The Shadow Above The Flames

by Daniel Swenson

  McAvoy pushed the door closed behind Jacobson as he entered and made sure there was nothing behind them in the hall.

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” McAvoy replied.

  Rick's shoulders slumped as he shook his head.

  "Good!" McAvoy exclaimed before turning to ask Jacobson, "Status report?"

  Jacobson slumped against the wall, trying to catch his breath. "I'm . . . I'm sure the explosion . . . scared most of the remaining creatures that weren't caught in the blast although I doubt it will be long before they come rushing back to the scent of all that blood. The barricade has been ruined, so there won't be anything stopping them if they decide to come back and try again."

  McAvoy nodded before turning to Wells. "Looks like the only way out is through the sewers. With that being said, let's get this show on the road. We better hope that we find a better reception in Ardmore than we did here, or we may not be going home."

  All four men exchanged grim nods and moved into the tunnel. Wells was the last one through and triggered the mechanism to close the door. Once the door closed, they breathed a little easier, knowing nothing could come at them from behind. The foul odor that engulfed them was nauseating, so they put breathers on to keep from vomiting. Jacobson was the first to reach the bottom of the tunnel and enter the sewers. He scanned both directions with his light before stepping into the fetid water. Seeing nothing threatening, he turned and gave the all clear sign and proceeded westward down the sewers.

  Jacobson clicked on his comm. “I’m pretty sure if we continue down this tunnel it’ll lead us to a drainage pipe or a storm drain that is located along the western edge of town down by the river.”

  “How far is the drainage pipe?” McAvoy asked.

  “I can’t say because these sewers are a maze of interconnecting passageways, and without any current specs, I’m just guessing. However, considering what’s waiting for us up above, this is our best option.”

  “Then let’s make our way to that drainage pipe and get out of here.”

  “The plus side of us being down here,” Wells said, “is that the stench is masking our scent and preventing the creatures above from pursing us.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Wells.” Jacobson retorted.

  Once they agreed the drainage pipe was the best route, they trudged through the muck.

  As they walked through the sewers towards the edge of town, none of them were aware of the creature that was lurking out of sight. It quietly watched from its hiding place while the men moved down the tunnel. When they were far enough away, the creature climbed down from its perch, stepping into the cool dark waters. After licking its lips, it ventured into the darkness ready to stalk its prey.

  The transit cab pulled up to the curb outside the Goal Post Pub and Restaurant. Henry was more than a little perturbed that he had missed his chance to see Carly earlier. He checked his watch and noticed that it was thirty-five minutes after ten. He was late, and was seriously debating about having the cab take him home, but something bugged him about Lenny’s visit.

  A bad feeling deep in the pit of his gut had been growing ever since Mr. Perkins had met with him in his office. The last time he felt this way was back in Afghanistan right before Rick's patrol had gone inside a nearby building to do a sweep and make sure no insurgents were inside.

  Seconds after the team had gone in, a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the side of the building, killing half of Rick's team and injuring several others. Rick was one of the lucky ones who had only suffered a fractured arm. But many of the others returned in wheelchairs or with prosthetic limbs. Henry regretted that he hadn't spoken up when he had that gut feeling, and he wouldn’t ignore it a second time.

  Henry swiped his card across the cab’s panel, which accepted payment for the ride, and then stepped outside. The cool night air was pleasant and hinted at the possibility of more rain in the next day or two. Henry checked his watch as he walked up to the door of the Goal Post. Before entering, he told himself, No, you’re not turning back now.

  He grabbed the handle of the door, pulled it open, and walked inside. The Goal Post was your typical pub with fellows sitting at the bar drinking or eating and watching whatever game was on the televisions overhead. Dispersed throughout the commons room were a few couples, groups of friends, and coworkers who were chilling out after a long day of work. Henry walked up to the bar, ordered a drink, and asked the bartender if he knew where he could find the owner of the blue card he held in his hand.

