The Nightmare Unleashed

by J. J. Carlson

  He stopped, squinting at a man in a red sweatshirt sitting on a set of stairs halfway down the block. The man’s arms were crossed, and though he was staring directly at the Katharos assassin, Otto couldn’t see his face.

  Shrugging it off as a coincidence, Otto continued on. He kept his expression impassive and focused on the sidewalk in front of him. When he reached the end of the block, he chanced a look back. The man in the sweatshirt was gone.

  See? Nothing to worry about.

  Otto exhaled and picked up his pace. From his research of the neighborhood, he knew the biggest threats to his mission were the police and a local gang. The men with the matching sweatshirts could be gang members, but they weren’t a real threat unless they were in a large group. Otto pretended to adjust his trousers and let his thumb graze the .45 caliber pistol hidden in his waistband. If any thugs tried to mess with him, they would be in for a surprise. At the shooting range, he could draw the weapon and put a bullet through five fist-sized targets in less than two seconds. And that was from a distance of twenty feet. As long as he drew his weapon first, he had no doubt he could fend off anyone he came across. The key to survival was constant vigilance.

  Bu, despite his confidence, something made him want to look over his shoulder. Constantly. Rather than scan for police cruisers, his eyes repeatedly turned toward shadowy corners and dark stairwells.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Get it together, he told himself. That creature is out of the game now. Nothing to worry about.

  Prying his gaze from an open storm drain, he glanced around the next corner to check for pedestrians. There was a flash of red at the end of the next street—a hooded man ducking around the corner.

  Otto gripped the pistol and slid it around to the front of his waistband. Definitely a gang.

  Running wasn’t an option. If he fled, the gang would think he had something to hide and chase him down. No; he needed to stay cool. He hung his thumbs from his pocket and continued strolling toward his car. After a few steps, he rolled his head and massaged his neck with his hands, putting on the air of a blue-collar worker walking home after a hard day at the factory. Then, something at the edge of his vision set off an alarm in his subconscious, and he focused his attention upward.

  What he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was another hooded man on top of a three-story building, staring down at him. Like the others, he had his hood up, and Otto couldn’t see his face.

  They were hunting him.

  But why? he wondered. He had chosen his attire carefully, selecting well-worn clothes from a thrift store. There was no reason for the local gang to target him for robbery. The fact that he was walking alone might make him look like an easy mark, but only marginally so. His broad shoulders and thick legs were usually enough to scare off would-be muggers.

  Something primitive stirred inside Otto, and he almost wanted the gang-bangers to make a move. But the logical side of his brain reminded him that additional bodies would draw attention to his primary mission. And he needed it to look like a suicide. Clenching his teeth, he broke into a jog.

  As he rounded the next corner, his car came into view—a sun-bleached Austin Metro. Nearly twenty-years-old, the car lacked power windows, air conditioning, and seat-warmers. The paint had gone from gray to nearly white and was rusted at the edges. But the car’s dull exterior was one of its greatest assets. It was unremarkable in a way that a Rolls-Royce never could be. He had driven it for thousands of miles, and he had never once garnered a second glance.

  He closed the distance to the rusty vehicle, pulled his keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door. He glanced up and down the street one last time, then ducked inside. Leaning to the side, he squinted in the dim light, trying to find the ignition. Then, out of nowhere, a muffled voice said, “What did you do?”

  Otto lost his grip on the keys, and they tumbled into the space between the front seats. He swore loudly and glanced around, but he didn’t see anyone outside the car.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of it!” Otto declared. With one hand on his pistol, he reached between the seats and groped around for the keys. His middle finger landed on the key ring, and he struggled to force his hand in further, but his large forearms prevented him from squeezing into the narrow gap. He sat up, did a complete sweep of the street, then leaned all the way over and reached in from a different angle. Something bit into his hand, and he immediately withdrew it. In the silvery light, he could see blood starting to pool on his skin.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  He reached under the seat again, this time taking care to avoid the sharp steel frame. With one final push, he reached the keys and pulled them out. He sat back and took a few cleansing breaths. His face was red from the awkward movement, and his hand still throbbed with pain. Gripping the chain tightly, he eased the key into the ignition switch and cranked the motor, which rattled to life.

