Vic: Bloody Reprisal

By Jerry Gill

An old enemy tries to kill Vic and her friend Lin Li.  Vic goes after him.  She meets a family who is being hounded by what they call a demon from hell. They ask Vic for help and she can't refuse. Now 2 enemies are after Vic and she is after them!  Vic learns the man is planning something that will kill tens of thousands and g

• Language: English
• Publisher: GLB Worldwide
• Release date: Aug 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781889823812

Book preview

Prologue:

100,000 years ago when life was stupendously savage and every day was a test of your will to live, an epic love was born. Two cave dwellers, Nat-ul, daughter of Tha, and Nu, son of Onu, each a stupendously mighty hunter and warrior to match that time, vowed to love each other as long as the moon would rise in the night sky, which, in their primitive fashion, meant forever. They both died in geologic cataclysms on the very day following their sacred oath. Buried by mountains, one would think their story ended. Yet, since that time the wise of every generation and every culture have proclaimed that true love never dies. There is a reason they say this.

In 1896 the moon still rose in the night sky when Nat-ul was reborn as Victoria Custer and as a young woman, the educated Nebraska farm girl vividly recalled her former primeval life and eternal vow. One thousand generations did not cool her love and the recall restored her savage, stone-age instincts and defiant boldness. Under the pen name Vic Challenger, she now writes adventure travel articles and her work allows her to literally comb the globe in search of present-day Nu. She realizes her quest may take a lifetime and mortal peril may become her incessant companion, but she is determined to do whatever it takes to reunite with her eternal love and time doesn’t matter!

Vic remembered her primitive past in 1919. She swore to find Nu and in early 1920, she began her search in Mexico. and in September of that year she traveled with high school friend Lin Li to Outer Mongolia. In 1921, Vic and Lin enjoyed some epic travel with excursions to the Grand Canyon and then Scotland and later they took a trip down the Amazon! In early 1922 the duo searched for treasure in Australia and in the Fall they visited Siberia as a favor to Vic’s friend O. Vic enjoyed the holidays with her Dad and friends, especially Lin Li. Those two each saved the life of the other more than once and seemed more like sisters than friends.

Now it’s January 1923 and things are about to change. An evil man who Vic and Lin thought dead resurfaces and commits a horrific act which gives full rein to Vic’s savage cave girl persona! As in her old time, when family is harmed, the only acceptable response is for rivers to redden with the blood of your enemy!

Vic’s life becomes more complicated when she receives a plea for help against an inhuman entity. Besides fighting for her life, working to bring reprisal to an old enemy, and facing off with an unnatural beast, Vic is forced to contemplate right and wrong and forgiveness.

The adventure is unpredictable, the action is relentless. It is a season for bloody reprisal. Vic will earn scars on this trip, but as she leaves to pursue her prey, someone comments, I’d rather already be dead than be him!

Chapter 1 Tragedy

Two men walked down the deserted street. Both wore dark gray suits and hats. One sported a homburg; the other wore a fedora. They were large, and the fit of the tailored suits suggested their bulk was muscle. As they walked the natural swing of their arms intermittently revealed unnatural bulges under their left arms.

It was eleven o’clock, and in that working-class neighborhood, most people long since turned in for the night. As the men came to a seven-story tenement, the Homburg put an elbow to the other and said, That looks good.

The man pointed to a 1920 Dodge touring convertible with the top down. Neat ride, the fedora replied. I’d like to get one of these to keep!

They stopped at the automobile, and each made a cursory survey of the street. Lightning flashed in the distance and fedora asked, Want to put up the top?

Homburg answered, Nah. Were going the opposite direction.

No one was in sight, so they climbed into the car. The homburg settled behind the wheel and pulled a ring of keys from a coat pocket. The third key he tried was the charm. The engine came to life and as the auto rolled away, both men laughed like men unaccustomed to laughing. The homburg noted, Man, that was easy! Beatrice, here we come!

The fedora replied, Yeah! I’d like to see the look on the owners face when he comes out and finds this beauty gone!

Neither man looked back. Homburg didn’t even look in the rearview. If they had, they would have seen the owner’s face and something else that might have kept them from sleeping!

