—the way he dug for reasons for three guys to opt out of the mission—
—the rigid, almost robot-like stiffness of the garrison at Red Rock all pointed to some high-level threat. Yet so far, nothing. Only a cold, empty, underground office complex that smelled like a retirement home suffering from poor sanitation.
Kind of like the one Mom was in before she died. Half the place smelled like disinfectant, the other half smelled like a pissed bed. Bunch of crazy old folks, some howling for pain medication, which that fucking orderly—the black orderly—never brought on time.
Franco heard Gant say, ""Okay, then. It is my turn to go on point."
As much as that surprised Biggy, it did not surprise him that Gant's two little butt buddies were all like “no, don't go,” and “send Franco down” or whatever.
Gant said, "Just keep Captain Twiste here and the V.A.A.D. components safe. They are your primary concern. I'll go down first. If all is clear, send down Franco's scout team. If there is a problem, start off for the stairs on the far side."
He alternated his attention between the hall ahead and the elevator as Major Gant disappeared over the side. A few second later a horrid squeal—like fingers on a chalkboard—came out of the shaft.
Good going, Major. Way to let everything in this place know where we are.
"We're good," came Gant's voice over the tactical headset, albeit a voice covered in crackling static.
Franco's eyes drifted over to the elevator, waiting for Campion's signal for the advance team to head into the shaft. He hated roping. Back when he was with the Rangers he had slipped when roping out of a Blackhawk and dislocated his shoulder.
Didn't hear the end of that one for months.
To his surprise, Campion directed Twiste toward the rope, going as far as to put a hand on this shoulder and seemingly push him. Franco could not hear whatever it was the two captains discussed, but clearly this was not Gant's plan. Well, at least not as far as Franco had heard.
Nonetheless, he watched in disbelief as Twiste—duffel bag and all—disappeared over the ledge and started down the shaft.
Biggy returned his attention to the hallway ahead.
Whatever it was, it poked out of and then pulled back into one of the open doorways; one of the offices. Franco heard a soft crack, like a footstep on broken glass. In that brief glimpse, his eyes reported something about the size of a child, maybe four feet tall, with what might have been a bipedal, humanoid body, but the lack of light hid any other details.
Instinctively he called out, "Movement!"
Campion: "Biggy! What have you got?"
Franco: "Five meters ahead on the left. In one of those offices."
From behind them, down the hall, came Wells's voice: "Movement behind!"
Galati backed away from the stairwell, shouting, "Multiple targets!"
Sergeant Franco's head swiveled around from Wells, to Galati, to the office door ahead where he had seen movement but saw nothing now.
Major Gant and his pal Twiste got out just in time, didn't they?
Then they came, pouring around the corner guarded by Wells and from the stairwell door from which Sal Galati bid a hasty retreat. A lack of light made their attackers hard to discern, and even when Franco saw what he saw, he did not know what they were.
Shapes. Vaguely humanoid. Like a dozen or so walking—running—shadows. Animals? Machines? His mind did not stop to analyze. Indeed, his thinking process was overwhelmed with a sudden and sharp blast of emotion.
Fear, yes, a healthy dose, but something more. Anger. Disgust. Whatever these things really were, to Benjamin "Biggy" Franco they were rats that needed to be exterminated before they could infect him with their filth.
He raised his automatic shotgun and zeroed in as the mob chased the team into a circle at the center of the hall. Franco fired at one of the living shadows as it approached. It dissipated into nothingness, like a cloud of fog blown apart by a wind gust.
Franco checked the others. Wells fired his SCAR-H into the ground, seemingly shooting nothing but blasting away chunks of the floor one after another, all while screaming in outright terror—not panic, not adrenaline—but fear.
Galati stood alongside Campion, both emptying magazines into the mob of attackers but inflicting no casualties.
What Franco saw next confused him to the point that his mind all but short-circuited.
Moss moved toward him, walking among the approaching shadow-things with the infrared scope on his M4 raised to his eye as if searching his surroundings, but not firing at all. In fact, he was saying something. Something very strange.
"No targets! I've got no targets!"
Then things took a turn for the weirder, and Franco saw it all happen just ten feet in front of him.
One of the creatures walked straight into Moss. Just walked into him. No collision, no impact, just slipping right into him like a ghost possessing a body, except Franco saw Moss disappear, his BDUs, his body armor, his weapons … everything enveloped by a living shadow, eliminating any trace of the man and replacing it with a monster.
Then it came for Biggy. Staggering toward him, a warped limb made out of night reaching out with intent to strangle.
The sergeant fired his USAS-12; three blasts in quick succession. This time the shadow collapsed backwards instead of disintegrating.
They can be killed!
No matter how alien the things appeared, they could be killed and Biggy aimed to do just that; to exterminate every last one of the disgusting things.
He fired and fired again, apparently hitting nothing. But when he turned to look across the hall he saw that Pearson was in trouble. Some creature—some version of these walking shadows—had latched on to the soldier's back and was doing to Pearson what Franco had seen one do to Wells: absorbing him, enveloping him, taking his flesh and turning it into something inhuman.