  Grinning, he reached over his right shoulder for the seatbelt, and his blood ran cold. The words “Why did you kill her” had been etched into the driver’s-side window, ghostly-gray against the clear glass. Then, as he watched, the curved line and dot of a question mark appeared.

  With all the subtlety of a jackhammer, he threw the transmission into gear and pinned the accelerator to the floor. The engine roared until it backfired, but the wheels didn’t move. Otto cursed and beat his fist against the dashboard, but the car still didn’t budge.

  Even above the roar of the engine, Otto heard the telltale scream of bending steel. He whipped around just as the back hatch pitched through the air and landed on the street. Though he couldn’t see the intruder, he felt the car sink on its springs.

  “No!” he gasped. “It can’t be!” he fumbled for the door handle and pulled, but it didn’t give. He checked to make sure the door was unlocked, then pulled again. Still nothing.

  Something coiled around his neck, and a lightning bolt of pain shot down his spine. The seats groaned, then cracked. The invisible presence pulled him through the car, out the hatchback, and onto the ground. Otto rolled and aimed his gun wildly, searching for a target.

  He frowned. The pistol trembled in mid-air, slowly turning in his grip. The trigger guard pinched his finger, and the gun continued to rotate until a bone snapped.

  He cried out in pain and released the sidearm. It floated on its own, then landed in the grass beside the street.

  “Please!” Otto begged. “I’ll do anything!”

  Something seized his wrist and dragged him along the cobblestone. He twisted, trying to keep his head from striking the hard road.

  “You don’t have to do this!” Otto shouted. “I swear, I’ll do anything you want!”

  He stopped sliding, and his arm fell limp. He rubbed his wrist for a moment, then stood. “That’s more like it. Listen, I’ve heard the stories, and you don’t have to worry—you have my full cooperation.”

  A black, muscular form appeared out of thin air and stood completely motionless, like an ebony statue. After several seconds, a black jaw formed on the featureless face and began to move. “What makes you think I need your cooperation?”

  Otto took a step back. “The—the stories. I heard you don’t hurt people that surrender, that give you information.”

  The black jaw curved upward at the ends, forming a grotesque smile. The dark figure became translucent, then disappeared entirely.

  Otto spun in a circle, his eyes wide with fear. “You’re not going to hurt me, right?”

  A deep, hoarse laughter filled the air, then died down. The creature spoke at a whisper, directly into Otto’s ear. “The stories are lies.”

  Something struck Otto in the back of the knees, and he pitched forward. He stretched his arms out, trying to break his fall, but his sore wrist gave out and his face impacted the cobblestones. He rolled onto his back, his nose crushed and his face bloodied, and he raised his hands in surrender.

  An invisible vise clamped down on
his wrist and forced it to the ground. Otto turned on his side and tugged, trying to free himself. His fingers unfurled on their own, and something pressed down until the bones in his hand began to crack.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “I have important information!”

  Searing pain erupted on his forearm as a deep cut opened. It was followed by three new cuts. Otto clenched his teeth and looked on in horror as the words “I killed her” were carved into his skin. Still held by an invisible clamp, his arm lifted off the ground. The fingers clenched into a fist, and the hand flexed inward.

  Otto got on one knee and buckled under the pain, but the twisting motion continued. His wrist snapped, and he cried out for mercy.

  The creature didn’t relent.

  “I report to a base in London!” Otto shouted. “I can show you where it is!”

  A black hand appeared, then a shoulder. The creature took form, this time with a face. Then, like a wave receding on a beach, the black material withdrew from the creature’s head, revealing a handsome man’s features.

