Read Online Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) by M.R. Forbes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: M.R. Forbes
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late-night news. We got past the commercials for the latest invention in slow cooking, what to do if you have diabetes, and class action lawsuit notices. It faded to a pretty young thing in a short, tight business suit.
"This is the scene from Nevada's Death Valley Yard only a short time ago," she said. The video skipped off her to some amateur footage of a line of armed men in uniform, standing atop a high wall and firing down. "According to sources, a riot broke out in the yard at around eleven o'clock, when one of the inhabitants allegedly assaulted and killed a guard."
More gunfire. Growling could be heard from off-camera, along with shouting and screaming.
"The ferals imprisoned inside overwhelmed security before breaking out into the yard itself. Reports have come in that the containment team was successful in regaining control of the situation, but not before a half dozen of the inhabitants managed to escape through a rear exit that had been abandoned during the riot."
The camera was shifting all over the place, from the men firing down into the yard, and then to the yard itself. Spotlights had been aimed at the chaos, and in it I could see the ferals; the third kind of new human. These were the creatures that were supposed to go bump in the night. The weres, the wendigo, the vampires and the like. People who were people, but who had changed in ways that made them violent, unpredictable, and an overall danger to the rest of our dysfunctional society.
The camera scanned across them. The different blocks of the yard would hold the different kinds of ferals, grouped so that they wouldn't kill one another. This one was for weres. Dozens of dead lay motionless in the bright light of the yard, their tough bones and thick, furry hides ravaged in bullet holes, blood pooled around them.
A lot of people, including leathers, hated the ferals, and would find the scene exciting. I killed people who were in the business, who knew what they were getting themselves into and the risk they were taking. My prior life had been dedicated to saving people. I saw only sadness and futility in it.
In the beginning, when the ferals had first appeared, there had been rightful terror. They needed to eat fresh meat to survive, and their new mental state didn't give them much room to discern between wild game like boar and deer, and human beings like their neighbor or their little sister Susie. Of course this led to them being hunted down without regulation or control, in many cases by their own families. Like all things fighting to survive, they had found one another and joined together, creating growing packs of violent, cannibalistic wanderers.
There was a lot of death then. A lot of destruction. Time passed. Science. We learned that one, it wasn't their fault, and two, it could happen to anyone. The mutation wasn't straight genetics. It was like a virus, able to be carried without showing symptoms, and passed along like HIV. The really shitty part? The number of people carrying it was growing, as if feral human is what we were meant to be.
"Its so sad," Dannie said.
The gunfire stopped. The camera zoomed out to take in the whole yard. There was no motion.
"According to Peter Mays, the Director of the Death Valley Yard, eight guards were killed in the riots, along with forty-six of the two hundred seventy-eight ferals in Block 'C', making it the third deadliest feral riot in history." The young reporter shifted her eyes to a new camera angle. "Residents of the area around the yard have been advised to be on the lookout for the escaped ferals, and Homeland Security has mobilized search units to locate the escapees. The National Feral Control Board has scheduled a news conference for ten o'clock tomorrow morning in response to calls for action on increasing feral violence."
"They put people in cages, and expect them to be happy?" Danelle said.
"What do you want them to do?" I didn't like the situation, but the
"This is the scene from Nevada's Death Valley Yard only a short time ago," she said. The video skipped off her to some amateur footage of a line of armed men in uniform, standing atop a high wall and firing down. "According to sources, a riot broke out in the yard at around eleven o'clock, when one of the inhabitants allegedly assaulted and killed a guard."
More gunfire. Growling could be heard from off-camera, along with shouting and screaming.
"The ferals imprisoned inside overwhelmed security before breaking out into the yard itself. Reports have come in that the containment team was successful in regaining control of the situation, but not before a half dozen of the inhabitants managed to escape through a rear exit that had been abandoned during the riot."
The camera was shifting all over the place, from the men firing down into the yard, and then to the yard itself. Spotlights had been aimed at the chaos, and in it I could see the ferals; the third kind of new human. These were the creatures that were supposed to go bump in the night. The weres, the wendigo, the vampires and the like. People who were people, but who had changed in ways that made them violent, unpredictable, and an overall danger to the rest of our dysfunctional society.
The camera scanned across them. The different blocks of the yard would hold the different kinds of ferals, grouped so that they wouldn't kill one another. This one was for weres. Dozens of dead lay motionless in the bright light of the yard, their tough bones and thick, furry hides ravaged in bullet holes, blood pooled around them.
A lot of people, including leathers, hated the ferals, and would find the scene exciting. I killed people who were in the business, who knew what they were getting themselves into and the risk they were taking. My prior life had been dedicated to saving people. I saw only sadness and futility in it.
In the beginning, when the ferals had first appeared, there had been rightful terror. They needed to eat fresh meat to survive, and their new mental state didn't give them much room to discern between wild game like boar and deer, and human beings like their neighbor or their little sister Susie. Of course this led to them being hunted down without regulation or control, in many cases by their own families. Like all things fighting to survive, they had found one another and joined together, creating growing packs of violent, cannibalistic wanderers.
There was a lot of death then. A lot of destruction. Time passed. Science. We learned that one, it wasn't their fault, and two, it could happen to anyone. The mutation wasn't straight genetics. It was like a virus, able to be carried without showing symptoms, and passed along like HIV. The really shitty part? The number of people carrying it was growing, as if feral human is what we were meant to be.
"Its so sad," Dannie said.
The gunfire stopped. The camera zoomed out to take in the whole yard. There was no motion.
"According to Peter Mays, the Director of the Death Valley Yard, eight guards were killed in the riots, along with forty-six of the two hundred seventy-eight ferals in Block 'C', making it the third deadliest feral riot in history." The young reporter shifted her eyes to a new camera angle. "Residents of the area around the yard have been advised to be on the lookout for the escaped ferals, and Homeland Security has mobilized search units to locate the escapees. The National Feral Control Board has scheduled a news conference for ten o'clock tomorrow morning in response to calls for action on increasing feral violence."
"They put people in cages, and expect them to be happy?" Danelle said.
"What do you want them to do?" I didn't like the situation, but the
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