A Shrouded World 6: Bitfrost

By Mark Tufo and John O'Brien

A cosmic noose tightens around our heroes’ necks as, once again, they are tasked to fight a war not their own. Their every move is watched, their every action, thwarted, yet failure here will seal the fate of countless billions to something worse than death. Can Jack, Mike, BT, Trip and Kalandar find a way to overcome the odds that have been stacked against them, or will it all come crashing down upon their heads? Follow along as our small band of dysfunctional brothers do all that they can to ensure the universe doesn’t fall into the hands of those that would use it for their own vile purposes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DevilDogPress
• Release date: Mar 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463207222

Mark Tufo

Mark Tufo was born in Boston Massachusetts. He attended UMASS Amherst where he obtained a BA and later joined the US Marine Corp. He was stationed in Parris Island SC, Twenty Nine Palms CA and Kaneohe Bay Hawaii. After his tour he went into the Human Resources field with a worldwide financial institution and has gone back to college at CTU to complete his masters. He lives in Colorado with his wife, three kids and two English bulldogs. Visit him at marktufo.com for news on his next two installments of the Indian Hill trilogy and his latest book Zombie Fallout

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Prologue

Here it is. Another journal to document the craziness that circles my existence like tweety birds swirling around a cartoon character that has been knocked in the head with a mallet. Seems futile, sometimes, since I’m always losing them. The last one fell out of my pocket when Jack lurched the helicopter during take-off. I’d like to blame him, but tough to fault the man when he’s trying to lift us out of an active war zone. Doesn’t matter. They’re a testimonial to the craptastic fuck-fest I’ve been thrown into, so in the name of posterity, I’ll just keep writing, hoping whoever may stumble across this might avoid a similar fate. Of course, all I can give you is a recap in broad strokes. Some of the information has been lost to me, (partly from activity in my youth, mainly illicit drug use, but more so from the way these worlds seem to reset themselves—my friends, Jack and Trip, tend to come through unscathed, but the neurons in my head get scrambled up.) I absolutely cannot believe this shit…but I digress.

It all started with a hit of acid, like these things are wont to do. John the Tripper… sometimes I’ve thought of him as my all-seeing guide, possibly even a guardian angel, but either way, I should seek out the manager of the department of mystical companions and complain that I’ve been gifted a faulty unit. The man exists solely on snack foods and drugs and feels the absolute need to drag me and everyone around him through some of the craziest scenarios ever to be fabricated in alternate realms or realities. One second I’m trying to escape a zombie invasion, the next I find myself dropped into a completely bizarre, alien world where I encounter a man named Jack Walker. Much like me, he’s a soldier doing his utmost to keep his family, friends, and squad safe during a Man-Ending event.

I like Jack; he’s a great guy, no doubt about it. But just like anything, you can’t have the good without the bad. It seems that when Jack and I were dragged into this new, shrouded world, we brought our very own nightmares with us. In his case, it’s night runners. Terrifying beings born from a flu vaccine, they’re faster than us, they hear better, their sense of smell is better, and, oh yeah…they crave the flesh of the living. That, and they’re sentient; they know what they’re doing, and they hunt in packs. The only advantage given to humans is that night runners cannot be exposed to sunlight, and thankfully, for now at least, they don’t understand the concept of weaponry.

In the few moments Trip would show some lucidity, (which were way too few and way too far between), we would get dribs and drabs of what was going on, what might have brought this nightmare to us, or us to it…tough to say we got insight, but bits of information, anyway. Near as we could tell, Trip and a colleague of his during his MIT days, (who knew!) had ripped a hole through time, space, and realities, thus freeing the whistlers, another scourge upon us, whose sole intent appears to be destroying everything they come in contact with, merely for the fun of ruining shit.

Whistlers are grotesque creatures with joints that bend at odd angles and striated coloring on their heads that makes anything remotely humanoid about them take a back seat. They shoot paralyzing staples that leave their victims unable to defend themselves, and like everything these days, they feast on whatever they can get ahold of.

