"The Reaper Effect: Stairway to Darkness" preview Prologue

[Jason Grimm]

Ok folks, here's the preview. Love it, hate it, bash it...whatever flaps your shutters. Just keep in mind that this was posted from "raw text"; the revisions I signed off on are in read-only format so I could take it from the revised product (read-only is a failsafe for guys like me that will constantly tinker with work). Regardless, whether you love it or hate it, thanks for giving it a read. Since I don't know how long the posts can be, I'll post a chapter at a time.




"The Reaper Effect: Stairway to Darkness"



Prologue


East Glen Chemical Research Facility, 8:45pm. The building was being evacuated due to a chemical fire that had gotten out of control and swept from the basement levels onward to the upper floors. Many researchers had gotten trapped and were already badly burned or dead, while many others were dying from smoke inhalation and chemical poisoning. It was like white lab rats trying to escape a flaming gas chamber. The local fire department fought outside to keep the fire at bay, but fought a losing battle while most of the scientists that escaped died soon after they made it outside. Paramedics were working faster than they had ever worked, yet were unable to save anyone who escaped.

As the fire and rescue crews worked in haste, several military vehicles pulled onto the scene. Soldiers wearing yellow bio-containment suits poured out of the vehicles and started killing the firemen and rescue teams with their rifles; the instant everyone had been killed, the soldiers formed into groups which reloaded their weapons as support teams set up to illuminate the site.
All of the soldiers watched and waited as if each and every one knew the night was far from over with. While they waited, a larger man in a containment suit stepped out of the closest military transport and walked towards a smaller man that was giving orders amongst the chaos.
"Get some chemical readings from this smoke Beta Team! Move!" the smaller man ordered as
the larger of the two walked up. "We need to know what went up in this fire!"
After he spoke, six men took a metal case of instruments and ventured to the edge of the fire. One of them opened the case and pulled a hand-held electronic device from it, then proceeded to hold it in front of him where the smoke was present. After several seconds, the team of soldiers returned to their sergeant and presented him with the device and its readings from the computer still in the case. The sergeant took the device and looked at its blue, digital display. Once he put everything together a few seconds later, he muttered a few obscenities and shook his head.
"Get ready for the mother of all cluster-fucks," the sergeant remarked as he handed the device to the taller soldier that stood to his left. "One of the chemicals that went up was a nerve impulse stimulant called ‘Electranoll’," the sergeant continued. "The other two chemicals that fueled the fire are used to preserve organs before transplants and in-between surgeries. Electranoll has also been proven to preserve certain brain functions in government tests that were conducted back in '78."
"What exactly are we looking at here sir?"
"Electranoll was removed from legal medical use in the United States after it was discovered that certain chemicals cause it to re-animate dead bodies. The bodies that re-animate have no sense of reason and will attack anything that's human. If the corpse's saliva or blood is introduced to a living human's bloodstream, that human will become fully contaminated in less than four hours. If contaminated cells are introduced to a clean corpse, it will re-animate in less than ten minutes." the sergeant concluded as he kept his eyes on the fire and his soldiers.
"So what do we do?" the tall soldier asked.
"We wait," the sergeant replied. "Uncle Sam made the mistakeof walking away early the first time that chemical caused problems back in the summer of '68 before any testing was done, and I'm here to see to it that we don't fuck up like they did."
Just after he finished his sentence, multiple sources of gunfire rang out along the air. Through the blue-tinted rolls of smoke, human shapes could be seen slowly creeping out towards the soldiers. The sergeant and his tactical leader gripped their machine guns and began firing into the mob of corpses that continued to slowly approach them. The sergeant instinctively aimed for their heads, remembering how that was the only way they were stopped several years ago. The bullets threw blood and pieces of gore onto the pavement, but the wall of walking dead continued to advance. Even those who were shot in the head climbed to their feet and continued to walk, and with the sight of this, the sergeant lowered his rifle.
"We can't win this," he said as his soldiers continued to fire into the crowd. "Fall back, now!" he yelled as loudly as his voice would allow. Most of his men were locked in combat from fear, and after the front line was breached by the animated corpses, several of the soldiers behind the front
line were wounded and killed by friendly fire from the panicked front line.
The sergeant looked on in horror as the firemen and medics began to rise from their fallen positions. The effect of the chemicals was much faster than it was in the last incident, and he knew there was no way they could contain the situation. His men were being quickly overwhelmed by sheer strength in numbers, and there was no time to regroup or radio for assistance. He gave a nod to his tactical officer, and the taller of the two retrieved a metal case that rested on chrome wheels from the back of the nearest truck while the sergeant covered him with gunfire from his rifle. While firing, he noticed that many of the corpses that walked from the interior of the inferno were each
wearing some sort of strange electronic collar.
“Aw, fuck me,” the sergeant said to himself the instant he realized that this place had been researching the damned things; all of his intelligence and mission reference at this point was completely useless.

