Two Page Shorts - Nick Venom (big ebook reader txt) 📗

such a lady like yourself, who has been through multiple tours, is willing to take the opportunity?” He asked.

“A position, sir? What may that be?” Mary Jane Dennel asked.

Crude waved off the other soldier escorts and the secret service, watching as they gave him some space, enough to react if needed.

“I want you to be the leader of Task Force 147.” He told her. “I have a team, but it needs a leader. A chicken can’t lay eggs without a head, right”

“Leader?” Dennel said, raising her eyebrows. “Why are you choosing me, sir?” Crude smirked as he rubbed her arm, his touch lingering even after he retracted his arm. Dennel shuddered. Sick creepy bastard, she thought to herself. Don’t get angry, you’ll lose everything like that. Compose yourself. Breath in, breath out. You have people relying on you. I have people relying on me. 

“I see that you are fit for this position based on your record during WWIII. At 23, you are an impressive soldier. I was even blessed-” He twisted the world ‘blessed’ to make it more sinister than Dennel enjoyed. “-to get a chance to see you fighting. Well, do you accept?”

“Do you mind if I ask about the pay, sir?” Dennel asked, keeping a straight face on. 

Crude smiled before letting out a small laugh. “Your salary will increase tenfold by taking on this position and, luckily, you won’t be doing too much work. Think of the position as being in the Navy Seals, doing secret missions that the public won’t know about” 

Dennel furrowed her brow. Tenfold? That’s an interesting offer… should I take it? Well, it’s not like it’ll be any different from my time in the Bahamas, fighting with the Cubans and Puerto Ricans. 

“If you write down your offer on a legal contract, then I’ll take the position… sir.” She told him, keeping a straight face on. She didn’t want to show Crude an expression or he would use it against her. She knew how government officials worked. 

“Perfect, you’ll start today. Your comrades are waiting for you in Area S.” He informed her before turning around. He walked away from her, his bodyguards and secret service following after him.

Dennel watched as he walked away, her lips pursed. This better not have been a trap. I hope it isn't. For my family and I’s sake.

Dennel walked towards Area S, going down a restricted elevator that she was given access to. She rode the elevator down to Area S, several tens of floors underground. The elevator stopped at floor -50, forcing her to walk down several corridors as directed by the signs overhead. The signs led her to a briefing room where her new teammates were looking for her.

Once there, she noticed a friend of hers, Nate Harrison, was present. Nate Harrison furrowed his brow as he looked down at the ground, unintentionally ignoring Dennel. Harrison wore sleek carbon-black armor that resembled latex. His messy black hair dangled slightly over his eyes - his hazel eyes that were deep in thought.

Dennel approached Harrison, twirling her crimson-red hair that she had styled in a ponytail to fit into the helmet. She stared at him with her sky-blue eyes, which brightened moe and more as she closed onto her old friend.

She tapped on his shoulder, snapping him out of his concentration. Harrison jerked his head back, quickly staring at Dennel. He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in such a long time, MJ.” 

“Likewise,”

“I’m surprised that a frail-looking girl like you managed to survive world war three.” Harrison joked. “I remember thinking that you wouldn’t make it past Bootcamp.”

“I’m surprised that a handsome rich boy like you decided to join the army. And if I remember, you couldn’t do the pull-ups the first day you were there. I did three times as many as you.” Dennel joked back.

“Touche,” Harrison said before letting out a laugh. His laugh was cut short as two FBI detectives strolled into the room, quickly silencing everybody inside.

The first detective looked worn out, wielding a cigarette in his left arm and a coffee in the other. He stood in front of the room with the other detective, this one being a female, standing by his side. “Good morning, Task Force 147. My name is Jake Hankins, a detective familiar with the kidnapper. Next to me is my wife and fellow detective, Grace Strong, who is also familiar with the president’s kidnapper.”

“You know who the kidnapper is already? What’s the point of us collecting here then?” One of the soldiers named Mick Wales, a muscular man wearing the task force’s black metal armor, shouted from the back of the briefing room. His tanned face was scarred, most of the scars being over his right eye. He had luscious black hair and emerald eyes that popped amidst all of the blacks.

“Yes,” He said before glancing at the open door suspiciously. Strong went to the door and closed it, locking it. Hankins nodded at her, a non-verbal thanks, before turning back to the team. 

“Our kidnapper is a supernatural killer that goes by the name ‘Hangman’ because of his fascination with rope and his tendency to hang his victims. All of the missing cases within the last year, with the teachers and the president being the most recent, are victims of Hangman. Hangman’s real name is William Ericson. He gained his supernatural powers through toxic runoff from companies being dumped into his village’s water source. The toxic waste killed his family, friends, and fellow villagers, leaving him with an itch for revenge, leading to his recent killings.” Hankins informed the soldiers. 

The soldiers nodded their heads as they absorbed the information. “This task force will be led by newly appointed Captain Mary Jane Dennel.” He pointed at her, singling her out. “She will serve as your captain moving forward. Aside from her, this task force will consist of Nate Harrison, Mick Wales, Roxy Woodole, Donna Breson, Ulanda Naju, and ourselves. Grace and I will be acting as supervisors”

“Any questions?” Strong asked.