  The bartender motioned towards the back of the pub. So Henry walked in that direction. As he did, he noticed out of the corner of his eye someone who seemed vaguely familiar. Instead of heading straight to the back of the building, Henry took a detour and headed towards the restrooms.

  He wracked his mind, trying to remember where he had seen that man before. Immediately, warning bells began going off in his head. Something about that man wasn’t quite right, and he looked out of place. The feeling in his gut grew stronger. Not knowing how to react, he decided to go to the restroom and splash some cold water on his face, hoping that it would help him figure out who the guy was.

  Taking a deep breath, Henry pushed open the door of the restroom and walked in. To Henry's surprise, Lenny sat on the counter next to the sinks. It appeared that he had been waiting for Henry in the restroom, of all places.

  "Oh good, you saw him. I'm glad to see that retirement hasn't taken away your edge."

  Henry glared suspiciously at Lenny. "What in the hell have you gotten yourself into this time, Lenny, and who is that guy? I swear I’ve seen him before."

  Lenny walked over to a stall with an out of order sign on the door and pushed it open. He signaled for Henry to enter the broken stall, ignoring Henry's questions. Henry sighed and walked over to the stall and found that Lenny had slid a section of the wall to the left, revealing a small opening that was large enough for an average-sized man to squeeze through. Lenny closed the stall door behind him and pushed Henry towards the opening in the wall. Once both men were through, Lenny slid the wall piece back into place and made sure it was securely locked.

  "There, now we can talk in peace," Lenny said as he walked down the odd-colored corridor Henry now stood in. "That man back there should look familiar to you because he works for Roger Smythe.”

  Then it clicked. “He’s Mortin Stenick!” Henry exclaimed.

  Lenny gave Henry a little nod of approval.

  “I’m glad you finally recognized him. He’s been tailing me since I left your office earlier today.”

  “Why would Smythe send someone like Stenick to follow you? I’ve always felt like he was a low-level thug, you know, the kind that punches first and thinks later.”

  “Well, I’m sure my visit spooked Smythe and Mr. Perkins. By the way, how did your visit with him go after I dropped by?”

  Henry stopped in his tracks. "What . . . How do you know that?"

  Lenny turned his head as he continued down the corridor. "Quit standing there like a chicken preparing to bolt. I promise to tell you everything. For old time’s sake, humor me for a few more minutes."

  Henry ran his right hand over his face in frustration before deciding to follow Lenny down the corridor. He scrutinized Lenny as they walked. Lenny continued to mutter to himself as he always had. When they reached the end of the corridor, there was a large steel door installed into a concrete wall.

  Lenny knocked on the steel door in what seemed like a random pattern and then a small panel slid open, revealing a digital board. Lenny typed a passcode on the board, and after a few moments, the massive door swung open.

  Lenny excitedly waved Henry over. "Henry, my friend, welcome to my home away from home, or what I like to call my Batcave!"

  Henry rolled his eyes. Lenny and his stupid comics; of course he'd call this place his Batcave. However, as Henry entered, he was taken aback. The room was filled with top of the line forensic and security monitoring equipment. The room w
as well lit by several massive screens mounted to the wall across from the monitoring station. On the screens were multiple security feeds running. Many of these included major drilling and escalation companies throughout the world.

  Lenny walked in and plopped down in his chair, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Impressive isn't it?"

  Henry didn't know what to say. Lenny's setup was incredibly impressive and most likely highly illegal.

  "Where? How . . . how in the hell did you get all this stuff? There is no way you got all of it legally."

  Lenny signaled for Henry to sit down in one of the plush chairs on the other side of the room. "I won't bore you with all the details. Just know that there are only two things that matter: you will not be breaking any laws here today . . . well . . . not yet anyway, and if you don't help me, Rick is going to die."

  Henry instantly jumped to his feet, closing the gap between the two. He grabbed Lenny by the front of his shirt, hefting him to his feet in the blink of an eye. Henry sneered angrily at Lenny, his eyes boiling with rage. He noticed Lenny's confident facade break for just a moment.

