Shades of War: A Collection of Four Short Stories

by Ashton, Josh

  "Sir, are you willing to die here?"

  "It's worth it. I promise."

  Sergeant Ford face got very calm.

  "Yes, sir, but let me ask you this. Is this place worth the life of all these men? You're condemning them too."

  The Captain had never really led men before. Being military intelligence he had mostly dodged leadership positions. His rank was because of his education and skills, not his leadership qualities. But reviewing in his mind, he knew they had to hold this place.

  "Sergeant it's worth it. All those files on the second floor describe the; who, what, why, when, and where of the EMPs. We have to get those back to higher. It won't help us in our current situation, but we'll know how bad the situation is."

  "Yeah, but it's been three days and nothing. Jones, was fit as hell. He would have made it by now. If someone was going to push north and help us, well, they would have made it. And fifty miles is a long way through enemy country."

  "Two things, sergeant; First, I have my orders and so do you, hold this building. Second, what we found here is worth all our lives. We have to make sure this stuff gets back to our side."

  Ford looked toward the ceiling as if he was praying.

  "Are you sure, sir? I mean this is getting dicey."

  Dicey was an understatement. What dicey meant was this; three days with no contact with your own side, food was down to nothing and water wasn't much better. They had burned through most of their ammunition and now half his men were using enemy weapons scrounged from the dead. So Ford used the word dicey. But dire, grave, or in infantryman's terminology, fucked were a better adjectives.

  But he was an officer and he was paid to make hard decisions and own them.

  "We have to hold. I'm not making this shit up. This stuff is so damn important, it scares me."

  Even though this was an old discussion, Ford reacted in a way that still amazed the Captain. There was no anger, no frustration, or resentment at him, just acceptance of his orders.

  "Roger, sir. Stalingrad it is."

  "Stalingrad." The Captain repeated their own private motto.

  Chapter VI

  Both Ford and the Captain stood staring at the basement door with their headlamps shining on the metal fixture. The basement door had been bugging the Captain for the last few days, neither he nor Ford hadn't noticed it in the chaos of the first day. They had been worried about other things. When Ford had finally noticed it first, he had pointed it out to the Captain. The door had obviously been newly installed. It was a heavy-bolted affair. It almost looked like the entrance to a safe. The door itself didn't bother the officer too much. It just looked like some typical cheap communist piece of metal work.

  Now in any real sense, they should have cleared the basement as soon as they found the door. But there was something else about the door. The Captain had missed it at first, but of course leave it to Ford to point out what he had missed. What had given the Captain the creeps was that it was bolted and locked from the outside. Whatever the NKs had put down in that basement, they didn't not want it getting out.

  Ford had to release three separate bolts from the door. There was also a massive dead bolt lock that took some twisting before it came free. In the quiet darkness of the building each lock being opened echoed loudly. If someone was down there, they would know that the door was now unlocked.

  Ford took hold of the door handle and nodded at the Captain. The Captain raised his rifle to cover the doorway. Ford yanked the door open exposing blackness. Rifle at his shoulder the Captain stepped to cover the stairwell. The eerie glow of his headlamp exposed a narrow cement stairwell. The stairwell descended much farther than the Captain would have guessed. Ford moved up next to the Captain to look down the stairs. Both of their lights were defeated by the darkness that waited below.

  "Are you sure you want to go down there, sir?"

  "No, I don't, but I need to know if there is anything else down there like we found upstairs."

  "Are you sure? That looks scary as hell."

  "Are you trying to creep me out?"

  Ford grinned.

  "Yeah, kind of, but it does look scary."

  "OK, too bad Jones took my pistol. It's going to be close down there."

  Ford paused then grinned at the Captain.

  "Wait right here. I'll be right back."

  Ford dashed off. It was only a few moments before he returned with a short wicked looking device in his hand. On seeing it, the Captain grinned.

  "That's what I'm talking about."

  Ford handed the semi-automatic shotgun to the Captain.

  "I forgot Riley was carrying this as part of the breaching package. It's loaded ready to rock."

  Ford dug into his pockets and handed the Captain two handfuls of shells.

  "She holds ten rounds. I just gave you another twenty. It's all double 0."

  Still smiling, the Captain adjusted his rifle to hang over his shoulder and hefted the shotgun familiarly.

  "You know how to use that, sir?"

  The Captains grin got even wider.

  "I may be a POGUE but I grew up with shotguns."

  Ford returned the smile.

  "Good enough. If something is down there, that should take care of it."

  "Amen. The patron saint of close quarters combat loves shotguns."

  "There's a saint for CQB?"

  The Captain laughed again.

  "No but if there was, he would carry a shotgun."

  "Amen. That's my type of religion."

  The Captain stepped past the door and stood on the top step. He took one last look at Ford.

  "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it unless you hear me and only me. Got it?"

  "Yep."

  "All right, do it."

  Ford slammed the heavy door shut. The Captain stood there waiting. He heard Ford sliding each bolt back into place.

  Clack, Clack, Clack.

  The young officer was now trapped with whatever the slanties had wanted hidden down here.

