“I take back what I said about this being too easy,” Hernandez said.
“Noted,” Leo said. “Assume the padre is sending company. Anything that comes our way in a black robe that doesn’t have blond hair, shoot first and ask questions when we’re out of this fucking freak show. Conserve ammo, keep it quiet if you can. Keep your poppers handy, but don’t pull the pins unless I give the word. We don’t know how strong that bridge is, and I don’t want to swim back.”
No one appeared out of the mist by the time the squad reached the shelf. A quick sweep turned up seaweed, some smooth pieces of bottle glass, and what was left of the priest. The left side of his head was bloody, and he’d had the misfortune of slamming chest-first onto a log. The driftwood had splintered, punctured his lungs, and pulped his ribs. The body stank, the trademark scents of freshly voided bowels mixing with the digestive juices in a ruptured stomach. Hernandez did a cursory check, and shook his head when he didn’t find a pulse. Leo swore.
“This change anything boss?” Frost asked, keeping his muzzle trained on the bridge.
“No,” Leo said. “We get in, get the girl, get out.”
Up close the bridge was more than stable. A solid, stone structure, it looked as if it had been carved by hand and smoothed by a millennium of ocean currents. The support pylons stretched a full ten yards above the bridge proper. Roughly six feet in diameter, the shafts were inscribed with faded pictograms of sea creatures, men, and things which were a little of both. At the pinnacle of each pillar perched statues of bulbous, black creatures; things with glassy eyes and distended mouths atop rounded bodies with flabby bellies and lithe, powerful limbs.
Leo gestured, and they formed a staggered line. There was no cover except the thin mist, the darkness, and the sounds of whatever the Dagonites were conducting. If anyone glanced back across the bridge their cover would be blown. The men advanced, stepping carefully across the slick rock with their shoulders hunched low and their weapons trained on the flickering shadows that grew more distinct all the while. The bridge ended a hundred yards into the ocean, terminating in a huge cul-de-sac. Pylons ranked like standing stones, and beneath each one stood a young woman with her arms chained above her head. Dozens of robed people stood in a crescent facing the ocean. Flames leaped from a central pit, painting the scene like a fresco on the wall of a chapel in hell. The chanting rose higher, then higher still; a single cry from a hundred throats shrieking up at the clouded stars like a signal beacon.
Suddenly the chanting ceased. The wind died. Even the waves, which had pounded toward the shore, calmed to a gentle lapping. The squad split to either side, crouching and blending their bodies with the outlines of the pylons. They listened. For several moments there was nothing but the sound of the ocean and their own nervous breathing. Beyond the fire, something splashed out of the ocean, and hauled itself onto the platform with the meaty slap of flesh on stone. The stink of fish oil, and the heavy, acrid smell of brine wafted on the breeze. The water parted again and again as others broke the surface and clambered onto the temporary shore. In moments the newcomers outnumbered the congregation, standing in the spaces between the pillars at the very edges of the firelight. The chorus moaned, and there were no words in it; just a raw, animal sound of elation and anticipation burbling into the darkness. Someone screamed; a high-pitched shriek only a young woman in abject terror could manage.
“Shit” Leo snarled, surging around the pylon. “Go, go, go!
They rushed the platform, and the last of the mist parted like rotting silk. The congregation whirled, robes open shamelessly as they stared at the interlopers. Flesh drooped from their bones, hanging in pallid folds the color and texture of pale cheese. Their long-fingered hands bore delicate webs, and thin, watery drool ran from the corners of mouths grown too wide to close completely. Stooped and hairless, they were a world apart from the women hanging from the pillars all around.
“Nobody move,” Leo said, raising his voice along with his rifle. “Just stay where you are and – ”
Something moved. Darkness parted, and firelight danced over something out of a scuba diver’s nightmare. The thing had a jaw set with the thick, curving teeth of a barracuda, the pebbled, monotone skin of a shark, and the black, empty eyes of a predator. It stared at the invaders, flickers of too-human curiosity in its dark gaze. It sucked a heavy breath through the thick, fleshy flaps along its ribs. It opened its mouth, and the back of its head erupted in a spurt of gore, punctuated by the muted crack of a single rifle shot.
