It was supposed to be a routine “locate and extract” they said. “High value target is stranded” they said. “No conflict expected” they said.
Ain’t that somethin’.
A quick rundown on the briefing is this: A Dr. was stranded in known hostile territory. He hid while the town he was in was ransacked by a well-known terrorist group. He was able to get off a distress signal with the basic intel needed. Radio silence since then. Higher ups figured he was either out of power or trying to find a better place of concealment and couldn’t lug the radio with him. He is a high value, top of his field, scientist that supposedly has an awful lot of intel the aforementioned group would die to get their hands on. He needed to lay low and have heavy, well-trained escorts to perform the extraction. Just for the sake of worst-case scenario.
Simple enough.
That’s where we come in. A small unit of elite operators that specialize in remaining silent, unseen and above all else. Mission completion. I’m not going to disclose what government we work for, but I’m not sure that even matters anymore. Weren’t many records before. Damn sure aren’t now.
Anyways, I’ll give you a rundown on the team, too.
Sgt. Dawson, sniper, weapon specialist, tactical coordinator and one hell of a fuckin’ crack shot. Don’t matter what he’s shooting with or at. The man hits his mark.
Then there’s Sgt. Finnegan. Medic, electrical engineer, and mechanic. I haven’t seen shit he can’t fix besides his hot-headed attitude.
Next is Sgt. Hayes. Comms, hand to hand combat expert and pound for pound the toughest woman you’ll ever meet in your damn life.
Sgt. Crassus is our local brainiac. Field engineer, improvised munitions, and EOD specialist. Kid’s a real-life MacGyver. If we need something blown up, he finds a way. If we’re about to blow up, he’ll figure that out too.
Lastly, there’s Sgt. Steele. Longest time of service, second in command. After 15 years, there isn’t much he can’t do. He’s the best friend a guy could ask for.
Oh, right, and you’re probably wondering about me. Cpt. Graves, team lead. No, it’s not a nickname.
Now you’re up to speed.
Everything was typical until we got boots on the ground. We were dropped by helo a few clicks out so we wouldn’t attract any unnecessary attention. As we rounded our way to the small town, I couldn’t help but get that gut wrenching feeling that something was off. I could tell the rest of the team was more on edge than usual, so this wasn’t some sort of trick on my senses.
We stopped just on the edge of town, and I scanned the buildings with binoculars, everyone else did the same. Only they did it through their scopes. Whole town is still as a newborn gone wrong. If it wasn’t for the dust whipping around in this forsaken sandbox, it’d almost look like a photograph.
“Anyone got a bead?”
With unison they called back. “Clear.”
With the initial surveillance done, it was time to start sweeping complexes until we found our target. We made our way to the tallest building in the town and ran an escort up to the top. Once the building was cleared, I had Dawson and Hayes set up shop. Our eyes and ears, if you will.
“Hayes, keep the line active. I want to know if anything, and I mean anything happens. I got a bad feeling in my stomach so you two keep your eyes sharp. D, if you see anything that isn’t our Doc, you take that shot. No questions asked. According to intel, there is no reason to suspect anyone here is civilian.”
“Roger that, cap.” Dawson replied, and Hayes gave a firm nod of recognition.
I turned away from the two of them and locked eyes with Steele. His face was grim to put it lightly.
“Team, we have approximately twenty minutes till sundown. Check your gear one last time. We move when it hits the horizon.”
While everyone busied themselves, Steele closed the distance between the two of us so that he could whisper without the rest of the team hearing. His eyes were dodgey and just as he began to speak, the grip on his rifle tightened. “I haven’t seen a single bullet hole since we walked into town, Graves. Something isn’t right with this. There’s no explosive residue, no bodies, no sign at all that a hostile group ransacked this place.” He cut himself off, staring into the town. “It feels like every building I look at, someone’s looking back at me.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy. I hear you. There are a total of 19 civilian buildings, two storage tunnels and the building of worship. There may be a few shacks that we weren’t briefed on, but even if that’s the case, it’s only going to take a few hours at most to search every last building. In and out. We’ll be back before morning chow.”
