Read The Mulligan Planet Online

Authors: Zachariah Dracoulis

Tags: #vampires, #action, #zombies, #aliens, #zombies action adventure post apocalyptic virus armageddon undead marine corps special forces marines walking dead zombie apocalypse rangers apocalypes

The Mulligan Planet (8 page)

BOOK: The Mulligan Planet
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“Wolf, could you grab the keys?”
he nodded and started feeling around inside the glove compartment,
“This is a really nice car, the seats are so soft... There we go,”
he tossed the keys over to me, “Mind if I borrow it at some point?”
I shook my head as I turned the keys in the ignition, “No, not at
all. So where are we going to go?” Wolf shrugged, “There’s an old
air field about twenty minutes west from here, could be a nice
place to let it loose.” A deep purr rolled from the engine and the
tablet lit up, “Good morning John, and welcome to the HCV, today I
will be running you through a tutorial on how to effectively use
this vehicle, state safe testing area.” A strong, British male’s
voice pushed through the centre console and into my ears. I looked
over to Wolf, whose jaw was dangling open, “Did… did the car just
talk to me?” his jaw slammed shut and he nodded, “Tell it we want
to go to airfield seven…” I started but before I could finish the
windshield came to life, “Now connecting to OLHUD and LAP. Please
wait… Complete, now finding route to airfield seven closest to your
position. Upon exit of facility go left.” I was still very
confused, but I grabbed the wheel and followed the car’s
instruction, Wolf was sitting bolt upright, “This is cool… but at
the same time really unnerving.” I nodded slowly, I felt as if I
made any sudden movements I would scare the car. I followed the
directions of the car in complete silence until we were on a strip
of tarmac that must’ve been ten kilometres long surrounded by sheds
with the corpses of several passenger planes. In fact, the only
exception in this aerial graveyard were a few small jets that still
looked functional, “No officers or civilians within a one hundred
kilometre radius, discretion is unnecessary.” I opened my mouth
several times before I said anything, “Is that the car’s way of
saying floor it?” Wolf smiled widely, “No no, I believe he means
floor it or he will.” I now shared his grin and dropped the
accelerator, I could feel the difference between last night’s drive
and today's, the tires held us to the road while we picked up
speed, I looked down at the speedometer which had just spun past
one ninety, “Wooooooooh!” at two twenty I could feel that the front
of the car was getting picked up by the wind that we were cutting
through, “Stabilising vehicle, feel free to continue course.” The
front of the car stuck to the ground again. At two seventy Wolf let
out a howl, “This is amazing!” the tablet flash once, “Approaching
current maximum speed, would you like to activate back burners
John?” I nodded, “Yes! Full speed car!” there was a loud whooshing
sound and the speedometer started flicking violently at three
fifty, “Holy crap!” my whole body was stuck to my chair, I didn't
know if I was holding the steering wheel to steer or to hold for
fear I’d get blown away if I let go, I heard a shout from my side,
“John! We need to stop! We’re gonna run out of road or pass out!” I
tried to nod but my head was quite literally stuck, I eased of the
accelerator, “Car! I need help stopping!” a click sounded and the
whooshing stopped, “Shall I deploy the chute John?” I was
struggling to close my mouth after I last spoke, “Yes please!” one
of my hands slipped from the wheel and flung back to smack me in
face. The car began to steadily slow, the speedometer spinning
backward, I could pull my hand from my face at one seventy as I
began to apply the brakes myself and we eased to an eventual
stop.

