Resident Evil (Does this name sound familiar to anyone else?)
an excerpt

Chapter One: A security problem
Jack Hudson paced around his office with the demeanor of a restless lion. He was six feet, but thick enough around the middle so that he didn’t seem particularly tall, though he did have a presence about him. His broad shoulders and good posture spoke of the athlete he had been in his youth. For a man of fifty five his dark hair had only grayed a little, and his hazel eyes were sharp. In his dark blue suit and diamond cufflinks he looked the part of the oil tycoon, which he was fortunate enough to be. That is to say that he looked wealthy, affluent, and powerful, and he was clearly comfortable being so, even though at the moment he had a lot on his mind. He kept a variety of hours, and never worked less than sixteen hours a day. He was in and out of his office like a tornado. He had a personal office staff of twenty-four, divided into all three shifts. Many of them worked six days a week. Some of them were just well trained secretaries, and others had special skills. One of the midnight shift guys was a noted hacker who had actually served time in a federal prison. One of the conditions of his parole was not using a computer or the internet, but Hudson had helped him around that. Money was an amazing tool, and Hudson was well skilled at making use of it. Through the connecting door he could hear the usual buzz of activities around his front office, phones ringing, printers printing, and etcetera.
It was half past nine and the sky out side his windows had darkened into night. He sank back into his leather office chair and was contemplating a glass of scotch when the phone on his desk rang. He could tell it was his receptionist by the distinct ring tone. He smiled, and picked up the phone.
“Mr. Hudson, a Mr. Asher to see you.”
“Send him right in.” Hudson hung up without waiting for a response.
A moment later a thickly muscled man of about forty-five stepped into the office. His head was shaved, he had a handle bar mustache, and his dark brown eyes glinted in the dim light cast from the fireplace. He was dressed in jeans, black boots, and a black leather jacket.
“Jack Hudson?” He asked approaching the desk with his hand out stretched.
Hudson stood, and smiled, and shook the offered hand, “I am Jack Hudson. It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Asher, a pleasure indeed. I also want to thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“I’m not a banker. I work whenever the work is there. I’m glad you called me. I get well paid for these odd hours, and you have both a problem and deep pockets. That makes for a fine working relationship.” Asher said.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Hudson had heard good things about William Asher, and he was pleased by his first impression. “Can I get you a drink? I was just about to have one.”
Asher nodded.
Hudson poured them both a glass of scotch, and returned to his desk. “Here’s to a future where you have solved my problem.” Hudson said, raising his glass in an offered toast.
“Here’s to a future where you have paid my incredibly high fee.” Asher said in reply.
They clinked glasses and drank.
“Mr. Asher, my I call you William?” Hudson asked.
“Bill.” Asher said.
“Bill, let me tell you about my problem. I own what was once just an oil company. It’s a small company by most standards, hardly even a wart on the ass of a company the size Exxon, or British Petroleum, but it’s my company, I own fifty-one percent of the stock, and I’m very fond of it. Over the years I’ve had to branch out and invest in new markets, all energy related in one way or another. Recently I’ve decided to break into coal mining. I know what you’re thinking. Coal is old news. A lot of people seem to see it that way, but it’s not true. It’s booming as big now as ever though, bigger in fact, and it will continue to boom until all the coal is gone, but that won’t be for decades. So I came across an opportunity to buy a coal mine and I jumped at the chance.” Hudson paused to take a sip of his scotch, and light his pipe. “This mine I bought has been closed since 1922, shut down after a huge cave in, over a hundred men buried alive. It was a big mess. The official story was that the mine was basically played out and that whatever coal was left down there wasn’t worth the cost of fixing the mine after the cave in. A lot of cash was paid out to the families of the lost men, and the mine was boarded up. The town, a little place called Edenville, dried up soon after. By the stock market crash of ’29 the place was a ghost town. Charles Hebron, owner of the mine, and its parent company Hebron Industries, was wiped out in the crash as well. As the town’s folk packed up to leave he bought them out so he ended up owning the whole damn town. Eventually the whole bundle of deeds ends up in the bottom drawer of the tax collectors filing cabinet. Until I show up and I buy the whole stack of deeds. Actually they were all combined into one new taxable property, but the good part is that I got to buy the whole town for its tax debt, which was of course a fraction of its actual value.”
“A deserted town next to a played out coal mine?” Asher asked.
“At a glance it would appear so. The thing is, according to my research, this mine was not only producing at the time of the cave in, but production was at a twenty year high. My geologists speculate that there is a mother lode of coal down there. This mine was unique in that it was never modernized. Hebron still ran the place with shovels and pick axes. By 1905 most of the coal mines in the United States had embraced mechanization. Hebron was old fashioned I guess.”
Asher finished his scotch, and sat the glass on the edge of the desk. “That is Fascinating.” Asher didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
Hudson wasn’t moved by this comment. “I sent a team there three weeks ago to conduct a full geological survey and to assess the situation. I plan to move in huge operation with all the latest technology. Six months from now there will be strip mined crater where the ruin of Edenville sits today. My team however has encountered some resistance. Mechanical failures, several strange injuries, and tonight my team leader, a man by the name of Duncan Gilmore, may have disappeared.”
“I see.” Asher said.
“I can only assume a saboteur sent by a competitor is trying to dissuade me from my endeavor.” Hudson said.
“Have you consulted the authorities?” Asher asked.
