer the
ground floor with C4 as a fail-safe, while you two join Gregorvich
and myself, we’ll clear the building floor by floor. Once we’ve
reached the fifteenth floor I’ll call you up Jason, we’ll nab the
data, take out the developers and then we’ll move to the roof for a
chopper extraction. Failing to nab the data we level the building.”
I looked around at the team who were all nodding in approval, Kate
smiled, “This is going to be fun.” Gregorvich clapped me on the
shoulder with one of his massive paws, “Not bad for first mission,
I’ll go tell Anton.” He began to stand and Jason pushed him back
down, “I’ll do it, Anton doesn’t need to be confused.” He stood and
left the room while Gregorvich huffed. “I think… I go to bed, see
you soon, I go to the garage tomorrow, be back the day after,
da
?” I smiled at him as he stood, “Alright, nice meeting
you.” He got his massive grin back as he waved to me and the rest
of the group while he walked out. Kate stretched, “I better crash
out, see you John, Wolfgang.” she walked out, I couldn't help but
watch her leave, she walked so gracefully and as my eyes began to
drift southward she turned the corner and Wolfgang leaned in to my
ear, “Now that's a sight, isn’t it?” I jumped at the question, spun
around and looked at him in what was attempted shock to mask my
true shame for being caught out, “Pardon?” he raised his hand at
me, “Don’t pretend you weren’t looking, I saw you.” I cleared my
throat, “Um, yeah, yeah I guess.”

Wolfgang smiled while he ran his
fingers through his hair and shook it about slightly, having it
fall in the exact place it was before, “So, drinks?” they had
alcohol on this base? Pure genius right there, hyper strong
vampires with access to a massive armoury and to top it off have
them able to get drunk, I couldn’t get over how little respect
these people had for their personal safety, “Yeah, ok.” Wolfgang
stood and I followed, “Let’s head to the bar.” We walked out into
the hallway and made our way left. Wolfgang looked over at me, “So,
what do you think of it so far?” I contemplated this for a moment,
bizarre, shocking, feels like I should wake up any moment now,
“It’s good, interesting.” He let out a short chuckle, “Interesting,
never heard it called that before.” I looked at his scar, “How’d
you get that?” he gently ran his fingers over it, “World War I, the
day I was turned, I was on the… wrong side, the bad side,” I
examined him for a moment before I understood what he meant, “You
were a Nazi?” he let out a sigh and nodded, “Yep, well, I wasn't,
the Nazis weren't a thing in my time, we were just members of the
German army. Anyway, I was following orders, holding a trench in...
I honestly can't remember. It may have been Ypres; all I know is
that it was a freezing night and I was soaked in water from the
rain and the blood that I was desperately trying to stop pouring
from my friend who had taken a shot to the chest, he would’ve only
been seventeen. I hear some trigger happy American bark that he was
going to kill every last one of us Krout scum, next thing I know
someone a few feet from me screams grenade and I go deaf a second
later.”

We turned into a room which I
recognised as the bar, there were a few young waitresses walking
around, carrying trays, wearing short black tops revealing their
stomachs and black skirts that went a few inches above their knees.
Other than those few waitresses, the suited bartender and us the
bar was empty. Wolfgang gestured to a booth in the far right corner
where we began to walk to past a few long tables and stools while a
pop-rock song trickled from the speakers and the digital wall clock
read two p.m. in bright green numbers. We took our seats and a
waitress walked over, “How can I help you boys?” she said in a
sultry voice, Wolfgang flashed her a toothy grin, “Dry scotch
thanks Amanda. John?” I took a moment to decide, “Gin and tonic on
the rocks would be great thank you.” She smiled at me revealing a
set of vampiric teeth, “Coming right up.” She spun around and
walked back to the bar.

I was shocked to say the least,
“How many vampires are on this base?” Wolfgang shrugged, “Dozens,
maybe a hundred or so, but we four are the only real fighters, I
mean there’s a few others on base that are capable in that respect,
some of them are engineer types, but the majority of the others are
like Amanda over there, mostly changed since the late eighties,
early nineties, had something to do with pop culture,” he shrugged,
“what you gonna do?” He chuckled as Amanda came over with a tray,
our drinks rocking precariously upon it while she bent down, making
her breasts as prominent as possible and put our drinks on the
coasters in front of us, “If you need anything else, just let me
know.” Wolfgang took a drink, “Will do, thanks.” She walked off,
“Anyway, um... yes, I go deaf and get thrown a few feet, start
blinking, next thing there’s this American on top of me with a
knife drawn. He goes to stab me and I catch his wrist but he still
manages to sink his blade into my neck a few millimetres, I pulled
out his pistol and shot him in the head. He slumps off and drags
the knife with him downward toward my chest. Naturally, I passed
out, then this man in the allies is dragging me down the street,
there’s blood all over me, I thought he was going to interrogate
then kill me. We get to an alley and he sinks his teeth into my
neck, then he spoke, in this beautiful and rich British accent, he
said to me, ‘I saw you with your friend, that’s why I’ve given you
this gift, you will live now, forever. But with this gift I ask you
to leave this war, start a new life, don’t stay here with your
friends to die.’ I felt so cold, I couldn’t speak but I nodded
while he went on to say ‘Good. Stay away from sunlight as best you
can, it is very dangerous, and feed when you can, make sure you
kill your prey when you’re finished. With that I leave you.’ I
never got to see his face, he ran off, I’m guessing to finish off
the rest of my division while I stumbled into the shadows.” He
polished off his glass, “Amanda, top me off?” she looked over,
nodded and brought him a fresh glass, removing the first.