Welcome to the Fight: Silent Wars

By Glen Romero

Samuel is thrust into another reality where creatures of legend and magic do exist. It is the same world only now he is able to see through the waking dream that blinds must humans. The countries of the world are the same but different, the US government is a puppet for the vampires. He must adapt to this strange new world or become yet another victim. Alone he is forced to accept a group of criminals as friends; he has no choice but to wage war against the corruption. Will Samuel be able to maintain his morality while learning to survive in this cruel new world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glen Romero
• Release date: Aug 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476096063

Glen Romero

I retired in 2011 after 22 years in the US Air Force. I currently work as a contractor in Detroit, MI. I'm been writing for the last decade or so but I haven't felt I had soemthing worth sharing until I wrote Welcome to the Fight. I'm hoping this is just the first in a long series.

Book preview

Welcome to the Fight

(Silent Wars Series #1)

By Glen Romero

Published by Glen Romero at Smashwords

Edited by L.S. Burton

Illustrated by Erika Harm (E-mail [e-mail], Website www.erikaharm.com)

Anita B. Carroll Visual Designer (E-mail [e-mail] Website www.race-point.com)

Copyright © 2012 Glen Romero

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

I would like to dedicate this book to my wife Margaret a.k.a. Peg. She has stood by me through the good times and the bad. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Welcome to the Fight

Chapter 2 Surprises Around Every Corner

Chapter 3 The Woes of Training

Chapter 4 Power Shift

Chapter 5 A Change in Plan

Chapter 6 A Personal Touch

Chapter 7 The Line is Drawn

Chapter 8 The Battle for Pittsburgh

Welcome to the Fight

Let me introduce myself: my name is Samuel Oscar Smith. The initials made my parents laugh. They chose Samuel because it sounded strong. Ironically, as a child I was anything but. You could actually say my childhood was completely unremarkable. Because I was younger than most kids in my neighborhood I didn’t have any friends; hell I didn’t even have an imaginary friend. In school I was good with math and languages; it was something about the structure that appealed to me. That is why when I graduated high school I could speak three languages and took math classes as electives. It was only natural that when I went to college I chose accounting. It allowed me to work with numbers and not have to deal with people. I mean, who wants to talk to an accountant?

As an intern for a Detroit area accounting firm, my job consisted of running errands, mostly fetching coffee from Polly’s Coffee shop. That day started as so many had with me going for coffee and pastries. The place had the best coffee so it was busy, as usual. I was gazing blankly out the window when a wall of blue caught my eye, five ominous figures advancing down the street. Bandanas pulled low on their foreheads, their overconfident swaggering created a haze of foreboding. Until then I hadn’t realized that that type of crime had infiltrated this part of the city like a plague. As the thought struck me, all hell broke loose as an explosion shattered the calm outside.

It was just like in the movies. I watched as the shop’s front window slowly warped inward and then shattered into a cloud shards and dust. The world caught up when the shock hammered everyone towards the back wall of the coffee shop. My mind hadn’t really cleared when a second blasted knocked a woman on top of me. Desperately, I looked for some place to hide.

The only shelter from the chaos outside was behind the counter. I ran with the sound of gunfire in the street. I only made it a few steps before pain in my leg caused me to fall before reaching the safety of the counter. I looked at my leg and saw that it was bleeding badly. I looked around to see what was going on when I saw it in the window. It was slumped in the frame with half its head missing. It had a shocked look on its face like it couldn’t believe that it was dead. I used the word it because it had greenish-gray skin with a large ridge on what was left of its forehead. The movement of the other gang members caught my attention. They were running from the firefight going on outside. I looked at the dead thing in the window as darkness over took me.

I awoke with a start as some paramedics were putting me on a stretcher. They saw that I was awake and started playing twenty questions.

Are you on any medications?

No.

Are you allergic to any medication?

No.

Do you have any medical conditions?

No.

Do you have any artificial openings?

What?

On a scale of one to ten, what is your current pain level?

Seven.

I lost track of the questions as they blurred into one another. My inquisitor regained my attention when he said, You are very lucky to have survived that gas main explosion. He noted the confusion on my face and said, Sir, are you all right? I told him it wasn’t a gas main explosion but a gang fight. He looked at his partner with concern. That was when I first noticed her. I couldn’t tell you how tall she was but her olive colored skin almost sparkled as we sped down the street to the hospital. Her eyes were as big and blue as an ocean. Her hair was long and pulled into a pony tail. I remember thinking it was the light in the ambulance that caused her hair to look light blue. I was lost in her beauty, watching her hand brush a lock of hair from her face, when I noticed her long pointed ear. I shook my head, trying to clear some of the fog away. When I looked again her ear was still long and pointed. I commented about her ear being like one of Santa’s elves.

She quickly covered her ear and said, He’s going into shock. The guy then injected something in an IV line they had started....

I woke up in a hospital bed with pain from my injury. I was pale and feeling weak. I barely had time to orientate myself when a man walked in. His skin was so white that he looked dead and he had wicked, long canine teeth. I was trying to reach for the call button to get help, but he gave me this smile that could scare even the bravest of souls and I lost the ability to move. I just laid there thinking this guy was going bite my neck and bleed me dry. When he spoke, I got goose bumps. It took a minute before I realized he was my doctor. I asked him what was going on. He gave a laugh, and said I had been injured in a gas main explosion. Like I had with the paramedics, I told him that it wasn’t a gas main explosion, but a gang fight. I couldn’t read his expression, but I was sure he was trying to figure something out in his head. I paused, wondering if I should tell him about the dead thing in the window or Santa’s helper in the ambulance. He took that as a sign I was done so he fed me some line, The mind can play tricks on you during times of stress. The images you think you saw could be a sign that you might be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t believe me or if he was hiding something so I left the rest unsaid.

During the shift change from days to nights, I saw my night nurse walk by my doctor and give him a weird look. The doctor came in to see me and told me that if my labs came back clean I would be able to go home