  Chapter VII

  He didn't want to go down there, but he had to. It was now deathly silent. It took all his will to take the first step. But down he went. Step, pause. Step, pause. Listen. Wait. Step, pause. Each step seemed harder and harder to take. It seemed that as he descended into the darkness that he was being swallowed by the pits of hell.

  Because he was moving slowly it took a few minutes to clear the first two flights. He stood on a landing and was getting ready to go lower when he heard it.

  Clank, clank, clank.

  The noise slowly and hauntingly drifted up towards him. The Captains shifted his weapon to better cover the stairs.

  Clank, clank, clank.

  His heart was now pounding and his own breath was loud in his ears. He waited for the sound to repeat, but there was nothing. He finally was able to place the sound. It had sounded like the rattling of chains.

  What was down there? He asked himself.

  He made sure he slow counted for a good five minutes waiting. But there was nothing. Steeling himself the Captain again started his descent. He went down another two flights. This wasn't a basement he realized. It must be some kind of bunker. He was now easily fifty or sixty feet below the main structure. This building had not just been another government building.

  At the bottom of the stairs, another door greeted the Captain. Or what was left of a door. The door had been a typical wooden door. Had was the key word. The door was cracked and splintered. Something had hammered away at it and torn huge holes through the wood. The door had a reddish brown color to it. And at first he thought it was just paint. Then he realized the door had been gray. The door was covered in dried blood.

  Slowly he turned his light taking in the stairwell wall around him. The gray was colored there with the same awful pattern. Dried blood was everywhere. Someone or something had been torn apart and their blood had been used to coat these walls.

  The Captain should have turned back for more help ri
ght there. But he still felt he had something to prove. And he didn't want to take anyone away from the fight upstairs. The shredded door was intact just enough to force him to grab the handle and pull it open with a sudden jerk.

  Nothing jumped out at him. His headlamp flashed the across the basement. The entire sublevel was a maze of cubicles and Spartan office furniture. It was a maze. The door had not protected whoever had been gutted down here, but it had held something back. In his previous life, the smell would have caused him to vomit. A harsh, fetid bitter odor assaulted his senses. But two days hiding under corpses had made him immune. Death was in the air down here. Where there is death, there is a killer. Sometimes that killer is a natural cause or an accident. But in war humanity tries to give Mother Nature a hand and becomes a very efficient butcher. Given the blood and violence done against the door, the Captain assumed that the killer was still down here waiting.

  He decided to sweep the basement counter clock-wise using the stairwell as the center of clock. He slowly started to navigate his way through the remnants of a typical workers paradise. Even though he was scared out of his mind, it amazed the Captain how every single cubicle looked exactly the same. Each worker's desk, down to the placement of the staplers exactly mirrored each other. Why he took the time to notice such minor details he didn't know. But noticing the staplers all placed in the same place on every desk his mind drifted to a quote from a movie.

  "Excuse me; I believe you have my stapler?"

  Because of the quote the Captain was smiling as he rounded the corner and confronted the nightmare trapped in the basement.

  In later years the Captain would try to recall how he didn't scream from fright when he saw it. His mind at first couldn't capture what he saw. Instead he seemed to take it all in snap shots. Click, hunched figure, rags clinging to its body. Click, leathery gray skin stretched over lean muscles. Click, bloodshot eyes sunken into human skull. Click, rows of teeth gleaming from a mouth of horror. Click, Oh my god it looked almost human.

  The moment was ended the creature opened its mouth as if to scream or hiss but no sound came from its throat. No, scream, no hiss, no nothing, there should be sound. Why isn't there sound? The empty scream was all the warning the captain would get. The creature leapt at him. The Captain may not have been a combat veteran, but he had grown up in the Rockies of Montana. More than once he had seen a mountain lion kill. He had seen the bunching of the muscles and knew what was coming. He threw himself to the side triggering the shotgun. The thing landed in a heap, slamming into a cubicle, knocking one wall of it down. On pure reaction, he took a step closer and triggered two more bursts of buckshot into the creature.

  Inching closer he nudged the creature with his boot. But the shotgun had done its job. The thing was just a mess of gore and blood.

  What the fuck was he dealing with? What was the word documents had said, Gwoemul? Yes, this was a monster.

  Old memories from Montana came screaming into his mind from years past. What are you doing? Creatures, animals, even humans rarely hunt solo. Where there is one... Oh, fuck.

  The captain spun quickly, the beam of his head lamp creating wild shadows on the wall as he spun his head searching. There was nothing. He couldn't see anything. But the instincts that had saved him up until now were screaming at him. This was too much for him. It was time to leave. The captain started to retreat back to the stairwell. He turned his head to look back towards along his path towards the broken door, and saw a flicker of movement. It was just a shadow darting just out of the beam of his light. Then there was another and another. The path towards the stair was blocked. The cubicles that had caused him to smile earlier were now a death trap. The Captain didn't know how many others were down here with him. But there were more than a few and his only exit was now cut off.

  He decided to change the game; time to move. Running he slammed a shoulder at the closest cubicle wall. The flimsy wall gave way before him. Instead of wasting time navigating the office space maze, the captain started bowling his way to his chose destination. He knew what he was doing. If he just could get to one side of basement and put his back against a solid wall, he might have a better chance.