  "Are you trying to blackmail me by threatening Rick’s life?" he demanded as spittle flew from his mouth, hitting Lenny in the face.

  Meekly, Lenny shook his head, trying not to make any sudden movements. He wiped the spittle from his face and then calmly spoke. "Henry, please. I'm not here to threaten you or Rick. Please listen to me. I believe Rick is in serious trouble. I've intercepted a coded military beacon with a transmission embedded in it that has been pinging off the Union Forest communications satellites since this morning. Union Forest has done their best to disable the transmission, but they are currently being blocked by something I put in place. It’s not good, Henry. Rick and his team have landed on the northern coast of Ireland. They've already lost a man and another is missing. Their commanding officers ordered them to participate in an off-the-books operation under the request of Union Forest."

  Lenny tried to loosen Henry's grip on his shirt, but that only made Henry grip it tighter. Lenny gave up and continued to explain further.

  "From what I’ve been able to gather, the team was sequestered to go to ground zero, where they were to inspect the equipment and retrieve one of the data cores. I'm not sure how important that particular data core is, but this mission can't be good. We all know that Ardmore is where that “thing” came up out of the ground and has remained. Who the hell knows what else lives there? All I know is an emergency beacon went off earlier this morning, which I detected and was able to track down. Union Forest has been doing everything to kill the signal."

  Henry relaxed a little and let go of Lenny's shirt. Lenny fell back down and into his chair. The motion sent the chair spinning. When Lenny was certain Henry wouldn't grab him again, he swiveled towards his keyboard and monitors. Henry stood there in a trance as he watched Lenny pull up multiple feeds and other information on the screens.

  "I wouldn't have paid the beacon much attention, normally. However, when I noticed that someone from your building was trying to kill the signal, I became curious. So I started digging deeper, and that's when I found Rick's name, and I knew I had to find out what was going on."

  Henry's throat grew parched, and he tried to understand everything that Lenny was rapidly spouting off. In addition to the many images flashing across the screen, Lenny was trying to explain the process of how he identified and hacked into the encryption that was on the transmission.

  Henry pulled over a small metal chair near Lenny's desk and sat down. He watched everything flash by, and then he suddenly jumped up and pointed at a video feed on the screen. "Stop! Bring up that last feed you just swiped across the screen."

  Lenny did as requested. Once the feed was back on the screen, he increased the viewing size. The image came from a surveillance video, which Henry assumed to be the team's mission briefing. Sure enough, there was Rick sitting and listening to the briefing. Lenny was working on pulling up other items when Henry slammed his fist down on the table, cursing aloud. His temples pulsated, his vision blurred, and he began to perspire. Rage boiled inside him as he continued to watched the video.

  On screen was a man dressed in a fine gray suit with perfectly groomed hair. The man who led the briefing was the same man who had tormented Henry for months: Roger Smythe.

  "Tell me everything you know and have discovered about what kind of trouble Rick is in," he said.

  Lenny didn't waste any time in pulling up several confidential military orders along with many more Union Forest documents that showed the drilling company requesting military aid. The documents explained in detail that the Union Forest execs had made a request for a specialized retrieval team to land in Ireland. They were to retrieve a particular data core from the Union Forest drilling site and then determine if the Beast was still living in Ardmore.

  "This is where it gets interesting,” Lenny said. “This is not the first time Union Forest has made this request. In fact, they petitioned for it several times over the past five years but only recently were given approval for the second time."

  Henry turned his attention back to Lenny. "What do you mean ‘second time’? I've never heard of anyone attempting to make landfall in Ireland before. The last I heard, the media firestorm that followed the original suggestion to make landfall caused Union Forest to change their mind. Everyone worried that they’d wake up the Beast again."

  Lenny fidgeted in his chair. With the way Lenny's eye twitched, Henry could tell he was super-excited about something.

  "You clearly have something to say,” Henry said.

