Wretched Retribution Read online

  Wretched Retribution

  E.G. Michaels

  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

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  The Story Continues…

  Author Notes and Acknowledgments

  Wretched Retribution

  Copyright © E.G. Michaels 2019

  The author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified under this pen name as the creator of this work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed, or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the author.

  TITLES BY E.G. Michaels

  THE WRETCHED SERIES

  The Wretched

  Wretched Culling

  Wretched Retribution

  Operation Flashpoint (A Wretched Series Novella)

  KYLE SIMMONS SERIES

  Before The Clock Strikes

  The Countdown

  On The Clock

  Time’s Up

  Every Minute Counts

  On Borrowed Time

  COLE HUTCHINSON BOOKS

  Gone Too Far

  Prologue

  Six Days Ago

  Location: Bergstrom Biogenics

  Gerald Giles had never been more terrified in his life. He tugged on the restraints keeping his arms secured to the treatment table. The straps quickly confirmed his fears: They were more than capable of keeping him from moving. Giles was not a physically imposing man. Despite regularly working out in the prison weight room, he hadn’t managed to build up his physique. He’d been trying to get bigger physically for the last five years, but his muscles refused to grow much more. Maybe the blame lay partly on his lack of understanding on how to weight train like a bodybuilder or even a powerlifter.

  Of course, Giles’s area of expertise was something completely different. At one point, he’d been a prolific computer hacker with dozens of successful cyber breaches that had gone undetected. He was one of the top cyber thieves in the world, maybe even the best one of them all. But that all changed the one time he made a mistake and got caught. Of course, hindsight was always 20/20. Deciding to steal three million dollars from the Sanlucci family had been a bad decision. The organized crime family noticed the missing funds and launched their investigation which left nothing to chance. Several days later, their enforcers showed up at his nondescript home and demanded their money back with heavy interest and penalties. In the heat of the moment, he’d panicked, pulled the secondhand revolver he’d kept for personal protection, and shot one of the men. When the dust settled, he was in jail for murder and cyber crimes. The Sanluccis pulled an expected move and began calling in owed favors. Then he’d heard through the grapevine they’d contracted several other hackers to track down every other cyber crime Giles had ever pulled. The district attorney’s office must have thought Christmas came early that year when they found a manila envelope left under the office door. Inside there was a flash drive containing enough evidence to put Giles behind bars for one hundred years worth of non-consecutive sentences. That was going to be a lot of years filled with the usual prison lifestyle and periodic attempts on his life. He’d been lucky to survive four attempts so far, but Giles knew he was on borrowed time. Sooner or later, he was going to wind up dead with a homemade shiv in his body, compliments of the Sanluccis.

  That was why he’d agreed to do this study. He’d bought their story hook, line, and sinker. He was going to receive a one-time injection of an experimental medicine that could rapidly increase his muscle mass with no side effects. The idea of being much bigger physically meant his chances of fending off a future attacker might become considerably higher.

  But now, he was regretting that he ever agreed to participate in this scientific study. Heck, he was kicking himself that he hadn’t told Dwayne Haas what he’d recently discovered. Giles glanced over at the man, who was also confined. Haas was a huge, violent man that few other people ever wanted to cross. They had somehow formed an unlikely friendship but one that had benefited both men. Haas kept Giles safe from harm. Giles used his extensive computer skills to hack the prison library computer and create a private Internet access portal that Haas could use to avoid any security software or Internet blockers the prison had installed on their computers. With this unrestricted access, his friend could view whatever he wanted online. Considering some of the things Giles had cleaned from the browser history, Haas was regularly viewing things that would likely land him in solitary confinement for weeks or months at a time.

  Giles heard a sound and turned his head toward it. He saw Doctor Bergstrom coming toward him with a large syringe in his hand. Giles felt his heart begin to pound a little faster.

  “Hey, Doc, what’s this stuff do again?”

  “It’s a healing agent,” Bergstrom said with a fake smile. “It accelerates your healing speed.”

  “I thought you said it would build up my muscles really fast.”

  “You’re right,” Bergstrom said. “My mistake. It’s a healing agent.”

  “Uh-huh,” Giles said skeptically. His gut feeling told him that the doctor was lying. “I don’t have any injuries right now.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Bergstrom answered. “We’ll give you this medicine. After we know it’s had time to spread through your whole body, we’ll create a substantial wound on your body.”

