Horror From Below
HORROR FROM BELOW
A Brant & Archer Pre-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller
Book 1
By
JT Sawyer
Copyright March 2020, Horror From Below, by JT Sawyer
Edited by Emily Nemchick
Cover art by EbookLaunch.com
No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, scanned, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Join JT Sawyer’s Facebook page to follow his book research and to get updates on future releases. You can also sign up to be a part of his reading team at JTSawyer.com.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
AFTERWORD
Additional Titles by JT Sawyer
About the Author
Non-Fiction Survival Books by Tony Nester (aka JT Sawyer):
Prologue
Dragoon Island, Somewhere in the South Pacific
Hiroshi Kimura had killed before but nothing on this scale. The body count from his experiments had increased so much in recent weeks that it had become necessary to hire extra recruits from Malaysia to assist with the disposal of the disease-ridden corpses. Kimura removed his blood-soaked nitrile gloves as he exited the bio-containment lab in Building Three, deep in the jungle. After passing through a series of chlorine showers while removing his soiled biohazard suit, oxygen tank, and boots, he donned a clean set of garments and chose flip-flops instead of another set of sweaty boots. Stepping beyond the exit door into the intense sunlight, he felt the heat rush in to envelop his exposed skin. Kimura sucked in a deep breath, relishing the pleasant smell of decaying jungle vegetation over the memory of the sterile oxygen that he’d been restricted to breathing during the past two hours of viral research.
He thought of the last test subject, a young man in his twenties with a wispy goatee and shaggy black hair. Earlier that morning, the subject had shown promise early on after receiving the deadly injection of synthesized viral samples formulated in Kimura’s lab three months ago. His dictated notes reverberated through Kimura’s weary brain as he walked along the narrow trail towards his jeep. He saw his second-in-command, Ronny Tengu, step out from his air-conditioned Tacoma while leaving the engine running. The sinewy figure was clad in green khaki pants and a short-sleeved tan shirt, which clung to his muscular frame. He rested one hand on the .45 pistol on his hip while clutching a thick manila envelope in his other.
“Good day, sir,” said Tengu. “I have some news that I think you will appreciate.”
Kimura cleared his throat, then spit on a gray boulder to his left as he walked up. “Nothing good today, yesterday, or last week to revel in.” He glanced back at the research buildings.
“Maybe those street hustlers we keep abducting for you from the mainland have weak constitutions. I can tell my men to focus on fisherman instead—they might have better endurance.”
“Subject 2214 held so much promise. He survived the anticipated increase in his body core temperature and then began exhibiting the usual violent tendencies, killing his fellow inmates through mauling and evisceration. He lasted for three hours, finally succumbing to massive hemorrhaging.” Kimura watched a hawk soar in a straight line over an opening in the canopy. “He reanimated twenty-two minutes afterwards, much sooner than any of the other subjects, giving me hope that this viral load was the answer I’d been searching for.”
Kimura leaned against the jeep, folding his arms as a bead of sweat ran down from his bald head. He spoke like he was dictating his notes, realizing that he felt the need to review his undertakings aloud while knowing that most of his information would drift beyond the reach of Tengu. “Brainwave monitors indicated his cerebral functions were inactive, as I’d hoped, but then he collapsed seven minutes later.” He clenched his jaw, stepping away from the vehicle to smash a small lizard under his flip-flop. “I’ve been on the right track for weeks but just can’t seem to progress beyond this stage and isolate the missing component.”
“I thought you said that was a missing link that was lost to the annals of time.”
“It would seem so—the original research done during the early days of this particular virus was undertaken by an esteemed physician in the Imperial Navy. He had managed to obtain his sample from an isolated monkey population on a small island—amidst the other three thousand fucking islands in this region.” He waved his hands in the air. “I have tried other viral specimens, but that one was rumored to have unique properties that could potentially generate the results I need.”
Tengu thrust his thick hand forward, passing him the envelope. “As I said, I think you will find this of great interest.”
Kimura slowly took hold of it, unlashing the fine string wrapped around the bronze fastener in the center, then raised an eyebrow while glancing up at Tengu.
“I told you I still have some connections back at the agency in Japan. They unearthed this classified document from the archives of the Imperial Navy based upon the information you gave me on that physician on board.”
Kimura slid the contents out, scanning the yellowed papers, which contained typed notes taken directly from Emperor Hirohito eight months before Japan’s surrender.
“The photo—examine the photo,” said Tengu, whispering over Kimura’s shoulder.
Kimura separated out the large black-and-white photo of a submarine docked at the Sasebo Naval Arsenal near Nagasaki. It showed the entire crew of one hundred and twenty sailors standing at attention, with the officers adorned in white uniforms on the far right.
Kimura stood up straight, moving the photograph closer as his eyes narrowed. His gaze intensified as he focused on an officer who was missing his left arm, the white cloth of his uniform pinned up to the shoulder fabric. Kimura felt his mouth go dry, then he looked at the lower right corner, where there was a handwritten date of 1941 along with LAT/LONG coordinates for the final resting place of the sunken vessel.
