The Path Of The Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  Jarrod eyed the sheet-metal fabrication center from a distance of three blocks. He didn’t doubt it was a legitimate business. Noisy and lacking the foot traffic of retail customers, it was a perfect cover for secret interrogations.

  Eugene had driven his red Datsun into a loading bay nearly ten minutes prior. Jarrod wasn’t concerned about the prisoner drop off—he had his own prisoner in the trunk, who was growing more complacent by the minute. The thumping had stopped, and the only indication the captive was still alive was his shallow inhalations.

  Jarrod expected it to be a lengthy stakeout, but he didn’t mind. He could simply shut out intrusive thoughts, and hours would pass like minutes. As he slowly slipped into bare, instinctual awareness, flashing police lights brought him back to the present. An unmarked police car came to a stop behind him, and a plainclothes officer stepped out.

  The officer walked slowly around the car, his hand resting on a holstered pistol.

  The officer’s presence wasn’t a surprise. After all, Jarrod was sitting in a stolen vehicle. He had dressed himself in the meter-reader uniform and donned a pair of wide sunglasses for this potential outcome. If the policemen turned out to be legitimate, he would flee in the Corvette, then return on foot with his prisoner in tow. As the officer came around, Jarrod lowered the window and asked, “Can I help you?”

  “License and registration, please,” the man said.

  Dozens of alarms went off in Jarrod’s head. The man wasn’t standing in the right place—police officers stood at an angle behind the driver; this man was right outside his window. The man’s statement didn’t fit the situation. It was a stolen vehicle. A law enforcement official would have told him to step out of the car, then put him under arrest. And his emotions weren’t reading right. He exuded confidence and aggression through his scent and body language—he was waiting for Jarrod to turn away so he could put a bullet in his back.

  Attempting to confirm his suspicions, Jarrod watched the man’s face and said, “It’s alright, I’m with Katharos.”

  “You’re with what?” the man said.

  The reaction would’ve fooled almost anyone. The man was apparently well-practiced in controlling his facial expressions. But the hormones leaking through his pores and elevated heart rate were a dead give-away. Satisfied, Jarrod put his plan into action. In a low voice, he said, “Our safehouse was compromised. Some of our people are being held by the CIA, and I was sent by Empress to monitor the situation.”

  The man squinted for a fraction of a second, then said, “What’s today’s verification code?”

  “You don’t understand,” Jarrod whispered, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. “I need you to…” he let his words trail off until they were completely inaudible.

  Keeping his hand on the pistol, the man leaned in.

  “Get in the car,” Jarrod finished.

  The man didn’t move. “Why?”

  After checking his mirrors one last time, Jarrod reached out and pulled the man through the window. Holding his quarry in an iron grip, he forced a claw-like thumb into the faux-policeman’s brain stem.

  Minutes later, a brawny pickup truck disgorged a six-man Katharos assault team. They circled the fabrication center, keeping their Uzi PRO submachine guns close. The point man tried the first door and, finding it locked, waved the team onward. The second entrance opened freely, and the team swept inside. They entered a noisy room where three men in hardhats and leather gloves were feeding a steel panel into a hydraulic press. The worker nearest the door glanced up, then immediately shouted a warning to the others. In a flash, each of the factory workers drew .45 caliber pistols. The Katharos team responded with a jackhammer burst of automatic gunfire, and the workers collapsed in a heap.

  The men in front lowered their weapons and reloaded while the men at the rear flowed past them, dropping two more factory workers with quick spurts of 9mm Luger Parabellum.

  “Shut that thing off!” the middle-aged team leader shouted, gesturing toward a pipeline welder.

  The nearest gunman looked the machine over for a moment, then hit a switch. The electric buzz ceased and the room fell into relative silence.

  “Keep moving,” the leader said. “And stay sharp.”

  The men paused near a plywood office and listened for a long moment before ripping the door open and charging inside. An Uzi’s rattle announced the death of another factory worker, and the men returned to the main room. The team leader glanced at his forearm, studying a holographic map of the building. When he had oriented himself, he nodded toward the far wall. His men responded instantly, rushing over to a keypad near a steel door.

