The Last Line Series One

by David Elias Jenkins

  “Damn Jim, your eyes are better than mine. I don’t see any visual cues at all. All I see is trees and mountains.”

  Flight Lieutenant Jim Taylor pointed to the flight deck and tapped a malfunctioning dial.

  “See the problem major? I don’t know what’s causing it but it’s compromising this bird.”

  Usher gazed over the flight controls and readouts. Unlike his trusted oppo Isaac, Usher had never learned to fly a helicopter, and didn’t overly love them, but he knew what malfunctioning looked like.

  “Jim, I’m no expert but to my eyes the only thing left to happen to that flight deck is for a cuckoo to pop out on a spring.”

  Taylor gave Usher a concerned glance then popped him a reassuring wink.

  “That’s how I’m finding my way in Major. These disturbances are like a trail of breadcrumbs. If I can just get a visual on the town, I’ll get you as close as I can. You know I won’t compromise my crew or this bird, but as long as the basic mechanics keep working I’ll get you as close as I can.”

  Usher had to admit he was nervous at the prospect of inserting into a mission aboard a clearly malfunctioning helicopter, but he trusted Jim Taylor and knew that the man could fly blind if he had to. He tapped the veteran pilot on the shoulder and nodded.

  “It’s your show until we’re boots on the ground Jim. But the further we get dropped from the target zone the further we have to tab to get there. Remember we’re on the clock here. They won’t extend the deadline for the air strike. I don’t much fancy still being in Carnival when it turns into a big ball of white light.”

  “Understood major. Don’t worry, I have no intention of leaving you behind anywhere.”

  “Thanks Jim.”

  Taylor radioed across to the other helicopter.

  “Empire two this is Empire One. Keep frosty for visuals on the target, and prep your passengers for a bumpy ride.”

  Usher turned back to his teammates and made his way back down the cabin. There was a sudden lurch like hitting an air pocket and everyone in the cabin gripped the handrail a little tighter.

  As Usher passed, assaulter Brock Ravenson was nervously twirling his long braided blonde goatee. His deep Nordic voice was unusually tense.

  “This bird is starting to feel like a roller coaster, Major. Something we need to know about?”

  Usher slid his safety line down the rack towards Brock and the rest of his team. He looked to their occult advisor Doctor Ariel Speedman and spread his palms.

  “Not my area boys. Doc, any ideas?”

  Ariel glanced out the open door to the forest below whizzing past. A constant cold rush of air was filling the cabin. He clearly wasn’t enjoying the flight. He leaned in as he struggled to make himself heard over the rotors.

  “At a guess I’d say it’s some sort of electromagnetic interference caused by all the thaumaturgic energy spilling out from the other side. The two realities grate against each other but can’t interact, and it causes friction. On the plus side, it’s a very strong indicator that our Necromancer has opened a true portal to the other side.”

  On the other side of the cabin, assaulter and demolitions specialist Danny Stromberg leaned back in his seat and laughed. In his lazy surfer’s Australian drawl he spoke “Doc says that’s the plus side. Oh mate, in what way exactly is a doorway to Hell a plus side?”

  Usher shot his oppo a sarcastic stare. “It means that you haven’t got all dressed and painted up for nothing. Because that would be embarrassing corporal Stromberg, and you do look so nice and all.” He turned back to the nervous Ariel. “So, what’s the negative side Ariel?”

  Ariel took a deep queasy breath and swallowed down some bile.

  “Aside from us having absolutely no idea what may have come through or what we might be facing? The negative side is that I may be about to be sick.”

  Usher reached for a sick bag from behind his seat and snapped it open in front of the ashen faced occult investigator.

  “Get it all up now doc, we need you in top shape on the ground.”

  Ariel nodded. “I’ll be raring to go, Thom, don’t worry about me.”

  Ariel took the bag and tried to regulate his breathing as the helicopter lurched and rattled. Usher had to admit he wasn’t enjoying the sensation much himself, but he had to set an example. Ariel was the only member of the assault team that would even consider calling Usher by his first name during a live operation. In the time since his first field mission, the previously timid scientist had really developed and in Usher’s mind had become an invaluable member of the team. Usher patted him on the arm.