Sergeant Franco ran across the hall with the hope of prying the attacker free, but it was too late; the monster completed the metamorphosis. What should have been a man was now something else.
"Die, you fucking bastard!"
And Franco let his USAS-12 do the work. The shells tore into the creature. It screamed in a surprisingly human voice, even though Franco saw no mouth or eyes or any other features.
That scream was replaced by a warped hiss as the wounded foe staggered about, side to side.
"Franco!"
He raised his shotgun to finish off the target … then he saw Captain Campion approach and raise his sidearm.
"I got this one, get the fuck out of my way," Franco said, pulling his trigger and blasting the creature one last time. At the same instant, a bullet from Campion's pistol slammed into Franco's shoulder. His left arm went limp. First the barrel then the rest of the heavy weapon dropped from his hands.
Campion shot me! What the f—
He never finished the thought. The creature he had shot … the one that took Pearson's body … exploded in a ball of golden flame. A wall of heat came with a blast of concussion that sent Franco falling backwards, splaying across the floor and sliding into the side wall, his body peppered with some kind of shrapnel and blood pouring from the bullet wound to his shoulder.
Franco remained conscious just long enough to hear Campion issue orders.
"Move! We have to move out of here!"
Then Biggy Franco's eyes closed and his mind turned off for a while.
—
Campion stepped from the folding chair and tugged the rope. The pipe—probably a protective cover for electrical wires—would serve as an adequate anchor.
"That should do the trick," he told Gant.
"Okay, then," Thom said. "It is my turn to go on point."
"Sir?" he and Twiste said in unison.
Campion, however, heard the major's tone, and he also recognized the expression on Gant's face. There would be no talking him out of it, no changing his mind, and the captain thought he knew why. It was apparent from the start that
Franco was not happy being sent on point. Why? Well, Captain Campion had long ago given up trying to understand the sergeant. For all his intelligence, Franco seemed a man who let his emotions get the better of him.
Emotion has no place on the battlefield.
"Just keep Captain Twiste here and the V.A.A.D. components safe," Gant said as he reached for the rope. "They are your primary concern. I'll go down first. If all is clear, send down Franco's scout team. If there is a problem, start off for the stairs on the far side."
Despite knowing he had no chance at success, Campion started to try and talk the major out of it, but a new thought pushed away that idea.
Let him go.
Yes, of course, it made sense for Gant to go first. He was the leader, he was important, and there was something else about him … something that set him apart from the others in the unit.
Campion turned away from the elevator shaft and surveyed the corridor. The men were in good position. Yes, there was one soldier—Wells—standing by the secondary corridor that led to the break room near the double doors that opened to the cafeteria. Another man—Salvatore Galati—covered the stairwell, and of course the others—Pearson, Moss, Franco, and, yes, Brandon Twiste, the scientist carrying an equipment bag and trained to operate the V.A.A.D.
A terrible sound—a scream of some sort—reverberated up through the elevator shaft and nearly made Campion jump. Then he realized that he had heard a screech of rusty hinges, probably the elevator roof hatch.
A burst of static crackled in Campion's ear, followed by Major Gant's voice: "We're good."
The equipment must be protected. Get Twiste down there now, everyone else can stay behind for playtime.
Campion motioned for Twiste to go down the rope.
"He said to send the scout team first."
"Get going Doctor," Campion said, putting a hand on Twiste's shoulder and shoving him toward the shaft and the rope. Still Twiste hesitated, standing there with his eyes squinting and his head tilted in what was clearly an expression of confusion.
"I said go; it's playtime."
Campion's words only added to his comrade's confusion, to the point that Twiste physically did as instructed even though his mind obviously struggled with the idea. Of course, Campion sympathized because he was not sure why he had said that, either. It just sort of came to mind.
In fact, he wondered why he felt the urge to send Twiste down against Gant's orders. It made no sense. The hall was secure, but the floor below could be full of danger. That was why the scout team needed to go first … but it made perfect sense for Twiste to go now. For some reason … he could not quite understand.
"Captain Campion, what is your status?"
I honestly don't know, sir.
"Movement!"
Franco's shout focused Campion's mind as his training—instinct, actually—took over.
"Biggy! What have you got?"
"Five meters ahead on the left. In one of those offices."
Campion looked in that direction. His eyes struggled with the contrast between the darkness and a cone of brightness emanating from a half-broken security light. Still, he saw something just inside the door of one of the offices. Someone or something about four to four and a half feet tall. Just a silhouette; an outline of dark standing in a room of dark.
He raised his MP5 and swung both the laser targeting beam and the tactical light toward the door. Whatever hid in there retreated deeper into the room before he could get a better view. His attention, however, went elsewhere.
"Movement behind!"
"Multiple targets!"
Turning around, he saw Galati back away from the stairs and Wells retreat down the hall toward the elevator.
Campion heard the attackers a moment before actually seeing them: the jingle of equipment and the thump-thump-thump of jackboots fast-marching up the hall. Then they took form out of the darkness: coal scuttle helmets and field gray tunics.
Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht armed with rifles (Campion's mind immediately identified them as Gwehr 41s) but they approached as if intent on striking with their bayonets.