  Cradling his damaged arm, Otto looked into the man’s eyes and gasped. They were gray from edge to edge, but the discoloration did not conceal the fury inside.

  “I. Don’t. Care!” the man shouted, lurching forward and grabbing Otto by the shoulders. Tendons and ligaments tore free as the dark man squeezed his hands together.

  Otto’s scream was cut short as his ribcage collapsed, puncturing his lungs. He fell limp and lost consciousness. Moments later, his heart succumbed to the pressure and stopped beating.

  The black armor furled around the man’s head once more, and he dropped Otto’s corpse on the street. He straddled the dead man, raised a fist, and threw a powerful punch. The blow collapsed Otto’s cheekbone, disfiguring his face. He raised the ebony fist and struck again. And again. And again.

  2

  Green Spring, Maryland,

  In the world of black operations, if a mission is easy, it’s probably a trap.

  Eugene Carver skirted the trunk of a massive beech tree, his head scanning from left to right, then back again. The multi-spectral night vision goggles on his face illuminated the forest in shades of green, making his surroundings seem as bright as day under the light of the quarter moon. Ten yards to his left, a woman clad in black body armor peered through the scope of a SCAR-H 7.62mm rifle. The same distance to his right, a broad-shouldered man in a ghillie suit gripped an M-24 sniper rifle with one hand and held up a fist. Eugene froze and held up his own fist, signaling for the woman to stop. He watched the sniper, waiting for explanation. The man spread his fingers, as if grasping an enormous dial, then rotated his hand to the right.

  Eugene nodded and twisted a knob on his night vision, switching it to infrared. The forest erupted into a rainbow of colors, then settled into shades of blue and green. The sniper pointed, and Eugene traced a path from his finger to an orange object twenty feet off the ground.

  It was a security camera, well-camouflaged in the visible light spectrum, but plainly evident under infrared by the heat it gave off. Its tiny motor clicked and hummed, scanning a sector of forest just south of the team.

  Exactly where she said it would be, Eugene thought. It should have been reassuring to receive such a precise confirmation of intelligence, but it sent a chill down his spine.

  The team had been tasked to eliminate a chemical-weapons plant that had been disguised as a rundown farm. According to intel, the farm was well-guarded and had an array of electronic surveillance systems. Supposedly, chlorine gas was being manufactured within the confines of the barn and would soon be used in a string of terrorist attacks. The problem was, all the intelligence for the mission came from a questionable source—a terrorist named Audrey Stokes.

  Eugene exhaled through his nose and swept his arm forward, signaling for the team to move. As he picked his way through raspberry vines and poison ivy, he recalled Audrey’s unexpected surrender. She had shown up at a top-secret, off-the-books safehouse and turned herself in, claiming her ideology conflicted with her organization’s long-term goals. After years of faithful service to Katharos, she had simply switched sides.

  And Eugene wasn’t buying it. If the stakes weren’t so high on this mission, he wouldn’t even be there. It might all be a ruse, a clever tactic to eliminate three shooters that had proven very difficult to kill. She might have been honest about the farm’s outer defenses only to draw them in closer, to funnel them toward an ambush. Once the team left the forest, they would be completely exposed. Nearly four hundred feet of open ground lay between them and the barn, and they would be easy targets for anyone concealed within the farm’s numerous structures.

  His shoulders tightened, and he slowed his pace as the team approached the forest’s border. Even if it was a trap, they had no choice. Thousands of lives could be lost if the toxic gas was used in an attack. And, thanks to an extensive Information Operations campaign by Katharos, Eugene and his teammates had to work alone. Someone in Katharos had hacked into dozens of Law Enforcement databases and framed the team for a quadruple homicide and the kidnapping of a United States Senator. And since Audrey refused to speak to anyone else, Eugene and the others were the only ones capable of acting upon the information she provided.