  “Wait, what do you mean substantial?”

  “Something that will be easily noticeable,” Bergstrom said. He began to prep a needle in plain view.

  Giles felt a wave of fear come over him. “L-like a cut on my arm?” he stammered.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Doc, you didn’t answer my question. I want to know—” Giles let out a yell as the needle slammed into his exposed arm. “Damn, Doc, you could have warned me first.”

  “It’ll take a few minutes until you began to feel the effects,” Bergstrom said with a detached clinical voice. “Until then, it’s best if you just lie still
and relax as best as you can.”

  Giles struggled to lift his head, and as he did, the room began to suddenly blur. “Doc, I don’t feel—” Giles began to say. The next thing he knew, everything had gone black, and he was unconscious.

  Giles awoke with a start. He lifted his head and began to take in his surroundings. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious, and the idea that he may have lost a significant amount of time brought a feeling of fear coursing forward. There was something wrong with his eyes. Giles blinked and tried to focus on a nearby table. He tried blinking once more, and there was no change in his vision. Everything he looked at appeared to have a reddish tint to it. Giles heard another inmate scream.

  “We’re losing him,” Bergstrom shouted. “Somebody get me the crash cart.”

  Giles tried turning toward the doctor’s voice, but something was in his line of sight. He felt a rush of annoyance sweep over him, and he instinctively reached toward the impromptu barrier. There was a brief moment of resistance, and then he felt something give a moment before his arm swung free. His eyes fell on his newly-freed arm. There was some type of leather binding dangling loosely from his arm.

  How? How did that happen? Giles thought to himself. He glanced at his other arm and saw it had a similar, yet still intact, restraint. Giles gently pulled his arm against the binding and it held firm. A voice in his head sounded out. It began urging him to push harder, to fight against this thing trying to keep him from getting off the gurney. Giles felt a surge of power rise up from seemingly his toes toward his shoulders, and he yanked his bound arm firmly. The binding snapped as if it were made out of tissue paper, and his arm swung freely. Giles sat up, reached down, and grabbed the restraints holding his legs still. He yanked on one, and it broke with a loud snap. He stared at the newly broken restraint, trying to figure out what had happened.

  I don’t understand. Is this some kind of dream? he thought. Restraints weren’t supposed to be so easy to break. Especially for a guy like him. Giles reached over and grabbed the remaining binding and gave it a hard pull. It immediately tore, and his hand swung up easily.

  Giles swung his feet off the table and onto the floor. As he went to put his weight on his legs, his knees buckled and he crashed to the floor. The room quickly spun counterclockwise, then clockwise, before righting back to normal. He blinked twice and looked again. Everything in the room still had a reddish tint. Giles shook his head and looked around to see his surroundings. The room had quickly turned into a chaotic scene.

  “Somebody restrain him,” Bergstrom screamed.

  Giles spun toward the doctor’s voice and braced himself for a potential assault. As he turned, he saw a staff member rush to grab another inmate.

  Beeks. Something is wrong with Horatio, too, Giles thought. He saw Beeks fire a single punch toward the man’s chest, and a moment later, the orderly flew backwards and landed in a broken heap. Two more orderlies rushed toward Beeks.

  Should I help Beeks or not? Giles mentally thought.

  Giles heard a new noise and turned his head toward it. He saw an open door was slowly closing again and made an immediate snap decision. Beeks could handle himself. Especially since the man had never been particularly friendly toward him, either. If it weren’t for Haas, Giles would have likely been on the receiving end of Beeks’ prison yard bullying tactics.

  Where is he? Where’s Haas? Giles mentally thought. He scanned the tables. There were three empty tables and two dead inmates still strapped to the table in the room. Beeks was in the midst of a battle with the staff, but Haas was nowhere to be found.

  He must have gotten free. A wave of happiness surged forward, and Giles immediately made a decision. He moved toward the still closing door as quickly as he could. After two steps, he felt his body instinctively drop on all fours and began bounding toward the door. It was a strange reaction, but then Giles struggled to explain any of the new things he’d seen and felt in the last couple of minutes.

  Giles slammed into the door, and it swung back open once more. He pushed through the doorway and into the corridor. There was a glimpse of movement at the end of the hallway, and Giles blurted out, “Haas, wait!”