The young man looked out the window. From the corner apartment, he had a very narrow view down the street. Just as he glanced out, distant lightning flashed.

Holy smokes! I saw lightning. It might rain tonight! It just so happened that on this night the man left the top down on his new Dodge touring convertible. I need to go put the top up. I can’t let it rain in our new car, he told his wife who sat in a rocker in the corner nursing their four-month-old daughter. The woman looked at the man with conspicuous apprehension.

A woman with predominantly gray hair stood at the sink washing the evening’s dishes. When the man said he would go out to put the top up on the new convertible, she dropped a plate, and it shattered on the floor. No! You cannot go out after dark! What are you thinking?

I must, Mama! I worked hard for that car so our family can ride in style! I can’t let it be ruined!

It is a thing, the old woman’s voice rose an octave at each word. It is not worth your life!

The man’s wife spoke up, Please listen to your Mama, Carlos.

I’ll be OK. He held up a key, I’ll hold it. If I hear or see anything, I’ll run to the car and drive away. It cannot catch a car! Besides, we have been here almost a year and have not seen it! It is probably still in Guayama, but if it is here I can outrun it.

You are too filled with reasons you are safe! They will be your death! The woman gave her son a stern look. If your father were here he would call you a fool to think of such a thing! He thought like you and look what happened to him! The woman practically screamed the words of warning to her son.

In not much more than a whisper, the man’s wife repeated her plea, Please, Carlos, listen to your Mama.

Now the older woman stooped down and began to pick up pieces of the broken plate. When she spoke, it was quiet and perceptibly somber. The thing is devious and cunning. I know it is here. I can feel it. It has remained hidden to make us feel safe, but it is watching.

Nevertheless, Carlos wanted to protect the new car. With the key gripped tightly he stepped into the hall where he looked both ways and listened for a moment. Then he walked swiftly to the stairwell and started down.

Half-way down, on the second-floor landing, Carlos heard a door slam higher up. He stopped for a second and looked up behind him and listened as his heart pounded. Before he turned to continue, someone appeared on the higher landing. The person was just a shadow, but Carlos couldn’t stop the fearful grunt as he jumped back into the wall!

Whoa, Carlos! Why you so skittish? The voice was the soft and kind voice of a young girl.

You just surprised me, Carlos answered with a sigh. He still couldn't see the person, but the sweet voice was reassuring. Carlos started down the stairs, and the girl called after him, Are you a fast runner, Carlos?

A chill ran down Carlos’s spine - the voice was still a young girl but now carried a sinister tone; and how did she know he said he could run fast? Carlos looked over his shoulder. The shadowy figure stepped into the light. It was no girl! The thing standing above him seemed more reptile than human. The lips twisted into a malevolent grin and displayed vicious four-inch incisors as the eyes flickered between red and yellow!

Carlos bounded down the stairs and blasted into the lobby. He heard a shrill cackle behind him. Run spawn of Javier Rafael Miguel de Colón! Carlos sprinted across to the door and hit it so hard it slammed back against the wall and shattered the glass.

Outside he gripped the key to his automobile tighter than he ever gripped anything in his life and ran so fast his legs and lungs both hurt. His new car was parked on the street in front of the tenement behind the one where he lived. Carlos could see the rear of the convertible at the end of the alley. From behind, the thing repeated the cry, Run, spawn of Javier Colón!

Then there was only the sound of his feet hitting the red bricks of the alley. Just seconds, Carlos thought. I’ll be in the car and get away! He was three-quarters of the way to his auto when the new Dodge pulled away!

No! Carlos screamed. As he came to the street, his new car was down to the next block, moving away. He was about to shout again but felt hot breath on his neck. A fetid odor of death and rot assaulted his nostrils. He looked back and the scream of hysterical terror in his throat stayed there. The last image Carlos saw, for just an instant, was the gaping mouth of the green-gray- skinned Ventosa he had been warned of all his life. Beneath the lidless red eyes, the over-sized maw hammered shut, and those four-inch incisors pierced the man’s skull and punctured his brain. That single snap cracked his jawbone in three places and compressed his head to the shape of an egg on its side.