That didn’t seem to ease the stress mounting on his mind, but I couldn’t blame him. The moment we walked into the town, it felt like walking into a crypt.
As the sun collided with the horizon, we made our way back down the building. Once out, we moved in a diamond formation. Finnegan at 9-o-clock, Crassus at 3-o-clock, Steele at 6 and myself at 12, taking point.
“We start at the far end and circle back. If we still haven’t found the Doc, we hit the storage tunnels last.” I signaled towards the furthest building, and they followed in toe.
We cleared the entrance of light debris and as soon as I saw the inside of the first room my jaw slacked. There were body parts thrown everywhere. It was a massacre unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It looked like wolves tore these people to bits and then just left them there to rot. Amidst the heavy carnage, something out of place caught my attention. There were deep claw marks on the walls and floor that I would be hard pressed to believe anything was responsible for besides a full-grown polar bear.
“W-what the fu-“ Finnegan began to stutter, finally catching sight of the room but his words were overtaken. As soon as the sun cleared the horizon and the inky blackness of night consumed this corner of the world, the most horrific ear-piercing shriek rang out. It felt like getting punched in the ear drum by Mike Tyson. All of us grabbed our heads and I glanced desperately to find what was making that noise. A few moments after the first one, dozens, if not hundreds of milder shrieks cried back. These ones sounded much closer than the first.
The radio cracked with the high pitch frequency of the shrieks, and I could just barely make out Hayes’s voice.
“We have movement. A lot of movement. You four need to get out of there. NOW. We’ll regroup with you where we entered the town.”
“Copy. Ro-” Was all I could get out before the radio crackled again with gunshots. Not even a second later we heard them both scream in agony and then the line went dead. We all turned around and immediately started hauling ass back to their location. We managed to get about halfway through town before everything went silent again. The hell spawn choir cut short. We stopped and looked around, dumbstruck.
Where the hell are these things? No. Focus. There are possible personnel down.
“Move.” I yelled to the men behind me.
I didn’t even take a full stride before Steele started shouting. “Graves. Graves! What is that thing!?”
I have never heard fear in that man’s voice like I did that night. A hardened soldier, veteran to nearly half a dozen wars sounding like a meek child. My skin crawled as I turned to see what he was looking at.
“Where?” I glanced around through the night vision optics but didn’t see anything.
“Captain… We… Have our own problems.” Finnegan spoke as if he was in a trance.
I focused my eyes to where they both were looking, and my blood ran cold. Crawling down the side of the building to our right was a grotesque amalgamation of a man and some… eldritch… thing. It was a person… Or at least it used to be. Its skin was stretched and body twisted in unnatural ways. It had a mouth that spanned from ear to ear, with rows and rows of jagged teeth. It smiled at us which appeared to split the skin that was once it’s lips in multiple places. Its eyes were beady, black balls and its limbs each had an extra joint, at least. The fingers and toes of this creature better resembled ice picks than human digits, all attached to a severely emaciated torso of what I assume used to be a grown man. I watched it lick blood off its face with a lizard like tongue and it cracked its tail like a whip before rolling its head back. Its jaw seemed to unhinge as it stretched its mouth uncomfortably wide and let out one of those headache inducing shrieks.
I looked around us and from the windows, doors and rooftops variations of those creatures crawled out to answer the call. Some had multiple sets of eyes like spiders, some had more appendages and crawled like a centipede, and I think I even saw one with three heads. My fixation on the creatures was broken by the sound of weapon fire.
Finnegan and Steele were both firing their rifles at the creature closest to us. I couldn’t see Crassus.
“Where’s the kid!?” I yelled as loud as my vocal cords would let me.
Steele lowered his rifle and glanced around. “That idiot.” His words a low growl.
“Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo. That’s one dead freak!” Finnegan exclaimed and I watched that creature smack the dirt with a wet crunch. “I don’t like ‘em, but I’m happy to report. They’re killable, sir.”
“Finn, tighten up. Crassus is M.I.A. and we have two more personnel that…” My jaw clenched at the thought.
Clear your head. Think faster.
“Sorry.” Was all that Finnegan muttered out.
