Sons of Darkness

By Todd Hanley

The Bore, the legendary weak point in the barrier that separates Hell and Earth has been re-discovered in the depths of the Mexican jungle.
The Catholic Church wants to seal the Bore forever but the Devil’s human worshipers have their own sadistic agenda and will do anything to stop them. Sinister agents seek position and move in the shadows, even the Church has been infiltrated by evil.
Tom Granger - a down on his luck Ex-solider - is part of a firm unwittingly hired by the Church to protect the site but the priests fail to tell the contractors what is really going on. At the Bore, Tom discovers a dark world of myths and monsters that is about to rise up against us.
For standing in his way the Devil decrees that Tom is to be punished and orders his wife’s execution. Tom suddenly finds himself plunged into a deadly race against Hell’s undead assassins to save the woman he loves. He must come to terms with the fact that the fate of his wife and the rest of the world hangs in the balance. Is this truly the end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Castle Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Jul 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781629894867

Todd Hanley

Todd Hanley is the author of the beautifully black novel, Sons of Darkness and an award winning poet. Having extensively traveled the globe he draws on his real life experience of the Middle East, Africa and other conflict hotspots to portray the beastly nature of the human psyche.Over the course of his life Todd has had a dazzling array of occupations most notably being a decorated war veteran. Now, having earned a BSc honours degree he works as an instructor teaching aeronautical engineering whilst also carrying out volunteer work for a local magazine.In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, extreme sports, motorcycling and a passion for horror fiction. He is married with one son and although born in the North West of England he resides in the Midlands.He is currently working on the sequel to his debut novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The white lines sped by in a hypnotic blur.

Tom knew he couldn’t let himself fall asleep, but the long miles and the lack of rest were affecting him badly. The constant thumping drone of the motorbike’s engine wasn’t helping the situation. Its harsh, monotonous lullaby was steadily lulling him to sleep despite his best efforts to ignore it.

Earlier on he’d cracked opened his helmet’s visor, hoping the fresh air would bring him round. Unfortunately, it was no longer helping. Now the icy blast just left his face numb, and the feeling was slowly spreading through the rest of his body.

Things wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had something to look at, but since the sun had gone down, what he could see was limited by how far the bike’s headlights could penetrate the darkness.

They didn’t show much, just that accursed center line and the edge of a road that never seemed to end. At the edge of his vision, he could just make out large trees lining either side of the road like giant silent sentinels. Their tops lost in the shadows that surrounded him. The trees were typical of this part of Canada, and their uniformity just added to the road’s monotony.

Every mile was now a battle against falling asleep. One he was losing.

Try as he might, he couldn’t stop his head from occasionally dipping, and he was having problems concentrating. It would be so easy to give in. All he had to do was close his eyes…

Once again, the bike started to weave to the right. He came round enough to correct it and tried to focus on the road. Hopefully, he’d reach Nicole’s house soon or he’d have to stop. He just had nothing left in the tank.

Riding in this condition was suicidal and normally he’d never even consider it. However, this situation was far from normal. If he was being honest, he still didn’t fully understand everything himself. All he knew for certain was that he was in a desperate race against time, and the price of failure couldn’t be higher.

His wife, Nicole, was in danger and he had to get to her before the creatures sent to kill her did. He was hoping at this point everything would make sense, but there were still things he wasn’t clear about. Not that any of the why’s or how’s really mattered. Demons from the very depths of Hell were hunting Nicole and if they got there before he did, she was dead. It was as simple as that.

There must still be time, he thought, trying to convince himself.

In his present condition, it was hard to focus and things just didn’t seem real. The situation was so fantastic he’d found himself doubting his own sanity. It was entirely possible that this was all a schizophrenic delusion. A fantasy created by his broken mind.

A dark part of him actually longed to seek refuge in insanity. The alternative was terrifying. It meant the fate of the entire world depended on what he did in the next few hours.

Riding one-handed, Tom reached back and grasped the sword strapped to his back. He’d never been religious. He’d always believed in what was in front of him. The sword was the one thing in this whole mess that he could guarantee was real. It was something he could touch, tangible proof that what he’d experienced was not just in his mind.