While the sergeant watched his soldier's moves, one of the firefighters came from behind him and clutched at his neck. The shock of surprise forced the sergeant to loose his footing and fall against the front end of the military vehicle. On impact, he felt a sharp pain followed by wetness. He had fallen hard against the front bumper and caught his lower back on the front license plate, creating a large gash in his flesh. At this moment, he knew that he wouldn't survive this operation. He was wounded and his containment suit had been compromised. The dead fireman thrashed about on top of him trying its best to bite into his body as he tried to get a grip on its neck. A stiff,
sickening crack rang out as he violently twisted its head causing the neck to break. The thing continued to thrash around as the other soldier dropped the metal case and violently kicked the zombie off of his sergeant.
"You can't worry about me son," the sergeant said as he painfully sat up. "You gotta open that case and activate the explosive."
The soldier began opening the case, and then went to work trying to get the bomb online. The remaining soldiers were quickly taken down in horrified screams as the sergeant tried to keep the aggressors away from the bomb as it was being activated.
It wasn't long before he was out of ammunition, and he looked on helplessly as the horde
consumed them. The sergeant's guttural screams were the last sounds as the zombies began tearing into his flesh. The soldier activating the bomb was also pulled down into the mass of corpses seconds after. Before he faded into death's grasp he tried frantically to press the final red button on the explosive's control panel after lifting the clear protective case it rested under. Just inches away from the button, his hand relaxed and slipped down the container's side as his vision faded into nothingness.

[Jason Grimm]

Chapter 1


The town of East Glen, five miles from the East Glen Chemical Research Facility. An orange 1998 model Camaro sped down one of the narrow roads in town that led in from the interstate while metal music erupted from the speakers inside. A half-smoked cigarette rested in-between the thick
fingers that held the top of the black steering wheel. Pale blue eyes watched the road as black goatee-enclosed lips took the cigarette and pulled rich smoke from its brown filter. The clock in his car read 12:03 am as he looked down while his black ponytail rested to the left.
He noticed that the road was unusually void of traffic for a Friday night, and he could see a vague amber glow off in the distance below a trailing cloud of smoke that was barely visible in the turbid night sky. He imagined that it was a fire caused by the dry weather that had stuck with them for a few weeks, and thought nothing more of it as he took one last puff from the cigarette and
prepared to flick it out the cracked window.

Once again, Victor found himself in his car, leaving nothing but soured memories behind him. It was time for someplace new, and with that place he could have a fresh start. He longed to find something that he truly needed; a straight-forward reason for living. He was one of the most skilled tattoo artists on the east coast, and that just wasn’t enough. Victor needed a warm smile in his life to melt away the cold nights he’d grown to loathe.
Abby was gone, and nothing would bring her back. By now, he was sick and tired of being life’s bitch...Victor needed to move on with some resemblance of a life before his lack of one killed him. Since Abby’s death, the only thing that he had to keep him company was the thick scar at the base of his skull from the car accident that had taken away the memory of more than two decades of his life. Abby had been the only concrete thing he could touch and hold; the only thing other than his skill with ink and a needle that gave him a sense of identity. He had no memory of his parents beyond what Abby had told him while keeping him company in the hospital after the coma released its hold on him. Victor was still searching for his true self, and feared he would never find it.

He looked at the window for a second while disposing of the cigarette butt, and when he looked forward to the road ahead he had enough time to see and feel his car hit a person that was walking along his side of the road. He could hear the body roll over the top of the car, and saw it fall in the road behind him in his rear- view mirror. The person then rolled off the road and into the tall grass that waited in the ditch. Victor immediately slammed on his brakes and brought the car to a sudden halt, wasting no time getting out of the car to see what he had just done.