  Lenny's grin was that of a cat that had just pounced on a mouse and was preparing to feast on it.

  Lenny pulled up another series of documents on the screen. "Well, there are two reasons we never heard about it. The first is because they made a backroom deal in secret—which I’m still trying to figure out how they got funded—and the second reason is because the first mission was a total failure, forcing them to hide it from the public. The team that was sent out died within hours of making landfall, according to the reports."

  Henry sat there dumbfounded. He couldn't believe what Lenny was telling him and what lengths Union Forest had gone to get the mission approved and how much they had done to cover it up.

  He continued to probe Lenny for answers. "Something’s odd about all of this. Have you been able to uncover any reason why Union Forest is so damn determined to retrieve this data core? Malfunctioning or not, we all know what happened. Why do they need it so badly?"

  Lenny shrugged his shoulders and searched through the mountain of computer files. "Beats me. All I know is that they have covered this up and that Rick is in trouble, and you're the only one I know and trust to do anything about it." Lenny spun around to face Henry. "Do you still have that blue card I gave you?"

  Henry nodded and pulled it out of his jacket pocket. "Thank God you didn't throw that thing away, or worse, give it to Perkins. It was a calculated risk giving that to you. But I felt it was worth it."

  Henry looked at Lenny curiously. "What do you mean by a ‘calculated risk’?"

  Lenny turned back to his computer and started reorganizing some of the files on screen. "I'm still having trouble accessing the Union Forest mainframe, but if that card is swiped into an access portal within the Union Forest building, it should create an undetected backdoor for me to gain access to the mainframe. I wasn’t sure if you’d believe me so I left the card behind hoping you’d try and scan the card. Thus giving me the access I needed. Since you didn’t if you could get me into that mainframe, then I can find out exactly where Rick is and place a recall order to get him out."

  Unconvinced, Henry declared, "I swear if this turns out to be one of your practical jokes, I’ll throw you in a trunk of a car and drive you out to the Nevada desert and show you all the tricks I learned in Afghanistan."

  Henry watched Lenny slowly reach over to touch something on the monitor. His hand slightly trembled as he t
apped on the file that appeared on screen. The surveillance video from earlier appeared on the main screen. Lenny adjusted the volume so both of them could hear what was being said.

  Smythe's voice rang out over the speakers in the small room. "This mission is dangerous and critical. However, it is vital that you retrieve the data core from the drilling site. We’ve determined through satellite images and thermal scans that the Beast is no longer located in Northern Ireland. Because of this, we now have a window that will allow us to safely retrieve the core."

  Lenny reached over and tapped a different file that appeared on the screen.

  Another voice sounded over the speaker. This time it was Rick's. "Emergency. This is Two-Delta-Foxtrot. We need an immediate extraction. We have one man down and another is presumed dead or missing. We are forty miles east of—"

  The voice file cut out. Lenny turned to regard Henry. He could tell that Lenny was trying to appear confident, sitting there in his chair, but knew Lenny was worried that he wouldn't believe him.

  "Was that proof enough for you?" Lenny asked.

  "Where is the rest of the message?" Henry replied.

  Lenny sighed. "That’s all I could retrieve and exactly the reason why I need you to tap into the Union Forest mainframe."

  Henry stood up from his chair and began pacing the room. "So Union Forest has tried to kill this signal all day? Then why haven't they done it?"

  Lenny's face beamed like a small boy in a candy shop when he began to answer Henry's question. "Well, I dropped in a multi-headed worm that keeps rewriting the base syntax code. This is preventing them from terminating the beacon."

  He spun back around and furiously worked at his keyboard. "You see, that is why your boss, Mr. Perkins, showed up in your office this afternoon and sent that man, Stenick, to watch me. I'm pretty sure they’ve tracked the worm back to somewhere in the area. They figure if it was me, they’ll capture me, get me to talk about how I hacked their systems, hijacked their signal and how to kill the worm that’s preventing them from killing it."