Those things were beginning to close in on us. I was out of time. What’s the right call when you’re face to face with things straight out of your worst nightmare’s nightmare?
“Get inside. We’ll barricade with what we can.”
Shitty orders. I know. I didn’t know what else to do. That thing took an easy 30 rounds to put down. Even if we could’ve survived that horde of abominations long enough to make a dent in their numbers, we’d run out of rounds before given the chance. I still don’t know what I would have done different. I’m getting sidetracked.
We managed to board the entryway and windows with some light furniture, but all three of us knew that wasn’t going to hold.
“What now, Graves?” They were both staring at me, awaiting further orders.
“I… I don’t.” I swallowed hard as I fumbled my words. “Frags. We have 15 between the three of us.” I lightly nodded my head as a rough draft of a plan formed. “Steele, you’re first. We uncover the window by the door. Finn will cover you and I’ll pop smoke from the front door. Once we get coverage, we move. We regroup with Hayes and Dawson, or at least survey their last known location. We’ll figure out what to do from-“
One of those things collided with the side of the building and it felt like a wrecking ball was trying to bring the walls down. No one missed a beat. We all executed accordingly. I wouldn’t say it went according to plan. Finn was able to put down a couple of those things before reloading, but the frags… Steele threw out two and both were swallowed up whole by those freaks. Snatched them right out of the air. They were both blown to bits.
I let off two smoke grenades out of the cracked front door. Right before they went off, one of those things broke through the wall and pulled Finn out. It was like a praying mantis, with huge forelegs and mandibles on the sides of its face. Before Steele or I could react, that thing pinched Finn in its mandibles and severed him in two.
My hearing dulled. I could hear Stelle shouting, but the words were drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat. I grabbed him by the back of his pack and dragged him out of that death trap I put us into. I’m honestly not even sure how we managed it, but we made it back to the building we posted up at originally. We didn’t bother trying to barricade anything. Not after what we just saw.
We made our way up the stairs and crouched in the small stairwell that led up to the metal hatch that opened to the rooftop. Steele slapped me, I think. Maybe it was a punch. Either way it brought me back to my senses.
“Get it together Graves. Damnit. I’m opening this hatch. We’re taking a quick look. Two if we need it. If we don’t see those things, we go up. Got it?”
I nodded faintly, still not able to wrap my head around everything just yet.
We pushed the latch up and looked around. Nothing. No horrors in sight. I breached the entrance first and pulled my rifle into my shoulder. The only thing I saw when I looked down that barrel was two big messes of blood sprayed all over that roof top like someone had busted open a can of red spray paint.
“We’re too late.” My jaw clenched hard and walked over to where Hayes had the comms set up. It was completely smashed. Not even the possibility to radio for emergency evac. Backup. An air strike…. Nothing. The pit in my gut grew just a little bit bigger.
I turned to Steele to see he was offering a smoke, having just lit one himself. I thanked him with a silent nod and sparked ol’ faithful up to light it. She wasn’t anything too special, just a simple pure silver zippo that’s never failed when I needed her.
“We’re going to die, Graves.”
“Yeah, probably. Lying shits.”
“Mmmhm. Nothin’ new there though. I’d need a few more sets of hands if I tried to count all the times, they withheld intel.”
We both chuckled.
Sounds stupid to be taking a smoke break and reminiscing but death is something both of us accepted many, many years ago. Probably a bit of shock and cognitive shut down sprinkled into the mix with all this though. Finding out that things like those monsters exist will do that to you, I guess.
Surprisingly, even though we waited, nothing came. We looked down the sides of the building, there weren’t even any of those freaks sticking to the walls this time. As I was about to turn around, I heard a scream that chilled me to my core. It was the kid. Crassus. He screamed out in pain so desperately… I will never forget that sound.
“I’m going down.”
“Graves, wait.” He shouted after me, but I was already making my way down the staircase. “WAIT DAMNIT.”
These things seem to like to play with their prey so there’s still a chance he’s still alive. Even if that chance is a tenth of a percent, I’m taking it. Even though he protested, Steele was behind me in mere moments. He never asked. Never questioned. We just moved in silence.