  “You’re the last guy I need to worry about Ariel.”

  Usher slid along to the rear of the cabin next to Isaac Marlow, the teammate he had served longest with. Isaac was smoking an unfiltered Camel cigarette and blowing smoke rings up into the cabin. His eyes betrayed no fear whatsoever. Usher had jumped out a lot of C-130’s with Isaac over the years, HALO-ing down to god knows what on most occasions. Isaac was the steady hand and the cool head that was what was needed when the shit hit the fan. He was however, oddly superstitious and had various good luck charms secreted about his kit. Whereas Ariel Speedman had developed some genuine psycher abilities over the past year, Isaac fell back on the professed abilities of his Romany ancestors. Usually he employed this tactic as a means to get women, but Usher had to admit that his oppo’s bad feelings about missions had often proven correct. Isaac would be the first to admit that this was all relative when you already knew you were headed to fight supernatural terrors, but Usher liked to know his mind-set before a drop all the same.

  “How you feeling?”

  Isaac grinned the grin that had allegedly seduced a thousand women.

  “Sexy and dangerous, Major. How you feeling?”

  Usher smiled at his old friend. Well if Isaac isn’t prophesising our doom yet, we might all get out of this in one piece.

  “Old and cantankerous. Which is probably why the only thing willing to live with me was my dog. But even I’m ready to shoot some Monsters.”

  Isaac took a long drag of his cigarette. “You’re more of a fighter than a lover, boss. I’m more ready to look heroic in front of some awestruck young townswomen. Once we find the survivors, if you wouldn’t mind calling me General Marlowe in front of any hotties, that’d be just swell.”

  Usher pincered his hand together repeatedly in a yadda-yadda gesture and headed back down towards the cockpit. The helicopter was really rattling now and Usher was certain that any moment the entire thing would just shake itself apart. A couple of times he had to grip the handrail tight to prevent himself falling over. Luckily all the team were secured to a rail by a safety lanyard, otherwise it would have been easy to be tipped right out of the cramped cabin, out the open door and into the howling cold sky.

  On the way past he nodded to the other two assaulters in his team, Charlie and Jeter. Both of them looked focused and tense, but they gave him nods of reassurance. Usher noticed that they were gripping their safety harnesses tight as the helo bucked and twisted in the gale.

  Usher heard pilot Jim Taylor’s voice over the din. “Major, you’ll want to come take a look at this.”

  Usher squinted as he approached and peered out the cockpit window.

  “Jesus. Is that the town up ahead?”

  Taylor nodded. “I think so. Every time I point towards it this trip gets bumpier. I can’t see any town, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere in all that, whatever that stuff is.”

  Usher felt the tension knot his intestines as he looked out of the cockpit. Over the years he had seen many strange things come through from the nightmare realm into our own. He had fought creatures that ought not to exist and had experienced true evil. He had to admit, looking out the window at that moment he was still a little lost for words. After a deep breath he focused and called back into the cabin.

  “Hey Doc, wanna come forward take a look at this?”

  Usher felt Ariel move tentatively
down into a crouch beside him in the cockpit. He looked at the young scientist for some kind of assessment.

  “You any idea what that stuff is, Doc?”

  Ariel stared wide eyed out the window then looked at Usher incredulously and shrugged. He blew out a puff of cold air at the scale of the phenomenon ahead.

  “Hey there’s a first time for seeing everything. This is my first time seeing this.”

  Usher the pragmatist started switching on. “Ok Ariel, we have full CBRN gear and respirators. They should give us enough clean air and protection for the few hours we need to be in there. But we don’t know the composition of that cloud. For all we know it could eat right through our suits and choke us to death. This material will protect us from bugs and chemicals but I doubt it will stand up to much in the way of voodoo.”

  Ariel removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Well, I do have a theory I’ve been working on back at the lab. I think I may be looking at the proof.”

