The Aching Darkness_A Dark Fantasy Anthology

by Parker Sinclair

  The ground shook from a faraway boom which sent them ducking and jerking their heads back toward the center of the city. Dark, soot-colored smoke puffed up into the air. None of it was close enough to be on base, but there were airmen running all over the tarmac, calling out to each other and pointing in the direction of the explosion.

  Rye’s eyes widened as his gut tightened. The rock forming there made him want to bend over and heave as the blood drained from his brain and the breath caught in his throat.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” He turned toward Blaze, whose eyes were as wide as Rye’s.

  “I don’t… I don’t know. I have to get to Lianna,” he mumbled and turned toward the locker room. “I think we should call it a day and come back tomorrow. This sounds serious, and I need to find out where Lianna is. She might not be able to hear the explosions in the sublevel classified labs.”

  Rye agreed, following him without a word and keeping an eye on the horizon. What was going on out there? A couple more explosions echoed through the hangar, and they ducked each time, wondering if the next one would bring gunfire in their direction.

  “We need our side arms,” Rye said. “I’m not leaving base without protection.”

  In the locker room, they searched through their gear and brought out the weapons they’d been issued. After loading them and packing extra ammunition into their pockets, they slammed their lockers shut. Both jumped as they turned and found William standing in the middle of the room, staring at them with red, bloodshot eyes, unmoving but growling softly.

  Stunned, Rye sucked in a sharp breath and stared at his trainee, who appeared to be wearing the same grease-stained coveralls he’d had on the day before.

  “Will? You all right? You look terrible. Where have you been, man?” Rye peered at him more closely, unsure about what he was seeing. Was he injured? High? Drunk? Whatever it was, he was unresponsive as he continued to stare without focus, rocking slightly on his feet and apparently unaware they were even in the same room.

  His heavy breathing broke the silence, and his fingers repeatedly flexed into fists then straightened out again. There was blood on his hands, caked under his fingernails and across his coveralls. His hair stood out dusty and wild, as though he’d had a tumble in a dirty room and had pulled at the strands, leaving bald spots.

  “Will?” Rye repeated, but the way William stood, rigid yet slack, softly grunting, and seemingly poised to pounce, made him take a step back. The feeling rolling off of him felt far from human. It was more animalistic, as though he were on a hunt. He suddenly sniffed the air around him.

  “Don’t move.” Blaze’s voice broke the spell as Rye tightened his grip on his gun. He was glad he hadn’t holstered it yet and remained steady. Would Will react if he pointed the barrel at him? Would it provoke him, or would it cause him to back away? Did he even recognize them anymore?

  “Will, what’s the matter? You all right, buddy?”

  As the last word of Rye’s question left his mouth, Will’s eyes refocused on him. His lips curled back, showing off gore-encrusted canines stretching at least three quarters of an inch farther than the rest of his teeth. The following snarl, and his red irises, gave no indication that he knew who they were. The moment he lunged, both men pointed their guns in his direction, screaming for him to stop.

  He didn’t.

  Rye got a shot or two into his chest, but it didn’t appear to do anything but irritate him and stir him up even more. A half second before Will’s fingers reached toward Rye’s hands, Blaze let off another shot, aiming for his face. Rye watched as Will’s head exploded. His body lurched backward and slammed hard against the concrete floor.

  “The hell!” Rye hollered, wiping the bits of skull and brain sticking to his coveralls. “Why’d you shoot him in the head?”

  Blaze pointed toward William’s leg. “Because he was already dead.” Near his groin was a ragged hole in his coveralls, a stain of dark coagulated blood running down his leg.

  Now that he was on his back, they could see that a significant chunk of his thigh muscle was missing, like it’d been chewed away by animals and only the sinew and bone had been left intact. He would have quickly bled to death from such a wound. Rye wondered who or what had given him this injury. He’d not heard of any wild animal attacks occurring. His blood ran cold. There were human teeth marks all down his leg, along with several puncture wounds.

  Rye shook his head as the ground trembled. Another explosion echoed through the room, sending dust particles floating down onto their heads.

  “Let’s get out of here. I need to find Lianna and find out what the hell is going on.”

  “Terrorist attack?” Rye asked.

  Blaze shrugged. “Who the fuck knows?” He checked the magazine and chamber of his gun before tucking it into his belt holster. “Let’s go find out.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The cell phone rolled into the answering message again. For the hundredth time, Blaze pressed the button to call Lianna to no avail. They were in his car, a 1968 Camaro he took care of better than most people cared for their offspring. Cruising through the neighborhoods surrounding the Air Force base at a speed they had no business going, the urgency of the violence spreading through the city was obvious as they roared down the streets.

  Rye gripped the sides of his seat as though it would help if the car ended up careening off the road into one of the many sidewalks, ditches, and water channels lining the roads between housing developments. “Dude, I’d like to arrive at your house in one piece, not mangled worse than Will.”