We both checked a side of the doorway and exited the building. We were moving in the general direction of the scream but didn’t have a set headway. We kept to the sides of the buildings, making sure to check above as we moved, but having one less side open is comforting.
As I turned a corner, right in front of us was a cluster of them. They were like a colony of rats the way they just crawled over one another. I held my fist up signaling Steele to stop and then motioned for him to look over my shoulder. I turned back and we both put our backs against the wall.
“I’m pretty sure that’s where the kid is. They only seem to gather like that when they are attacking something. If we can make an opening, maybe there’s a chance.”
“Don’t get your hopes up Graves.” He stared dead into my eyes. “You’ve seen how fast these things move.”
“I know.” I shook my head.
“Still, we bring the heat to their asses. Even if we don’t pull anyone out, we can send them to hell.” He offered those words with a grin.
“Give them everything you have.” I ordered, firmly.
With that, we rounded the corner one last time and did everything we could to be a force of sheer destruction. Steele threw out an incendiary grenade that landed right on top of the large mass of them. I followed up with two good old frags and we managed to make confetti out of quite a few of them.
We advanced forward, alternating who shoots when one of us needed to change mags.
We were pushing them back. But we made one fatal mistake. One miscalculation. You see, we were fighting these things like they were any other enemy. Like the regular rules applied.
That thing that I mentioned earlier, the centipede… it made its way into one of the storage tunnels that were underneath the town. It waited until we got right on top of it and busted through the sediment. That thing was surface side in seconds.
As I was falling back to the ground, I managed to get a few shots off at the back of the things head. It whipped the back half of its stretched body and smacked me out of the air like a fly.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even see for a few seconds. Once I was able to get back to my feet, I saw Steele surrounded.
“No!” I shouted. “Over here you freaks! Hey!”
I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t have a plan but I wasn’t going to sit and watch. I let myself get so focused on getting to him, that I didn’t see the one that snuck around behind me. It caught my right leg in mid stride.
Its sharp fingers raked through the muscles in my thigh. I cried out in pain as I went tumbling forward.
“Graves…”
I heard Steele’s voice right above me, but something sounded off.
I looked up to find the centipede was crushing him. Those sharp fingers digging into his body and using all its extra arms to press him together.
I noticed what he had in his hand. It was a flashbang.
“Run.” He managed to get out before his head finally gave way.
I covered my eyes right before it went off and heard those things squeal in agony. Guess they don’t like light too much.
I managed to get myself up and hobbling away though it wasn’t very fast. The closest building to me was in rough shape. I couldn’t see any way in. The whole front at the very least was collapsed. It was either head that way or turn around and walk back into the creatures.
My eyes darted wildly around, searching for some kind of cover. My leg was torn up bad. I could barely put any weight on it. I tried to limp a little bit faster, getting just a little more stride out of my right leg. I ate dirt as soon as I tried. That’s when I saw the hole in the wall of the collapsed building right in front of me. Judging by the shape the building was in, it looked like it was going to be tight, but a small space is what I need right now.
I crawled my way towards the hole, those things starting to follow behind me now. I could hear their disgusting noises getting closer.
PUSH DAMNIT.
I kicked my good leg as hard as I could to propel myself forward a few times and made it to the hole. There was a heavy trail of blood that was leading into it… At this point it didn’t matter much if there was one of those things in here or not, so I let out as much air as I could and squeezed in. I turned on the small flashlight that was attached to my shoulder and looked around. No creatures to be seen.
I was able to stand up by ducking my head some and I used the butt of my rifle as a cane. I looked down and noticed the blood trail continued behind some of the rubble.
“Anyone alive back there?” I called out with a hushed voice.
I heard a rustling and a cough. My heart raced as I made my way to the other side and couldn’t believe what I saw.
“Crassus? Kid! Thank God. You made it.”
I gave him a once over, he was a little pale and sweating but he didn’t look too beat up. I kneeled in front of him, putting my weight on my good leg and grabbed his shoulders.
“I’ve got a lot of questions, but we’re getting you out of here. You copy?”
“Sir, I can’t follow that order.” His eyes glanced up at me for a moment before looking back towards the ground.