The hood of the car was bent upward on the driver's side, and just above the headlights rested a severed arm that was wedged partially under the damaged orange hood. Victor covered his mouth as the realization of what he had done hit him like a fist, his eyes widened all the while.
He placed his hands onto his knees as his stomach grew weak. He gagged several times and then spilled the contents of his stomach onto the pavement with a harsh groan. While wiping his mouth he noticed that the severed arm stuck onto his car was in various states of festering decay. His eyes grew wider as he turned around quickly to find rotten flesh wrapped partially in a rotting blue suit less than ten feet from him.
Without thinking twice he lunged forward and kicked it firmly with his right foot, knocking it down and away. Victor then jumped into his car and floored the accelerator after closing the door, and was quickly a safe distance away from the walking waste he had seen.
"What the fuck's going on?" he muttered to himself in panicked breaths as he tried to calm down. "That's just not possible. The fucker was dead before I hit him...but he was walking...What the fuck’s going on?” he asked once more as his breath came to him short and stale.

His driving slowed as he finally came to a small store exchange a couple of minutes later: two gas stations, a partially demolished bank, and a truck stop style diner. On the opposite side of the road by the first gas station there were two hatchback cars of yellow and off white that had hit each other head-on. The yellow car was empty, and the blonde woman in the white car was slumped partially out of the driver's-side window, which was dripping with crimson liquid that had pooled on the pavement below. There were a couple of cars in parking spaces close to the entrance of the store, but Victor saw no one walking around inside. After looking at his gas gauge he hesitantly pulled around the wreckage and drove up to pump number 3, where he got out of the car and began pumping unleaded into the car's hungry stomach. As the car refueled, Victor walked up to the store's entrance while the glass doors slid open on cue. He saw no one inside the store, so he began looking for something to drink in the wall coolers. After grabbing a cream soda and a few pieces of jerky, he made his way up to the counter to get a pack of cigarettes as he tried to compose himself. On the other side of the counter Victor found the remains of a teenage cashier lying in a pool of blood; her flesh partially consumed and her clothing bedraggled. Victor quickly wrested a pack of
cigarettes while his hand dodged a torch lighter display and hurried out of the store before his constitutions failed him again.

He waited the seeming eternity until the gas tank was full, and then wasted no time getting the car ready to depart. Just before he opened the door and got into the car, he noticed a steady trickle of liquid coming from the underneath of the car. After he raised the hood, he quickly found that the
radiator had been damaged and was leaking coolant frantically at this point. Until it was repaired, his Camaro wouldn't go far before it stopped running completely and more damage was done. Unless he could find a healthy automobile with keys, he was going to be on foot in a bad place alone.
After lifting his head from under the hood of the car he saw movement from the corner of his left eye. He turned around quickly with a sharp exhale, but saw nothing other than the parking lot and the fueling stations around him. As Victor made his way to the fringe of the parking lot near the road he noticed that the dead woman that was partially hanging from her car window was now gone, leaving nothing but a staggered blood smear leading off to the diner across the street. He then jumped sharply as three gunshots rang out from the other gas station across the way. Less than a minute later Victor saw a muscular and ebony-skinned man stagger out of the front of the store, his
left shoulder and arm glistening with pristine blood that dripped onto the waxen concrete he walked across. His face was distorted by pain as he staggered, and the instant he saw Victor he raised his right hand which contained a clip-fed .45 handgun.

"Wait!" Victor yelled loudly, causing the man to lower his weapon and almost release a sigh of temporary relief.
Once the threat of being shot faded, Victor made his way over to him and saw that he was missing a fair hunk of flesh from his shoulder. The guy was losing a lot of blood, and was already visibly weakened from it. His white tank top was mostly red at this point, and he was already having problems standing.
"Help a guy out, would ya?" the man asked in a flinched whisper as he almost fell onto Victor while Victor tried to help him support his weight. "Bitch in the store came from behind and bit into me. I...I can't feel most of my arm."
"Do you know what's going on, man?" Victor asked as he helped walk him to the other gas station where his car sat, and where Victor's first aid kit waited in the center console.
"I was with some friends up in Evansville playing a little pool, makin’ a little money, and was out 'till almost eleven-thirty. When," he staggered in words as Victor sat him on the undamaged side of the hood.
"Keep talkin' man, I'm getting the first aid kit out of the car." Victor informed while opening the car door and removing the first aid kit he mentioned.
"...When my buddy Joey dropped me off at my house, my parents' mini van was gone, and the house was empty," he explained. "I found a note telling me that it wasn't safe to stay at home, and that dad had been attacked by a maniac and was being taken to the hospital up there near the research facility. I drove up there and it was insane..." he concluded as his eyes seemed to drift to another place momentarily.
"What?" Victor asked trying to pull the guy's mind back to what he was saying.
"At the hospital...people were running around like maniacs...attacking each other. I've never seen anything like it before," he said as his eyes locked with Victor's. "I came back here to grab some cash and get some things. That was fuckin' stupid. So damned stupid...”

