Dead Force Rising by J.L. Oiler

than you, Beamer,” Caleb said as he took a few steps back, his hands rising
in surrender because of the dangerous glare in John's eyes.
    Guiding Thorn out of the room and
down the corridor toward the meeting room, he sighed a bit in relief. John
hadn’t expected the ugly feeling of jealousy to rear its nasty head,
threatening to send his beast into a deadly fit of protective rage. The whole
idea both confused and worried him. What if he couldn't control the monsters
lurking inside? He could never live with himself if he harmed Thorn.
    “Sergeant, Miss Grant, please come in
and have a seat,” General Strait called as they entered the meeting room.
    ****
    Thorn felt odd dressed in a strangers clothes. Of course, walking through a room
filled with wide-eyed soldiers did little to relieve her apprehension in the
least. And now she had to face down the General who she would guess would be
none too happy to see her in this secret place. She couldn't understand how her
world, so simple only a few days earlier, had so quickly turned into one hot,
weird mess.
    “Miss Grant, I would first like to
give you my upmost apology for the traumatic events in which you were exposed
last evening,” he told her with sincerity. “It does however create somewhat of
a problem for us. We’d hoped to keep the existence of these creatures and this
unit under wraps.”
    “Believe me, General I would never
tell what I've seen. Even if I did, who would believe it? I would find myself
wrapped in a straight jacket with a nice set of guards escorting me to the
funny farm,” Thorn told him as John handed her a glass of water and took the
seat at her side.
    “That being true, we also have the
issue of your recently deceased partner. When I sent the clean-up crew, his
body was gone. I’ve pulled some strings to keep it out of the press and your
employer believes the two of you have been performing a special service with
the base. But I’m afraid Keith Boyd might have converted.”
    “Converted? What do you mean
converted?” Thorn asked panicked. Did he mean Keith was now one of those
things, those vampires?
    “Relax, sweetie,” John attempted to
calm her, his hand on her shoulder.
    “Don’t tell me relax and stop calling
me sweetie. He means Keith is going to be one of those damn monsters, doesn’t
he?” Thorn yelled. She saw the hurt in John’s eyes at her reference to monsters.
He was one of those “things” and he’d never been anything but kind to her. It
was an unnecessary generalization that hurt someone she was just beginning to
find a connection with.
    “I’m sorry,” she said taking a deep
breath. “I didn't mean to imply that...”
    “Forget it.” He cut her off,
withdrawing his hand from her shoulder and sitting back in his chair, obviously
hurt. “We’ll have to hunt him down and dispatch him. Do you have any idea where
he might go?”
    “I don’t know, back to the station
maybe?” Thorn told them as she looked down into her glass, ashamed of her
outburst.
    “I’ve already put a unit on that,”
General Striate informed them. “He hasn’t showed up there.”
    “He just broke up with his long time
girlfriend, Rachel, last week. Maybe he went there. She lives over on Horner,” Thorn
said after some thought.
    “Do you know the exact address?”
Striate asked as he grabbed the phone receiver off the table.  
    “One thirteen, apartment   four I think.”
    Thorn sat in silence as she listened
to the General talk on the phone and John rap his fingers in a cadence like
rhythm on the tabletop. So much for exploring the attraction she felt for the Sergeant
any further. As it stood, she would be lucky if the man even spoke to her
again.
    “Miss Grant, since you're now aware
of our little operation here, I have been given the authority to see that you
join the unit as a civilian corpsman. You’ll be assigned to work with Dr. Hough
drawing blood and administering basic aid. You'll answer directly to him on
medical