I adjusted the light and looked down. His jacket was over his lap. It was soaked in blood. I pulled the jacket up and Crassus grunted in pain. His legs were gone. He had dragged himself in here and cinched his own tourniquets.
“Kid, how are you… We need to get those clean-“
“Listen to me. We both know I’m not getting out of here.” He grabbed the back of my neck and weakly pulled me closer to him. His hand was ice cold. “The day I joined your team, you made me a promise.”
“I remember.” I nodded.
“Then you need to get out of here and keep it.” He tried to force some dominance into his tone, but the strength just wasn’t there. “My Ma deserves to know what happened to her son.”
His lips twitched into a smile for just a second as he raised his other hand. He held up a detonation remote. He had set up an entire explosive rig after hunkering down in here too. I gritted my teeth, tears welling up in my eyes and shook my head.
“I’m so damn proud to have served with you, kid.” I had to stop and take a breath. “I’ll get the letter to your mother.”
I killed my shoulder mounted light and sat against the wall next to him. “What’s your plan?”
“Nothing too special. I make a racket, draw them in, you go back out through the hole we both crawled into and get out. When I detonate this, about half the town is going to be leveled. If this is where I’m meant to die, then those things are coming with me. I can give you about three minutes to run, but… I don’t think I can hold out much longer than that, Sir.” He coughed and I could feel him starting to shake.
“I’ll make the most of every second. I have one frag left I can throw to lead them here. Take my rifle too.” I found his hand that wasn’t holding the remote and helped him grip the firearm. “That’s a fresh mag. Light it up after I crawl out.”
He coughed again. “Copy.”
I thudded my helmet against the wall a few times. I can’t explain to you how hard it was to leave that room. After a few seconds I convinced myself to get up. “You ready?” I asked with a heavy heart.
“Sir.”
“Yeah, kid?”
“Take my tags too. Then I’m ready.”
I turned my light back on and saw he stopped sweating. He had nothing left in him. He looked like a corpse sitting there already. I grabbed his tags, lowered my helmet to touch his head and killed my light again.
“Moving.” My voice cracked.
I focused on a spot in the front of the building that had collapsed where the moonlight was shining through. It wasn’t big, but I could use that as an exit for the grenade. I pulled the pin and limped over to the hole. I held it for a few seconds and looked over to the dark wall where the kid was still sitting. I let out a deep breath and tossed it.
As soon as I saw the grenade clear the hole, I pulled my last smoke grenade and threw myself towards the hole. I landed with a heavy thud and threw my concealment out. I didn’t look. I just ducked my head and started to crawl through.
The grenade went off and I heard them shriek again.
The gunshots started.
I made it out and used the side of the building to help keep myself propped up. I thought my leg was going to just fall off a few times during my desperate escape, but every time I wanted to just lay down and die… I thought of the kid.
No pain. No fatigue. No pain. No Fatigue. I repeated those words over and over again as I stared into the darkness in front of me. The building was close to the edge of the town, so I made it into the open after about a minute. That’s my guess at least. I could hear the shots getting further and further spaced apart.
“Hang on kid.” The tears finally broke the dam.
After that, all I really remember is shouting at the top of my lungs and pushing through the pain of my leg. Next thing I knew, the blast went off and I was blown off my feet and spun through the air a couple meters. I could barely breathe. That blast sucked all the air out of my lungs and there was so much smoke, I couldn’t refill them properly.
I laid there, staring up at the sky, cursing whatever God there may or may not be. The blackness of the sky was a little less all consuming. I thought it was due to the fire from the explosion at first but, the sun was finally coming up. This night from hell was over.
I breathed a sigh of relief. As if waiting for a cue, one of those creatures crawled over me. It dragged its body. It looked like it was barely alive but it still radiated such bloodlust. Its skin was melted, third degree burns all over. One of its beady, black eyes dripped down its charred flesh like runny eggs and the other stared directly into mine as it met me face to face.
I put my forehead to its face and screamed. Every ounce of hatred for this beast being used as fuel. It opened its mouth wide. Wide enough to swallow me whole. It shrieked that awful noise, and I continued my yell, challenging it.