Time slowed.The first creature flopped to the deck, and its fellows rushed to its aid; a phantasmagoric wave of upended evolution that was all claws and teeth, suckers and tentacles. The beak of a mollusk snapped beneath the deflated, slitted remnants of what might once have been a nose. Hands gone boneless and rubbery reached out from the ends of arms that bore bony fins and spiny spurs. Voices that could once have spoken the words of men howled animal defiance, and were answered in kind.
Leo fired a burst into the over-developed chest of a thing with a squid’s head and scapula like a manta ray’s wings. Carmichael blasted buckshot into something that looked like the love child of a flounder and a puffer fish whose guts stank like rotting kelp. CB and Hernandez stepped into the gap, firing short bursts one after the other until the rapid-fire chatter blended into a single, continuous snarl. Frost squeezed his trigger, and every round carved a .30 caliber trench through a target’s brain pan.
It was over in seconds. Shell casings littered the ancient stone, and cordite clouds hung thick and blue as cigar smoke. The creatures, whatever they were, didn’t need silver bullets or mumbo jumbo to make them stay dead. Blood ran in not-quite-red pools, and two dozen bodies lay in twitching, leaking heaps. The worshipers lay alongside the fish men, caught in between men and monsters even in death.
“Reload,” Leo called. His voice was calm, but his hand shook. It took him two tries before he popped his empty clip.
“What... what the fuck?” Carmichael demanded. His eyes were very wide, and his nostrils were flaring as he took shallow, rapid breaths. “Leo, what the fuck?”
Leo took two fast steps and slapped Carmichael hard across the face. The big man stumbled, and wheeled around. Carmichael brought his weapon up, but when he squeezed the trigger the hammer made an empty, hollow click. Leo held his gaze, and Carmichael looked away. He took a shaky breath, and swiped a thumb beneath his balaclava.
“Shit,” Carmichael said. “I’m bleeding.”
“Bleed on your own time,” Leo said. The words were barely out of his mouth when the ocean around them erupted. Water spumed up, and something in the darkness howled. The howl was taken up, until the very sea keened. “Find the goddamn girl! We lose her, this whole thing goes tits up!”
They ran, adrenaline and purpose kept them moving. Some of the girls were dead, their nude torsos punched through with bloody holes. A few others had been slashed by the creatures, their glazed gazes contemplating the carnage with vacant curiosity. Three of them were still alive, and one of them was Sarah Prendergast. She stood on the balls of her feet, every muscle trembling with the effort of holding completely still.
“Get them down, and let’s get the fuck out of here,” Leo said.
Frost drew his sidearm and fired. It took seven shots, but in seconds the survivors were free. A dark-haired girl sobbed and ran past them, slipping through blood and bodies as she headed for the shore. The second girl stumbled forward, lips trembling. Her skin shone like obsidian, slick from the ocean and tight with goose flesh.
“Who are you?” Sarah asked. Her voice was airy, and her tone politely curious.
“Your father sent us,” Leo said.
Before he could say anything else Sarah launched herself at him, scrabbling for his sidearm. Her eyes blazed, and she bared her teeth in a horrible rictus that wiped away any beauty she had left. It was a look that said she belonged here, in spirit if not in body. Frost holstered his pistol, and in the same motion drew
a small stun gun. The girl was wet, and she went down like a sandbag.
“Christ almighty,” Leo grunted, re-adjusting his pistol. “Frost, carry the girl. Carmichael, take point. CB, back him up. Band Aid, you’re rear guard.”
“What about me?” the other girl asked. Her accent was hard to place, but it probably had roots south of the equator in Africa.
“Run,” Frost said, snugging a pair of restraints around Sarah’s wrists and ankles.
They ran. The sea boiled and writhed as the keening creatures gave chase. White caps pounded like breakers, and the putrid denizens of the deep rode those waves like war horses. Bipedal eels slithered up the pylons, lashing at the runners’ legs and snapping at their faces. Men with the faces and fingers of toads leaped onto the bridge, only to be torn to pieces by steel-jacketed hornets. More came, and more after them, with hoary skin and hard shells, with eyes on stalks and with earless, wall-eyed heads.