Perhaps Carlos was fortunate for it spared him the torturing experience when the eagle-like talons of the thing entered him above his navel and pulled him open. As the corpse collapsed, the monstrosity squatted over the body and sucked and licked until it could find no more blood. Then it ogled the bloodless corpse, and its demeanor suggested emotion entirely discordant with the earlier vicious behavior. It appeared to shrug and then slinked down the alley. At the far end, it climbed to the top of the tenement where the remaining members of the Colón family watched for Carlos. It waited.

The new year was only a week old. For almost three months, life had been fairly normal for Vic and her friend Lin Li. When they returned from Siberia, they spent two days with O, Vic’s friend who headed a specialized military unit. The two briefed him on their exploits at Tunguska and then headed home to dear old Beatrice, Nebraska.

Vic spent the time writing articles, tending her coffee trees and hot pepper plants, and racking her brain on how to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. For almost certain the present incarnation of Nu was a man called Zach, who once lived in New York and joined the military at the start of the Great War. That was it - all the information Vic had to go on, except for the fact that the artist Stu James did a painting for Zach, from an image in his dreams. It was a portrait of Vic in a prehistoric landscape, dressed as a cave girl and holding the bloody head of a saber-toothed tiger. Zach said he’d be back for it, but he never returned.

New Years Eve parties and 1922 were only ten days passed. A mere eight days ago Lin worked at Mortimer’s Drug for the last time. After ten total years working as an assistant and then as a pharmacist, seven days ago Lin hosted the opening of the new Li and Mortimer Drug and Drygoods. Less than two weeks into 1923, life was good for Vic and her friends.

Life is like the sea with crests and then troughs. O called to warn Vic and Lin. Three men in O’s unit were killed in recent months. The attacks seemed random without an apparent motive until the latest attack. One assailant was spotted and identified. It was Robert Curtis, a former naval commander who was both a traitor and common criminal. Even more than for O and his unit, the man had substantial reason to seek retaliation against Vic and Lin.

Even after the warning from O about traitor Curtis, the possibility of him seeking revenge was more dream-like than real. After foiling the man’s attempt to execute them, Vic saw Lin beat him until he seemed hardly able to stand, then kick him into the raging white-water of the Colorado River. Lin ran as far as possible along the bank and watched for him, but he never surfaced.

Now, two years later he seemed responsible for the deaths of O’s men. O knew he would also seek revenge on Vic and Lin for ruining his access to people and resources as a naval commander. Humiliation at the beating was further justification to harm Vic and Lin.

O indicated that he would station men in town to watch. Vic and Lin also wanted to warn Deputy Sheriff Clyde Randolph, their friend Emma’s husband. He could be alert for suspicious strangers since Curtis might present a danger to the public.

The day after O called, the friends headed out after Lin finished work for the day. Vic and Lin stayed at the Randolph home longer than planned. They so enjoyed playing with Emma and Clyde's son, Eddie, now a year old, that Emma handily convinced them to stay for dinner. They had a delightful evening and were in high spirits when they left a bit after ten.

Life was nothing but pleasant and exciting since their return from Siberia. Vic held great hope for finding Nu’s present incarnation. Lin was on top of the world with the opening of her own drugstore. Both were feeling nothing but optimistic as Lin guided her Lizzy back toward Beatrice.

It was a conspicuously dark New Moon night. High, thin clouds didn’t entirely hide the stars but diffused their fine light considerably. At ground level, Vic and Lin could see only a narrow and short stretch of the gravel road in the headlights.

They were only a mile and a little from the Randolph home, cruising about twenty miles-per-hour and enjoying talk of their evening. Beatrice was four miles yet, and there were no other homes for the next mile. They were at a section where a three-foot-deep irrigation ditch ran along both sides of the road. Beyond those were scrub brushm small trees, and barren winter fields. From inside the Lizzy, it looked like black walls paralleled the road.

Vic was looking ahead a few yards, and in the darkness, she saw a tiny flash of light. It wasn’t bright; it was only visible a second. Vic asked herself what it might be and was about to ask Lin if she saw it. Before she asked, though, the hair stood on her neck, and she got goose skin. Then the answer whispered from her subconscious. It looked like a match.

When Vic reached out and touched Lin’s arm, her friend saw the look on Vic’s face and knew she sensed danger. It was