Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  “What is it?” shouted Albertsson. “What’s going on?”

  Larissa didn’t respond. Without taking her eyes from a patch of ground beneath where she had stopped, she flew to her left and pulled a thick branch from the trunk of one of the trees. She glided back to her previous position, held out her gloved hand, and dropped the branch.

  The chunk of wood hit the ground with a deafening clang of metal that echoed through the forest, making Jamie jump and causing his hand to fly to the handle of his pistol. An explosion of splinters drifted through the cool, gloomy air, before silence and stillness took over again.

  “Come forward,” said Larissa. “Very slowly.”

  Jamie moved up tentatively with the rest of the squad, his heart pounding in his chest. Larissa pivoted in the air until she was upside down, then reached down with her long arms and tore out several handfuls of shrubs, now coated in wood dust.

  “Oh Jesus,” said Engel.

  Lying on the newly exposed patch of forest floor was a metal bear trap. Its teeth were clamped round the remains of the branch that Larissa had dropped, and were rusty and caked in dirt. The trap looked old, but still vicious; the teeth formed a silver-brown grin around the shattered branch, like that of some ancient shark.

  “Nobody move,” said Albertsson, his voice low. “Stay right where you are. Larissa, can you check if there are more of them?”

  Larissa nodded, and flew slowly away in the direction the squad had been heading. Jamie stared down at the trap, his stomach a tightly clenched ball, wondering what would have happened if Van Orel had stepped into it. It had been less than two metres in front of the South African when Jamie’s girlfriend had ordered them to stop.

  It would have taken his leg off, he thought, and felt his head swim.

  “A bear trap,” said the South African, his voice little more than a whisper. “It didn’t even occur to me to be looking. Are there even bears in Romania?”

  Engel nodded. “Lots of them,” she said, her eyes fixed on the trap. “Did you even read the briefing on this place? Second largest European population after Russia. Bears, and wolves, and wild boars, and God knows what else.”

  “In which case,” said Albertsson, “where the hell are they all? I haven’t seen anything move since we left camp. Have any of you?”

  “No,” said Petrov. “I have seen nothing that was not dead.”

  His comment hung in the air. Bears and wolves were apex predators, and yet there was no sign of them in a place that should have been their natural home.

  “Maybe because there’s something worse than them here,” said Jamie, giving voice to the thought that had taken root in all of their minds.

  Albertsson shot him a look that Jamie was sure was meant to be dismissive, but which contained far too much uncertainty to be convincing. He returned the look with an even stare, until the American Operator looked away.

  From somewhere up ahead there came a second clang of metal, closely followed by a third. Jamie tried to slow his heart, his eyes fixed on the gloom into which his girlfriend had disappeared. For a long, empty moment, nothing moved or made a sound. Then Larissa flew slowly out of the darkness, her face pale.

  “Two more,” she said. “That’s all I could see, but I’m not guaranteeing that’s all there is. I suggest you all tread very carefully.”

  Albertsson nodded. “You heard her,” he said. “I want everybody looking at their feet as we move. This is no place for a medical evac.”

  The members of the DARKWOODS squad nodded, and Van Orel led them onwards again, even slower than before. The trap had spooked them all; that much was obvious to Jamie as he carefully followed the path flattened by his squad mates, suddenly grateful for his place at the rear of their column. If there were more traps in their path, three pairs of feet would reach them before his.

  Albertsson may have been stating the obvious, but he was also right; this would be no place to have to deal with an injured Operator. It had gone unspoken, but every member of the squad was fully aware that the possibility of any kind of conventional evacuation was now remote; their consoles and radios had all lost signal within thirty seconds of entering the forest, leaving them no means of contacting the outside world. If something happened to one of them, their best chance of survival was going to be to hold tightly to Larissa’s waist and hope she could fly them both to help in time.

  And that would mean losing our most valuable weapon, thought Jamie. The only one of us who has the slightest chance of standing up to him when we find him.

