A Yawning Darkness (Mobsters Monsters & Nazis Book 5) Read online

  Mobsters, Monsters & Nazis

  A Yawning Darkness

  Written by Dan O’Brien

  Illustrated by Steve Ferchaud

  © 2015 Dan O’Brien

  The covert base was located in a dilapidated building in the rough part of town. Inside, crisply-dressed officers and soldiers milled about a large hangar filled with military vehicles of varying sizes and horribleness. Several soldiers and an officer formed a circle around Derrick and Ava as they approached Montgomery, the steel-jawed commander who oversaw all things invisible and unspoken.

  “So, Montgomery, are you expecting a land war?” Derrick chided, motioning with his lit cigarette to an armored personnel carrier.

  Montgomery glowered at him with his almond eyes. “I would ask that you not smoke.”

  Derrick flicked some ashes on the recently-refinished floor. “You can ask all you like…”

  Ava nudged him and flashed him a disapproving look that screamed no need for pissing contests.

  Catching her drift Derrick crushed the cigarette beneath his shoe. “So, should I call you captain, commander, el jefe?”

  The commander stiffened, then ushered the pair into a small office erected at the far end of the hangar. “Montgomery will suffice, Mr. Diamond.”

  The interior of the office was what would be expected from an officer after years of stifling and unflinching service: crisp right angles and blank walls. “Ava says you have something that might be of interest to us.”

  “Did she?” teased Derrick.

  “Now is not the time for being coy, Mr. Diamond,” challenged Montgomery.

  “I disagree. No time like the present for some fun. Let’s play a little quid pro quo. How about you tell me why you had our little dish Ava playing lounge fly to our favorite tentacled gangster?”

  “That is need-to-know information, Mr…”

  Derrick interrupted him. “Stuff the formalities, suit. It’s share time. Either I get some answers or I walk.”

  Montgomery pressed his hands into the heavy desk that bisected the room. Derrick was on one side and Montgomery on the other, while Ava stood to the side with a sour look on her face.

  After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence Ava spoke, “he already knows about the Object and someone has communicated vital information to him in his journal. It only seems fair that we trade information.”

  Based on the grim look on her commander’s face, he did not agree. With an exasperated sigh, he sat back into a leather chair and motioned for Derrick to sit. “Alright, Derrick. What would you like to know?”

  “The basics: who, what, when, where, and why.”

  “I beg your pardon,” began Montgomery.

  Ava leaned against the frame of a large window overlooking the hangar while Derrick leaned against the desk and spoke. “Who wants the Object? What is it? When did you start looking for it? Where do you think it is? And why is it so damned important?”

  Montgomery coughed as he began. “Everyone wants the Object: the Nazis, gangsters, and the US government. The origins of the object are…unknown.”

  Derrick smirked at him. “Guess, for my sake.”

  “We believe it’s part of a larger device that’s capable of doing unimaginable damage to this world. We don’t have the faintest idea where it is, as you are the last person to possess it for more than a few moments.” Montgomery paused. “Certainly, you can understand why it’s so important. If the Nazis want it, you can be sure that keeping it from them is in the best interest of us all….”

  The shadow watched as Derrick and the others retired for the evening, leaving the hangar empty except for a few guards. The journal was open on Montgomery’s desk, its blank pages indistinguishable in the dark. He had listened carefully as Montgomery tried to get information from Derrick that he did not have: who was leaving the notes in the journal. The truth would have frightened them both. The shadow had lived with the knowledge, understanding that if he did not leave behind these clues for Derrick, then the Nazis would win and a great, yawning darkness would descend upon mankind.

  After slipping down from the ceiling, the shadow crouched next to the office’s window and held his breath, counting the steps of a guard who walked past.

  As the guard moved behind a series of large vehicles, the shadow quickly picked up the journal and leafed through the pages, counting them as he did so. Stopping on a page toward the back of the book, he pulled a pen from his jacket and began scribbling furiously. After he finished, he flipped the journal back to the blank page on which he had found it. Leaping up and grabbing the edge of the ceiling, he pulled himself up into the darkness just as the guard returned.

