Plague Unleashed (The Intern Diaries Book 2) Read online

  Table Of Contents

  Other Books by D. C. Gomez

  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

  Connect with D. C. online:

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © D. C. Gomez (2018)

  All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-7321369-0-8

  Published by Gomez Expeditions

  Request to publish work from this book should be send to:

  [email protected]

  Cover and Interior Design by Streetlight Graphics

  Other Books by D. C. Gomez

  Death’s Intern

  For all the people who still believe dreams can come true,

  this book is for you.

  Chapter 1

  According to some studies, people have more heart attacks and strokes on Mondays than any other day of the week. It seems that the Monday-morning blues are truly dangerous for your health. I ultimately agreed with that sentiment, at least today.

  I usually didn’t have much to complain about in my job. It wasn’t like I needed to punch a clock Monday through Friday, or lived in a cubicle world. I had a unique position; I was Death’s intern for North America. I might need to explain that a bit, since that sounds like I was an assassin or mercenary of some kind. We were not even allowed to kill.

  I literary worked for Death, the being that takes your soul to its afterlife. Death’s job was simple: she delivered souls to their final destination. She was like the UPS for the soul world. Most people wondered why I referred to Death as she. Death, as it turns out, appears to each person differently. Death takes whatever form the person imagines her to be. Which at times could become confusing for some of us. For me, Death was a tall, beautiful woman with long, silky brown hair who was always perfectly dressed. It was probably a blessing that nobody else could see my version besides Death and me, since Death resembled my dead mother.

  If Death’s job were so simple, why would she need interns? In the eight months that I worked for her, I learned several reasons Interns were required. One, if anyone interfered with Death’s delivery system, it was our job to find them and stop them. And two, sometimes people died, and they ’didn’t realize they were dead. After all these years, I didn’t know why Death didn’t do a better job of sharing this with humanity. It would expedite the process so much.

  Having to chase this ghost around the park was the reason for my Monday-morning blues. Here I was, Isis Black, running laps at Spring Lake Park in Texarkana, chasing the soul of a track and field runner who didn’t know he was dead. Did I mention it was six thirty in the morning? I was having flashbacks of being in the army.

  On most occasions, I was attractive—or at least exotic looking—with long black hair, a mocha completion, and about five feet, nine inches tall. This morning I was a hot mess. Spring Lake Park had a trail around the park that claimed to be a mile and three quarters. Summer started early in East Texas, and for late May the temperature was quickly rising. My long hair was stuck to my head, and I was pouring sweat.

  “Isis, this is his fourth lap. You better hurry,” Bob shouted at me. He was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, “The Beast,” with our boss, Death. If I wasn’t mistaken, they were drinking coffee while I ran like a maniac behind this ghost.

  “Thanks for pointing it out,” I yelled back, a little out of breath. Bob had parked by the baseball fields near the doggy park area. The park had different sections, and this side had an entrance on the service road parallel to Interstate 30, or “Thirty,” as the locals called it, made it easy to get to many places in Texarkana.

  “If you can talk, you’re not running fast enough,” I heard him yell from behind. I considered giving him a sign with my finger but remembered Death was there. Bob was spending way too much time with Constantine, and he was starting to sound like him. Constantine was the Guardian, the trainer of all Interns and Death’s right hand. He was also a five-thousand-year-old talking Maine Coon cat—welcome to my life. But I had to admit Bob was right. I needed to pick up the pace.

  Our runner had a particular pattern. He did four laps around the park, and then he was gone. According to Death, he’d died right after finishing his last lap at record speed. He was so excited he missed the fact that he had died, and he never saw Death. Every day, runners and walkers were being haunted by the presence of this ghost. We were running downhill now, heading toward the spring, and he was picking up the pace. I had been chasing him for two laps, and I was not going to lose him now. I took off at full sprint, hoping to cut him off before he hit the bridge.

  I wasn’t sure if I imagined things, but I had the horrible feeling my dead runner thought we were racing. He was getting faster. I was so busy trying to catch up that I failed to see the flock of geese coming at me. I wasn’t sure if it was the geese or the lone duck that did it, but I ended up head-first in the water. While the outside temperatures were rising, the water was still freezing. Last fall the city had cleared the natural spring, so now the lake was deep in some areas. I was standing at least to my shoulders in water. My dear, dead runner looked over his shoulder and laughed. It was a blessing he was dead.

  “Stop!” I screamed, as loud as my voice would allow. The ghost stopped. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, he or I.

  As Death’s interns, we had the power to see and touch the souls of the dead. We were also “gifted”—I’m still debating that one—with the third eye: the power to see into the supernatural world. That gift was tricky, because sometimes the things you saw were nasty. Could we control the dead? I wasn’t sure of that. I dragged myself out of the water and walked over to the soul (Constantine hated it when I called them ghosts).