  Although he was sure it wasn’t a conviction that all his squad mates shared, Jamie had absolutely no doubt they would find the first victim. He didn’t know long it would take, what state they would be in, or what was going to happen when they found him, but he was certain that they would. And what was more, he had begun to believe that the first victim wanted to be found, regardless of how that sounded. The tableau of dead animals had appeared to be a warning to come no further, but if whatever lived at the heart of the forest really wanted to be left alone, it could very clearly have murdered them all as they slept.

  I think he’s intrigued, he thought. He could have killed Grey, and he could have killed us, but he didn’t. I think he wants to know why we’re here, and what we want.

  The thought was strangely comforting. Jamie was not remotely convinced that he or any of his squad mates were going to make it out of the forest alive, but he was increasingly sure they were going to reach their target, if nothing else; what happened then would be in the hands of fate.

  Ahead of him, the squad were debating the bear traps. Engel believed they had been put there to deter humans, which she saw as proof that they were going in the right direction. Van Orel and Albertsson agreed with her, while Petrov remained his usual silent self. Jamie disagreed; the traps had not been placed on any discernible path, or hidden in such a way as to make it likely that a human being might stumble into them. And Florin, the villager that he and Van Orel had spoken to the previous evening, had made it clear that anything beyond the very outskirts of the forest had been treated as off-limits to the local population, for several generations at least.

  They were for animals, he thought. Not for us. I’m sure of it. Maybe the first victim laid them, or maybe not. But I don’t think it means we’re going the right way. I don’t think it necessarily means anything.

  “Jamie!” shouted Tim Albertsson.

  He looked up and saw the Special Operator standing with his hands on his hips.

  “Yes, sir?” he replied.

  “Take point,” said Albertsson. “It’s your turn.”

  Jamie smiled, as murderous thoughts raced through his mind. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  He walked up the short column of Operators, past Petrov and Engel, past the gently smirking Albertsson, and past Van Orel, whose mouth twitched with a tiny smile of sympathy. Jamie stepped to the front of the line and began to walk, taking great care with each step. Ahead and above him, Larissa flew slowly back and forth, scanning the upcoming terrain. She glanced down as he led the squad deeper into the forest, and gave him a fierce smile that warmed his heart.

  She doesn’t look like that at you, Tim, he thought. Whatever happened in Nevada, whatever the two of you aren’t telling me, she doesn’t smile at you like that.

  Jamie quickened his step, trying as far as possible to keep to a straight line, to stay on the heading that Tim Albertsson had chosen. He had absolutely zero faith in the American’s directions, but nor did he have any better ideas of his own. And if nothing else, the next time they arrived at a clearing or an obstacle they had already encountered, it would give him great satisfaction to be able to say that he had simply been doing as he was told.

  As Jamie trudged forward through the permanent gloom, his squad mates fell quiet, and the silence beneath the towering canopy crowded in, unnatural and unnerving. The forest should have been alive with noise, home to a cacophony of chirping and buzzing and the scuttling of the
hundreds and thousands of animals that should have been living on its floor and in its trees and undergrowth.

  But there was nothing.

  It was as still and silent as a mausoleum.

  Dead, Jamie thought, and shivered. It’s dead in here.

  Jamie had been on point for almost two hours when they found it.

  He had led them through mile after mile of endless, indistinguishable forest, stepping carefully round deadfalls and over thick patches of brush, the kind that could easily be hiding two rows of metal teeth, hungrily awaiting a carelessly placed foot.

  Nothing was different. Nothing changed.

  Tim Albertsson continued to stubbornly insist they were going in the right direction, but Jamie and the rest of the squad knew full well that he was only saying so for his own benefit; the NS9 Special Operator’s map had long since ceased to correspond to the terrain they were walking through, and their GPS locators had lost signal at the same time as their consoles and radios.