[Jason Grimm]

Victor removed the disinfectant and the bandages, and began spraying the disinfectant so he could place the bandaging onto the wound as fast as possible. The instant he clamped down on the wound with the bandaging to stop the bleeding, the wounded man released a sharp exhale of pain.
"Fuck me that burns," he hissed.
"Sorry man, but I gotta try to get the bleeding to stop," Victor said softly as he watched the blood quickly seep through the bandaging. "Just sit still and try to stay calm, ok?"
"It’s bad, isn't it?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Don't jerk me around man," he said as he made eye contact with Victor once more.
"I can't get the bleeding to stop," he answered after a few seconds of silence. "The wound is a jagged tear. It’s fairly deep and not that small. Ok...Lemmie think...Ok, I think I saw some torch lighters in the gas station so I'm going to try and burn the wound dry. Just sit there and try to stay awake, ok?”
“No prob,” he answered. “Nice car.”
“Yeah, it was.” Victor said as the damage to the front end made him all but sick. “Speaking of cars, where’s yours?”
“Piece of shit quit on me about a half-mile down the road,” the man said as the look on his face told Victor that he hated not giving them an escape plan. “I’ll never buy another import...” he chuckled weakly.

Victor helped him lie back on the hood and placed his right hand onto the blood soaked bandaging, then ran across the pumping station exterior and into the gas station. Once inside, he looked around for the small torches he remembered seeing earlier.
After looking for a few seconds, he spotted them on the counter
by the register, and wasted no time grabbing a handful of them. After retrieving them and returning his arm to his side, the dead brunette lunged over the counter trying to bite into his arm. Victor fell back with a yell of surprise and plowed through a candy bar display as the zombie slid across the
floor to his left. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could and made sure to grab several of the torches he had dropped when he fell. The zombie was also on her feet, and on her way towards him once more.

Victor quickly realized that this zombie wasn't slow like the ones that lived in the movies, but at least she wasn't as fast as she probably was when she was alive. She lunged at him again, and he wasted no time in side-stepping and slinging her into one of the isle shelves behind them. He then ran
out the door, and used a couple of the torches to block off the tracks of the doors once they closed behind him, jamming them shut.
He ran back to his car while taking the safety cap off of one of the torches he still carried, getting ready to use it. He made his way around to the front of the car and found that the man resting on the hood of his car was unusually relaxed as if he were sleeping. Victor checked him, and he was dead.
"I'm sorry man," he said with a tremble as he hated himself for not being able to reverse nature's decision. He was trained in basic first aid, but wasn't able to help someone who needed help. He released a sharp yell of torment as frustration erupted from his lungs. He stood there for a moment as everything sank in; frozen in place as though he were a statue made of flesh and blood. Once again he was alone in a hell that made no sense.
Victor was scared, confused, and suffering from a headache caused by the car accident earlier. He looked to the dead man's belt, remembering the gun he was carrying. After checking it for ammunition, he rested the gun back in the hand of its owner. The chrome handgun's clip was empty. He then checked for extra ammo, but found nothing even close in comparison.

After regaining his composure, Victor placed the unused torch in his left pocket and began walking up the dark pavement looking for a way to get out of town. He knew that there was another small strip of stores less than a half mile in the direction he walked; a few burger joints, a video store, a grocery store, and a small gentlemen's club that had been there since the 50's. As he looked to the dimly-lit surroundings he rested in, he realized just how alone he was. There was nothing but the horrible soft-rock music playing on the gas pump speakers to lighten the dead silence around him. Every now and again he could swear he heard footsteps in the darkness that waited beyond the
reach of the sole street light that illuminated the small business area. As he began walking he fetched a cigarette from his black jacket pocket and one of the small torches from his matching pants. He pressed the button and a blue flick of heat emerged to light his cigarette. Victor slowly exhaled a small cloud of smoke as his left and right foot passed one another over and over again.