Over the long miles repeatedly touching it had become a practiced maneuver and now he did it without thinking. The action had become a tick, and he couldn’t stop doing it. He didn’t dare to, it was the only weapon that could kill the demons, or so he’d been told.

He’d never been obsessive before, but this sword was his only chance of saving Nicole. Dropping it was unthinkable.

Of course, it was still there and secure. There was no way it would come loose, but he knew he couldn’t stop checking. There was another reason to maintain contact with the sword and it sounded even crazier than his obsessive compulsion to check the bindings. As his hand touched the leather-bound hilt, Tom felt the familiar wave of energy ripple through him. It renewed and invigorated him, washing away his fatigue.

This sword had power.

It wasn’t just symbolic power. The sword actively gave the user abilities that weren’t natural. As hard as it was to face, magic was the best description he could give it. Righteous magic. This sword was the Grail, an ancient weapon, forged to provide a balance against the tide of evil.

Despite the weapon’s miraculous restorative properties, it wasn’t long before his head started to dip again. Luckily the sensation of falling brought him round. He knew he had long ago pushed beyond the boundaries of human physical endurance. The sword’s magic had already kept him going when any other man would have died of exhaustion. Still, even the sword had limits. Now as he felt the cold creeping back in, he knew he was risking death.

He’d been on the road for days and as he traveled, he’d noticed that the Grail’s power was gradually diminishing. Now it restored him about as much as a bucket of cold water could have. He found himself touching the hilt more frequently and for longer durations. He was afraid that soon it would do nothing. It was quite obvious the end of the journey was coming one way or another.

He wouldn’t be sad. Trying to catch the three demonic riders in front of him was like trying to catch the setting sun. No matter how fast he went, they seemed to be just ahead, out of reach. He’d managed to close the gap, but they were still leading by a couple of miles. The pace alone proved they weren’t human. It would have been physically impossible for ordinary men to have pushed this hard.

Other than being relentless, the only other thing he knew for certain about these creatures was that they were vicious killers. They had proven that beyond any doubt. As for what else they could do, who knew? After all the crazy shit he’d seen so far, he was ruling nothing out. He’d already run into one of them and that confrontation had just left him with more questions than it answered.

The world was in for a big shock, that much he could guarantee. The evidence that evil existed and had taken root in modern society was unequivocal. It was only a matter of time before this unseen war spilled out onto the streets.

Thunder peeled in the night sky, grabbing his attention.

A storm would suit his dark mood. The downside was that it was probably bringing rain with it, forcing him to slow down and making things, even more, uncomfortable.

Sure enough, fat drops of water started falling from the void above. Occasionally, the night was scarred by powerful flashes of lightning.

God damn it! he shouted to the inside his helmet.

It probably wasn’t the best time to blaspheme, considering who he was up against, but he couldn’t help it. Tom didn’t think the riders or their master knew where he was to manipulate the weather against him, but it sure felt that way.

As if in response to his thoughts, the storm intensified. Tom eased back further on the throttle; a crash at this point would be like putting a gun to Nicole’s head and pulling the trigger. Something he could visualize all too easily.

Nicole bound on her knees in a dark room illuminated by a single bulb. A 9mm pistol is roughly forced past her lips. The barrel sight scrapes noisily against her teeth as it goes in. Her screams muffled, as cold steel fills her mouth. Her eyes fill with wild panic as an unseen gunman clicks back the hammer on the weapon…

Shaking this vision from his imagination, Tom once again tried to focus on the road. Horribly, he could faintly taste gun oil. The image and a thousand other gruesome possibilities skittered around the edge of his consciousness despite his best efforts to banish them. He was definitely starting to lose it.

As he stared ahead, he could see the road didn’t care about his anguish. On and on it wound, openly mocking his weak human limitations. This journey was its own type of hell. From the endless burning straights of the desert to the cooler climate of the north, he’d had no other choice but to endure it. Well, the Sons of Darkness—or whatever they wanted to call themselves—would pay for this when he caught them.

His plan, when he finally faced the riders, was very basic. He intended to hack their heads off. That killed everything else on the planet, so he couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work on them.

It wasn’t the best plan, but it was all he had. He didn’t even know if they could be killed at all. He was just a guy off the street who’d been dragged into this against his will. He wouldn’t give in though; they’d pushed him too far to just let it go.