“Is he the one who did the initial research?” said Tengu.
Kimura felt the blood return to his face as he cleared his throat. The corners of his lips cracked slightly as a faint grin crept out. “Patient zero, yes—the old notes in my keeping revealed he was the one who tested the original virus on himself while their submarine headed towards the eastern Pacific in a last-ditch effort at attacking the Americans on their own shores.” He grabbed Tengu’s shoulder and squeezed it with gusto. Kimura’s teeth showed through his growing smile as a vein in his neck bulged. His eyes were transfixed by the photograph for a
minute, then he pivoted around and faced Tengu.
“Not only will you be well-compensated for this tremendous find, but my organization is extending your contract—and this time, it won’t involve sweating your ass off in the jungle.”
Chapter 1
October 29
Two Weeks Later
Point Loma, San Diego
Detective Lindsey Brant exited her blue Crown Vic and scanned the terrain on the beach ahead. Other than a few pesky seagulls trotting along the shoreline and several officers standing watch around the other entrances, the place was empty. It was a windy October day, and the recent tropical storm had spread trash, decaying fish, and driftwood everywhere along the shoreline. Her honey-blonde hair was being tossed around the shoulders of her gray suitcoat as she slid on a pair of amber sunglasses and walked across the vacant parking lot, which had been closed earlier by the first officers on the scene.
This was an isolated pocket known only to the locals in the area, and she liked the fact that this region hadn’t made it into the online tourist guides and become overrun like all of the other outlets dotting the southern coastline. Brant saw a lanky figure exiting his black vehicle out of the corner of her eye and knew from his stride that it was detective Darrell Emerson. His irritated expression wasn’t a surprise, since Brant had called him on his day off.
He tugged on his jacket sleeves as he strode towards her. “My wife said she’s gonna have a word with you at our next barbecue if you keep yankin’ me away from her on my rare time off from work.” He waved his hand in the air, his voice becoming high-pitched. “‘That Brant is always pushing you too hard—even Superman needed a day off once in a while.’”
Brant frowned. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what she said. More like, ‘I’m gonna high-five Brant for the sweet overtime check that my husband’s got coming our way.’”
They walked down the steps onto the beach, Brant slightly ahead of Emerson. “You saying she married me for my bank account? She’s from an east side, workin’-class part of San Diego, not one of those bubbleheads with the glittery nails and silicone curves from L.A.”
“I’m glad you aren’t known for casting aspersions or lumping people into stereotypes—because one of your strengths has always been your complete objectivity,” she said, dragging out the last word.
He nodded. “Damn straight. That’s why you called me and the rest of the crew today—on my day off; did I mention that?”
She brushed a fly away from her cheek. “This crime scene sounds bizarre. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen in a while, according to the responding officers and the initial interviews they did with the locals.” She trudged through the sand towards her coroner, Emily Hadden, who was already hunched over the splayed victim.
A thick cloud of flies and seagulls was kept adrift by the offshore breeze, but they occasionally descended for a closer look when the wind temporarily ceased. The aroma of saltwater was replaced by the piercing stench of the bloated carcass of a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Brant squinted as she approached, more from the stinging smell than from the sun.
Hadden stood up from her squatting position and gave both of them a nod, then motioned with her blue-gloved hand for them to come around to her right.
“Looks like the vic was playing vampire tag,” she said, pointing to the bite marks and gaping wounds on the Asian man’s neck. “A local runner came across the body around sunrise.”
“Doesn’t look like a shark bite, so what do you make of that?” Brant said as the coroner gently prodded the torn flesh around the trachea with a stainless-steel probe.
“At first glance, I thought it was a dog mauling, but these puncture wounds aren’t deep enough, and the edges are far too jagged. This looks like it was done by another person—reminds me of that case a few years back with that psycho wrestler who bit up his victims.”
“Yeah, the dude who had a thing for chomping off the right ears of his vics before snapping their necks,” said Emerson as he wrung his hands together like he was choking someone. “I heard those ears never did turn up either.”
Brand smirked. “That joke wasn’t funny the first twenty times, Emerson, so can it already.” She removed her sunglasses then knelt down beside Hadden and studied the body, noting the man’s large hands and sinewy arms. She glanced up at the mangled neckline, which showed raw strands of exposed muscles around the shattered clavicle, as if the man had plunged headfirst through a tunnel of razor-wire. She felt the taste of her morning coffee wash away as she swallowed. After the past four years as a detective and double that as a uniformed police officer, the sight of blood didn’t bother her, but the macabre deaths like this were always unsettling because they were seldom motivated by logic or passion like most murders. Is this the result of some deranged lunatic hanging around the beach, stalking people out by themselves? She hoped Hadden was mistaken about the wounds being inflicted by another person but trusted her coroner enough to know that she was seldom wrong about such things.
She cleared her throat. “From his appearance, I’d say this guy’s a regular on the water—surfer, maybe, or fisherman,” Brant said, moving closer and scrunching her eyebrows together while examining his fingertips. “Are those splinters under his fingernails?”