Once he left the radius of light behind, his skin began to prickle with fear and every breeze that blew past him spawned a shudder from his flesh. He felt as though something watched him from the darkness, but each time he looked around his disadvantaged eyes could find nothing. While his feet
carried him up the dark two-lane road, he could hear footsteps coming from the edge of the woods to his left. The mere thought of what could be waiting in the dark made him improve his pace, and after doing so he heard shoes click onto the pavement a few yards behind him. Victor turned around quickly to find the mangled corpse of a young girl sniffing the air around her. The lower portion of her jaw was missing, replaced by glistening gore that dripped from her face and tongue as she moved. Victor gagged as he noticed that her right eye was dangling by a thread of crimson flesh, and her stomach had been torn open leaving tendrils of meat dangling around her waist. He began
backing away as she made suckling, gurgling noises that almost sounded like words hissing from her throat while the wind tossed her straight darkened hair around her face.
Victor released a gasp of horror that sent his cigarette flying as she suddenly began to drag herself towards him, causing him to almost instantly turn and begin running. As he ran, he looked back on occasion to see her following him as fast as her broken shell would carry her.
After several minutes of this, the old strip club came into view up ahead on the left side of the road. Victor was tiring from the run, but he noticed that the thing following him didn't seem to be affected by fatigue, or pain for that matter. He was breathing rough and was slowing down, and the zombie was slowly catching up with him. He had no means to defend himself beyond his own body, so he decided the best thing to do would be to find a place to hide so that he could rest and think of what to do next. The strip club seemed good enough...no doubt they had alcohol, and he imagined car keys weren’t completely out of the question either.

There were a couple of cars in the parking lot of the strip club that was named "The Bare Essentials". One brown station wagon, and a mud-covered Nissan truck sat in spaces near the front door as he approached. A steady drip of blood trickled from the bed of the truck, and a lifeless arm dangled over the driver's side of the bed near the tailgate. Victor could also hear a loud gnawing sound coming from the front of the truck that made his skin crawl as his stomach twisted and churned .

[Jason Grimm]

The instant he turned he was greeted by the girl that was stalking him earlier, and when she lunged at him all she received was the butt of the sign post where her mouth used to be as Victor’s surprised yell rang out. The girl's body fell fast, but Victor didn't stick around to find out how long it would take her to get up. Victor was beginning to realize that nothing would stop these things from attacking short of being physically unable to do so. It also began to seem to him that the best option was to cripple them in order to slow them down and then escape; at least until he procured better weapons.
While Victor sprinted to the burger joint to look for a way in, he couldn't shake the memory of the blonde talking to him. Though her eyes were dull and lifeless, it was like a shred of her mind and personality still remained within after death. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be one of those
things, and didn't want to. His limbs ached with fear-induced stress, and his right shoulder released constant stings and burns as he strode down the dim street. The fact that he had only seen one other living person thus far also lurked in the back of his mind like a servant of dread, just as the fact he
couldn't save the man's life tormented him.
Plain and simply put, Victor had to find out what was going on and stop it if he could. He began realizing just how serious this could be. In old zombie movies, something like this had the potential to affect the entire world. If that happened, no place would be safe for long. The only problem was that he had no clue where to begin his quest. All he knew was that the man who died mentioned the hospital a couple of miles to the north of the area. The answers had to be there, but for the moment Victor had to focus on being careful and staying alive; hopefully long enough to find someone else who was trying to survive. For now, however, Victor was on his own.
As he grew closer to the restaurant, he slowed his pace with obvious displeasure the instant he saw horrific spatters of blood all over the windows. This was yet another place in town that had met a bad fate, and another place that wouldn't give him any answers. He could hear faint country music coming from the jukebox inside, and once he got a bit closer the smell of death hit him like a festering five-ton hammer. Through the gore-thrown windows he saw several people at the bar and in booths that had been partially eaten and mangled. A couple of them had already re-animated, and were stalking around the interior as if they were animals in search of food. Rather than go and make introductions, Victor decided to look elsewhere for answers.

