Department G

By Johnson, Kevin, Wade

Book Id: WPLBN0100303219
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 2mb
Reproduction Date: 07/05/2018

Title:	Department G
Author:	Johnson, Kevin, Wade
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, Drama and Literature
Collections:	Horror, Authors Community
Historic Publication Date:	2018
Publisher:	Self-Published

Member Page:	Kevin Johnson
Citation APA MLA Chicago Johnson, K. W. (2018). Department G. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
They were left to the study of academics, relegated to the realm of literary criticism. They were dismissed as creations of a poet, remnants of an ancient literary tradition. But they were more than that, far more. Grendel and his mother were living creatures. And they were more than relics. We know, because their descendants live today. We just don't think of them as Grendels anymore. We lump them in with serial killers. And we dismiss any hint of supernatural ability. Department G was formed at a British professor's insistence, as an American parallel to Britain's MI-G. The department's Team One has a proud tradition of protection…and an increasingly impossible task of providing Americans that protection, without causing too much risk, or panic. Impossible means lethal. *** This is a near-future science fiction novel, in a world that isn't ours but only differs in the detail of Grendels. Those serial-killing creatures make it horror as well, comparable I think in frightfulness to Patricia Cornwell's early Scarpetta novels. (If it's comparable in any other way I am blessed indeed.) I just don't want horror fans to be surprised by the science fiction elements, and vice-versa. Happy reading!

Summary
A science fiction-horror novel of a world where Beowulf was true, at least as far as Grendel and his mother were concerned. Grendels still exist, although they are thought to be ordinary serial killers. They are not: they have supernatural killers, and the confidential Department G has the terrifying task of trying to stop them.

Excerpt
…one, accursed, in man’s guise trod the misery-track of exile, though huger than human bulk. -Gummere, 1351-1354 "This heat is horrid," Butch muttered. I eyed her. We were crouched under camo cloths between a couple of half-dead acacia bushes in an arid, sandy plain, half a mile from a dusty ranch house, the sun beating down on us all. Half an hour ago, my phone had put the West Texas heat at well over 100 degrees. Nothing moved but a loose shutter on the house ahead. No breath of wind stirred anything, no sound could be heard except distance. Butch cursed under her breath. I said nothing. I kept watching the house, sweat trickling beneath my neular body armor. Butch was watching our one-eighty, make sure no one snuck up behind. "Is it always like this?" she asked. "If we don't see signs of life soon, you and I get to go in," I said. She cursed again. Silently, so did I. I didn't blame her. She was six-five and muscular, and probably never met a man she couldn't hammer down till she got into SOC. Maybe not even then, not till she was assigned to the department. Department G is the US government agency in charge of Grendels—supernatural serial killers, more or less. Supernatural meaning somehow, some way, superhuman. In some sense. And "in charge of" meaning hunts down and kills. Butch and I were crouching under a murderous sun. She muttered, "One helluva place. A lonely place for living." "Just hope not for dying." "Yeah." We waited. We crouched in sight of two buildings, the front and east side of the long, one-story house, and the detached four-vehicle garage. Alec and Guns lay in an arroyo a mile from us, watching the back and west, including the bunk house for the hands. The three buildings formed a U, with the ranch house being the bottom. Christmas sat a half mile away, pulled fifty yards off the road and the car camo'd, his sniper rifle sighted in, and where he could just see the other four of us. Five total. "Should've been six," I muttered. Anyway, we were one short, scattered around under the hot Texas sun. The heat hammered my hunched back, while a shutter banged back and forth on the ranch house ahead of— "Butch, cover me!" I leaped up and headed for the house in a crouching run. I added, "There's no wind. What's banging that shutter?"

Table of Contents
Prologue Chapter One: "A Lonely Place for Living" Chapter Two: "Knocked Our SOCs Off" Chapter Three: "Please Kill Me" Chapter Four: "Hire the Best" Chapter Five: "She's Gone!" Chapter Six: "Look Out" Chapter Seven: "Try Me" Chapter Eight: "Get Out!" Chapter Nine: "Time's Up" Chapter Ten: "You Win" About the Author