“Not yet. It’s only been a few hours, too soon for the authorities to take it seriously. I know something is wrong, I know Gilmore very well. He has been with me for a long time, and he is one the most reliable men I have ever known. We were supposed to talk tonight, a video conference at six. He never misses a meeting. I phoned the site, and they were in the midst of searching for him. Something is happening there, and I don’t like it. Yes, I have a great deal of money invested here, I have millions tied up in this, but I didn’t call you because of money. I care about my people, and it bothers me a great deal when my people are harmed. I want you to go down there, right now, tonight, and I want you to get to the bottom of this. I want you to secure my work sight, and I want you to find these trouble makers. I want you to find Duncan Gilmore.”
Asher nodded. “I understand. I’m not sure if I’m the right man for this job, but I will certainly take it. I just feel that I am an industrial strength solution to this problem, over kill if you will.”
“My people are in danger, and I want the best. Asher Investigations is the best.”
Asher nodded again. “I get ten thousand dollars a day with a month in advance, nonrefundable, plus expenses. Expenses are not negotiable. I give you the detailed expense report, and you pay it, and there is no quibbling over money. I’ll need all the data you can provide me, and files on the personnel currently working the site.”
Hudson nodded, and stood. He opened a panel on the wall revealing a safe. He spun the dial a few times and opened the door. From within he took a tall stack bundled hundred dollar bills. “Do you prefer cash or check?”
Asher smiled, “I’ll have a team on site before morning.”

Chapter Two: Trouble at the Truck Stop
At ten o’clock Frank Wilson and Bobby Cook arrived at Whitaker’s Truck Stop. Wilson had been behind the wheel most of the day, and he was flat exhausted. More tired than hungry, so while Bobby went in for a bite to eat, and to take a much needed dump, Frank crawled into the sleeper and fell instantly into a deep slumber. It was Wednesday night, and there wasn’t much of a crowd. He was only half awake as he slumped into a seat at the counter. As the cute waitress walked up he wondered for a moment why she was wearing a head band with big black cat ears on it, and whiskers painted on her face, but then he remembered that it was Halloween. Being on the road totally fucks up your internal calendar. He ordered coffee and the special and ate quickly. He wasn’t actually in a hurry to get on the road it was just that he had grown up in the nearby town of Paris Falls. He’d had a troubled youth, and there had been legal trouble, and he had left town under the worst of circumstances. It had been seven years, but he didn’t want to run into any one he knew. He had moved on and started a new life, and he was even mostly respectable now. It was funny to him just how often he passed through here. He never ventured away from the truck stop, and went on about his way as soon as possible. That was his plan for tonight as well. He paid his tab, and left a nice tip, and headed out to the truck.
It was a nice night. Warm for the time of year, and the sky was very clear. Whitaker’s truck stop was just off of highway 9, about midway through the Appalachians, about mid altitude as well, so that from where Bobby Cook was standing there was a lot mountain above and below him, and the view, even by starlight, was incredible. Frank had parked their Mack Semi by the driveway, beneath which ran a giant culvert and there was an impressively sized drainage trench as well, it ran along the front of the property rather like a moat. In the spring the run off waters filled this trench like a mighty river, but at the moment there was just a trickle of stream. The sound of the trickling water was very soothing, and combined with the view it was a wonderful thing. Bobby stood there by the drive way, half heartedly leaning on the steel railing, smoking a cigarette, trying not to think about the miles which lay ahead of him tonight.
He didn’t see the fog rising out of the trench, and if he had it wouldn’t have alarmed him. It only looked like fog after all, a large snake like formation of fog which moved with deliberation toward Bobby Cook. It was whiter than normal fog; it almost glowed in the soft moon light. It eased its way toward Cook, and slowly encircled his torso. When he looked down saw the fog it didn't alarm him, at first he thought it was smoke and that maybe he had set his shirt on fire with his cigarette. With his free hand he waved the tendril of fog away from his chest. It dispersed the way smoke might, but then reformed instantly and moved for his chest again. It moved with speed and it scared him. He began to back toward the truck and dropping his cigarette he waved the fog away with both hands. The harder he waved the more it seemed to envelope him. Then it seemed to become more solid, he could feel it constricting around his chest, arms, and legs, and then, before he could scream it was around his throat as well. The fog was more like a slimy variety of flesh now, and it reminded him of fishing when he was a child, when he had taken fish off the hook as a boy, the way the wet fish had felt in his tiny fingers. He thought of running his fingers down the fish, starting at the nose, thumb on the bottom, fingers on the top, and sliding his hand down the body of the fish to get a grip, how smooth the fish would feel, unless he had attempted slide his hand back up toward the nose, then he would feel the sharp spines of the fins pricking into his flesh. This fog felt precisely like that, and he could feel razor sharp protrusions slipping into his flesh in a hundred places. Then he was lifted off his feet, and then lowered down into the trench, and then he was gone.
Two hours later Frank Wilson woke up in the truck and was immediately furious that they weren’t on the road. At first he assumed that they had driven somewhere and had stopped. As he crawled into the driver’s seat he was really mad to see that the truck had not moved an inch. He went into the truck stop and asked a few questions, but no one had seen bobby since he had been in earlier. He had a bite to eat, and called Cook’s cell phone a dozen times. Each time it rang five or six times and went to voicemail. From inside the diner he couldn’t hear Bobby Cook’s cell phone ringing, but if he had been standing by the truck he would have heard it. Cook had dropped his phone on the ground by the rail. If Wilson had heard the ringing it might have tipped him off to the fact that something terrible had happened to his co-driver, but as it happened, after killing thirty minutes trying to contact him, Wilson assumed that Cook had run off with a girl, or some other nonsense. Wilson drove on alone. He had no idea that the fog had come for him as well, but it hadn’t been able to get inside the truck. All he could think about was the miles he needed to make up.