Fiends of the Hub: God's Evil, #1

By JS Carter Gilson

Violence. Detective Brooke Scanlon of the Boston Police has seen it before. Terrorism. Murder. Mass casualty events. But she's never seen the sort of animal brutality waiting for her at this apartment complex, a blood soaked nightmare with only one survivor.

Vengeance. Scott Reid was looking forward to a quiet life with his bride-to-be. But now she's gone and he keeps finding himself in more and more dangerous situations, pushed to the edge, knowing the one thing he truly wants is the one thing out of his reach.

Vampires. It's the word no one wants to say out loud. It's craziness. They'd take you away, take you off the case. But how else to explain the bestial nature of the attacks, the exsanguination, the complete lack of motive? How to explain except that the vicious attacks were carried out by the voracious undead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JS Carter Gilson
• Release date: Apr 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201803599

JS Carter Gilson

JS Carter Gilson lives in New Hampshire with his wife, two cats and two guinea pigs. He is the author of The Deep Space Cargoist series and Fiends of the Hub. You can find him on social media where he would love to know if you liked this novel.

Book preview

[The] Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1858

THAT'S IT, MAN. GAME over, man. Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?

- Private Hicks, Aliens

CHAPTER ONE

Margie had the dream that night. She was standing at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth, walking past the medical tent toward the finish line. Unlike that day, she knew what was coming. She knew it was a dream, but that didn't make the dread any less real.

She kept walking forward, kept looking for Scott. No, she didn't know Scott. Well, she would after that day. But she knew that at this point she didn't know him.

Then the bombs went off. And as always happened in the dream she was blown off her feet and into the street. She watched it happen in the third person, because she was now above it all. She watched her lifeless body bleed out. She screamed out, and that was what finally woke her up.

That wasn't what had happened in reality, of course. On the day, when the bombs went off, she wasn't close enough to get knocked over. But she felt the shockwaves and the heat. She felt completely lost and was led off by the hand to the tent where the runners were supposed to go. She was bleeding from shrapnel that had hit her forehead, though she hadn't really felt it at the time. She still had the scar, a faint crescent moon right below her hairline.

She had been going to the finish line to cheer on her roommate. Her roommate who was still a half mile from the finish line when the bombs went off.

It had been an absolutely gorgeous day, and a perfect day to hold the Marathon. Of course, they would have held the Marathon if it was snowing, or if it was a hurricane. That's just the way it was in Boston. Things happen because they are supposed to happen, freak timing be damned.

Margie made sure Scott was in bed with her, feeling the heat of his back on the palm of her hand, and turned over. She picked up her phone and checked her email, and then checked news sites. A few times when she had the dream there were bad things going on that she didn't know about until after. It was about 4:30 in the morning, and nothing bad had been reported.

She gave out a long sigh, glad that it was just the dream and nothing weird. Now she needed to get back to sleep somehow. She did what she often did to relax these days, and went to check on the wedding registry.

She hadn't actually wanted to do a registry. She and Scott had lived together for a few years now, and they had most of the things that they needed. Sure, some were from the Goodwill and Boomerangs, but they weren't dying to own a new blender. However, Scott insisted, and after spending a ridiculously fun afternoon in Target with a scanner gun (only about half the time pretending that it was laser tag), she and Scott had a fairly lengthy wish list.

They were getting married in just over a month, and she was going to be dropping off the second round of invitations at the post office today on her way to work. The majority were for friends they knew wouldn't be able to make it. Beyond Marcie, her maid of honor (and the roommate who was running the Marathon), and Sian, Scott's best man, neither of them really knew who was going to come.

Margie was reawakened by her phone landing on her nose, so she finally turned it off and turned over to hold onto Scott.

SCOTT'S ALARM WENT off, forcing him to try and find where it was. Not that it wasn't always in the same place, but he always had trouble finding it when he was just waking up.

While he was pawing for it, he got an elbow in the ear as Margie started to reach for it as well. He finally managed to turn it off and extract himself from his fiancée. Pretty much all he could see of her was her forehead and her bright pink hair. She told him she'd dye it brown again for the wedding, but honestly, as long as she was there she could have a rainbow colored mohawk and he would be happy.

Her parents, that was another matter.

Scott reluctantly crawled out of bed and made his way to the shower. One of the few perks of this apartment was really good water pressure most of the time, and fairly consistent hot water. Otherwise, it was a crappy one bedroom apartment in a building from the post-brutalist-but-still-butt-ugly 1980s school of design, and while it didn't fit in the rest of the neighborhood's triple-deckers, it also didn't stand out.

The neighborhood wasn't too bad. There were Asian and Indian groceries in walking distance, and a Shaw's that you could get to on the bus. There was great Mexican and Vietnamese food and the T was only a few blocks away.

After showering, Scott located his pants in the bedroom and kissed his fiancée on the forehead, and then he went back out to the kitchen. He pushed a stack of RSVPs that they had received this week out of the way of the coffeemaker and put his mug under the spout.