  “Don’t worry. I used to drive race cars, remember? I still hang at the Speedway every other weekend, so don’t get so uptight. I’m trained to drive this way. Driving slow is hazardous to my health.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Rye muttered beneath his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Lianna isn’t scared by my driving.”

  “I doubt she even realizes what’s going on outside the car when she’s in here with you. Have you disinfected the upholstery lately?” Rye squirmed in his seat, trying to keep the knots in his belly from unraveling and losing the meager breakfast he’d had many hours before.

  Blaze didn’t answer; he just smirked as he made the final turn toward his and Lianna’s house off Lamb Boulevard.

  Rye’s place wasn’t that far away, but he only had a one-bedroom apartment with Angela. Lately, he was rarely home since she wasn’t there to greet him. Spending nights at Blaze’s kept them both sane.

  The afternoon sun burned above their heads as they reached the house. They didn’t know what to expect, but not finding Lianna there threw Blaze into a panicked fit.

  “She must be at work,” Rye suggested.

  “We already checked.”

  Something knocked in the back of Rye’s mind. Something Blaze had mentioned a while ago.

  “Wait… didn’t you say there’s another lab somewhere on base? The main lab is less secure. They might not have wanted any of the regular lab technicians to have access to their specimens.”

  “Yeah, the Annex Lab. I totally blanked on that. Thanks, man. Damn. I should’ve checked there first.”

  They both glared down the road that led back toward the base. There was smoke in the air, but it looked as though it was coming from a building on the farthest end of the base.

  “We have to go back.” Blaze cursed as he locked the front door again. “That smoke could be coming from the side the annex is on.”

  “You think so?” Rye shaded his eyes as he stared at the horizon. From this vantage point, they could see some of the base plus the edge of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on the left. It was hard to tell where one began and the other ended, but the smoke was coming from one of them.

  “Let’s go. Hopefully it’s at the Speedway and not the base.”

  Blaze’s eyebrows furrowed. “Let’s hope.”

  Heading out toward the base once more,
they rode in silence, afraid that speaking their thoughts out loud would make them come true. The dread grew as the smoke intensified, joining with smoke from other fires burning elsewhere in the city. People were everywhere, and cars were starting to fill the streets as people panicked and tried to get out of town.

  “Something major is going on, but it doesn’t seem organized,” Rye observed, studying the various burning buildings they could see from the road. Some were being treated by residents themselves since the fire department appeared inundated. There was no way they could get to them all. “Why would the buildings explode? What the hell is going on? I don’t see any kinds of militant groups about, just regular people.”

  And the people were the major concern. Many of them were packing their things into cars, some were running away from whatever rumors or events now terrifying them, while still others fought amongst themselves, squabbling and just plain causing chaos. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it, just that panic was reigning throughout the city. The potential for widespread violence left him unsettled.

  “Something’s behind all this for sure. Nothing so far on the stations about it though.” Blaze fiddled with the radio’s knobs to no avail. Most were just repeating the previous stories of random blazes and explosions, but none had any concrete details. There was nothing apparent, like a terrorist attack. How could so much coincidently be happening at once without one group claiming responsibility and without anyone exactly reporting on what was going on? Blaze was used to a certain order, even in the chaos of battle. Yes, they worked cushy mechanical jobs now, but they’d been deployed before, out in the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, and those had been some of the darkest days of their lives.

  Yet here in the middle of the city, where things should be quiet and settled, was another warzone scarier than any they’d seen before. Their only hope was to get some answers back on base.

  Traffic grew worse by the minute, and many streets were impassible due to car wrecks and abandoned vehicles. It took them hours to get back, and it was near sunset when they finally reached the base.

  “IDs.” The MP stepped up to their window as they stopped at the guard post and peered into the car. They handed their military IDs to the guard and waited as he looked them over, seemingly paranoid as he scrutinized their faces. There were more MPs stationed at the gate than ever before, and some people had already been turned away.

  He returned their IDs and waved them forward. “Report to your commanding officer immediately… if you can find him. And be careful. Some strange stuff is going on, and there’ve already been incidents on base.”

  Rye clamped his lips together, wanting to say he knew there were incidents, but he stayed quiet. Bringing up what had happened with Will would do them no good right now.

  Blaze leaned out the window as the gate rolled open. “What exactly do you mean by ‘strange stuff’?”

  “Some say there’s a bug going around that’s turning people crazy. They’re biting others and fighting, like they don’t know who they are.”

  Blaze nodded and moved the car forward. The gate creaked closed behind them as they continued into the base, the MP’s words stuck in their heads.

  “Do you think that’s true? What Will had… possibly a contagion of some sort?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t doubt it. Something is going on, I’m just not sure what it is.” Blaze kept a tight frown pressed across his lips as he maneuvered past the roads filled with vehicles. Everyone was moving about on the streets. In the housing areas, families were either hunkered down at their living room windows, staring outside, or packing the family vehicle to leave town.

  “This looks really bad.” Rye rubbed his hand over his face but perked up as the lab appeared. “There it is! That’s where Lianna is working, right? The Annex Lab?”