Just as it was going to throw its mouth over me, I pulled my knife from the sheath on my left leg and plunged it into the back of its mouth. It writhed, squealed, and pulled back just enough. I took that opportunity to roll back onto my forearm, push up my lower body and pressed my boot onto the handle of my knife with everything I had left in me. It cried in crackled shrieks and squeals.
After a few seconds it stopped moving and I pulled myself out from under it. I was able to see now that it was the centipede. I kicked the knife into its brain cavity further until I couldn’t see it anymore.
After the knife had disappeared into the thing, I resorted to using my fists. I beat on the deformed body of it until I couldn’t move my arms any more. I screamed. I cried out all of their names. I cursed this place and what it had done. I’m not sure how long that went on, but it couldn’t have been more than ten to fifteen minutes. I finally just fell back and stared forward.
I must have sat there a while just watching that town burn. Once I decided to get up, the sun was already over the horizon. I grabbed my pack that had been thrown off me at some point and started off. I would like to say that’s where this story ends, but I’m afraid not.
A few minutes later I heard a helicopter off in the distance. I honestly figured the government just sent a team out here to silence anyone who made it out, so I’m sure you can assume my surprise when the thing landed. They killed the rotors and a suit stepped out. Typical FBI / CIA attire down to the shades. You know the type.
This guy was a little out of the ordinary though. May as well have been a tree walking toward me. By my guess, he was 6’10 or 6’11 and 280 pounds of solid muscle. And I’m being conservative here. Where the hell was this guy a few hours ago. He probably could wrestle those things to the ground by brute force alone.
“Captain Graves?”
“That depends who’s asking.” I tried to straighten up my stature to the best of my ability.
“You’ve done well surviving your night here. We weren’t expecting any survivors. Ironic that you’re the only one who made it out with a name like that, don’t you think?” He didn’t have a shred of emotion in his voice.
“Who the hell are you, guy?” My blood was starting to boil.
He completely ignored me, again. “You’ve got yourself a new contract. Welcome to The Agency.”
“Agency? What agency?”
“None you’ve ever heard of. We take care of problems like you and your team ran into. That’s all I’ll say for now.” He waved his arm back toward the helicopter. “After you.”
“You’re telling me that my men died for nothing? That their lives were stolen because you didn’t mobilize fast enough? If you know who I am, and you know about my team then I know for a damn fact you knew what was going on here before any of us did.” I was doing all I could not to scream.
“Fuck that. Fuck you.” I spat on the ground near the man as I turned and began limping away. “I don’t want any part of your shitty secret agency. I’m fuckin’ goin’ home.” I shouted as I began my long journey back to the nearest fob.
Or what should have been a long journey that is. I heard the man’s dress shoes crunch on the dry ground behind me and spun around. He was clenching his jaw and peering at me over his deep shades. His eyes glowed like fire in a shade of yellow I don’t think is natural to any human. Or maybe I’m remembering wrong. What I do remember is just as I opened my mouth to shout at the man one more time, he pulled his leather glove tighter onto his hand. He threw a hook so fast I didn’t register his hand moved until it collided with the side of my face.
“Shit…” Is all I could mutter as my legs gave out, crumbling to the ground.
“That was not an offer Captain.”
Those words were the last thing I remembered. I was gone before my head hit the ground.
When I came to, the first thing I heard was the chopping of air that is the all too familiar byproduct of a helicopter. My head hung forward so the first thing I saw was my blood-stained boots along with the fashionable braided wire cuffs around them. My head was pounding. Pretty sure my jaw’s broken too. I let out a heavy exhale and looked around. I was the only one in the vicinity, but they were at least nice enough to leave me my pack. I pulled out a smoke and took a long drag after getting some hydration. My tablet was still in one piece, so I began to jot all this nightmare down. I needed to get it out.
After going over all of this, maybe the new gig won’t be so bad. I get to hunt down the things that go bump in the night. Get a little revenge for taking my family from me. I’m going to try and prod for some intel. See if I can’t figure any of this out and get a little more clarity.
Not sure when I’ll have the connection to get it uploaded, but the post will be pending till then. If this ‘agency’ gives me any bit of freedom, I’ll report back soon.