It was a 2013 Red Sox World Series mug, and since the Sox had just been eliminated in the first round, again, it seemed appropriate.

Once his had stopped brewing he swapped in Margie's mug, which looked like a black corset. Margie loved wearing corsets (which Scott found odd, but she also looked damned sexy in them, so he wasn't going to argue). She wore one on their first proper date, where she had insisted that they go to the Goth night at a club.

He was pretty sure he fell in love with her that night, though he didn't allow himself to say anything. He'd been in love so many times in his life that when the real thing came in, he was over-cautious.

He added sugar and cream and took the coffees into the bedroom. Margie had just gotten out of the shower, and was standing in front of the closet deciding what she wanted to wear. Scott put the coffee down and kissed her on the side of the neck.

Now, now, she said, while melting into his chest, we'll never get to work that way.

Scott grunted, and turned on the TV.

"...massacre outside of Savannah. The current estimates are fifteen overnight workers at the textile plant were killed by an at this time unknown assailant, assumed to be a former worker at the plant.

Meanwhile, in Toledo—

Uh, turn that off, Margie said, and then reached over and turned it off herself. There's too much evil in the world to deal with it this early in the morning.

MARGIE PUSHED THE FRONT door of the apartment building open and walked out. Something felt strange, and it wasn't until she saw the homeless man staring at her that she could put a name to it.

That guy's staring at me, she said to Scott, who was coming out behind her.

What guy?

The homeless guy.

Fitch?

That's not Fitch. Fitch was a gregarious homeless man who was often on their block. They would usually slip him a dollar when he was out there, just because he was a nice guy. This wasn't a nice guy staring at them.

Come on, Scott said. Let's get to the T.

They walked the three blocks to the Blue Line station and waved their Charlie Cards at the turnstile (Scott's took two tries), and got seats on the first train that was heading downtown.

SCOTT GOT OFF FIRST, at Aquarium. He kissed Margie quickly and ducked out the doors before they closed. He actually had to walk for a few blocks to get where he was going, but it worked for him. His day started half an hour later than Margie's, at 8:30, but he liked to have time to settle in and read the news, so the two of them coming in together was good.

He got a discomfited feeling as he was riding up the escalator, and noticed a woman (he thought it was a woman), completely filthy, in ripped up clothes with odd stains on them. Homeless, to be sure, but she was looking right at him, and not in the dead-eyed, begging for money sort of way. There was something in her eyes, and after a bit he had to look away.

Thankfully, she didn't accost him as he went past. He'd had run-ins with overzealous (and probably unstable) homeless people in the past. Ones just barreling right at him without even waiting for him to say no. He never pressed charges the few times a cop had seen it. They were in more need of a shelter than jail.

After Margie's feeling outside the apartment building, though, he might just need to keep a closer look out for that sort of thing.

He emerged into the not yet bright morning light. Clear skies today and a slightly crisp feel to the air. Fall was definitely here.

They had decided on a fall wedding even before they had made any plans to get married. Summer would be too hot, but winter would make it tricky for people to get in, given how unpredictable the last several had been. Spring was out because Margie had horrible allergies, especially for oak pollen. She didn't want to be getting married with a tissue jammed up her nose.

So fall it was, and then it was just a matter of actually getting engaged.

He'd gotten his current job after a long period of unemployment. His last employer had pulled up stakes and left Boston completely, without a lot of warning, and during a time that there wasn't a lot of hiring going on. When he got hired again, Margie took him out to get sushi and drink a lot, and in the middle of that, she had popped the question.

Scott got into work, early as usual, and pulled up the Globe's website. The main headline read, 68 Dead in Separate Attacks, and the subhead read, Georgia and Ohio authorities do not believe attacks are linked.

Just outside of Savannah, GA, a textile mill's third shift was brutally attacked by an assailant or assailants currently unknown. In Toledo, OH, it was a steel mill, and authorities believe they shot and killed the one responsible, according to leaks. They aren't saying anything officially.

A chat window popped up on Scott's screen. It was a co-worker from another department.

Ashley: did u see about those people going postal in OH and GA?

Scott: they haven't said that's what it was.

Ashley: of corse thats what it was. think that would happen here?

Scott: I doubt it. security is too strong.

Scott was referring to their usual security guard on the building, who was about 18, 5'5" and 120lbs if he was soaking wet. Scott was honestly surprised the kid could talk without his voice cracking.

Scott just pulled up his email to let Margie know he'd gotten in safely, something he did every morning, and there was already an email from her.

God, those poor people. It's so weird having two shootings in one day like that. Let me know you're in.

He wrote back, I'm in. You know, it's odd. Nothing in the reporting I've read actually says they were shootings. Just attacks. That's usually what they would lead with.

He sent the email, and got up to go get some coffee.

MARGIE READ SCOTT'S email, but tried to put it out of her mind. It was true, they weren't being called shootings. But if she thought about it too much, she wouldn't be able to concentrate on what she was doing.