We figured they were a fabricated weapon, maybe created by some vengeful gods, chaos-inducing demons, or the most likely culprit, Man. Apparently, it seems, we do have a mission. We’ve been sent, brought, summoned, drafted, take your pick, to stop them. Why? That, I don’t have an answer for. So, if you’ve picked up this journal, I would imagine right now you’re checking around the entirety of your perimeter, looking for these monsters, as you should. But wait, there’s more! Pretend I spit that out like Stu, (Matthew Lillard) did in the movie Scream; it’s an accurate portrayal of my anger and bewilderment, and I suppose you can add in fear.

On top of all this wonderfulness, (still practicing my sarcasm font), beings called angels have been brought into the mix. But if you’re thinking these are the winged, haloed creatures of benevolence and light who protect and guide us, you would have a very skewed understanding of what we are actually dealing with. Something about them terrifies me, down to the very core of my existence. It is unexplainable; still doesn’t make it any less tangible. When faced with them, it is nearly impossible to function correctly with the way my entire system misfires. And from what we can discern, it appears that these angels now want the whistlers for their own cause, which again, was something we couldn’t comprehend why. Whether they aim to stop the whistlers or wield them for their own purpose is anyone’s guess. All we know is they have taken Trip, and if we ever want to succeed in the vast wasteland of misery and death and get to our own homes where, somehow, there was less misery and death, we needed him.

By now, your head may or may not have blown out through the side, trying to shove all this information in. If not, let me see if I can send you over the edge. At some point, Jack, having found a lone cabin far up on the side of a mountain, sought refuge and then sought other people. Unfortunately, what he came across was a group of cultists…or acolytes…or maybe wizards? Again, no clue. What we do know, is they were summoning a demon, for whatever nefarious purpose. Jack interrupted their party by freeing their would-be sacrifice, who suspiciously resembled his daughter, though the image was possibly fabricated for him. Maybe if I’d come across that altar, it would have been one of my kids or wife; I don’t know. What we do know, is he seriously pissed off the demon that was tearing through the veil.

So, like the smart monkeys that we are, we decided to go back. Okay, we were forced back, semantics. This time we got our very own demon, a fifteen-foot, giant red one named Kalandar. I think we’re friends, but seriously, can you ever truly get comfortable with something like that? Like, I would love to believe I could befriend a massive Kodiak bear, and we would wrestle affectionately; I would toss him fish, he would beat the snot out of my enemies, basically, BFFs forever, but could you ever really know what was going through his head? What if the fish you gave him tasted funny and, in a quick fit of temper, he just swiped your head off? I mean, it could happen. And then there’s not much you can do with your head removed, except maybe have your eyes go wide and open and close your mouth like a beached fish. That’s Kalandar in a nutshell. He has been an ally thus far, but when we come to the end of our adventure, will it be the same as he intended? And if not, what could we possibly do to counteract his endgame? So far, we’ve had shit tons of questions and very few answers.

Like a rotten cherry, evacuated from the bowels of a rat with a serious case of E.coli, Jack and I stumbled through savage weather patterns, heat that literally melted the glue that held my shoes together, and extreme cold to the point where we were in danger of our eyelids freezing to our eyeballs. Again, where it came from or what its purpose, impossible to tell. Just another wrinkle on a rayon shirt full of them, and I cannot take this shit anymore.

The night runners had found us and were converging on us in numbers we’d yet to deal with, and all I knew with any certainty was that we were riding in a helicopter Jack was piloting. I had a fat BT next to me, one from a world in which we were far from friends. Our demon flew underneath us in a harness, pretending he was a superhero. We didn’t know where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there. Didn’t stop us though—we’re smart like that. And so, the story rolls on…

1

Mike Talbot — Chapter One

BT had his head back; he’d taken off his helmet and was trying to get some rest, which was pretty impressive considering the loudness of the rotors. With my safety harness fully engaged, I leaned out to get a look at Kalandar, his arms now hanging down toward the ground some couple hundred feet below, and he was fast asleep. How do I know this? Well, because he had a helmet with a microphone next to him, and even over the roar of the helicopter, I could hear his snoring. Once I made sure he was all right, I went and sat up in the co-pilot seat.

Don’t touch anything, Jack warned. Not sure how he even knew I was up there, as he had not turned to see me. He had a bead on how I worked, though, because that joystick control in front of me looked so tempting. Who among us hasn’t wanted to fly at one time or another? I sat down, making sure to keep my hands in my lap.

How you doing? I asked, doing my best to avert my gaze from the controls that beckoned me like pre-dinner cookies might a five-year-old.