The gas station where he had started, the strip club, and the only burger joint still in business had all been scenes from a cheesy 80's horror movie. Unfortunately, it was a cheesy 80's horror film he was currently stuck in with no immediate means of escape. The only place left to check that he imagined wasn’t locked up or useless was the other gas station which was behind him about a half-mile, and the pawn shop less than a block from where he was. After checking the pawn shop all that would be left to check would be the video store, the bank, and the burger joints that rested a mile past the old motel down the road, if they were still even there. The man that showed up wounded had emerged from the second gas station, and mentioned nothing of any survivors he had noticed. At this point, Victor found himself thinking about how bad things could be in the rest of town, though he wouldn’t truly know until he explored the area and looked around for himself. With his plan thought out, Victor paced himself and made way to the ran-down structure up ahead that contained the pawn shop.

[Jason Grimm]

Chapter 2


The blue paint on the outside was cracked and past faded, and the windows were lined with rusting anti-theft bars. It was quiet around the small two-story shop, and there were no signs of chaos going on inside. After looking around, Victor carefully made his way to the front door and checked it. The brass knob turned without delay and the door pushed open. Bells sounded as the door fully opened, and sounded once more when Victor closed it behind him. A path of grey tile led him past the musical instruments, through the electronics section, and to the stairs where a wooden sign read "Knives and Firearms" with a yellow arrow pointing upward.
The staircase Victor’s eyes saw was narrow and dark, plus the second-story lights appeared to be shut off making the top of the stairs all but impossible to see. On top of that, the staircase was too narrow for Victor to take his weapon with him; making for a vulnerable trek to the upstairs area. With hesitation and regret, he sat the bent and bloody stop sign on the floor at the base of the stairs and prepared to start his scale to the upper floor unarmed.
A wooden creak released under his thick feet as they slowly climbed the narrow stairs. He tightened his eyes hoping the upstairs windows would offer him a dim view of the upstairs area, but pitch black was all he could see. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear something moving around across the floor. His stomach tightened as his ears continued to pick up the light clicking noises on the other side of the room.
Fear quickly pressed him against the wall to his left as a bright flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief glance. Thunder erupted seconds later, followed by the sound of rain striking the metal roof above.
With another flash of lightning, Victor made out a human-like shape in the place where the noises were being made earlier. Realizing that the person in the room was given a chance to see him as he had seen them, Victor crouched down and began slowly making his way over to the glass display casing in the center of the room that the lightning had shown him seconds before.
The thunder lashed out again in the distance, but was now much louder than it was seconds before. Again the lightning unveiled the interior, and this time Victor was shown a shiny aluminum baseball bat that rested on the second shelf across from him along with other pieces of various used sports equipment. He wasted no time snatching up the item as thunder erupted outside yet again. The footsteps he heard in the room with him slowly clicked their way past him one isle over and then to the right of him near the staircase as Victor continued to make his way to the glass cases he
had seen seconds before. Once more the lightning caused revelations in the room and exposed a middle-aged man lying dead in the far left corner of the room. It looked as though his neck had been eaten all but down to the spine as gore was heavily pooled under and around his lifeless vessel.
The thunder roared in once again, and shook the building as it did so. This time when the lightning flashed he could see the zombie in heels that was "clicking" around the room. It looked as though she hadn't been like this for too long as her skin was still almost toned for living. Her black hair shifted as her brown eyes saw him just as he had noticed her. With a stroke of luck Victor felt a light switch behind him on the wall as thunder sounded outside. He flicked the switch and readied the bat as the lights flickered on upstairs.
Once the lights fully revealed the room he saw the dancer standing in front of the stairs, her black halter top and her leather skirt covered in blood just like most of her skin. As she stood there she looked at him and parted her red lips to speak.
"You have to kill me before I lose control again," she said softly as she cried. "The keys to the weapon case are in his left pocket. You have to hurry..."
Victor wasted no time in running over to the dead body and checking the pockets as fast as his reflexes would allow after finding that the bat did nothing but bounce off of the safety glass case. Sure enough, he found a ring lined with keys which he immediately took with him to the middle showcase. With the lights turned on in the room he could see what rested in the chrome- framed weapons case in front of him. Within the blood-splotched glass he saw a couple of .45 clip-fed handguns, a classic 12-gauge pump shotgun, several 9mm handguns, corresponding ammunition boxes, spare clips, and an assortment of combat and hunting knives. He tried four keys frantically
while eyeing the girl before finding the right one, and once he did he picked up one of the larger knives with a snap-on belt sheath and loaded a black 9mm.
"It won't be long before I'm hungry again," she told him as she shook with pain; trying not to look at him. "You can't let me hurt anybody else...Please...”
"I'm...not sure if I can do this," Victor said while pointing the shaking gun at her head.
"You have to do this," she begged. "It hurts so much...and it won't stop until I give in and hurt someone else...You've gotta make the pain stop. Please make it stop..." she whimpered. “Please...”
“What did this to you?” Victor asked as a sense of compassion washed over him. After all, this wasn’t a monster trying to kill him...It was a frightened woman that knew her time alive was at an end. Victor knew that she probably didn’t deserve an end like this, just as he knew he didn’t deserve to be the one to end it for her.
“A man on the street attacked me...bit into me,” she said as she seemed to struggle with each word she spoke. “It hurts so much...”
"I hope you can forgive me for what I'm about to do," he said as he agonized inside and prepared to fire the gun.
"I...forgive you..." she said softly as she closed her eyes, causing a single tear to run down her cheek.
One last breath escaped her soft, rose-toned lips before Victor’s finger squeezed the trigger. Victor released a gasp as a flick of her cold blood slapped his face, and the instant her body slumped to the floor Victor’s soul seemed to fade into a numbness that he’d never felt before.