She ran the chromosomal analysis program on the computer and set it to forward the results to her manager. She had about a half dozen more analyses to set up this morning, and about the same to set up for G-banding after lunch.

She turned and knocked her coffee off the counter, but somehow managed to catch it before any spilled out, musing that there was never anyone around to see when she did something awesome like that. She swallowed the rest before getting up to grab the next G-band for analysis.

Ramirez, she heard someone say behind her. It was her manager, Phil. He only ever called her by her last name, which annoyed her.

You know, you're going to have to get used to calling me something entirely different soon.

Yeah, like that's going to happen. Anyway, there's a rush job I want you to do. The State Police lab is a few months behind, so the DA called my boss, who called me, and now I'm telling you to get this done.

What are we running on it?

Everything. This is your top priority today.

Margie noticed he wasn't carrying anything with him. Where is the sample?

A courier will be dropping it off shortly.

Alright. I'll get the lab ready. Anything else?

Nice catch. He walked out as a smile drew across her lips.

SCOTT HEARD A GASP from a cube a few down from his. It sounded like Shelly. A number of his coworkers joined him in standing, looking like prairie dogs.

He got to the cubicle first, and saw what caused the gasp. A news headline plastered on the screen said 42 dead in Nursing Home attack.

He put his hand on Shelly's shoulder comfortingly, and she looked up at him with incomprehension in her eyes. Shelly was in her early 20s and usually treated the world with disdain. Now she seemed to be lost.

What the fuck is going on, Scott? she said in a small voice.

He then heard a throat clearing behind them. It was their manager, Rick. Everybody, he said, loud enough for the room to hear him, come in close. We need to talk about today.

The rest of the staff came in and surrounded Rick. Shelly was holding onto Scott's hand tightly and hadn't stood up.

We know that some terrible things have happened today. At least five cities clear across the country have had inexplicable attacks, and it's only natural to be shocked and distressed by this.

Wait, five? thought Scott. But Rick was continuing.

"But we are still doing an important job here. People are using the medical equipment that we support, and providing that support will save lives today. We need to keep it together so that when calls come, we are able to assist the medical professionals using our devices.

We save lives every day, and today it may well be more important than ever before. Stay strong, and we will make it through this dark day.

People were nodding around Scott, and he had to admit that Rick had a point. Shelly had finally let go of Scott's hand, and he gave her a reassuring (he hoped) smile, before returning to his cubical.

Sure enough, there on the Boston Globe's website, reports of two additional incidents, including one near the Pentagon and one in Texas, which had been reported earlier but hadn't been connected to the overall story yet.

He checked his email, and there was a new message from Margie. Did you see that Nursing Home in San Marino? We drive right by that when visiting my parents. What the fuck is happening?

Scott replied, We just got a St. Crispins day speech here to keep on keeping on. There's nothing good about today. Love you.

Something was bothering Scott about the stories, and he went and reread them. None of the stories referred to shootings, just attacks. But on the other hand, none of the stories mentioned survivors, either. They were all discovered by people who came upon the scene after the attack had ended.

Five attacks, nearly 200 people dead. If it wasn't coordinated, then what was it?

But who would coordinate something like this and not have people using guns? Just from a logical standpoint, it didn't make a lot of sense.

Another news alert popped up, and Scott looked at it. Toledo official: Like 'wild animals' set loose was the headline. The official, who did not have permission to speak to the press and so was unnamed (and probably out of a job in five minutes), said that it looked like lions or hyenas had ripped the bodies apart. He also said they were going to have trouble identifying all of them based on how badly they were injured.

There was no official comment on the leak, and the other attack sites didn't comment on it either. For the first time that day, Scott felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

MARGIE FINISHED PREPARING the rush tray and set it to run the first stage of analysis. She usually listened to music on her headphones, but today she was listening to the news. She tried turning it off, but as isolated as she felt in general, she felt worse trying to ignore it.

It had been a few hours since the last report of an attack, but the knot in her stomach hadn't lessened at all.

She thought about the dream again. The damn dream. She always died in the dream, always had a wound on her neck that bled out. It didn't make a lot of sense, really. The reason so many of the survivors lost legs was that the shrapnel stayed pretty low. Her own injury, which was caused by a very small piece of metal, was an anomaly.

Her hand again went to her forehead where she traced the edges of the scar under her bright pink bangs. It was actually getting close to time for her to clock out, and there wasn't enough time to start another analysis. She pulled up her email and sent Scott a message.

MARGIE'S EMAIL READ, Heading out now. I'll text you so you know I got home safely. Scott checked his watch. He still had half an hour to kill, and the phones were not ringing. He checked the news again. It was just habit at this point.

The stories were now confirming that there had been no survivors at any of the attacks. Still, there was no official comment on the nature of the attackers, and nothing to corroborate the story from Toledo.

There was nothing to dispute it, either, though. The dread of the day was being converted to frustration with the lack of information.

Finally, his time was up and he shut down the computer. He checked his phone