  The hymn filled his mind as he crawled away into the shadows.

  When Derrick rounded the corner to the commander’s office the following morning, he heard Montgomery yelling at the top of his lungs. Derrick sauntered toward the door, listening to the cacophony of irritated syllables spewing from the office. As he entered, he ducked his head to avoid a barrage of papers and thick manila folders that flew over him and scattered on the floor just outside the door.

  “Morning, secret agents,” joked Derrick with a straight face.

  Montgomery leaned forward and pressed his hands against the front page of a newspaper spread across his desk. “Diamond, nice of you to finally find your way here.”

  Derrick tipped his hat. “Here to serve and protect, as instructed.”

  Ava flashed him a grin and then pointed to the newspaper trapped beneath Montgomery’s meaty hands. “Have you seen the morning paper?”

  Derrick reached for a cigarette, but was met with an annoyed glance from Montgomery. Raising his hands in surrender, he replaced the case. “Can’t say I keep up with the rag. I’m guessing there’s something worthy of our attention.”

  “Thugs and Nazis have been kicking in doors all along the marina. The public demands a response,” replied Montgomery.

  Derrick considered the news. Was it possible the Fat Man was behind this? Was it the Nazis?

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Montgomery looked at him darkly. “An assault on their compound.”

  “You know where the Nazis are hiding?” asked Derrick incredulously.

  Ava looked away as Montgomery pushed himself from the desk. “Of course we do. We’re the government.”

  “Then what have you been waiting for?” pressed Derrick.

  “Life is about timing, Diamond. We wanted to make sure…”

  “Sure of what?” interrupted Derrick. He saw the journal lying open on the desk and grabbed it with an irritated sigh. “Were they going to send you a handwritten letter when it was time to attack?”

  Montgomery crossed his arms and faced a large map taped to the wall. “I don’t expect a private investigator to understand the intricacies of covert missions.” As the commander turned, it was clear that he’d had enough of Diamond. “I think we have what we need from you. You can consider yourself dismissed.”

  Derrick looked at Ava, who looked away.

  “Gladly,” Derrick retorted between clenched teeth.

  As the preparations for the attack raged into the night, darkness settled and all manner of creature slithered out from the shadows. Scaling the side of the hangar with beguiling ease, a trench-coated, lizard-faced thug grabbed the edges of a window frame and peered into the building.

  Powerful hands with long claws clicked against steel.

  A thin hiss escaped its lips as it witnessed an assault force worthy of an invasion.

  The creature slipped away into the night, having taken from Montgomery and his fo
rces the one thing that gave them a chance: the element of surprise.

  Spotlights shot into the sky like ghastly fingers reaching for the stars as a coordinated force rolled out to quell the rising violence that had gripped the city during the frantic search for the Object. Tanks and all-terrain vehicles filled to the brim with soldiers in full assault gear paraded one after another past Derrick as he stood and smoked on the sidewalk just outside the hangar.

  He found it a bit odd that a covert organization would not try to conceal its forces on a surprise assault mission, but he reminded himself that Montgomery knew what he was doing––or had at least implied that Derrick did not. Flicking his cigarette beneath the crushing weight of the motorcade, Derrick reached into his coat and took out the journal. He opened it and leafed through the pages, landing on a new entry written in the same familiar, scrawling script whose author he could not quite place.

  Derrick read the words a few times before shutting the journal with a wry smile. He knew where he had to go next. The Object was within his reach; and with this information, the hymn filled his mind once more.

  Anticipation hung in the air of the Nazi stronghold as another experiment began in a frightening silence––complete with an audience of men dressed in fallout gear and goggles sitting behind massive shields. The machine hummed, building power as anonymous technicians crowded around the pulsing steel and gnarled wires.