The sound of the gunshot rang out over and over in his mind as her inanimate body rested before him in a grim fashion that made Victor vomit after dropping to his knees. Even after falling to the floor, her eyes had stopped in a gaze of fear that locked with his own. Victor knew that every color, every curve, and every word that belonged to her would be burned into his memory for eternity. As he sat there, he found her eyes penetrating his will, forcing his breath to stiffen as what happened began to build.

He screamed in between gags as he spit remnants from his soured mouth while attacking a nearby shelf in a fit of agonizing rage after he stood. He turned away from what he had done and fell to his knees again as he screamed in disgust once more. While he sat there, he noticed faint movement coming from the dead man's arms and legs as he was slowly beginning to re-animate. Victor raised the gun with haste and fired, hurling bullets at the man's face until the head was no longer a part of the equation.
Victor tried to get a grip on his state of mind before he lost control, and as he did so he stood in a rage and looked across to the coats section where a selection of trench coats awaited. Once he found one that was close enough to his size in black, he unloaded the majority of his outfit’s contents into the coat and slipped it on. He then filled the larger pockets with extra 12-gauge ammo, but stopped in place the instant he saw a large custom revolver locked in the side case with a box of its .50 caliber magnum ammunition. He unlocked the case and removed the gun and its thigh holster which had chrome snaps made for attaching to a belt. Victor did just that and loaded the 5-shot
revolver, then placed it back in its holster while placing the ammo in his new coat. He soon after began filling the spare .45 pistol clips with hollow points as quickly as his shaking and unnerved hands would allow while he constantly tried to maintain the remnants of his composure. He eventually filled and placed them into his coat pockets, then removed the twin-gun torso harness
from its display and began putting it on and adjusting it after he briefly shed his new coat. He quickly loaded the two .45 pistols and slid them into the holsters in the harness, one on each side with a third smaller holster in the back where he placed the black 9mm. Victor then grabbed and quickly loaded the pump shotgun, and slung it across his right shoulder after putting the
coat back over his broad frame and wiping the blood from his face.
After arming himself, he walked to the window and looked at the dark streets that waited outside. It was then he noticed a faded billboard for a used car lot less than a half-mile down the street. If he could make it there, there would be no doubt he could find a car and be out of this forsaken place.
Victor soon after made his way down the steps and back out of the front door, walking in the direction the billboard directed as lightning and thunder were all that followed with him in the dark dread that seemed to chase him like a lost child; drops of rain pelting him all the while.