  Jamie stepped carefully across a narrow stream, the meandering water as devoid of life as the rest of the Teleorman Forest, and was waiting for the rest of the squad to join him when Larissa whispered his name in his ear, startling him. His girlfriend was capable of moving with utter silence, a trait that, while regularly useful, never ceased to be unnerving.

  “Christ,” he said, turning to face her. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the—”

  “There’s something up ahead,” she said, her face pale, the corners of her eyes glowing red. “Something bad.”

  Jamie froze. “What is it?” he asked.

  Larissa shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s the air, something about the way it feels. Like it’s wrong.”

  “All right,” he said. “Is it safe?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I think so. It feels old, like it’s been used up. But I don’t know.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Tim Albertsson. He had crossed the stream and was frowning at them.

  “Something ahead,” said Larissa. “Sir.”

  Albertsson narrowed his eyes. “Alive?”

  “No,” said Larissa. “I don’t think so. Not any more, sir.”

  “Let’s see it then,” said Albertsson. He pushed between them and strode forward. Larissa shook her head and leapt back into the air, leaving Jamie to take a moment to ensure his temper was at least largely under control before following his squad leader.

  It had once been a stone circle, that much was still clear.

  The remains of the stones themselves were visible, peering out from beneath the moss and weeds that had claimed them over time. Jamie couldn’t tell how tall they had been, or whether they had been inscribed or carved or arranged; they were now little more than twelve mounds of grey and green. They were not, however, what was occupying the minds of the six Operators.

  The space between them was a wide, perfect circle of dark brown earth, devoid of even the tiniest sign of life; not so much as a single green shoot or animal track spoilt the flat surface. Around its perimeter, the forest continued, climbing up and away in every direction.

  But inside the circle there was nothing.

  Beyond the stones and the return of the dark green gloom stood a tight ring of trees. Jamie stared up at the narrow, seemingly even spaces between their trunks, at the point high overhead where their uppermost branches almost met, and thought they might be some variety of oak; it was difficult for him to be sure, as every one of the trees was dead.

  Their trunks were twisted and gnarled, spindly columns of black and grey that jutted up towards the sky. They looked as though they had been burned, but if so, the fire had been remarkably localised; there were no other dead trees visible beyond the ring of oaks, no smaller trees younger than their neighbours.

  Larissa stood beside Jamie, the expression on her face tight and uneasy, as Tim and the others turned slowly at the centre of the circle, taking it in.

  “It smells wrong,” she said, her voice low. “This whole place. There’s something that I almost recognise, something I know I should be able to identify, and then something else, something deeper. I don’t like it, Jamie.”

  Jamie nodded in agreement; he didn’t like this place either. A circle of stones was unsettling enough, even though they now lay in ruins. He had paid attention in history in the days when he had still gone to school, and he understood what stone circles had once meant: solstices and seasons and rituals.

  Sacrifices.

  Blood.

  The empty patch of ground was somehow worse, however; it seemed unnatural, almost artificial, as though it shouldn’t exist. But he was standing in the middle of it.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” said Tim Albertsson. “What the hell is this? What was done here?”

  Petrov shook his head. “Nothing good,” he said.

  Damn right, thought Jamie. Larissa’s right, this place is bad. You can feel it.

  “There’s nothing here,” said Van Orel. “Let’s keep moving, eh?”

  Albertsson nodded, with apparent reluctance; he seemed momentarily unwilling to leave the circle with its mysteries unsolved. But after a second or two, he nodded again, more firmly, and stepped off the bare earth.

  “Let’s move,” he said. “Petrov, you’re on point.”

  The Russian nodded, and strode across to join the Special Operator on the green of the forest floor, Engel and Van Orel close behind him. Jamie was about to do likewise when Larissa growled at his side.

  “What is it?” he asked, although he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to be standing in the circle any more; he didn’t like the feel of the soft earth beneath his boots, the dead oaks crowding over him, their branches like skeletal fingers.