  “Do I know you? You’ve been following me for a while. Are you also training?”

  It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t even winded. I was hoping the physical laws didn’t apply to ghosts, and he just had that extra advantage.

  “You don’t know me, but my boss is here to take you home.” I found it was best to keep it simple and to the point. First time I’d tried to retrieve a lost soul, the lady beat me with her purse for fifteen minutes in the middle of Los Angeles. I was surprised I wasn’t arrested, since nobody else could see what was happening besides me, covering myself and ducking like a madwoman.

  “Home? Dear, I live down the street from here.”

  Before he could turn arou
nd, I grabbed his arm. The second lesson I’d learned about retrieving souls was the sooner I touched them, the faster reality clicked. Not sure what it was about my touch, but it grounded them. He froze and started looking around. I knew the look; he realized he was dead. I prayed that his afterlife was filled with running paths in the sky.

  “Are you ready?” I’d also learned to keep conversations short. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. I slowly laced my fingers with his and started walking him back in the direction we had come I was the last human being a soul would ever be touched by, so I never hurried.

  “When did I die? How is my family?” His voice was barely audible. I was grateful for Death’s gift of being able to hear him.

  “Three weeks ago. Your family is coping with your loss. You were loved by many.” We were almost the same height, so I didn’t have to look up to see directly into his eyes. “They will be fine. It‘s time for you to go home.” I squeezed his hand again.

  “Three weeks? What have I been doing all this time?” He looked even more lost.

  “Oh, the usual ghost stuff—scaring the hell out of every runner in Texarkana.”

  At that, he laughed. It was a full laugh that reached his eyes. The world felt a little empty when souls like these were gone.

  “So what took you so long to get me?”

  I could tell he was teasing. I couldn’t help but play along. I looked at him, highly offended, trying to hide my smile. “Hey now, it took us a while to track your running pattern. It wasn’t like you ran at the same time every day. By the time we got here, you were gone.”

  He gave me a devilish grin. “I like keeping people on their feet.”

  I glanced up. He looked proud of himself. I just smiled.

  We walked in silence the remainder of the trail. My dead runner looked around in wonder, like he was seeing everything for the first time. Spring Lake Park had a quaint magic to it. It was in the middle of town, on the Texas side. Texarkana, Texas, has a sister city on the Arkansas side—Texarkana, Arkansas. One street, called State Line, divides the cities. Maybe it wasn’t the most original name for a street, but it worked. For most people from big cities, Texarkana was a small town with nothing to do. For me it still had that small-town charm, where people waved at you on the street, men opened doors for you, and store owners still believed in being pleasant.

  I led him toward Bob’s truck. Death slowly turned around to face us, and my dead runner stopped.

  “Death.”

  That was all he said. It was hard to explain, but I knew how he felt. The first time I met Death, I knew without being told who I was facing. I was convinced that some unconscious part of our brain recognized her essence. When Death was around, time stood still. The noises of the world faded, and nothing else mattered.

  Death handed Bob her cup and walked toward us. My dead runner looked stunned, and I was afraid he was going to start running again.

  “It’s OK. You’re ready,” I whispered to him as I gave his hand one more squeeze. He looked at me and slowly nodded.

  “Thank you, Isis,” Death said. She took his hand. I was always amazed how gentle she was with each soul. Regardless of the afterlife, while in her care she took full responsibility for them. She smiled at the runner, and he took a deep breath and visibly relaxed.

  “Do I want to know why you’re wet?” Death asked me.

  “A geese attacked me.” I was embarrassed. It was hard not to when I looked like I had been dragged through hell, and Death was wearing a three-piece skirt suit from Oscar de la Renta. Just because I didn’t dress up didn’t mean I didn’t know designers.

  “I can see that. By the looks of it, they won.” Death replied with a smile and started to walk away

  “Death, wait. Question—can I control the dead?”

  “To some extent. You do have some of my powers. In the same capacity that you can make a living person do certain things, you can make the dead follow your commands.” Death was still smiling at me; I was staring at her with my mouth wide open.

  “Why have I been running all over the country chasing them then?” I was not happy about this, and my wet hair drooped over my eyes, making me even more aggravated.

  “That is an excellent question, dear. I figured you enjoyed it. It was in your manual.” Death winked at me. I received the intern’s manual on my first day on the job. It probably didn’t help that I still hadn’t read it. Obviously, Death knew that already. “Besides, dear, not a bad practice. Your power doesn’t always work on everyone, especially if they are recently dead.” She winked one more time and turned around. Death and runner boy took three steps, and they were gone.