  The next attack came at him from nowhere. No warning or anything. He was hit on his left side and was suddenly on the ground panicking. His headlamp had been knocked off his helmet. He couldn't see anything. He felt hot ugly breath on his face. He threw his arm up to ward off what he knew would be the creature trying to rip out his throat or face. Sure enough he felt something vice like, grip into his forearm trying to bite him.

  Luckily modern combat clothing was laced with kevlar and the bite didn't break the material. But the strength of the jaws were incredible. With the creatures firmly locked onto his arm, the Captain used all his strength to push the creature away from him. One handing the stubby shotgun, the officer pushed the barrel until it came into contact with something solid and fleshy.

  Boom, Boom, Boom.

  The blasts echoed loudly in the cavernous room. The flash from the shots gave the Captain another nightmarish image of what was trying to kill him. It was another version of the same creature. Apparently the shotgun was more than enough to kill these creatures because the entire weight of the creature slumped on top of him as he killed it.

  His time was running out. He knew there were more. But he had no idea how many. His head lamp! He was blind without it. He wasted some precious seconds on his hands his knees trying to locate it. There was no light in this dark basement. Nothing. He was alone in the dark with monsters. He was going to die. There was no way he would be able to fend off another attack.

  Desperate he started feeling into pouches on his combat harness. He thought he remembered seeing something in a pocket when he had checked one of the many compartments when he had first inventoried it. Unclipping the buckle, his bulky hands tried to find what he prayed was still there. His fingers found three slim tubes in the pouch. He pulled them out, gripped them between both fists and cracked them. Hydrogen peroxide and phenol combined and all three began to glow. The three glow sticks gave the Captain the light he desperately needed.

  Holding the glow sticks in his fist he got to his feet and held them in his fist and spun around scanning the room. There was nothing. He was sure he had seen more shadows. But now the area seemed more empty and silent than ever. Re-orienting himself he realized he was only a few yards away from what looked like one side of the basement. Moving, he made his way to the wall, sure at any moment he would be hit again.

  On feeling the solid concrete against his back he felt much better. Cursing himself for an idiot the Captain realized he hadn't reloaded his shotgun. He dug into his pocket and reloaded the shotgun. Then with a kick from a boot, he started kicking over cubicles. He wanted to give himself some space so he could see his attackers better when they came. And he knew they would be coming.

  He put two of the chem lights on the ground and looped one through his harness. The combined glow gave him some measure of radiant light. He hoped that it would be enough. Why they hadn't rushed him earlier when he was busy with the other two he had killed? But he was grateful that it had gone that way.

  Shotgun ready, he took a knee to conserve energy. His eyes strained out at the darkness past the light of the glow sticks. Time seemed to slow. After peering into the void for what seem liked hours, he glanced down at his watch. The illuminated hands told him he had only been down here for an hour. To him it had felt like days.

  Then the days ended and the Captain felt his heart drop into his stomach. He finally could see something and he knew he was a dead man. The shadows at the edge of his small lighted area had begun to move. They were not the furtive scampering movements of earlier. These were the slow methodical movement of something closing in for the kill. The problem was not that it was one thing. There were many.

  Oh, my lord there must be at least a hundred.

  He would be able to kill a few of the monsters but then he would be over
whelmed. Then the claws and teeth of the creatures here in this basement would rip him apart and kill him. Well at least he could take a few of them with him. But he was going to die here in this building.

  Then in silence he heard a click, then another and another. Targeting lasers appeared out of the darkness settling on the dozens of creatures that were waiting to tear him apart. Then the God of firepower saved him and Ford gave the officer a command.

  "Captain, get down!"

  The officer threw himself flat. Multiple muzzle flashes lit up the rooms and tracers crisscrossed the bunker as automatic weapons tore into the creatures. Ford had not come alone.

  It was chaos. The creatures scattered and flew in all directions. A few bolted right at the waiting Captain. Lying prone the Captain fired again and again at the monsters that had chosen to attack him instead of running. He wasn't really sure what was happening with Ford or the men he had brought with him. All he could do was huddle with his glow sticks, wait and kill anything that got close to him.

  He could here yelling and screaming over the din as Fords men communicated during the fight. He knew the terminology weapons were reloaded and men moved closer to where the Captain was huddled, but never once did the amount of fire coming out from the group ever let up. They came out of the darkness looking like the gods of firepower that they were. Five men plus Ford weapons ready targeting lasers on and Night Vision Goggles on.

  The Captain had at least a dozen bodies of creatures piled up around him as he rose to greet Ford. But Ford spoke first.

  "Is this what you were talking about, sir?"

  "Yes."

  "Shit. I think there's still more we better get out of here."

  "How many times have your guys saved me?" asked the Captain.

  Ford smiled. "I don't know, but I'm beginning to detect a pattern."

  One of the other soldiers spoke.

  "These are some, Lord of the Ring, looking mother fuckers."

  "Shut the fuck up, O'Niel."

  "Just saying, sarge, they look like Gollum on steroids."

  That brought a chuckle from a couple of other of the soldiers including the Captain. But Ford was confused.