  A beam exploded against a wall, lathering the brick and mortar with crawling phalanges of energy and light. Darkness spread from the point of impact as a portal appeared, revealing a slice of deep space that bathed the room in the glow of dying stars light-years away.

  Awestruck, men stood from behind the shield, their stiff uniforms cracking as they pointed at a comet darting across space that moments ago was a simple brick wall.

  The machine shuddered and convulsed like it had taken ill; its hacking mechanical coughing scattered the collected technicians like cockroaches after a light has been turned on. As they turned to run the portal reached out, folding and breaking into thick, dense prisms of darkness and light that exploded across the room, colliding with the shields that protected the uninvolved observers.

  While fleeing for the safety of the protective shields, technician after technician was vaporized, removed from existence and reabsorbed into the molecular ether emanating from the portal. The machine rumbled one last time and then shut down, erasing the pristine picture of space upon the wall.

  Both sides wanted a war in the streets––and both sides got what they wanted. Flames licked the night sky as buildings burned brightly and tanks rolled through the streets, annihilating anything that remotely resembled a reptilian thug or a Nazi vehicle. Civilians fled for shelter and screamed as monstrous gangsters with snarling maws and gnashing teeth slithered through the streets, lifting soldiers into the air––their gunfire following them into the darkness of alleys.

  A bus careened through the streets.

  Opening a hatch that had been cut into its roof, a soldier with a metal helmet emerged. He gripped the controls of a heavy, mechanized weapon mounted on the top of the bus. Round after round erupted from the weapon, shaking him with each shot.

  Cement and asphalt splintered from the pavement as a large reptilian thug wound its way through the torrent of bullets and then leapt against the windshield of the bus. Punching through the windshield, it grasped the driver and threw him to the pavement. The bus wiggled and waggled as the thug grabbed the steering wheel and turned it sharply, putting the bus on a collision course with a series of parked cars. The reptilian thug jumped free as it slammed into them and tipped over, sending the helmeted soldier tumbling into the street.

  Seeing the thug stalking toward him, the solider reached for the revolver at his waist.

  But the holster was empty.

  Looking around he saw it was lying only a few meters from him. Groaning as he tried to get to his feet, he collapsed as he put weight on his leg; it was broken.

  He crawled, digging his elbows into the broken streets and dragging his wounded leg.

  As he reached out his hand to grip his weapon, a heavy boot crushed his fingers. The last thing he saw was rows of sharp teeth descending on him.

  Derrick watched as the city devolved into a warzone. Sneaking among overturned cars and darting shadows, he gripped his revolver inside his coat, but did not draw it. He rounded the corners slowly with his destination in mind.

  A strange sense of déjà vu gripped him and it gave him pause.

  The hymn was like a dull buzz, a headache after a night of binge drinking.

  But this did not stop him from noticing that Ava had followed him. Each time he disappeared around a building or into an alleyway, Ava would poke her head around the corner and peek into the darkness after him.

  Derrick muttered to himself as he stopped and looked at a large, nondescript building, similar in many ways to the compound that Ava’s covert organization occupied.

  Ava did not dare intrude upon his investigation. She had a hunch that he knew something he wasn’t sharing with anyone else. She watched as he scolded himself and then climbed a fire escape ladder in the alley on the side of the building.

  A stab of fear gave her pause. What exactly was he doing?

  Watching his ascent, she thought she saw a shadow observing Derrick from the top of the building. As she ventured farther into the alley to get a better look, she lost sight of the shadow. Shaking her head, she dismissed what she thought she had seen.

  The ladder groaned as Derrick leaned to the side and peered into a window. He couldn’t quite see what was going on. Chancing the long fall, he stepped off the ladder and onto the ledge that ran along the window’s frame. Drawing his weapon he flattened himself against the wall and looked inside.

  He saw what he had expected: Nazis.

 

 

  Dan O'Brien, A Yawning Darkness (Mobsters, Monsters & Nazis Book 5)

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