Chapter 8

White House, Washington, DC

“Mr. President, I hate to disturb you so late in the day, but we just received a report from CIA headquarters. It is rather long, so I will summarize it. They have finally located the source of the monstrous creatures that have invaded America. There is an installation in the mountains of North Korea very near to the border with China, and your input is needed.

In this installation is some sort of machine which is capable of transporting beings from one universe to another, and this machine has be used to bring in the demon-like creatures and deposit them on American soil. According to the Defense Department, the only weapon we have that can reach the machine in its artificial cavern is the Hell Bomb.”

“Refresh my memory, please. What is the exact nature of the Hell Bomb?”

“The Hell Bomb is a very large bomb that is designed for deep penetration of reinforced structures. The explosive is the largest of the plutonium bombs. It is believed that this bomb could penetrate approximately one mile below the surface in this particular terrain and retain it effectiveness. Actually, the Hell Bomb should be called a rocket because it does not depend solely on gravity to build up its momentum, but uses a rocket of the power of a Saturn rocket. Thus, only the largest planes in the Air Force’s arsenal can carry it and the crew necessary to launch it.”

“Very well, now I remember the briefing on it. Thank you. What does the CIA propose?”

“The CIA wants to deliver the bomb as soon as possible, specifically 13 days. There is no way for anyone to know what next the North Koreans will send against us.

“The problem is that the bomb would have to be delivered so close to China. There is a risk of the Chinese panicking, and launching nuclear weapons at us in what they think is retaliation for an aborted attack on them. That is where your input in needed, beyond the question of using nuclear weapons at all.”

“Okay, I see the problem. What about the imbeciles who cooked up the original plan to attack us? What does the CIA propose to do about them?”

“The source of the plan comes all the way from the top of the North Korean government. The CIA feels that this is sufficient to take out the current North Korean hierarchy, including the Head of State. This can be done with conventional bombs; no nuclear warheads would be needed.”

“Okay, set up a meeting in the War Room for two hours from now. Distribute copies of the CIA memo to the necessary people on a ‘for your eyes only’ basis, and they are to read the report before the meeting.

“My current feeling is that we need to eliminate the North Korean government from top to bottom. They have made trouble all over the world for too long. This is the end of the line for them as far as I am concerned.

“Every thing associated with this report and the meeting is to be given the highest security status, and let it be known that I will personally shoot anyone who leaks any of this before the job is finished. That is no joke or idle threat. This is too important for someone to grandstand with it.”

“Yes, Mr. President, I’ll get started on setting up the meeting right away.”

Lookout Ridge, GA

Before he went to bed, Dad made up enough cartridges with the small nail replacing the BB to fill a clip. He had a total of 10 shots with the nail, and that should be enough to answer the question.

The next morning, he loaded his pistol with the special clip of nail-bullets. He was going to try them out as soon as he had a target. If the new bullet worked as well as hoped, he was going to stick with that pistol load until the clip was empty. Then he would go back to the BB loads for the rest of the day.

Dad and Mom were again assigned to the elementary school, and they were looking for an overall dull day. Hopefully, Dad would be able to test the new ammunition before terminal boredom set in. Hardly had they arrived at the school when a wolf was spotted going in through an open door. Oh, God, who was the fool who left that door open?

Mom was driving, and she drove right up to the front door and blocked it with the car. It took some wiggling, but they were able to exit the car and enter the school. Fortunately, only teachers and staff were there already—it was too early for the kids to start showing up.

They had left their shotguns in the car and were only planning to use their pistols. The shotguns would have been too awkward to use inside the building because they were going to have to search every room, and there were a total of 37 of those, counting all of the closets, etc.

Dad knew what to do when clearing a building of hostiles, so he led the way with Mom agreeing to follow his orders. Their first action was to close the front door and to wedge it closed until they could declare the building clear of demons. Their problem was that they did not know how many demons had already entered the building. It could be one, and it could be dozens. Only a search would tell the answer.

Oh, God, there was a partially eaten body lying on the floor at the entrance to the school’s office. This was a janitor, and she may have been the one to leave the door open. Probably nobody would ever know, and it was a minor detail in the overall scheme of things.

The two of them stood on either side of the door, and Dad threw one of the corpse’s shoes into the room to see what kind of reaction he might get. Well, he got a reaction, all right. A wolf jumped at the shoe and swallowed it in what looked like a single motion. Dad fired the moment the wolf showed itself and hit it in the side with a bullet holding a tiny nail.

That was enough! The wolf died on the spot, and that settled the question of whether or not the nail was as good as the BB as far as Dad was concerned. The rest of the morning was spent in going through every room in the school. The children were sent home because there was no way to tell how long it was going to take to clear all of the demons from the school. Most of the kids thought that was great, but not nearly so many of the mothers were pleased to have their babysitter fail them.

There just was no choice in what to do. Clearing the classrooms was a tedious procedure, especially considering how fast the demons could move. Mom and Dad were exhausted by the time noon came around, and they had to take the rest of the day off to recover from the stress and strain of the job that morning. Two people were really not enough for a job like that.

Sue and Jeff had a reasonably easy time as far as the demons were concerned, but Sue ran into trouble with a pack of six 9^th Grade bullies. One of them sneaked up behind her and grabbed her gun from its holster before she could react to stop him. “Billy Grubbs, you are going to be in serious trouble if you don’t return my pistol right away.”

“Come on and try to take it away from me. You are a cop, now, so you are supposed to know how to do that sort of thing.”

“Billy, this is a serious situation. That gun in loaded with bullets that could kill people as well as demons, and I need it back to do my job. Now give it to me and we can both laugh at the trick you pulled on me.”

“Oh, no, Miss Pussy Cop. If you want your gun back, you will have to take it from me.”

“Okay, that does it! I’m going to see the principal, and she will order you to return the gun to me.”

“Hey, Boys, don’t let her get away. She could get us all in trouble, and then we’d have to spend a week out of school. You all know how terrible that would be.” That statement got a laugh from his five cohorts, and they formed a wall around Sue that she could not hope to break. All of the bullies were at least a foot taller than Sue and outweighed her by a good 50 pounds.

Fortunately, one of Sue’s friends saw the problem and ran to find Jeff. “Jeff, some boys have stolen Sue’s gun and are teasing her. I think that the situation could get serious pretty quick if something isn’t done in a hurry.”