I managed to lean on the door
handle in such a way to make it pop open at which point I slumped
lazily out onto the gravel, I could hear Wolf doing the same. I
managed to stand and stumble to the back of the car where I fell
again but the car supported my back as I did allowing me to be in a
roughly seated position, I heard Wolf collapse next to me, I
couldn’t lift my head and my whole body tingled. A few minutes
passed and then we started laughing, “That was possibly the most
fun I’ve had in two hundred years.” I flung my head backward to
rest on the car, there were three long lines of charred gravel
behind us as well as large billowing clouds of smoke, I looked at
the rear tire, which looked fine, and back at the road and started
laughing more, occasionally coughing huge lumps of air out of my
body, “I think the tires broke the road.” I heard Wolf shuffle
slightly, “Ha! They did too.” I started to feel warm in the
afternoon sun, “I think we should get back in the car.” There was a
grunt of approval from my side as I stood and proceeded to half
walk, half fall back into the car using the roof as a ballast. The
door closed automatically behind me, “Turning on AC, shall I put
some music on sir?” I adjusted myself in my seat and took the
relief of the air conditioner blowing cool jets of air into my
body, “Yes, some smooth jazz would be nice.” I pulled on my
seat-belt, my body was beginning to come back to life, the sound of
a deep saxophone poured out of the centre console, “Shall we
continue to weapons in the tutorial sir?” I looked over to Wolf who
was shaking himself out, “Yeah, that could be fun.” I nodded, “Yep,
let’s get started.” The tablet flash up and a display of the car
appeared, “In this vehicle there are a number of weapons ranging
from tactical immobilisation to lethal, from stun to high density
explosive, where shall we begin sir?” again, Wolf and I looked at
each other and smiled, “The explosives, definitely the
explosives.”

“Very well sir,” a red trigger
popped up on either side of the steering wheel where my
fore-fingers usually sat, “please select a target.” I looked around
for something when I spotted a large rock, “that large rock over
there.” A red reticule circled around and stopped on the rock,
“That’s the one.” A quick beep rang in my ears, “Locked on, pull
the triggers when ready.” I grabbed the wheel, hovered my fingers
over the triggers, shot Wolf one final look and pulled the
triggers. There was a click and I felt the wheel vibrate as two of
what appeared to be miniature spears attached to a deodorant can
went hurtling toward the rock, which when they reached wedged deep
inside before blowing the top half of the monstrous rock into tiny
pieces. “That… was… awesome! John, can I blow something else up?” I
was still in awe as the larger chunks of rock peppered the ground,
“I think I need to get a drink. It’s been a big day.” I heard a
throaty chuckle to my left, “That’s true, we should actually
probably be getting back, they have habits of sending pick-up crews
if it seems we've kidnapped members of the public and are doing
general evil. Speaking of which I could use some food.” The
triggers slipped back inside the wheel, “I take it I should set a
course for the base sir?” I nodded, “Yeah, let’s go.” the tracks
appeared again leading back to the main road and I followed. “Hey
car, do you have a name?” it felt sort of weird to ask a car this,
but at the same time it… he… I don’t know, the car spoke back and
usually things that spoke had names, “My designation is HCV, being
High Classification Vehicle, but during my development I was
codenamed Robert.” vehicle that has the capacity to level an entire
city and he has a name like Robert. Funny world. I pulled into the
underground parking facility and found my space, “Robert, I like
that name. Well, see you later.” I stepped out of the car, “Good
evening sir.”

I followed Wolf back to the
elevator, “How long is it until the mission again?” Wolf shook his
head loose once we were moving down, “I think that’s the fastest
I’ve moved on the ground, um, two days, Greg gets back tomorrow,
we’ll feast then as well, and then the meeting is on Friday.” We
stepped out of the elevator and made our way to the bar, “What do
you mean feast?” Kate, Steven and Jason were sitting around a table
with two free seats which we swiftly occupied, “No-one’s sitting
here?” Kate shook her head, “Nope, Mike and Kyle were here, but
they left early.” Wolf waved over my shoulder, did some kind of
hand… thing, then gestured to Kate, myself then himself, “Now, the
feast, just like you said, we’ll feed up big before we leave,
steaks, blood, the whole shebang. It’s going to be a four-five hour
flight in the jet, so I’m thinking we start at around ten on
Thursday morning and then get some sleep, we can ship out at maybe
two on Friday morning?” I nodded as a tray with six shot glasses
filled with a clear liquid slid onto the table in front of me. I
looked over to Wolf who had the same, although he’d just downed his
third, “Guys, we are going to go have fun tonight, last night we
can for a while, there’s a club on the fourth floor. I’ll see you
guys there in, what, ten minutes. I’m gonna get changed.” Before I
said anything he’d finished his remaining shots and disappeared, I
looked over at Kate and the guys, “Um… me and Steven can come too
right?” I shrugged my mouth trying to catch up with my brain which
was still partly in the car. Then Kate came to my rescue and used
words which I was so grateful for, “Of course you guys are invited,
come on John, let’s get up there.” We stood and I had to stop and
marvel at just how beautiful she was, again, seriously, just jeans
and a t-shirt and she was still more beautiful than any woman I’d
seen all dolled up, anyway, sidetracked again, we got to the
elevator without talking, we’d left the guys so they could finish
their shots and get ready, but as soon as we were in the elevator
we’d locked together in a warm embrace and were holding our lips to
each other’s like there was nothing else in the world. I had missed
her more than I thought imaginable. When we finally broke apart I
couldn’t stop smiling, “You’re so unbelievably perfect.” She rubbed
her beautiful button nose on mine and smiled widely, “I’m not the
only one.”