Carmichael howled and stumbled, his shotgun rending a swimming shadow into chum. He kept firing, but he stopped running. There was a long, spiral spine jammed straight through his left thigh. CB ran past, clearing the way with short, three-round bursts. Frost followed, nostrils flaring as he carried Sarah and emptied his pistol into anything that got too close. Hernandez knelt, and Leo covered them.
“We’ve got to get a tourniquet on this,” Hernandez said.
“Just go!” Carmichael snarled, reloading. His fingers shook, and his lips were going a light shade of blue. “We won’t make it if you slow down any more. Go!”
Leo clapped Hernandez on the shoulder, and sent him on. When the medic was running, Leo hung an extra grenade on Carmichael’s belt. “Don’t let them take you.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Leo nodded, and ran. The steady thunder of Carmichael’s pump gun rolled almost until they rest of the squad reached the beach head. Four seconds after the heavy gun stopped firing, a fireball went up behind them. The bright light in the darkness tore stone from the bridge and splintered shrapnel from the nearest support pillars. The school parted around the blast, darting away from the explosion with instinctive fear. That hesitation bought the pursued enough time to make the stairs.
They climbed into the sky, and in less than a minute were again lost in the fog. The thick cloud blotted out the sight of the horde, but it also distorted the things’ howls and wails. They sounded closer, then farther away, eventually reduced to noise on the wind. The squad slowed, climbing by feel as they focused before and behind. Nothing came at them from below, and nothing descended on them from above. An adrenaline-fueled eternity later CB pushed the iron gate wide and the others ran back onto solid ground. As soon as everyone had cleared the threshold Leo slammed the gate closed and rammed the stock of his weapon against the latch until he’d deformed it into a meaningless hunk of immobile slag.
“Status?” Leo snapped, turning to the others.
“The girl’s out cold, but breathing steady,” Hernandez said, crouching over Sarah. He withdrew a pre-loaded injector and pressed it against her bare shoulder. “Basic sedative ought to keep her out. If it doesn’t I doubt she’ll be able to do more than drool.”
“She’s your responsibility now,” Leo said. “CB, Frost, sweep the church. We’re going out the way we came in, and I want to be sure one of those fucking things didn’t sneak up here ahead of us.”
Frost reloaded his pistol, and vanished through the door right after CB. Leo turned to the other girl who was hugging herself and shivering in the damp. Leo shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her.
“You got a name?” He asked.
“Dikeledi,” she said, slipping into the jacket and buttoning it quickly.
“Dikeledi, you’ve got two choices,” he said. “You walk off now and go your own way, or you come with us. You come with us, I’ll do my best to get you out of here, but you do what you’re told when you’re told to do it until we’re clear, you get me?”
“I understand,” she said. She kissed the palm of her hand, and pressed her fingers to Leo’s forehead. “Thank you.”
A low, sharp whistle sounded from the doorway, and Frost was gesturing them into the church. Hernandez lifted Sarah in a fireman’s carry, grunting as he headed toward the church. Leo followed, Dikeledi on his heels. Leo jerked his sidearm and offered it to the girl.
“You know how to use one of these?” he asked.
“Well enough,” she said, taking the weapon.
“Safety’s off, and there’s one in the pipe,” he told her. “You see one of those things, kill it.”
The church was just how they’d left it. Leo slammed the door, shot the bolt, and kept moving. Hernandez was handing Sarah over to Frost, and the girl’s head was lolling. There was blood on her lips, but not very much. CB had his scanner out, and at Leo’s look shook his head.
“Dead air,” he said.
“Don’t jinx yourself,” Hernandez said, taking a deep breath and reloading.
“CB, take point,” Leo said. “Frost, you and Dikeledi are with me. Hernandez, keep an eye on the back trail, but don’t get lost.”
“We leap-frogging again boss?” Frost asked.