  Usher felt the hairs prickle on his tattooed forearms. When Ariel’s stories started like this, the team got nervous, as the punchline was usually on them.

  “I don’t think that cloud is a WMD as such. I don’t think that this is a chemical attack at all.”

  Usher groaned inwardly.

  “So what is it?”

  Ariel’s face contorted as he struggled to find the best way to explain the strange mixture of science and thaumaturgy that he specialized in to a group of highly trained blunt instruments.

  “I think it’s essentially a necromantic life support system.”

  Usher had to double take the scientist. “I accept that this is your area of expertise Ariel, but why would things that aren’t alive need a life support system?”

  Ariel screwed up his face.

  “Ok. Under the sea in Mexico, they’ve recently discovered a variety of worm that can live out its entire life burrowed into a block of frozen methane gas. They’re wonderful evidence for the possibility of life existing on other planets; gas giants like Saturn’s moon Titan that has entire methane seas.”

  “Clock’s ticking Doc, we need to set down in minutes. Gimme the Monsters for Dummies version.”

  Ariel sighed. “Somewhere near the centre of that cloud is the World Tree that is the gateway from their side to ours. Our realms are so different that I’ve suspected the reason they haven’t been able to send some of their worst things through is because our world is somehow incompatible for them. I think that this red fog has been conjured up specifically by our Necro in order to allow his true artistic creations to cross over and survive.”

  Taylor began to struggle with the controls and the helo lurched violently to one side. The pilot gritted his teeth and glanced at Usher.

  “Major we’re on the very outskirts of that cloud and it messing us up bad. I’m extremely reluctant to get closer or hang around any longer than we have to.”

  “Understood. We’ll be prepped and ready to drop in a few minutes. We need this on the spot Intel to assess whether this is a viable mission at all. Ariel, why is the cloud so red? What the hell is it made of?”

  The occult expert wiped a fine sheen of nervous sweat from his forehead.

  “From what our lot have managed to work out, Necromantic magic is usually based on sacrifice, torture, violence, but most of all it’s based on blood. Anything our Necro wanted to conjure that was big and he wanted to sustain, well it would require a lot of blood.”

  Usher turned to look out at the deep red cloud that hung in the trees and gathered thickly in the valley where the town of Carnival supposedly lay. He felt a cold sense of dread fall upon him.

  “Are you saying that cloud is basically just lots of little droplets of blood? A cloud potentially filled with the risen dead?”

  Ariel rubbed sweat from his eyes.

  “I’m afraid I am. I won’t know until we get on the ground. Like the worms that live on methane, I think that cloud is a self-contained eco-system for entities that require or at very least are addicted to, blood. Much the same way as we need air and water.”

  “OK. Get on the op-com channel and convey your idea to the other bird. I want Empire Two hitting boots on the ground with as much info as we have.”

  Ariel nodded and turned into the corner to get on his radio. Usher steadied his nerve and turned back to his team. He wanted this job successfully completed as fast as possible so they could all get the fuck out of there. He silently repeated the team’s unofficial motto.

  Get in, get the job done, get home alive…and don’t get eaten.

  “Ok people, we have a job to do here, and a very limited time scale to do it in. We will in all likelihood be encountering some local wildlife, but that’s nothing new to us. Remember a stranger is just a friend we haven’t shot yet. Make sure our watches are synchronized because no matter what our position at zero hours that airstrike is coming in and we are toast if we aren’t clear by then. We look for survivors, we secure the objective before our target can, and we neutralize that target should we encounter him. Any questions?”

  Charlie put his hand up. He was the youngest member of the team but a born soldier and a superb marksman. “Seriously boss, have you ever made a drop before with this little intel beforehand? We have no fucking idea what we’re going down into.”

  Usher shook his head. “No Charlie that’s been our complaint since the start. But this is an immediate action response to a spontaneous incident. Have you ever any of you in your whole careers been involved in an operation where everything went by the book? Improvise and adapt is what we do, that’s what sets us apart from the crap-hats.”