  I walked over to Bob, who handed me a towel and a cup of hot chocolate.

  “Thank you so much, Bob.” I started drying my hair with one hand while I held the mug in the other. I refused to let go. “You know, you could have helped me over there.”

  Bob gave me his million-dollar smile.

  “You looked like you had everything under control. Besides, you’re the Intern here. I’m just the driver. If I stepped too far away from Death, I wouldn’t be able to see the guy—or lady.” Bob smiled again, and it was so hard to be mad at him. I gave him my most evil glare, but looking like a wet poodle, it did not have much effect.

  I was staring over the rim of my mug at Bob as he drank his coffee and looked off in the direction where Death had just vanished. I was still in awe over his transformation, or more likely recovery. Bob was my first friend in Texarkana. When we met, he was a homeless veteran suffering from PTSD and severe paranoia. After he’d been kidnapped by witches and made it through that mess, Death and Constantine offered him a job with us. Bob had witnessed the supernatural and was left shattered. The validation that the horrors he faced were real, and he wasn’t crazy, broke his bondage. He reminded me of Psalm 23—Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil.

  He was a new man and genuinely feared no evil. His six-foot frame had filled in. His sandy-blond hair was neatly combed in a high and tight haircut, military-style. It was hard now to tell how old he was. Maybe forty. But the most shocking change was in his sea-green eyes. They were no longer haunted. They shone with mischievousness and humor all the time. If Constantine was the evil dictator of our little family, Bob had become our Yoda. He was always cool, calm, and collected—and always fashionable.

  Bob was staring toward the park. I glanced over in the same direction.

  “What’s going on?” I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. A young guy was walking across the park very awkwardly.

  “I have no idea. He is human, right?”

  I glanced at Bob and then back at the guy. “If you can see him, I have a feeling he’s alive. Human, that might be questionable.” Recently I had found out that just because something looked human, it didn’t make it so. “Should we help him?”

  I tried to take a step forward, but Bob stopped me. Before I could complain, the guy grabbed a squirrel that happened to be nearby. The man’s speed and accuracy were almost inhuman. He took a bite out of the squirrel.

  “Oh my God!” I gasped. That was a new one for me.

  “Isis, get in the truck, now.” Bob pushed me toward the passenger side and then ran to the driver’s side. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I was spooked. And I worked for Death.

  Bob started the truck and was backing it up even before I managed to close the door. Bob threw the shift into drive faster than a drag racer. I looked out of the back window just in time to see the guy staring at us.

  “Bob, hurry!”

  That was all he needed. We were out of the park in less than three seconds and heading toward Reapers.

  Chapter 2

  Bob pulled the Beast into its designated space inside of Reapers Incorporated, or Reapers, for short. This was our headquarters in North America. Since I had moved
to Texarkana, running away from my past, Death’s team was forced to follow. The way the recruitment process for Death’s interns worked was simple. If you killed the previous intern, you became the next candidate. It wasn’t until recently I found out that the selection was not automatic. Death had the final approval of the candidate. I would like to blame fate or just life, but I accidentally killed Trek, the old intern. I pushed him out of a building in New York City. Now the job was mine. As strange as the job was, it did have some incredible benefits, including a significant salary, free room and board, food, transportation, and even a clothing allowance.

  Reapers was located in the Business Park in Nash, Texas. From the outside, it didn’t look exceptional. A large metal building, three stories tall. The only weird distinction, if that, was the sign outside that read Reapers Incorporated in Gothic, red letters. On the inside, it was a different story. The first floor contained a shooting range, a gym area that I honestly hated, a new mechanic’s workshop for all the vehicles, and Bob’s quarters. He had a large master bedroom and living area. The entrances to Reapers were secured by all sorts of scanners, metal detectors, and spells.

  Come to think of it, the entire building was a huge bomb shelter. The building was designed to withstand spells, ghosts, supernatural attacks, and, of course, human’s bombs. While the first floor was mostly a training area, the team had an apartment up on the second floor. The apartment was almost a third the length of the building and was separated into two main areas—the shared space, and the bedrooms. The shared space, called the loft, had a fabulous kitchen, which was the first thing you saw when you walked in. Right next to the kitchen was a dining area, now with a much more significant table since Bob had moved in. The far corner was the command center. It had large monitors arranged around Bartholomew’s computers.

  The last member of our newly formed family was Bartholomew. I wasn’t sure how but Death’s was his guardian. Bartholomew was a genius, and at twelve years of age, the best-supply sergeant and gun dealer I have ever met. There was nothing he couldn’t get, either equipment or information. Bartholomew was going through a growth spurt and was now five feet, six inches. His brown, curly hair was still messy, and at times they hide his hazel eyes.