  Crouching, then easing onto his stomach, Eugene low-crawled toward the forest edge. The operatives he knew only as Janson and Ford fell in behind, then crawled forward until they were shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

  With slow, silent movements, Ford brought his sniper rifle to bear on the farm and rested the barrel on its attached bipod. He scanned the windows, doorways, and any other points of concealment for several minutes, then whispered, “Clear.”

  Eugene nodded and got to one knee. He pulled the butt of his Heckler and Koch 433 modular assault rifle into his shoulder and waited for Janson to take point. She crept ahead of him, stood, and nodded for him to follow.

  Eugene nodded to indicate he was ready, and Janson took off like an Olympic sprinter.

  Though Eugene had years of combat experience as a Recon Marine, he felt no shame in letting the younger operative take point. She was simply better. She and Ford had participated in a secret, DARPA-funded experiment to enhance human performance. The genetic editing and chemical treatments improved their senses, reflexes, strength, speed, and ability to recover from injuries. Janson had less field experience than Eugene, but she was more than a match for him as a markswoman and hand-to-hand fighter.

  Eugene lowered his head and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, crossing an open field and turning down a gravel driveway. Janson quickly gained ground, despite the fact that she wore more than fifty pounds of body armor and moved with her rifle level. She reached the edge of the barn and stood with her back to the outer wall, waiting for Eugene to catch up.

  He closed the gap and crouched behind her with one hand on her shoulder. He squeezed, and she moved forward as silently as if she was walking on air. They reached the corner of the barn and Janson stopped short. Using hand-signals, she told him there was one terrorist outside the barn doors, then told him to stay put.

  Eugene acknowledged the communique with a squeeze, and Janson disappeared around the corner. She returned ten seconds later, covered in blood and dragging a corpse with its head on backwards.

  Eugene grimaced, then swept past her, crouching just outside a ray of light filtering through the partially-open barn door. Janson appeared behind him, her rifle at the low-ready.

  Holding down the push-to-talk for his radio, Eugene whispered, “In position. Moving in five.”

  Ford clicked his radio twice in response, and Eugene gripped the barn door. He counted the seconds, then pulled hard. As soon as the gap was wide enough for Janson to fit through, she rushed inside, clearing the “fatal funnel” as quickly as possible. She turned right and checked the first corner, then pivoted and dropped two targets with two shots. Eugene was at her heels, checking the left side. Finding a guard in the corner, he pulled the trigger three
times. The man collapsed, and Eugene turned to survey the rest of the room.

  The inside of the barn was one massive space, with rows of pill-shaped tanks along the outer walls and a steel catwalk in the center. Eugene’s reticle settled on a man armed with an MP5 submachine gun in the center of the catwalk. Before the man could raise his weapon, Eugene pulled the trigger and sent a round through the base of his throat. The man toppled over the railing, bounced off a chemical tank, and hit the ground.

  Within ten seconds, any Katharos agent who hadn’t taken cover lay dead or dying. Janson ducked behind the nearest steel tank, which was labeled NH3. On the opposite side of the room, Eugene ducked behind a tank labeled NaClO.

  Rounds began to clank against the steel containers, and Eugene turned his ear to listen. In the enclosed space, it was hard to tell how many shooters remained, but he guessed at least six. Janson popped up and squeezed a round off. Someone at the far end of the barn cried out, and Eugene corrected his estimate. At least five.

  Swinging his weapon over the top of the tank, Eugene pulled the trigger four times. He ducked just as bullets began ricocheting off his tank in response. One of his rounds had struck a target, because he could hear someone screaming in pain.

  Slowly, the gunfire died down, and everyone in the room stayed behind cover. Eugene dropped to the dirt floor and crawled on his elbows, sliding beneath the rounded end of the tank. He took cover behind the second tank in the row, then jumped to his feet. From his new vantage point, he could see a booted foot near the back door. He leveled his rifle and squeezed the trigger, then ducked.

  Now two men shrieked in pain, but no one returned fire.

  Amateurs, Eugene thought. Are they just going to sit there while we—