  A thin man with brown hair and augmented reality glasses pushed forward. He pulled a metal wedge from his belt and held it in place along the back of the keypad, then struck the wedge with a small hammer. The keypad’s face burst open, revealing its insulated copper innards. The man attached a device that looked like a D-cell battery to one of the wires, and the door unlocked.

  The team pushed through the door, leaving the technician behind.

  The thin man glanced back and frowned. The team leader was gone. Splitting up wasn’t part of the plan; they were supposed to run in, kill everyone, and get out. The CIA would undoubtedly summon a response force, so the sooner they were on their way, the better. After another moment’s hesitation, he followed the others down the hallway.

  The team cleared the first two rooms then halted in front of another door. The wiry man with the high-tech glasses moved in and worked his magic. The door’s heavy deadbolts withdrew, and the team took their positions. One man pulled the door open, and the next passed through the gap. Before the second man in line could follow, a shot rang out, and chunks of bloodied flesh splashed against the doorframe.

  The second man in line cursed and slammed the door shut. “Where’s Namir?” he asked, referring to the absent team leader. “We need a flashbang.”

  No one had an answer, so the thin man volunteered to go back and look.

  “Make it quick,” the man in front said. As his slender teammate departed, the remaining gunmen slowly opened the door, using it as a shield. One of them was foolish enough to grip the edge of the door, and a well-placed shot took off one of his fingers. He bellowed in pain and staggered backwards, leaving the unsavory task of killing whoever was inside to the others.

  Gripping his mangled hand, he glanced down the hallway to see if the thin man had returned with Namir. What he saw made no sense, and his mind struggled to find an explanation.

  There were severed limbs and streaks of blood stretching all the way to the main room.

  “Guys!” he shouted. “We have a problem.”

  The two gunmen at the door turned around just in time to see a severed head drop to the floor.

  A horrifying creature covered in fresh viscera stepped forward. In a desperate, instinctive grasp at survival, the men raised their weapons and held down the triggers.

  Emily groaned at the infernal blue light. “What is it now?” she snapped.

  “The assault team’s video stream requires your attention,” the computer said.

  “You woke me up before the assault was even over?” Emily asked.

  “It is urgent,” the computer assured her.

  Emily sighed, then walked over to the display. It glowed a dim red, and there were no discernible shapes on screen.

  “Alright,” Emily said. Show me the feed.”

  “I am,” the computer responded. “This is the signal from the only functioning camera.”

  Her chest tightened, and she said, “Go back two minutes.”

  The screen brightened, showing three armed men clustered around a door. The camera bounced as if nodding, then faced down a hallway.

  “What kind of camera is this?” Emily asked.

  “It is a fiber optic camera,” the computer explained. “This particular model is embedded in the bridge of our augmented reality glasses, worn by our technical specialists
.”

  The camera bounced as its wearer jogged down the hallway. Suddenly, the feed shook violently, and the camera panned down. It focused on the stubby remains of an arm, severed just above the elbow. The feed jerked upwards, and the glasses fell to the floor, darkened with blood.

  “Is there another camera available after this point?” Emily asked.

  The feed flashed to a chest-mounted camera, which showed a close up of one hand gripping another in pain. The camera panned smoothly to the right, owing its steadiness to a commercial-grade stabilizer. A sickening scene came into view; it was as if the man in the glasses had been fed through a wood chipper.

  Emily shuddered, but she kept her eyes on the screen. Something flashed in the hallway, and the second camera toppled to the floor. The computer switched to a split screen of the last two camera feeds, revealing twin images of a dark figure drenched in blood. Horns protruded from where the eyes should be, and a row of sharp spikes covered the shoulders. As the video continued in slow motion, the creature pulsed with shades of orange and red, as if fueled by an inner fire.

  Uzis came into view and began to flash. The creature ignored the barrage of 9mm bullets and lurched forward, then the feeds abruptly cut out.