  Blaze leaned over, turning the car into the parking lot. “Yeah, that’s it. I hope she’s okay in there. Looks like the building is intact. That’s good. It’s underground, like a bunker, so it should be safer. I wonder if they’ve noticed what’s going on out here at all.”

  He stopped the car, and they both hopped out, hurrying toward the doors, desperate to find out what was going on. Once inside, they found themselves in the lobby without any security or receptionist waiting.

  “Hello?” Blaze called out. The security monitors behind the counter showed no one walking the halls or any sign of the guard who was supposed to be posted there at all hours. “That’s odd. There’s always someone out here to check people in.”

  “Which way to the lab?” Rye asked.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve visited the inside of this lab. Um….” Blaze scratched his head and stared out toward the two main halls. Each split off into several branches. “Come on. I think it’s this way.”

  They followed the hall to the left and went down a set of stairs to a sublevel. There they stepped into a hall with a long wall of glass lining one side of it. Through the glass, they could see banks of computer servers. They walked to the end of the hall where another branch broke off to the left.

  Blaze stopped, staring down the hall hard.

  “You okay, man?” Rye asked.

  “No. This all looks different. I think we took a wrong turn.”

  “You sure?”

  Blaze shook his head, turned around, and rushing back the way they had come. Instead of going left, they went right from the door by the stairs. There was a locked door at the end of this one with a tiny square window in the middle to peer through.

  “This is it.”

  Rye looked through the window and noted some movement. Some people in lab coats were bustling about. He knocked on the window, harder with each rap in the hope that they could hear it over the machines humming in the background.

  “Hey! Let us in!” Blaze called out. He waved his hand across the window. They finally caught the attention of one of the scientists, who rushed to the door, looking spooked. He opened the door slightly and pushed his black-framed glasses up his nose.

  “You’re not allowed in here. Who are you?”

  “I need to see Lianna. Is she down here?”

  “Lianna?” He nodded but narrowed his eyes at us, giving away that she was there before he shook his head. “You need authorization to come in here.”

  “There’s no one upstairs. Something’s going on, and you’d better let us in, or we’ll be having some issues.” Blaze glared at the guy, who cowered under his gaze.

  “All right. Hold on right here.” The guy turned and called out, “Lianna! You have visitors.”

  Blaze’s wife came into view. Relieved, they relaxed as she waved them in and shooed the other scientist away. “Sorry. Andy’s been a bit skittish. He said he can’t get ahold of anyone at command. Did you get my voicemail?”

  He gave her a baffled look. “No. My phone… dammit, I left it in the car. Oh, and your security upstairs seems to have taken a permanent break.”

  Her eyes widened as she looked past them. “Come inside. We need to lock this door. Now. There are things that you should know, but we need to keep this door locked.”

  They followed her in and helped Andy lock the door.

  “What’s going on, Lianna?” Blaze asked. “You look spooked.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try us. You’d be surprised what we’d believe after seeing what’s going on out there right now.”

  “Well, I’m not too sure what’s going on aboveground, but come see what we’re working on. It’s exciting. No one else has ever worked on anything like this before.”

  Blaze looked confused as she took his hand and led them across the room and deep into another labyrinth of hallways. Rye had no idea there was so much going on below the ground level of the base. The lab appeared to take up a huge underground area that wasn’t known to the rest of the airmen. He’d been there a couple of years and had never imagined that this place extended this far.

  So much for
being just an annex. This looked to him like a hidden command center of some type. He wondered what sort of projects went on down there. They were well underground, even if they had technically only gone down one level. There were server rooms, separate rooms with more scientists working, and other closed off areas they weren’t privy to.

  It was all fascinating and yet highly suspicious to Rye, especially since Lianna was now strolling by them as though it was no big deal. He knew that if there had been a guard upstairs, they would’ve been tossed out of the lobby and onto the pavement outside. Now there was no one to monitor anything, so she obviously felt it was okay to drag them down there and show Blaze what she was working on.

  Rye hoped they wouldn’t pay too dearly for this privilege.

  “Come on, my lab is this way. And don’t worry; this place is secure. Whatever is wandering around out there won’t get in.”

  Her words were not reassuring.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lianna took them even farther, past another set of security doors, deep into the belly of the lab. Once there, she waved them over to a wall of glass. Beyond it were three bodies lying on steel slabs, like in a mortuary. Rye gaped through the window at them, seeing that they’d been cut up for autopsy then sewn back together. Were the scientists conducting experiments on them? It was hard to tell from the frigid clouds of fog floating about them from the extreme temperature inside the freezer.

  “What are you guys doing with these bodies?” Blaze asked.

  Rye had to admit that he was curious too, but with all the weirdness going on lately, dissecting bodies seemed to be last on the list of things they should investigate.

  “I don’t think we have time for this,” Blaze muttered, echoing Rye’s thoughts. They had to get back topside. This was the last place they wanted to get caught if there was an explosion upstairs, or worse, if the base was attacked.

  “We need to find out where Miranda is,” Blaze continued, “get Angela down here, and get to a real bunker.”