Leo shook his head then cracked his neck. “We hit the door and don’t stop moving until we’re pedal to the metal. Due east, fire at will but do not stop to engage.”
They nodded, and took their places. CB set his feet, and took several, deep breaths. He gripped the knob for a long moment, and listened. Without a word CB rushed the darkness, and the others charged into the blackness.
The town was alive. Shadows swarmed out of the ocean below, slithering through gutters and darting across buckled roads. The nightmare mass rolled in like a flood tide, suggestions of shapes and bodies of two separate worlds mingled into a hideous whole. The creatures raised their heads like hounds sniffing the air, or dragged themselves along the ground to taste the man scent. They called out in garbled, incomprehensible voices, and made ear-piercing shrieks as they swept closer. The pursuers moved slowly, but there were a lot of them and they were gaining.
All at once, everything went silent. The shambling foot beats ceased, and the dread chorus stopped. No doors slammed, no shutters creaked, and even the endless drone of the ocean seemed to fade away. The squad stopped, chests heaving as they tried to look everywhere at once. Their ears strained at nothing, and their eyes scrabbled at the fog, desperate to see what they couldn’t hear.
“Boss?” Frost panted.
“Quiet,” Leo said.
Frost sucked in a breath, but before he could say anything CB started shooting. He ran into the fog, howling loud enough to be heard over the quick, staccato bursts of his weapon. Bullets smashed glass, and thudded into brick and steel. The others ducked, eyes darting back and forth. Nothing came at them. CB kept firing, moving further and further into the fog until first his footsteps, and then his shots vanished.
“Go,” Leo said, and they ran for the trees.
Their retreat was a graceless, disorganized run through the underbrush. Roots snatched at their feet. Low-hanging branches rasped at their sleeves and across their faces, but the forest was just a forest. Beneath the wet, low-hanging limbs the shadows were nothing but patches of darkness. The fog stayed silent, and they didn’t look back.
The van was right where they’d left it, stashed beneath a mottled, indigo tarp and out of easy sight. Leo snatched the tarp, and Hernandez got the back open. Frost got Sarah onto the medical bench, and cut the restraints. When he realized he’d used the padre’s kris knife he threw it out into the trees. Hernandez strapped the girl in, crouching down and checking her vitals. Leo climbed behind the wheel, and Frost got into the passenger seat. Dikeledi slid into one of the rear-facing jump seats, fastened her belt and watched out the window. She never let go of the pistol. Doors slammed, the engine rumbled, and minutes later they were on the highway.
The silence stretched thick as midnight. Leo drove with both hands on the wheel, eyes flicking from the
road to the mirrors and back again. Frost took long, slow breaths. His fingers moved almost of their own volition, as if he was playing a piano only he could see. Hernandez coughed and shuffled, clicking a pen flash into Sarah’s eyes and checking her pulse. He coughed again. Then a third time.
“What’s your malfunction, Hernandez?” Leo said, jerking the wheel into the fast lane and stepping down on the gas.
“Nothing,” Hernandez said. “It’s just the girl.”
“What about her?”
“Her vitals are off,” Hernandez said. “No immediate problems, but I can’t put my finger—”
“She is pregnant,” Dikeledi said.
Leo swerved. Frost swore. Hernandez lost his grip, and banged his shoulder against the wall before falling onto the floor. The van coasted. Frost turned around slowly, looking at Dikeledi.
“Pregnant?” he repeated. “Pregnant with what?”
The girl wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Sarah, and her face may as well have been carved from the same, dark stone as the bridge. Then without a word Dikeledi raised Leo’s pistol and fired two rounds into Sarah’s belly. The gun roared, deafening in the tight confines, and blood fountained as the hollow points ripped through the girl’s innards. Before Dikeledi could fire a third shot, Frost put a bullet in her head. The gun fell from her hand, and she lurched against her safety harness.
Leo drove, and his leather gloves creaked as he gripped the wheel. Hernandez tried to staunch Sarah’s bleeding, alternating between praying and cursing. Frost slid his sidearm back into its holster, and stared through the windscreen.
“Dammit, Frost, get back there and help him,” Leo said.
SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 2