They were animals, indiscriminately murdering anyone who crossed their path and leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake. They had to be stopped. If the price of doing that was his life, then so be it.

Just then, as he’d feared, the sword’s power gave up completely. Icy rainwater started seeping through his leather suit, chilling him to the core. He was beyond all limits now; only sheer determination was keeping him upright.

Slowing down was probably a blessing in disguise. Besides reducing the risk of crashing, the bike was cooked. The engine was suffering as much as he was. There were occasional misfires, and he could feel a strange vibration.

If they could both just hang in there for a few more miles, it would be all right. Willing the machine forward, he would have lent it some of his remaining strength if that was possible.

What was that in the road?

There was some kind of animal, a wolf maybe, sitting in his lane. By the time his tired brain had processed the image, it was too late. He was on a collision course.

Tom wrestled with the bike, trying to stop them from both being killed.

Exhaustion and poor conditions all worked against Tom. Throwing his weight to one side, he hoped to steer around the dumb animal.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t going to allow such a violent maneuver. There was too much surface water and the bike started to slide.

He stayed cool. With luck he’d be able to recover from this mistake, but for the moment he had no choice but to go with it. The animal on the road wouldn’t shrug it off so easily. Despite his best efforts, about a ton of British muscle bike was going to hit it in the face. It would serve the stupid thing right for sitting there in the first place.

It was a complete surprise to him when the tires found some grip. Leaning at an extreme angle with his weight in the wrong place caused the bike to highside. The machine flipped, throwing him violently to the ground.

Tom lay there, trying to regain the air that had been forced from his lungs. He watched helplessly as his pride and joy ripped itself apart in a flipping death roll.

When everything on the wet blacktop had come to a complete stop, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Then he realized he couldn’t feel his bruised and battered body anymore. He knew it was finished.

I’m sorry, baby, he told the night sky in a desperate apology.

Blackness crept around the edge of his vision, and he couldn’t clear it. Slowly everything started to disappear.

NICOLE! he screamed.

The sound of his own scream followed him down the dark tunnel of unconsciousness.

His mind wandered.

Now free of its conscious shackles, his brain was able to try and make sense of the pent-up information it had been gathering since this insanity began. The processing started at the most logical place, the beginning….

Chapter 2

The desert sun beat down, blinding Lieutenant Tom Granger’s eyes and burning his exposed flesh. The Afghan sun had only been up a couple of hours and the heat was already uncomfortable. In the distance, he could see the approach of a sandstorm; he estimated that it wouldn’t be long until it engulfed them.

For now, the storm was just a haze on the horizon, but these things could move with surprising speed. If one hit when you were unprepared it was a frightening experience. Everything disappeared in a tempest of sand and confusion. The storms made moving around almost impossible.

Disorientated and effectively blind, it wasn’t unknown for soldiers to walk off unseen cliffs or simply disappear completely. The best course of action, if one caught you out, was to seek shelter and just wait for it to pass, anything else was extremely dangerous.

Tom’s squad had been dropped off in the wilds three days ago and had been tasked with simple orders; seek out and engage the enemy. So far the desert had proved to be their toughest (and only) opponent. Even when there wasn’t a storm, the sand got everywhere. It was constantly causing weapon problems and getting where it shouldn’t. It seemed everything in this place was designed either to kill you or make your life difficult.

The locals called this particular province of Afghanistan the Badlands. It was a mix of mountainous, rocky terrain and plains of grit-like sand. Temperatures topped out at around fifty degrees during the day and minus eight at night.

To the soldiers in his squad, it was just another day in the office. To their credit, they made light of the bad conditions and laughed in the face of adversity.

The harsh conditions were only one of the reasons the allies were finding an outright victory difficult. Their human enemy was cunning and devious. The environment had produced the very best desert fighters and they knew how to use the land to their advantage.

Tom had developed a great deal of respect for the Taliban. They had what the western world considered backward technology and barbaric customs, but they had still managed to hold back the armies of the most advanced countries in the world.

It all started with foreign insurgents setting up terrorist training camps in the country. At first, the west had been content to turn a blind eye to their activities. After all, who cared what happened in a backwater shithole? Nine-eleven changed everything. The allies responded by invading, plunging the entire country into war.