The elevator made a ding sound,
“Fourth floor.” We stepped out hand in hand to the smoke and
multi-coloured lights, a nineties dance track that I can’t remember
for the life of me bounced off the bodies dancing throughout the
club. We got halfway through the club before giving up on finding
Wolf for a while and started dancing, well, she danced, and I just
kind of jumped on the spot. She stopped me by wrapping her arms
around my neck and coaxing my arms around her waist. We swayed in
rhythm with the music now blasting through the crowd. I took a
moment to explore the club with my eyes, the roof appeared to be
made of polished marble with several lighting rigs aligned in a
circle, a huge window opened up the wall to reveal the large
mountain side in front of the parking complex, and judging from the
light outside it would’ve been around seven. I felt a hand fall on
my shoulder, “How cool is this place?” Wolf practically shouted the
sentence in my ear, “Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. How do you guys
make sure this place isn’t noticed?” my eye's never leaving Kate’s,
“Easy, we’re in the middle of nowhere for one, and two, that glass
is a bulletproof two way mirror. No-one can see in this place.”
Knowing this eased me a fair amount. Kate released me so we could
dance as a group, we probably looked like complete idiots but we
didn’t care, my whole body felt loose, Kate was bouncing around,
whipping her hair around while Wolf was clicking his fingers,
spinning around, I was so happy, the lights, the music, the day I'd
had. Everything was perfect. That’s when the window exploded.

Wednesday
Night

The screams filled the room,
people scrambled, “We have to get back to the elevator!” We started
pushing through the crowd, glass still smashing as it cracked and
fell from it’s frame, the door of the elevator slid open to reveal
Jason and Steve, gunfire began to crack through the club, they
pulled pistols from the holsters that were initially hidden by
their unbuttoned shirts, “Get in here!” We all dove into the
elevator as the other two fired over our heads, the doors closed,
Wolf pulled me up, “We have to go down, get to the housing.” He hit
the button before I could stop him, “There are people in there
Wolf! Are we just going to leave them to die?” I went to push the
button for the top floor again and Wolf pushed me away from it,
“There are people in here too! We need to help ourselves before we
can help them, we’ll all die if we try to save them, I’m sorry
John, but this has to be done. They’re all capable, we didn’t leave
a hundred civilians up there, they’ve all had combat training.”
There was an explosion above us and the lights in the elevator
dimmed. It pissed me off, but he was right, “Ok, fine, what do we
do from here?” Jason reloaded his pistol, “We get you guys to your
weapons, hopefully they haven’t gotten to the housing yet, then we
take the base back.” The doors slid open and I could feel the
energy bouncing throughout the cavern, people were everywhere,
running in and out of their houses, up the stairs, down the stairs,
as I said, they were everywhere. “Meet back here in five, Steve and
I will wait here for you.” We ran to our separate houses, my door
hadn’t been fixed yet, the least of my worries I decided, I barged
through the door and made for my room. I ripped open my cupboard,
removed the faux-panel to reveal part of my personal arsenal, the
rest was in my bed, I pulled off my tie and clipped the chest
harness on while sliding my pistols into the holsters. I grabbed my
shotgun and dashed back to the elevator, everyone was waiting for
me, Wolf had an AK while Kate held an SMG in her hands, “Let’s go
then, what’s the next step?” Jason gestured to the elevator,
“Lift’s out of commission, that means we’re taking the stairs, I
think we should hit the cafeteria first, it’s a good place to hold
up and regroup with others, then we can push them further back out
of the facility.”