  “I knew I recognised it,” said Larissa. “I was trying to place something less normal. I can’t believe it took me so long.” She crouched down, scooped up a handful of the brown earth with her gloved hand, and held it beneath her nose. “Salt,” she said, shaking her head. “This whole place smells of salt.”

  “Salt?” said Jamie. “Why salt?”

  “People salted the earth where bad things happened,” said Engel, from beyond the edge of the circle. Her eyes were wide. “So nothing could ever grow again. It was done to places that were considered unholy.”

  Fingers of ice danced their way up Jamie’s spine.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, trying to force calm that he didn’t feel into his voice.

  He walked across the circle, hoping his legs were not visibly trembling. Larissa dropped the earth, brushed her glove clean against the thigh of her uniform with a look of disgust on her face, then floated into the air and joined the rest of the squad.

  Jamie was suddenly incredibly aware that he was the only Operator still standing inside the stone circle, and it took all the composure he had left not to break into a run. His mind played cruel games with him as he walked; it showed him the earth rising into a huge brown hand that pulled him down, showed the oaks closing in on him, creating an impenetrable wall of dead wood that trapped him forever in this old, deep place.

  He was two metres from the edge of the circle when something hissed loudly from the base of the tree in front of him.

  Jamie stopped dead, as still as a statue.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Van Orel, his hand going instantly to the butt of his Glock.

  Larissa growled, her eyes reddening as she looked at her boyfriend.

  “Get away from the tree,” said Jamie, his voice low and tight. “All of you. Now.”

  The squad members frowned, but Jamie’s voice was full of the authority of conviction, and they did as he said; they backed away from the old tree in both directions, moving round the edge of the circle, until they could see what Jamie could see.

  The snake slithered up out of a wide hole at the base of the tree and down on to the bare earth without making a sound. Its body was dark brown, covered in looping patterns of black. Its triangular head
swept left and right above the ground, as though it was searching for something. Then its black eyes locked on Jamie, and it hissed again.

  “Oh Jesus,” said Engel.

  “Shut up,” said Jamie, his voice low.

  “That doesn’t belong—”

  “Shut up,” growled Jamie, his gaze fixed on the snake.

  Its head hung motionless above the ground, but the rest of it was still coiling out of the tree, seemingly without end; two metres, then three, possibly even four. It hissed again, its mouth yawning open, its forked tongue darting out, its fangs clearly visible.

  Jamie’s heart pounded in his chest; he was forcing himself not to panic, to breathe, to think, for God’s sake, think. He knew absolutely nothing about snakes; he had never needed to know anything about them, or given any thought to the idea that a day might come when he would. All he could think to do was stay still, and not turn his back on it.

  “Don’t move,” said Larissa. “I’m coming to get you.”

  Jamie nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his girlfriend rise silently into the air and circle round behind him. The snake flicked its head in her direction, then slid silently forward over the salted ground, closing the distance between them to barely a metre, hissing steadily.

  Striking distance, thought Jamie.

  Larissa floated down behind him. He could hear her breathing, deep and steady, and a second later he felt hands slide under his armpits.

  “On three,” she whispered. “One.”

  The snake arched its back, raising its head further off the ground.

  “Two.”

  It hissed, louder than ever, its long body vibrating.

  “Three!”

  Larissa hurtled up and back, hauling Jamie into the air. For a terrible moment, her gloved hands slipped across the smooth material of his uniform, and he felt sure she was going to drop him. Then she tightened her grip, her fingers digging roughly into the soft flesh beneath his arms, and he cried out in pain.

  The snake struck, its head turned to the side, its mouth wide and full of fangs. The razor-sharp points closed where his legs had been, on nothing. The snake heaved itself forward, its mouth opening again, but Jamie was beyond its reach as Larissa carried him out of the circle and set him down beside the rest of the squad. The six Operators watched the furious, thrashing snake, their eyes wide with shock.