  Usher could see Charlie digging in and getting refocused. He wasn’t happy but he wasn’t about to start dripping and bringing the team down so close to a drop.

  “Copy that, Boss.”

  Usher happened to glance up at Isaac sat in the back of the cabin. His dark eyes were glittering and Usher noticed that he held a chain bearing a small Dreamcatcher in his hand that he was gently rubbing. He gave Usher and almost imperceptible shake of his head. Usher knew that look well.

  It said I have a bad feeling about this one.

  Usher was about to turn back to the cabin when the Black hawk suddenly keeled violently over to one side.

  Looking out of the cockpit window he could see that the red mist was rising up in thick tendrils around the two helicopters. The flight deck controls were flashing and spinning wildly and Usher could see that Jim Taylor was really struggling. He turned his head and through gritted teeth spoke to the team.

  “The interference had spiked. Fog just rose up all around us. I need to set you down now if we go any further in it will shake us apart. The other bird carrying Empire Two is in the same situation.”

  Usher grabbed onto the support rail and saw that his team were doing the same. He nodded to the pilot.

  “Jim, if you can get us steady we will rope out. No sense in putting down if you can’t see where you’re landing.”

  “Roger that Major. You know that means you’ll be roping down into that mist with no idea what you’re gonna be landing on?”

  Usher tightened his jaw.

  “Trying not to think about that Jim.” Usher turned to Brock who was nearest the door.

  “Brock, open that door and get the lines ready, were a go!”

  Brock stood up and reached for the handle, and then the helicopter lurched violently, something vital snapped and the decision was taken out of their hands. The helicopter started to spin out of control. Usher’s stomach was doing somersaults and he tightened his grip on the rail. He could see the focus and fear in his teammates eyes as they latched on to anything they could and prepared for impact.

  They were going down.

  15.

  Cornelius Fortune walked up the steep path through the forest. Thick drops of congealing blood dripped down from the trees to spatter on the ground. In the distance above the treeline the ramparts of a stately h
ome could be seen.

  Cornelius wore a long grey duster coat over his mouldy suit, with a hood pulled up over his head. Only his long crooked nose protruded. Across his shoulder was slung a bulging weather stained satchel, sewn with leather patches. He had fashioned a pale branch into a walking staff to help him up the hill. He stopped at the brow of the hill and rested his hands on his knees, puffing out condensation into the cold air.

  He looked down the undulating slope, over the bristling fir trees at the jagged silhouette of the house and smiled. His sickly yellow eyes shone with an unhealthy light beneath his hood.

  “Come along Garth, no time to dally. We have so much work to do in a short space of time.”

  The Revenant that was once the local mechanic stumbled through the branches behind Cornelius, wheezing and moaning in pain. His one remaining eye, sunk into a face of putrefaction, looked up at the Necromancer in a desperate plea. He spat up a mouthful of brown slurry then gave a groan like a dying dog. Cornelius beckoned him with his long nailed fingers.

  “You know, I’m growing tired of your unenthusiastic temperament. I’ve taken you out of that lacklustre marriage of yours, I’ve shown you secrets and magic that most men never get to see, I’ve given you a job, I’ve given you a purpose to your otherwise banal life. I’ve even given you immortality of a sort. Although I will concede you soon won’t be aware of it.”

  Garth slipped slowly to his knees and sobbed. His exposed scapulae shuddered rhythmically like small white wings on is back.

  “Be strong Garth. This is only temporary. If it is any consolation your mind will sink slowly into senility over the next few months. Day by day your mind will fester until you won’t really be there at all. The remaining raw nerves will atrophy and the pain will stop, taken over in your mind and body by a benign numbness. By then thankfully I won’t have to listen to your incessant complaining. Now get up and keep moving. I want to make a good impression when we arrive.”

  The wretched being struggled up on death-bed muscles and stood there shivering, its one eye staring at the ground with feverish despair. The Necromancer looked down at him with something close to sympathy.