  Despite the grotesque alterations in his appearance, Emily had immediately recognized Jarrod Hawkins. In a rare outpouring of frustration, she leaned forward and screamed.

  32

  Eugene stepped gingerly to the heavy steel door. He had no idea why the intruders in the hallway had gone silent, and he feared it might be a trap. Still, he hadn’t heard anything in nearly five minutes. Four Katharos prisoners were behind him, huddled in a small, windowless room with a pair of CIA interrogators. Unfortunately, the interrogators were special-hire psychologists and completely useless in a firefight. Though he didn’t like clearing a hallway on his own, Eugene had little choice.

  His breathing slowed as he drew closer to the door, his gaze just above his FNS pistol’s front sight post. His boot landed in something slick, but he didn’t look down; a millisecond of hesitation could be the difference between life and death. Squeezing closer to the wall, he peered into the hallway. There was nothing in his line of sight, so he leaned left and right, then up and down. As his pistol tracked toward the floor, he finally caught sight of the intruders. They were piled in a heap, oozing blood and excrement. He frowned, then pushed the door open a few inches with his boot. With a swift motion, he thrust his barrel past the door frame and scanned the entire hallway. The grotesque display made him choke and duck back inside.

  I’m losing it, he thought. Wondering if years of battle damage assessments were playing tricks on his brain, he peeked around the corner. The same, bloody display of severed limbs and pulverized carcasses greeted him. His eyes flitted toward the dark rooms bordering the hallway and decided it was best to wait for backup. Withdrawing into the room, he latched the door and sat in an aluminum chair.

  Within minutes, footsteps sounded in the hallway, accompanied by curses muttered in horrified curiosity. A few seconds passed, and someone knocked on the door.

  “FBI,” a gruff voice said, “open up!”

  Holstering his pistol, Eugene said, “I’m agent Keebler with the CIA.” He spoke his badge number and waited as the man outside radioed it in. Eugene wasn’t officially part of the CIA, but he had been issued a badge number that showed up in every federal database.

  “John Jeremiah Keebler?” the man asked.

  Eugene smiled. “Yep, that’s me.” He walked forward and unlatched the door, then stood back. Two men in urban camouflage and Kevlar helmets entered the room, weapons first. Eugene stood with his hands on top of his head and allowed them to take his pistol. After the FBI agents had cleared the interrogation chambers, they returned to Eugene and asked to see his badge. He opened his wallet, flipped through several other badges, then showed his CIA credentials.

  The first agent returned Eugene’s pistol. “You’re taller than I expected, Mr. Keebler.”

  Eugene holstered the weapon and shrugged. “It’s all the cookies, I guess. Thanks for bailing us out. We were in a very tight spot.”

  The man extended his hand. “Jerry MacEntire. Or just “Mac,” if you’d like. We came as soon as we got the alert, but I’m afraid we were late to the party.”

  Mac glanced around the room, then said, “I assume you have some sort of CIA defense mechanism in the hallway. Like a machine gun that shoots chainsaws.”

  “I have no idea what happened out there,” Eugene lied.

  Mac squinted for a moment, then said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to show you something in the outer room.”

  “After you,” Eugene said.

  Keeping Eugene between them, the FBI agents walked down the blood-soaked hallway and entered the fabrication room. Out of habit, Eugene scanned the space up and down and side to side. His gaze landed on something unusual and he stopped short. One of the steel rafters, twenty-five feet above the floor, was plugged with something. He squinted, and realized it was the body of a gray-haired man.

  Mac smiled at Eugene’s startled expression and said, “You don’t know what could’ve done that, do you?”

  Eugene shook his head. “That’s, uh, really gross. But I have no idea how he got up there. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have something to attend to.”

  “Hold up,” Mac said, extending his arm. “We need to ask you some questions, first.”

  “Sorry, this can’t wait,” Eugene replied. “If you’d like to contact your superiors, I’m sure they’ll tell you…” He leaned in close. “To stay the hell out of my way.”

  Perhaps it was Eugene’s strange alias in the CIA database, or perhaps it was the body crammed into the rafter, but Mac put his arm down and nodded.