Do you want the standard: ‘I’m fine’ or the truth?

Honestly, Jack, I’m perfectly good with the ‘I’m fine’ approach. I prefer not to dwell too much on the plight of others.

Altruism runs deep in you.

I know, right?! I answered.

Mike.

Shhh…I’m enjoying the illusion right now that we’re on a sightseeing trip in Hawaii, gliding over the big island—no active volcanoes though—I don’t want any of that shit, maybe just do a fly-by on a nude beach…don’t linger though. Tracy catches wind of that I could be in trouble. Plus, the sand you’ll kick up’s not fair to the exhibitionists.

What do they put in those crayons in the world you’re from? Jack was referring to the myth that Marines were infamous for eating the waxy coloring sticks.

Tell you what, if they had anything worthwhile in them, I’d eat a whole box.

I was going to say you have problems, but right now, I think I’d join you.

Okay, now that you’ve ruined my beach vacation, what’s going on?

Fuel is the big one, I assume. We were topped off, which is a plus, and if this is at all like a Chinook, we’ll get about four hundred nautical miles.

At this point, I had to bite back a mini-diatribe about regular miles versus nautical ones and why in the fuck did they need a differentiation? I wasn’t even going to get into the whole knots and miles per hour thing. I refrained from complaining only because Jack didn’t pause long enough for me to get a word in.

We’ve gone about half that, so I figure we have another two hundred to travel, but…

We have no idea where we’re going, I finished for him.

I’m just flying. I don’t like not having a destination in mind. The only good thing is we’ve escaped the time bubble that is Valhalla. I think. He looked over to me for a reaction.

I shrugged. Could be a big bubble.

That’s helpful, he replied. The only reason I’m heading this way is that I wanted to get away from the cold front. Now that it’s gone or dissipated, I’m only going this way because what’s the point in changing direction. We’ve got a few more hours to see if something pops up, but if not, I’d like to get a consensus of what everyone wants to do. So far, I’m looking at barren landscape everywhere. There will be resources on the ground; there always is, but it’s not going to be bountiful.

Lizards for lunch. Sounds wonderful, I was thinking aloud; sometimes it’s better not to. He wanted me to say something, anything, but I had nothing to add. Nothing helpful, anyway. Trip’s book of instructions had ended with us getting a helicopter. Lots of room for interpretation once that page was turned.

You seeing this? Jack asked after a while.

The stain of them would have been difficult to miss. There was a sea of zombies in the desert, and they were moving. As a matter of fact, moving in the same direction as we were. I’m all about receiving omens, but really? Couldn’t we just once get a sign where there was an arrow made of big rocks or even better—a buxom blonde smiling and pointing? That would be preferable.

Got to be thousands, he added unnecessarily.

The smell, Kalandar growled, apparently his nap had been disturbed.

As we flew over the horde, I flashbacked to those nature shows where the cameraman flies over a herd of gazelles upon the Serengeti. In those shows, though, the animals would usually veer off and away from the excessive noise. Those below us were nobody’s prey. Some stopped and watched as we flew past, others ignored us completely as they ran toward whatever destination they had in mind. It would have been foolish of us to think they weren’t headed for the same place we were, wherever that was.

I piss upon the heads of my enemy! Kalandar was laughing. I looked down to see a golden stream as thick as a fire hose, gushing down and splashing upon the zombies.

What the actual fuck. Safe to say Jack wasn’t amused. Personally, I was dying; it was all I could do to hide my smile…I didn’t want to appear to be enjoying the spectacle.

After a few minutes, we had outdistanced the zees and were continuing on. All was going decent, I mean, as decently as it can when you are rushing headlong into a shit situation with an enemy that is nearly immortal and had zombies batting cleanup, in case the angels didn’t quite get the job done.

Holy shit, is something overheating? I was pulling on my shirt; sweat was forming on my forehead, well, everywhere, actually.

Jack’s jaws were clenched tight, he pointed to a gauge; it read 115.

That doesn’t seem so bad, I said wrongly, thinking it was referring to the operating temperature of the machine.

Ambient.

English. I knew what the word meant; I just didn’t want to believe it. Jack looked over at me. Is that going to be a problem?

Depends.

On?