Everything just escalated after that. Anybody with a gun and a fancy for martyrdom joined Al-Qaeda against the infidels.

As the conflict grew it started drawing in fighters from all over the Middle East. The local tribes joined the Taliban mainly because they were pissed off with so many foreigners on their turf. Now with the Mujahidin against them, the allies were involved in a full-scale Jihad and neither side seemed able to gain the upper hand.

Tom was yet to see anything holy about war. A veteran of Iraq and, before that, Bosnia he had seen firsthand what religion did. A country with as many natural resources as Iraq should have been prospering; instead, it had become one of the most messed up places on Earth.

Raising his binoculars, Tom scanned the valley that ran away below him. Nothing but loose rock and scrub as far as the eye could see. He had picked a good vantage point, now the only thing he had to do was be patient and wait for the enemy to come to him.

He assumed that fresh troops and arms were being smuggled across the border through the valley below him. There was no real intelligence to back up his theory, it was just a hunch. This time, it didn’t look like it was going to play out. The squad hadn’t seen anything for days and the men were getting restless. He couldn’t blame them. After weeks of waiting around the patrol base, he’d promised them action and they were eager to get to grips with the enemy.

Their squad consisted of fifteen men and one translator. They also had two support vehicles with them. He was presently in the command vehicle. They were part of a larger offensive going on in the region, and Tom hoped the other teams were having more luck than them.

Romeo Foxtrot, this is Bravo, message over. The radio crackled, disturbing his recce.

That was their call sign. Lowering the binos, Tom prepared himself for bad news.

What now, he muttered before snatching up the transmitter. Base wouldn’t have broken radio silence for anything trivial. Bravo, this is Romeo Foxtrot; send your message, over.

Romeo Foxtrot, we have reports of Charlies being engaged by enemy forces near your location. Can you assist, over?

Charlie was the code for civilian contractors. Most firms used ex-military security and a lot of those guys were old friends.

Roger that, Bravo, send their location and we’ll get there as fast as we can, over. With that, he handed the transmitter to the driver, Take down the coordinates, Jack.

Standing up, he came to the same height as the Landrover’s top cover machine gunner. He gave a loud shrill whistle and immediately the squad patrolling in front of him went to ground. They were that good that some of the troops completely disappeared into the sparse vegetation.

Sergeant Blake, who was leading the men on foot, spun around in a crouch looking toward the Landrover, patiently waiting for further orders.

Tom allowed himself a brief smile. These men were some of the best he had ever worked with and it was a pleasure watching their professionalism. He gave the signal for the squad to converge on his position. Silently, the Sarge passed the message and everybody moved tactically in his direction.

Jack handed him the map.

The contact is about ten miles northeast of our current position. It’s a bridge just off highway one, sir. He indicated the place with a finger.

Thanks, Jack, Tom replied.

A quick study of the map revealed lots of open ground; the contractors should have been fairly safe there. It didn’t have the look of a common ambush site, but that didn’t rule it out.

The enemy sometimes set up random roadside bombs at night, then disappeared. They didn’t know who would get caught in the trap. Sometimes they killed locals, but that didn’t stop them doing it. They knew everyone would blame the allies for the deaths anyway.

The last of the squad pitched up in front of him.

Right, gents, Tom boomed We have an unknown number of insurgents engaging a group of contractors about ten miles to our northeast. We are going to mount up and launch a counter attack. When we get there, I expect an aggressive assault on the enemy positions. Just remember to check your targets. The last thing we need is any friendly fire.

Surveying the men, he could see the info had sunk in. The army generally had a reputation for being dull. Anyone who thought these men were stupid was drastically underestimating them.

Sergeant Blake. Take control of the other Rover and give me six men to ride in this one. Oh, one more thing, guys. If they don’t just run away, I expect you to go ultra-violent on their Taliban asses.

This brought a few laughs before they charged off, leaving only dust in their wake.

The path they took was a road of sorts, but it was littered with loose rocks and debris. The Landrover bounced and skipped over the surface at a breakneck pace. The drivers weren’t holding anything back.