  “Give the crime scene investigators my best,” Eugene said as he brushed past the FBI agents. “I’m sure they’ll enjoy figuring this one out.” He strode across the room to the loading bay, hit a button to raise the door, then climbed into his Datsun. Waving goodbye to the assorted Law Enforcement officers, he backed out of the building and punched the throttle.

  Finally alone, he took a deep breath and sighed. Though he had been forced into the act many times in his life, Eugene despised killing. Jarrod, on the other hand, seemed to approach the task as casually as he would slicing bread. Eugene assumed Jarrod wanted to send a gruesome message to Katharos as an act of psychological warfare. He just wished he could have avoided the psychological warfare on his way out of the building.

  As he cruised into busier and busier streets, Eugene wondered how Jarrod had tailed him to the interrogation center without him noticing. Maybe it was fatigue. Eugene had slept less than twelve hours in the past three days, and never in a bed. He promised to be more careful on the way to the safehouse; he wasn’t certain Jarrod could be trusted and preferred to keep the killing machine away from innocent women and children.

  Watching his rear-view mirror, he pressed the accelerator and sped around the next turn. He then slowed and turned again until he had made a complete circle. Such blatant counter-surveillance wasn’t advisable in the field, but Eugene wasn’t trying to keep a low profile. He continued in a circuitous, start-and-stop fashion for nearly two hours, doubling the time it should have taken to get to the safehouse.

  When he finally pulled into the upscale neighborhood, his eyelids were heavy and his muscles ached with exhaustion. Nevertheless, he circled the block twice before pulling into the driveway.

  The garage door opened on its own and he parked inside. He pulled himself out of the car, dragged himself to the interior door, and tapped out “Shave and a Haircut.” Janson opened the door and frowned at his use of the clichéd tune.

  “Alpha,” Eugene said with a nod.

  The swarthy operative eyed him for a moment, then said, “You okay?”

  “Just tired,” Eugene replied. “Maybe a little delirious. But I’m still alive, which is a pretty big deal.”

  “Did you mak
e contact with the asset?” A voice to his right said.

  Eugene turned, surprised that he hadn’t noticed the man when he walked in. “Yes I did, Ford, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sneak up on me.”

  “Where is he?” Ford asked, stepping out of the shadows.

  Eugene allowed a grin to play across his face. “Why? You nervous?”

  “You weren’t scheduled to be done with your operations until the morning,” said Ford, “and you weren’t supposed to return to the safehouse at all.”

  Taking a deep breath, Eugene said, “Things didn’t work out the way we’d hoped. The asset took off. You and I are going to have to conduct the strikes ourselves.”

  Ford raised an eyebrow. “Alone?”

  “Sadly, yeah. We’ll leave after dark. Take your time getting your gear ready; I need some rest before we roll out.”

  Ford followed him up the carpeted stairs to the main level. “Are these orders coming from Daron?”

  “Nope, they’re coming from me. Daron’s plan fell apart, and this is what we’re left with. If he shows up, you can ask him if he has any better ideas.”

  Ford opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.

  “In the meantime,” Eugene said as he plodded onward, “I’m racking out. I’d rather not die tired.”

  Six hours passed in the blink of an eye. Eugene sat up, bewildered, then ripped the blaring alarm clock from the wall. He wondered if the clock had malfunctioned, or if he had set it wrong, then reached the depressing conclusion that it was, in fact, time to get up. The room was pitch black except for a bright crack at the bottom of the door.

  With a reluctant moan, he got out of bed and descended the spiral staircase. The house had grown quiet, so he walked on the edges of his feet to avoid waking the slumbering refugees. The kitchen light was on, so he headed in that direction. As he drew closer, he could hear Ford and Janson mumbling to each other. Try as he might, he couldn’t make out what they were saying, so he contented himself with sneaking up on them. Before his foot could touch the kitchen floor, the mumbling stopped. He frowned and leaned through the doorway. Janson and Ford were staring back at him with expectant faces.