SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Little people,” he said again softly and then snorted. “Little fucking people with laser guns, executing our citizens.” He laughed out loud. “Haven’t had a drop to drink, Chief… honest.”

  He pushed out of the car, checked his gun and then sprang lightly up the several flights of stairs to 3B on the third floor. Heisen knocked once and immediately stood to the side – old habits die hard, especially after you’ve seen half a dozen hollow nose slugs tear through a door dead centre in response to the old open up, it’s the police request.

  Heisen waited. There was movement inside.

  “Who is it?” whispered from behind the door.

  Heisen stayed with his back against the wall. “Detective Heisen, Klaus. Lemme in.”

  “How do I know it’s you?” Klaus’ voice was high and tight with fear.

  Heisen groaned and resisted the urge to swear, deciding instead to cut the kid some slack given he still sounded scared shitless. “Klaus, we just spoke twenty minutes ago…” He lowered his voice. “… about the little people.”

  A bolt slid back, and then what sounded like packing tape being ripped from around the frame. The door opened a crack, the security chain still hanging in place. The eye ran him up and down, and the door closed for a second, to be immediately pulled back open.

  Heisen guessed he looked enough like a cop to pass the test. He stepped inside. A pale youth stood in the muted darkness wearing a stained t-shirt, jeans and bare feet. His eyes looked sunken – the kid needed some hot food and about a week’s sleep.

  Heisen quickly looked him over for weapons – old habits again. He sniffed; the place stunk of body odour, cigarettes and mildew.

  Klaus half smiled. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

  Heisen smiled and nodded, letting the kid unwind.

  Klaus motioned to a formica table and chairs. “I’d offer you a drink, but there’s nothing left. I ran out of food a few days back and have been too scared to go out. Uh… do you have anything? Food I mean.” Klaus asked.

  Heisen shook his head. “Just some gum.”

  Klaus seemed to think about it for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “Okay.” He held out his hand.

  Heisen gave him the pack and Klaus jammed a few sticks into his mouth, chewed for a few seconds, and then swallowed the entire mass. He quickly stuffed the rest in and did the same.

  Heisen sat down. “So, tell me about the little people?”

  Klaus swallowed again, breathing heavily and savouring his first meal in days. He sat down heavily, and looked up with exhausted eyes.

  “They’re after me.”

  “You said that.” Heisen said. “What do you think they want?”

  “They want what I found.” Klaus responded lethargically.

  Heisen shrugged. “The skeleton – the Neanderthal – that?”

  “No, no, I don’t think so. I mean I did at first, but not anymore. It was what the fucking cave man had in his hand.” He rummaged around in his pocket. “This… they want me because of this.” He placed his fist on the table. He opened his hand.

  Heisen leaned forward. It looked like a fountain pen, brushed chrome and about four inches long with a slight bulge at one end. He squinted. There seemed to be a glow coming from inside.

  “It’s still working.” Heisen sat back.

  Klaus licked his lips. “I know, and that’s impossible. The matrix we dug this from was at least fifty thousand years old. Whoever, or whatever, dropped this thing was around at the time these Neanderthals were spearing mammoths on the German steppes.” His mouth worked for a second or two before finally finding the words. “I don’t think it came from our world.”

  Heisen frowned as he stared at the object. “And now they want it back.”

  “I’ve got to get rid of it. You take it.” Klaus slid it across the table.

  Heisen didn’t move to touch it. “What does it do?”

  Klaus’ eyes went wide. “I don’t know, and I don’t fucking care. I just want to get rid of the damned thing.” He lunged at Heisen. “I know… I know what it is… it’s a goddamn homing device or something like that. That’s why they keep finding me.”

  He stood so quickly his chair flipped back onto the floor. “I just need to give it back and get on with my life.” He paced, wringing his hands. “But these little things came out of the wall – just walked right out of it. I held it out to them, but they freaked. I bolted, and ran into Mrs. Silberman’s apartment. I… I jumped out her window and ran, and kept running.” He snatched the thing up in his hand and shook his head, his eyes crushed shut. “Is… is she okay? Mrs. Silberman, I mean. I tried calling her, but a cop answered.”

  Heisen continued to watch the young man, not feeling any urge to tell him he got the old lady tortured and killed.

  “Klaus, we’ll get you to a safe house. Get someone to have a look at that device and find out exactly what it is. Maybe work out why they want it so bad.”