  Except that it didn’t sound like words. More like growls and yips. But yet, he understood what he’d tried to say.

  What the hell had Bergstrom done to them?

  He rushed down the corridor, and as he rounded the corner, something slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. He saw a raised hand full of claws and immediately growled, “Wait!”

  “Giles?” a tentative voice rumbled.

  “Yes,” Giles answered. “Haas. are you okay?”

  “No,” the man answered. He gestured toward his body. His physique had grown even larger with large patches of hair covering most of the surfaces. “Look at me.”

  “It’s the medicine,” Giles replied. “See?” He held out one of his own arms for inspection.

  “Leave me alone,” Haas growled. He turned his back toward his friend and began to slowly move away. As he did, Giles saw there was some type of strange plating on the back of the man’s arms, back, and neck.

  “Dwayne wait,” Giles said calmly. “Stop.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not alone.”

  “Really? Look at me,” Haas demanded. “They’ve turned me into some kind of freak.”

  “I know. So am I. Come with me. We’ll figure it out together.”

  “Where? Where can we go, looking like this?”

  “I know a place, not far from here,” Giles said. “We’ll start there and figure it out together. All right?”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Yes,” Giles said. “You can trust me.”

  “Okay.”

  Giles motioned for Haas to follow him. As they approached an emergency stairwell, the door suddenly swung open. Giles saw a security guard step into the hallway. A low growl came out of his throat.

  “Freeze!” the man shouted. He began to reach for something on his hip.

  There was a blur of motion past Giles’ shoulder and he saw Haas crash into the man, knocking the guard to the ground. The man’s body landed in the still-open doorway, acting as a human door wedge. Giles watched in horror as his friend pushed past the man’s defenses, latched onto his exposed throat with his teeth, and tore it open. There was an immediate arterial spray, and Giles watched in fascination as it happened. A moment later, a wave of insatiable hunger overpowered his ability to think, and he found himself joining his friend.

  A few minutes later, their hunger had been sated. The two former humans descended down the stairway and escaped into the night. Neither one was ready to talk about what had happened or what they had done. All they could do was follow an instinctive feeling to get as far away from Bergstrom Biogenics as soon as possible.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Location: Somewhere in Delaware

  The windshield wipers made a rhythmic swishing as they moved the steady rain hitting the windshield out of the way. Malcolm Foster continued to actively scan the roadway ahead for any would-be threats. Of course, thanks to the steady rain, even the Reapers were wisely staying under cover. Foster couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d driven in a rainstorm like this as a cop. He’d been an active Philadelphia police officer then. Even now, he might even still be considered a cop. Of course, once Reapers showed up, everybody’s previous occupations were rendered null and void. The entire law enforcement structure in most cities had been obliterated in a matter of hours. It had quickly become a free-for-all where only the strongest and savviest people had a fighting chance of staying alive. Foster ran a hand through his dark hair. He usually kept it high and tight to prevent perps from grabbing a handful during an arrest. But like many things, he’d put keeping his hair perfectly groomed on the back burner and focused on trying to help his group of survivors stay alive.

  It was easy to assume the Reapers were a bunch of mindless creatures. But ex
perience had taught Foster that wasn’t always true. There seemed to be some governing force controlling their actions. Sometimes they seemed to follow a packlike mentality. Other times, they seemed to be wisely following orders.

  Take the current weather. They were in Delaware, traveling along US Route 1 South. There had been a handful of the creatures along the roadway, but as the rain began, they moved as one to retreat to every nearby building or covered structure. Of course, it could be just as likely a simple common sense. Even dogs and cats knew when it was time to get the hell out of the rain. There was so much they didn’t know about the Reapers. Well, except they were bigger, faster, stronger than humans. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it was extremely hard to kill the damn things, too.

  “Do you think they're going to be okay?” a voice said, interrupting his thoughts. Foster glanced over quickly and saw Derrick Sams sitting in the passenger seat. Sams was a former Army Ranger and the resident smartass of their group. While he was known for offering periodically bad jokes, the man had proven himself repeatedly as an extremely capable fighter. And if Foster was being honest, Sams’ humor wasn’t too far off what Foster frequently heard among other police officers. Most of the time, he found it was easy to get along with Sams.