Jack was checking over his instrumentation. The hotter it gets, the less dense the atmosphere, which makes it more difficult to stay flying. The helo will be fine for a while; I’m more concerned for us. It keeps rising like this… he pointed again, the gauge now read 120, and we could be looking at heatstroke. Can’t fly a machine if you’re passed out.

What about auto-pilot?

That’s your answer?

Can’t land in this shit, we’d stroke out a lot sooner.

BT’s hand landed on the back of my chair, he had stripped down to his underwear. Hot as balls back there, he said.

Not much better up here, I told him. It’s another of those weird weather patterns.

They don’t tend to be overly large, but we’re going to burn more fuel going through it. Jack looked over to BT.

This is nice! Kalandar shouted.

At least one of us was enjoying it.

This has got to be a weapon of some sort. Jack was thinking, and we’d talked about it before. The cold had worked wonders on stopping the whistlers; would intense heat do the same? I didn’t think it would do shit against the zombies.

Will this affect the night runners at all? The heat, I mean?

I don’t know. It could, but I can’t say it’s been tested before. I’d think it would have the same effect on them as us. I see where you’re going with this, but do you want to know what I think?

Do we? BT asked.

I think the heat is meant to stop us.

Not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping this was more of a human-made weapon to aid, rather than dissuade.

Might not have to worry about it. Jack pointed to the gauge; we were now at a relatively cool 108. Heaven, compared to the last reading. We’ve all heard the adage sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the oncoming train’s headlight. This was like that. An alarm sounded and I was pushed up against the side of the copter as Jack banked hard to the right. BT about ripped the chair free from its moorings as he held tight.

Surface to air missile, Jack said, calmly enough. He pointed to the swirling contrail as the projectile made its way toward us at speed.

Safe to say, I was terrified. If we blew up that was one thing, death would be instantaneous, but if it took out our ride and I was left to freefall a few hundred feet before hitting the ground at terminal velocity, that would be another thing entirely. There’s a reason why humans are innately born with a fear of heights. We don’t bounce well.

We’re good, Jack announced as he got us back to level. The missile had, according to him, flown harmlessly past. Personally, I didn’t give a shit that it was a hundred feet away; it was a hundred feet too close. Makes sense, if you think about it.

Umm, maybe not. BT had pointed; the missile was doing an about-face.

Jack threw us into a nosedive. I was scrambling as fast as I could to put the restraining belt across me as I, at least, wanted the cushion of the nosecone before we impacted with the earth.

High burst, were the only words he was willing to share just then.

It was more than enough. The missile wasn’t made to strike us; it was designed to fly above its target and then blow up, much like a fireworks mortar. Only instead of oohs and aahs and pretty colors, shrapnel and miniature bombs would rain down. I was strapped in; BT had his entire weight pressed against the back of my chair. Even through the alarms, the sound of the rotors under strain, and Kalandar’s cries of delight, I could hear the bolts groaning in protest. There was a fair chance we’d blast through the front windshield long before we crashed.

The fun started almost immediately. The missile blew up, sending black spheres the size of baseballs spraying outwards in a 360-degree arc. Jack was trying to outrun them but they had propellant and gravity on their side. There was a cluster burst; the alarms inside the cabin somehow grew louder, though the sound could not obscure the barrage of metal chunks peppering the hull and blasting through the relatively thin fuselage.

I am angry now! Kalandar roared. Going to go out on a limb and say he took a couple of shards of hot metal. To the side of me and two inches from head height was a fist-sized hole. I followed the trajectory it had taken. It had been close to me, but Jack must have got a really clean shave. The bomblet had traveled past his Adam’s apple and back out the cockpit.

BT? I shouted.

Good! Good! he yelled back.

We’re going down! Jack yelled.

I wanted to tell him I realized that as I could see ants start to scurry out of the impact zone. He was pulling back on the controls; they were responding about as well as my wife after we’d just had a fight. Not spelling that one out. Kalandar knew what was going on—he was ripping through the ropes quickly in the hopes he’d roll away from the devastation. I wished him well. Not really; I mean, I hoped he made it, but at that very moment, I was just trying not to die, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it. Yet one more reason not to fly.

Going into auto-rotate! Jack yelled above the bleating.

That meant as much to me as if he’d explained that he was about to make a reduction sauce.