[Jason Grimm]

Chapter 3


Water beaded away from the outside of the windshield as Candice clicked on the windshield wipers of her blue Jeep. Lightning lit up the sky as she moved the leather-wrapped wheel in front of her to the left, allowing her to turn onto the drive that led to the police station. She found herself constantly blowing her shoulder-length blonde hair from her face...proof that the workday had officially broken her hairstyle. She was supposed to be picking Sarah up after work for a night of “constructive drinking” in attempts to catch up. She hadn’t seen Sarah or her sister Tahnni in almost a year, which told her that it was definitely time to pay a visit.
“My God, they roll up the sidewalks early around here,” she said to herself as she looked to the severe lack of traffic. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any traffic at all once she got a fair distance from the interstate.
The instant she turned left to enter the parking lot of the station, her face washed from happy to disturbed in the blink of an eye. She could see a barricade up ahead, and what looked like blood all along the pavement and spattered across the police cars as bodies rested motionless on the ground.
“What the fuck?” she mumbled to herself as her foot pressed the brake.
As Candice looked on, she could see one of the officers that rested across a car hood moving slowly. Like it or not, Candice knew that there was a good chance the policeman needed help. Several uneasy curses escaped her pink lips as she placed the Jeep in park and opened her door. She instinctively used her left hand to slide the blue spaghetti-string back into place as the shirt’s straps fought to stay along her arms while the wind carried her thin blue skirt in ripples around her thighs. The closer she got to him, the bloodier and more horrid the scene became. The instant she got close to him, she could see that his waistline was all but severed...yet he still seemed to be awake and aware of what was happening.
“Sir?” Candice asked while dreading the thought of even being a part of whatever was going on. “Let me go inside the station and get some help, ok?”
“No...help,” the man’s voice said softly. “You have to get out of here...or they’ll kill you...”
“Who?” she asked while trying to figure out what was going on.

As she asked the fallen police officer her question, the moaning of an eight-cylinder engine powered into her ears as a police cruiser hurled itself across the parking lot as two men seemed to be attacking the policeman driving. With a scream, Candice ducked as her arms covered her head in anticipation of the car crashing near her. Her eyes refused to look, but her ears felt the crunching of metal and plastic as the police car crashed hard into the driver’s side of her Jeep, pinning it between a streetlight and the car that had hit it.
The instant she lifted her head, she immediately looked away from the broken and mangled bodies that were thrown from the police cruiser’s windshield and mashed against the side of her vehicle. She looked back to the officer that she had went to help to begin with to find that he was no longer breathing. Once she took a moment to look around, she noticed people walking slowly around the barricade only a portion of yards from her; people that were lying on the ground motionless moments before. Before she even had a chance to say a single word, her eyes quickly told her that these people were mangled and in no fashion still capable of being alive. A stiff gasp escaped her as the mob noticed her presence and began to smell the air in her direction. The second fear began to slide it’s cold tongue down her back, she turned and hurled herself to the station entrance as fast as her legs would carry her while her heartbeat raced faster and faster. She had no doubt that if she stayed outside that something would kill her. The mere thought of going inside the police station made her stomach sink, but there was just nowhere else to go that she imagined she could make it to on foot that even stood a chance of being safe.
With that thought in her mind, Candice slowly and fearfully opened one of the glass doors and entered the station...




Ok everybody, there's the preview. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sorry that it wouldn't all fit into one post, but hopefully splitting it up doesn't make it too difficult to read.
I'm already several chapters into the second book in the series, plus I'm also working on a stand-alone survival horror as well. I hope to have both of those out sometime next year. With projected storylines and notes I have at the moment; the "Reaper Effect" series will most likely end with book five, so maybe that will make the most of my seven-year contract. I have plenty of work coming up and I hope some of you join me for the ride.

Thanks for reading everybody!

[novakru]

I enjoyed reading that.

[Jason Grimm]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, glad you liked it :D

[Jason Grimm]

Once again I apologize for the formatting being off...I set it to have spaced indents and the like in the post, but it didn't take too well.

[Jason Grimm]

Ok...I just wanted to let you guys know that the book is now available for pre-order through my publisher. As soon as hardback prototyping is finished, the novel will be hitting store shelves and the internet. If you'd like to get more info or pre-order your copy of the book, just use the link below:


http://www.eloquentbooks.com/TheReaperEffect.html


Again, thanks for reading the preview I was allowed to post at HDC, thank you for your thoughts, comments, and feedback, and thanks for giving my work a read.

Have a great day everybody, and thanks again!