“Any idea who
they
are?”
Wolf frowned, “Hunters John, it was only a matter of time before
they found us.” Someone barged past us, he was young and terrified,
“They’re coming through the far entrance!” he disappeared as the
words left his mouth, “Wolf, you want to head up to the cafeteria
with Jason and Steve? Kate and I can hold it here.” Wolf nodded and
gestured for the guys to follow him as they ran for the stairs
while Kate and I made for a pair of brick walls on either side of
the street. Kate pushed her back against the wall opposite to mine
while I kept my shoulder to the brick cover, “The hunters will have
to come through the middle, we’ll have the advantage.” I peeked
around the corner, there was ten, maybe fifteen more of ours coming
through, “Hurry up! Head to the cafeteria, Wolf will help you from
ther…” I was cut off by machine gun fire carving through them, they
didn’t get a chance to scream before they hit the floor, I looked
over to Kate’s horrified face, these would have been people she
knew, her neighbours and friends, “Get back Kate!” part of the wall
next to my head exploded. I pulled one of my pistols out and
returned the fire, there were at least twenty of them, I heard
Kate’s SMG go off as she sprayed the hunters. I managed to get a
quick look at them through the bullet hole now in the wall, they
wore all black armour that kind of resembled what a modern day SS
soldier might’ve looked like, full face helmets with red eye
coverings. Kate managed to drop four with her clip, I ducked back
as she did. She started patting around frantically; she hadn’t
grabbed ammo, “Kate! Here!” I threw her my second pistol, “Twelve
rounds! Make them count!” I put my initial pistol back into its
holster and checked the shotgun to see if I’d remembered to reload
after its last use, six shells in the chamber, I’d have to get in
closer. The wall was a few seconds from being ineffective cover any
way, I shot around the corner and began to close the distance
between myself and the hunters, I felt the bullets whiz dangerously
close to my head, I was snarling and firing my shotgun at the
hunters, trying to look scary and violent while I was just thinking
how bad of an idea this was, how’d I even get in this situation?
Jumping over the bodies of fallen vampires and humans in a conflict
I thought was fairly small. I had such a quiet life, sure hunters
showed up from time to time, but that was once or twice every five
years. A bullet tore through the shirt under my arm to bring me
back, I was in arm’s length now, being menacing. There were three
in my immediate vicinity, one in front and one on either side of
me. The remaining five were another ten metres in front of me
focusing on Kate, so I had these guys. I dangled my shotgun in my
right hand, the guy in front on me dropped his gun, I’m guessing
they’d run out of ammo on the way here after massacring these
people, he brandished his knife and leaped at me. I moved my right
shoulder back, peeking over quickly to see that the guy to my right
was now making his move, the front one’s knife narrowly missed me,
giving me an opportunity; I knocked him back while bringing the
shotgun up, cocking it on his helmet, smashing the red eyes, I
pulled the trigger, blowing the top of the left assailant’s head
off while I swung with kick-back of the blast into the final
hunter’s face, elbow first, sending him into a small back-flip,
that part hurt. Two of the hunters had decided I was a more
immediate threat now and started firing on me, one hit me in the
arm and chest sending me reeling back. As I hit the ground I went
to cock my shotgun, which was impossible, as the fore-stock was
currently wedged in the head of the other hunter. I looked around
desperately for something to use, I was kind of hoping Kate would
take them out with the pistol before they got to me, pistol! I
still had one left, I popped up spinning and sliding the remaining
pistol from its holster in the process and resumed my charging. I
levelled my gun in front of me and let loose a volley of shots into
the guys focusing their fire on me, but as they dropped the rest
turned to me. My gun clicked when I pulled the trigger, I threw it
at the nearest target, managing to just catch a glimpse of it
wedging into his helmet as I bounded in a serpentine fashion, I
could sense their fear, I launched myself toward one, tearing head
from body, I had a weapon now, smashing the head in my hand into
another hunter’s, the blood spraying my face, a knife entered my
back and twisted releasing a howl of pain from my lips, I spun on
my feet and rammed my fists into his chest-piece which collapsed
and bent as he slammed to the ground under my force.

BOOK: The Mulligan Planet
5.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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