It was BT that picked up the slack. Engines are damaged. Then I put that all together: the rotors were still spinning but without the assistance of power. I had no idea how long we could sustain flight that way. We were leveling off, which was good, but we were flying parallel to a column of military trucks. Jack, realizing this, was trying to move us further away to the east—east, relative to me. Could have been north.

Kalandar, we’ll be coming down soon. Evac when you think it’s best for you, Jack said. BT, get strapped in!

On it. He pushed off from my seat.

And get your clothes on, I added.

Fuck you, he mumbled. That was the first normal thing that had happened in the last twenty minutes, and I was happy for it.

The column was no longer in sight, but I’d bet they had a few trucks heading our way to finish the job they’d started. We were close enough to the ground that rope from Kalandar’s harness was dragging in the dirt. He’d maneuvered himself so he was holding on to the line, much like the night runners had been. There wasn’t much more than ten feet between him and the earth at this point.

How fast are we going?

Sixty or seventy knots! Jack yelled back through the cacophony. He must have heard me sigh or he caught my expression through his peripheral vision. Seventy, eighty miles per hour.

You going to slow this thing up?

See any brakes? Though he was pulling harder back on the yolk, and soon enough we would be flying backwards, I was pressed into the back of my seat. He was using drag to get us to a speed we could survive from. He grunted loudly just as the alarm, thankfully, silenced; it was then I realized that it had stopped because all electrical functions had ceased. I didn’t say shit as I grabbed hold of the seatbelt strapped across my chest. My eyes were closed. I gave some half-assed rendition of the Lord’s Prayer, most of it revolved around not wanting to be embedded into the ground or spread thinly across a mile of dirt; I don’t think that was in the actual written version.

We’d slowed considerably, and Jack had eased up on our strange flying position. I looked down. Kalandar must have decided to give it a go; he’d started running in place, his legs a blur. The added movement wasn’t doing our ride any favors.

Fucking let go, Jack grimaced, holding tight to the controls.

No way Kalandar heard him, as comm was down, but it was as if he had, or more likely, he’d decided he was moving fast enough to match speed. He dropped down, did one front roll, and was up and running. When he came to a stop, his arms were up in the air like Rocky climbing the steps in Philadelphia. I sincerely hoped I’d be able to raise up any part of me once we touched down.

Here we go! Jack yelled even though it was quiet, I mean, except for the whistling wind and the pounding drumbeat percussions of my heart. Yeah, other than that.

I figured we were going in the neighborhood of thirty to forty miles per hour, not car-wrapping-around-tree speeds, but definitely enough to do us in. It was sort of like being shot with a .22 caliber round as opposed to a .45. I didn’t fucking want to be shot with either of them.

The wheels of the chopper touched down so hard, my chin slammed into my chest with enough force that both points of contact were going to bruise. It hurt like hell, but I was ecstatic I’d not been talking; would have been looking at a portion of my tongue in my lap. The ground repelled us, sent us back into the air a good twenty feet. We were now canted to the side like one set of tires had more air and thus more bounce to them than the other. Jack was doing his best to get us straight, but there wasn’t much he could do. I was once again looking at the ground approaching, although instead of in front, it was to my side.

I either said or thought the word fuck as the bottom of my door crumpled in. The glass shattered and showered the entirety of the cockpit. The noise was deafening as the heavy machine bounced, slammed, slid, dented or just had parts stripped away. The rotors sheared off and sent sword-sized shards hurtling into space. I was holding on to my restraints with both hands. Time meant nothing. I don’t think the human mind has the capacity to process information in these types of situations. Like it temporarily shuts down in response to overwhelming dangers you have no ability to fend off. My eyes were shut tight. If I’d hazarded a look, I would have seen the desert ground zipping past my face at skin-abrading speeds. My body was being tossed about within the confines of my constraints. I was doing my utmost to stay frozen in place, in direct contrast to what all experts tell you to do.

I don’t know what kind of Shaolin monk you must be in order to let your body go limp in a crash. My guess is it’s hardwired in us to brace for impact. Although I’ve got to think Uckmar the Caveman never had to worry about high-speed collisions. Not like the wooly mammoth he’d hitched a ride from could go more than ten miles an hour; plenty of time to bail before you hit anything. The sound of screeching, tortured metal finally subsided. Abundant dust swirling and the creaking of a helicopter in its final death throes was all that was going on now. We were