Biggy's shotgun went off and then other members of the team opened fire. Campion did the same, putting three rounds from his MP5 directly in the chest of one of the faceless infantrymen bearing down on his position. His target jerked and stumbled backwards, slipping to one knee, then rose to his feet again to renew his charge.
Galati stood at the captain's side, firing his G36, but Campion remained focused on his own targets, although careful not to hit Moss, who stood amongst the mob, scanning the area as if he could not see the Germans.
They must have blinded him, he thought.
The captain hit another enemy soldier, this time in the top of his head. Strangely enough, the man—the thing—reacted in exactly the same manner as the one he had hit in the chest; stumbling backwards, slipping to one knee, then standing again. The bullet to the head should have at least knocked the man's (creature’s?) helmet free.
That was odd enough, but Wells—standing in front of Richard Campion not far from the stairs from which Wehrmacht soldiers marched out—screamed in horror and fired his assault rifle into the ground, seemingly at the boots—the boots?—of one of the attackers.
Even in the midst of the firefight, Campion disapproved. Wells was a professional soldier. He should be finding targets and hitting them at center mass or even in the head. Instead, he looked like a panicked old lady squaring off against a mouse or house spider.
A voice shouted, "No targets! I've got no targets!"
It was Moss, and he, like Wells, was acting in an incomprehensible manner, drifting across the battlefield with his eye fixed to his infrared scope, swinging it about as if he could not see the German soldiers all around him.
Sensing a threat, Campion fired his MP5 at another of the attackers, hitting him somewhere in the shoulder, but again the enemy staggered, knelt, and then returned to his feet.
He turned back just in time to see Franco shoot Moss at nearly point-blank range. The sergeant drilled the soldier with three blasts from his automatic shotgun, obliterating Moss's body armor and turning everything between the man's shoulders and his waistline into a cavity of gore. Franco kept on firing away with little regard for aim.
He has gone crazy.
Just as Captain Campion made that realization, he watched Biggy turn and face Pearson, who, from what he could see, was sort of standing around in a state of total confusion, much like Moss had acted before Franco murdered him. And apparently, Franco intended to do the same to Pearson. Biggy crossed the hall with his shotgun raised.
"Die, you fucking bastard!"
Campion tried to intervene, shouting then taking aim and pulling the trigger but his magazine had run dry. With no time to reload, he reached for his sidearm.
Too late. Franco blasted away at Pearson, who screamed and fell against the wall, narrowly avoiding falling down the elevator shaft. Instead, he dropped to the ground and writhed from the shotgun pellets peppering his side from his neck to his knee.
Franco saw the captain approach and yelled, "I got this one, get the fuck out of my way."
Campion saw no alternative. He fired his pistol at Franco just as the sergeant fired at Pearson one last time.
Both men hit their mark.
Franco dropped his weapon and staggered, a bullet wound in his shoulder.
Pearson, fortunately, still lived, thanks to instinctively turning away from the shotgun. Unfortunately, that meant Biggy's blast hit the ancient flamethrower on Pearson's back. The pellets ruptured the gas tank, venting highly flammable fumes … which ignited when they reached the pilot light on the weapon's wand.
The blast sent Campion tumbling. His right arm caught fire, but he used the momentum of his fall to roll and snuff those flames. At the same time, a ball of fire erupted across the ceiling and along the wall.
He ignored the sting of something sharp in his cheek, the smell of singed flesh from
his arm, and the ache from a now-twisted ankle, focusing on the changing tactical situation.
Galati and Wells lived; he saw them stagger to their feet.
Their attackers—the German soldiers wearing World War Two uniforms and sporting 1940s-era weapons—seemed to have withdrawn, perhaps scared off by the explosion. No doubt they would regroup and renew their attack.
Franco was down, dead or dying, but given that he had murdered two of the men, Campion was no longer concerned with the sergeant's status. In fact, if Franco tried to get up, he might have to put another bullet in him for the sake of the team.
Pearson was dead, incinerated by the explosion and fireball. A line of burning fuel and debris covered a stretch of wall including the open elevator doors. In fact, the fire seemed to burn the brightest near that opening. Smoke pooled overhead.
You can't go that way. It's blocked. No way you can follow Gant or Twiste.
That left one option; moving forward on this level, hopefully finding the second stairwell and rendezvousing with the major at the Red Lab two floors below.
"Move! We have to move out of here!"
His shout rallied Galati and Wells, whom he led away from the burning battle scene, away from the stairs leading up, and across sublevel 6, separated from Major Gant and Brandon Twiste and leaving behind two dead comrades as well as Sergeant Benjamin Franco.
18
Gant and Twiste walked for several minutes at a slow pace. The major kept checking behind, worried there might be some pursuit; he simply was not optimistic enough to think the rest of the unit might catch up to them.
That particular stretch of sublevel 7 felt less like a research facility and more like an industrial complex. They saw dormant incinerators, tanks and pumps devoted to waste water treatment, and a rather large room focused on electricity and power distribution.
Each of those areas appeared old and neglected … although not as old and neglected as Thom would have expected. He saw pools of water on the pump room floor and relatively new wiring in at least one of the circuit boxes.
Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle Page 17