The wheels kicked up thick dust that was only kept at bay by the black and white checkered shemagh that they all wore. The shemaghs were a gift from Tom; he had bought one for each trooper so that all of the men in his unit were easily distinguishable. The lads had loved it and adopted it as something akin to gang colors. Even their vehicles had flashes of the design on them; it was a badge of honor.

Morale was hard to find out here, and a sense of being a team was all that kept you going. The design went against all regulations but screw it, all that mattered on the front was the man next to you.

They continued to follow the winding trail as it climbed a hill. To their right was a scree slope that looked like it might send rocks sliding down on them at any moment. To their left was a cliff which dropped a few hundred feet into the boulder-strewn valley below.

The only other way was twice as long and they didn’t have the time. The road turned into a long sweeping right-hand bend and gave them a view of the bridge which was still about three miles in the distance.

Weapons check, Tom shouted.

There was a flurry of activity from the back and a reassuring crack as the top gunner cocked the big .50 cal machine gun. The men had nicknamed it the Widow-maker. It was capable of punching fist sized holes though brick walls or anything else that got in its way.

Moments later, the sandstorm slammed into them. Everything that was more than a couple of feet away disappeared into a murky brown haze. Tom pulled his scarf up as high as it would go in an attempt to stop the thousands of pinpricks that were bombarding him.

The Landrover slowed to a crawl, there was no way they could keep their original pace in this. They certainly wouldn’t be able to help anybody if they crashed down the ravine. If they had any sense they would just stop, but if they had had that much sense they wouldn’t have joined the army in the first place, so they pushed on.

As the wind howled all around them, eddy currents in the storm made strange patterns. Some looked like horrible twisted faces and the wind seemed to scream in time with their agony. Tom ignored it. The desert could do strange things to your mind if you didn’t keep a good grasp on reality.

Pushing their luck, the squad continued to crawl forward. They safely reached the end of the track and turned on to the hard top of highway one. It would take them straight to the bridge.

After what seemed like an eternity, structures and the contractors’ white land cruisers appeared out of the murk. The vehicles were peppered with bullet holes. Something had definitely happened here.

Without being ordered, the two Landrovers swerved to a stop nose to nose, forming an arrowhead on the road. Tom and the others jumped out to take up defensive positions. With the reduced visibility and howling wind, engaging the enemy was impossible. At least, the enemy would also be struggling. For now, all they could do was watch, sit tight, and ride the storm out.

Chapter 3

As suddenly as the storm had appeared, it abated. Tom could swear he had heard a voice laughing on the air as it went. He brushed it off as nerves and too much Afghan sun. The departing sands revealed a scene that was like something out of a horror film. It made him wish the sand would return and hide it again.

Some of the contractors had been strung along the side of the bridge. One or two dangled a bit lower on ropes because there simply wasn’t enough room for everyone.

They all had one thing in common, everyone on the bridge had been horribly mutilated—most of their internal organs now dangled gently in the wind.

One of the soldiers vomited, and the sharp smell brought Tom out of his shock. Casualties were expected in war, but this was different. The time and effort to do this violated nature, and it appalled him.

Looking around, there was no sign of the enemy; they must have used the sand storm to disappear back into the desert. A couple of other bodies dotted the ground, and Tom’s mind turned back to the job. Someone might still be alive.

Jason, move forward and check for survivors. The rest of you fan out and cover him…MOVE!

He didn’t have to shout often, and the squad reacted well considering the circumstances.

Jason was the squad’s medic, and he worked methodically but quickly. He checked each of the bodies, sometimes shaking his head before moving on to the next. The rest of the squad moved smoothly to cover him. They worked in silence ready to react to any threat that presented itself. Jason stopped and looked at Tom and gave a final shake of his head and the thumbs down. It meant there were no survivors.

Shit! Tom exclaimed to himself. Sergeant Blake! I want a defensive perimeter set up around this site and get Ajmal to search around. I want to know who hit them and which direction they headed.

The orders given, he took a moment to step back and observed the scene; it was an old fashioned massacre. It would have fit right into an old western film, even the wagons had been drawn up to form a defensive circle. The only difference was that the Indian technique of scalping seemed civilized compared to what had been done to these men.