“Yeah… when do we start?” Wales asked

Hankins smirked. “Today,”

***

Task Force 147 was loaded into a Swat truck with their gear prepared. Already dressed in their armor, they were stacked with assault rifles. The team moved forward based on tips received from the hotline about an abandoned warehouse being filled with screams and shouts. They also relied on information given to them through a hacker that worked for the government known as Rick ‘Unknown’ Seld who managed to track the president’s location to the same abandoned warehouse. Both of these tips leading to the same building prompted the team to roll their way to the warehouse. The abandoned warehouse, nicknamed the ‘Slaughterhouse’, was in a poor district of Chicago. Passersby reporters felt a strange, almost-chilling atmosphere being emitted from the building. Anybody living even a few miles away from the warehouse filed reports and sent them to the police, but the reports were often thrown away at the discretion of a certain corrupt and tearful police chief that Hankins ran into before. Fortunately, Rick was able to tap into the filed complaint reports and managed to use that information to zero into the location. 

Hankins cleared his throat, directing the attention to himself. He stood in the back of the SWAT truck. “We’ll be charging into a building that we don’t have much information about. Remain on guard at all times. We’re not sure about Hangman’s strengths and weaknesses so don’t underestimate him. Is that clear?” The team nodded, gripping their weapons tightly.

The driver, meanwhile, drove the truck to the front side of the abandoned warehouse. The driver glanced over his right shoulder through the small barred window that connected the driver’s cab and the back of the truck. “Contact me when the mission is completed, I’ll be a few blocks away.”

“You’re not staying here?” Hankins asked him.

The driver shook his head. “This place creeps me out. I’m not staying here, even if I was being paid a million dollars.” He looked at the warehouse, not noticing a pair of eyes staring at him from the top of the roof. 

“Go, go, go!” Hankins motioned for Woodole and Naju to open the door, allowing everybody to jump out of the truck in a single-file line. Once everybody jumped out of the truck, the driver sped off quickly. Hankins glanced at the truck, squinting at the back of the truck and noticing a pair of hungry eyes staring at him. He jerked his head back and opened his mouth to mention it, but Strong shook his shoulder and attracted his focus. 

“We’re leaving,” She told him. 

“Oh, okay,” Hankins said, glancing at the fleeting truck, unsure of what he saw.

Meanwhile, Dennel led her team into the warehouse slowly as they scanned the rooms. “Main room, clear,” Wales shouted.

“Bathroom, clear,” Naju shouted.

“Office, clear,” Hankins shouted.

“Lunchroom, clear,” Woodole shouted.

“All rooms, clear,” Harrison shouted. 

“The president isn’t here,” Strong declared. All task force members reunited in the main room, an enormous space that held many abandoned pieces of machinery. Dennel scanned the rafters but didn’t notice anything or anybody there.

“He has to be here,” Dennel said.

“Could Rick have been lying?” Hankins asked while looking around the room for possible entrances. “Or maybe our intel was wrong.”

“Rick wouldn’t lie to us. He sounded very confident that the president was here. He wouldn’t have given us anything incorrectly.” Strong argued. 

The intel says he’s here, but we can’t find him. Dennel looked around, staring at the walls and floors. Maybe he is here… in the walls or the floors. She turned towards her team. “Spread out and search for any secret departments! Check the walls and the floorboards” Dennel ordered before she rushed to the walls. She patted the walls, knocking on anything to check if it was hollow. The others followed her and searched through the four rooms---one large and three smaller rooms. The main room held the factory part of the warehouse while the three smaller ones functioned as the lunchroom, bathroom, and the owner’s office. 

While searching for departments, Wales came across a loose board in front of a piece of machinery in the main room. He crouched down and peeked into the space under the board before utilizing his gun’s butt to smash the board into pieces. He dropped his head into the confined space, noticing a familiar face staring at him. 

“Hey, I found him! The leader was right!” Wales shouted, motioning for the others to congregate on him. Wales dropped into the space, crouching to move through the narrow space. The three-foot-tall space held a dog bowl and a badly beaten and bruised Alan Brooks. Wales crouched walked over to Brooks and grabbed his shirt, dragging him slowly towards the small opening. Woodole and Naju waited for him, grabbing the president from him and heaving him up from the hole, laying him flat on the ground. Dennel walked over to him and crouched next to the president.

“Can you tell me your name, sir?”

“A-A-Alan B-Brooks,” he responded before coughing and gurgling up blood. Harrison helped move him towards the nearest wall, laying him against it. “How long have I been gone?”

“Two weeks, sir.”

“Has Crude become president?”

“Yes, sir. As president, his first act was to establish a rescue force to track and retrieve you.” Dennel told him. Brooks chuckled while shaking his head.

“I apologize for roping you all with my death.” He said, wiping blood off his lip.

“Death?” Wales muttered.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” Hankins asked, creeping closer to Brooks. Brooks shook his head again, looking up at the detective.

“Crude doesn’t want to save me. He wants to make sure I’m dead. He established a team to track me down and get the kidnapper, killing the entire team and myself off during the trip back to the White House.”

“Crude wants to do that?” Dennel asked, raising her eyebrows. Brooks nodded his head.

“It’s been his plan since day one. He tricked me into handing him the position of vice president and then again to sign