“I hadn’t gotten to that yet,” said Hadden, who grabbed a pair of tweezers and removed some fragments from under the nailbeds, placing them in a clear vial from her field kit. “No ID on him,” added Hadden, tapping the orange life-vest on the man.
“Probably had it on his boat, wherever that’s at,” said Emerson, glancing up at the horizon.
“I already notified the Coast Guard on my way here,” said Brant. She scanned the body, her eyes sifting along the nylon fabric of his shirt, which looked like a cheap import with its single row of stitching along the shoulders. His yellow teeth coupled with cheeks that resembled waxed rawhide indicated someone whose face had spent too many years north of a cigarette. His nose was slightly flattened, and Brant figured, with the overly bulbous knuckles on both hands, that he had been in more than a few street fights. Probably not a surfer—they usually take better care of themselves. “Wonder if this guy could have washed up as a result of the turbulent waters last night. Maybe he fell overboard?” said Brant. “What’s the time of death?”
“Based on the lividity, I’d say anywhere between 10–12 pm last night,” said Hadden, blowing a lock of black hair off her nose. “He’s not very tenderized yet, so he probably floated in the water for a while before ending up here before midnight.”
Emerson smirked and shook his head. “So that’s your technical term, ‘tenderized’—they teach you that at Stanford?”
Hadden bit her lower lip. “At least I went to college.”
“Ouch,” said Brant. “I’d be careful tangling with her—remember, she’s a fencing champ.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen her pretty little costume with the beekeeper’s mask.” Emerson narrowed his eyes at Hadden. “Besides, college is overrated. I received my education in the real world—on the job.”
“Writing tickets to seniors double-parking their golf carts in La Jolla doesn’t count,” said Hadden, who was chuckling.
“I thought you drove a Ford Taurus, not a golf cart. Geez, how old are you, Hadden?”
“Trust me, you’ve got me beat in the age department by a long shot.”
Brant ignored the usual banter of her colleagues. They had worked under her long enough that she felt as if they were her own family. Despite how her staff playfully mocked each other, Brant knew that it was all intended to let off steam from dealing with the worst of humanity in a job that rarely saw them with time off. Since the economy tanked a few years ago, the city had cut a lot of her department’s personnel, and everyone was double-booked with cases. Most of them were homicides or burglaries, but very rarely did any of them involve fatalities of this gruesome nature.
She studied the deceased figure again and then panned her head out to the wa
ves, the whitecaps crashing into the boulder-strewn shoreline twenty yards away. “So, he was fishing offshore, falls overboard, and then gets mauled by someone on the beach who just happens to have the midnight munchies for a dead body?” She looked at the shredded neckline. “But where’s the damn boat?”
Before anyone could comment, Brant heard soft footfalls in the sand behind her and turned to see her other detective trotting up to them. Keith Halsey was a barrel-chested figure who had once been a star quarterback in college before a shoulder injury changed his career, and, right now, he looked like he had just intercepted the ball.
“Hey, nothing else showed up on the vic in the surrounding parking lots, although his wallet was located about a quarter-mile south of here. I called his name in already. Get this—the name on his driver’s license is from someone who died in the seventies,” he said, looking down at the clear plastic evidence bag with the black wallet.
“So, smuggler or dope-runner, maybe?” said Emerson. “Those guys usually roll with fake IDs like that.”
“We also found a busted wooden oar with streaks of blood on it about two hundred yards from here. You’re gonna love this.” Halsey tucked his notebook in his pants pocket. “Our guys combing the beach to the south just found a decomposing corpse with its head missing—and the dude is dressed like a naval officer, with medals and everything. Only it’s vintage-type clothing, like from World War II.”
****
After twenty minutes of walking through the wet sand, Brant and her crew arrived at a knee-high mound of driftwood, tangles of old fishing line, and assorted beer cans. The area was sectioned off with crime-scene tape wrapped around hastily placed rebar stakes. The fair-skinned police officer standing watch stepped back, his sleeve covering his mouth as he pointed to the far side of the debris pile. As Brant stepped on the crunchy substrate of discarded plastic bottles and seashells, she heard the buzzing of thousands of flies crawling over the rotting corpse. The mass of insects momentarily dispersed as she approached.
The body was short in stature, especially in the absence of a head, but still only around five feet tall. The skin was mottled blue and gray with deep ulcerations. The face was covered in large pustules, some of which had been pierced open by the claws of tiny crabs flitting over the desiccated cheeks. The figure was clad in faded white fatigues whose edges were frayed and moldy. On the feet were a pair of algae-covered black leather boots whose laces were long since gone. Most of the flesh was missing from the fingers, with only the bony protrusions remaining, like an electric cord stripped of its outer mantle. Adorning the left shoulder was an inscription of the Imperial Japanese Navy below a nearly threadbare patch of a red sun. Attached to the left breast pocket of the white jacket were two tarnished medals, both of which were inscribed with kanji characters reminding Brant of a Shinto shrine she once visited in Kyoto.