Gore was splattered all over the Land cruisers, which contrasted sharply with the vehicles white paint. There was also the coppery smell of blood in the air. This hadn’t been done long ago; hopefully, they could find whoever did it and give them a lesson in humanity. No, that would be a waste of time. It would be better just to put these sick animals out of their misery.

Tom turned away, not wanting to look at the carnage anymore. Instead, he faked surveying the horizon. The men shouldn’t see any signs of weakness in him, it would unnerve them.

Excuse me, sir. Jason had approached him, and Tom hadn’t even heard him coming, being so wrapped up in his own thoughts. I thought I should confirm that there aren’t any survivors.

Right...Thank you, Jason. You can help out manning the perimeter now.

There is just one more thing, sir… Tom could see the hesitation in Jason’s eyes. ...not all of them have been killed by bullets. One guy over there has nearly been chopped in half and another has been completely torn apart. There are chunks of him all over the place. I just can’t see how they had time to do all this.

Let me worry about that. Just get yourself back into position. Tom deliberately made his voice sound impatient.

In reality, he was trying not to lose his lunch. The fact that the young man was right was also troubling him. It took time to make a mess like this and by doing it out in the open, they couldn’t have been too concerned about getting caught.

Tom could see Sergeant Blake heading toward him with Ajmal. Ajmal was the squads translator who went everywhere with them. The man was almost running to keep up with the long strides of the powerfully built Sergeant.

It’s not good news, Blake reported.

The sandstorm, she blows away tracks. Ajmal piped in with his terrible English. To emphasize his point, he picked up a handful of dirt and blew it out of his palm. See?

Tom briefly wondered whether the translator was really as mad as he seemed or whether the cultural divide between them was just too large.

There was no denying the man’s skills, though. His expert knowledge of the terrain had gotten them out of some tight scrapes in the past, earning him the respect of the troops. He was also a first-rate tracker. His failure to find anything here was unusual.

This whole scene was wrong.

It wasn’t a surprise that the Taliban had pulled a vanishing trick. They had done it before. Attacking and disappearing was a tactic that was working well against the lumbering allied forces. The thing was this attack just didn’t fit in with their usual modus operandi. This display would have taken too long. They usually hit convoys hard with a road-side bomb, following it up with machine gun fire, killing as many as they could before withdrawing quickly. They knew if they got bogged down, the allies’ air support would wipe them out.

It was true that they sometimes snatched the odd aid worker or solider to decapitate on Al-Jazeera, but that was just to remind the world that they still existed.

This particular demonstration of excessive violence served no purpose. It was never going to make the news. It almost seemed someone had done this for pleasure.

Jack! Get back to the Rover, radio base, and report what we’ve found. Also, tell them we are going to need a cleanup crew here. There are no survivors.

Jack jogged off to carry out his orders.

Tom didn’t like having to do it, but he left the bodies where they lay to preserve any evidence that might be discovered by the specialist team.

It was a couple of hours before the cleanup crew showed up in their Chinook helicopter. When it came in to land the massive twin rotors created their own sand storm. Bits of debris, Land cruiser and parts of their former owners were blown all to hell.

The evidence Tom had tried to preserve was instantly destroyed. Finding the culprits would be impossible now. The military for all its

Reviews for Sons of Darkness

[rachdani · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book reads like a movie, and I mean that in a good way. The pace is fast, but interwoven with different story lines which keeps you hopping from place to place. It's fantastic.

What do you do when Hell is about to be unleashed? Well if you're Tom, you fight. You fight to get to the women you love and you fight anything that stands in your way, Including the four Horsemen and anything else thrown at you.

You don't get a lot of answers in this book, but you really don't need them. Instead you get the beginning of the apocalypse and a promise of more to come.

In addition to a flawed, likable main character, some interesting supporting characters, and a dog that is much more than your average canine, there is a good bit of gore and several nightmare inducing scenes... you should definitely read this!

[somethingblanc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent story. Loved it. From the beginning, you are brought into the story in a rush, and you never leave. Plenty of action. Suspense. On the edge of your seat events. Characters are vivid and real. Action is almost like you are there. The story is complex, but understandable. I can't wait for the sequel. I can't praise this book enough. This is a psychological paranormal suspense thriller.