  Klaus scoffed. “A safe house? There’s no such thing with these guys. Have you not been listening to me? These freaks walk through walls. I’d last about…”

  “We’ll have you guarded twenty-four-seven. I give you my word.” Heisen shrugged. “Besides, once it’s out of your possession, they’ll probably lose interest, right?”

  Heisen waited a few seconds. He could see the young man’s mind was ticking over. He looked again at his emaciated frame. “One thing’s for sure, you can’t keep going like this; you’ll be dead from starvation in a week.”

  Klaus dropped his head into his hands and rubbed the fingers hard through his shockwave of greasy hair. “Maybe I’d be better off dead.” He sighed and sat back, his eyes and cheeks sunken like a shipwreck survivor.

  Heisen noticed Klaus’ lips were so dry they were flaking. He got to his feet. “Stay here kid. I’ll get you some water. Then I’ll call in some back up and we can get out of here.” He smiled down at the cowering youth. “First thing though, I want a doc to look at you, okay?”

  Klaus nodded, resting his head back in his hands. The device remained on the table, glowing softly. Klaus stared at it as though in a trance.

  Heisen pushed through the small swing door, and blew air through compressed lips at the sight of the pile of dirty dishes. The congealed food smelt like a blocked drain. He’d seen worse; one guy had drowned his cat in the sink, and then hung himself. After a week, they found him… and the cat. By then, the animal had turned into feline porridge and they needed HazMat suits to even get near it.

  Heisen guessed there were no clean cups, so grabbed one with the least amount of crap buildup and rinsed it out – he doubted a bit of extra bacteria was gonna kill the kid now. He turned the water off and froze. The rim of the swing door glowed, and the smell of ozone filled the air. He stared at it, confused for a second or two, half cup of water still in his hand.

  It took him a few more seconds to guess what might be happening. He gently lowered the cup to the bench-top, crossed to the door and eased it open a crack. Klaus stood, arms up, as if surrendering to someone. He gibbered for a second or two, shaking his head until a tiny shaft of light struck him. The kid glowed for a moment, before falling backwards. Before he even hit the ground, his body was collapsing into dust.

  “Fuck!” Heisen felt a shock run through him from his toes to his scalp. He pulled his Glock, sucked in a breath and kicked the door open, immediately diving and rolling. He came up fast, shooting at multiple targets. He missed.

  A golden beam came out of nowhere, slicing through his shoulder and taking his arm. Then it all went to shit.

  ~9~

  Monroe held up a fist. Behind him Raptor, Harper, Benson, Carter and Felzig froze and waited, focused just on him. They had cut the power to the building, throwing the old brownstone into darkness. Now each had L-3 Warrior night vision goggles pulled down over their eyes.

  Monroe turned, his four red eyes taking in his team. He nodded, and then turned back to the door. Its outline was clean a
nd green-lit by the NVGs. They were the latest tech, with two lenses pointed forward like traditional goggles, giving him his hunter’s depth perception, while two more tubes pointed slightly outward from the center to increase his peripheral view, allowing Monroe and his team to more quickly move through the OODA loop – Observe, Orient, Decide, Act – in a few seconds.

  Monroe pointed two fingers at his team – Raptor moved fast, attaching a shaped charge to the door in a large ‘X’ pattern. Then he attached a silver sheet from the top that unfurled covering the door – they wanted the entire wooden frame to be obliterated, out of their way, and most of the percussive blast to enter the room for maximum disorientation. Felzig had the EMP disc in her hand, rotated it, lights on its outside counting down as she slid it under the door.

  Both agents got behind the wall to take cover. Monroe held up a hand, fingers splayed, and counted down, one finger at a time. He reached one and signaled the assault.

  Raptor triggered the breaching charge. The door exploded inwards. Monroe and his five-strong team charged in, their laser sights quickly finding the small goblin-like creatures scattering in the darkness. There would be no attempt to communicate, no compromise, no hostages. These things had come here to kill – brutally – Monroe’s agents, the Defense, would return the favor.

  Monroe counted at least fifteen moving bodies when they came through, in seconds they had halved that amount, even though the creatures seemed to be wearing body armor and moved agilely and quickly, like a cross between wolverines and deformed children.

  Raptor took the centre of the room, gun up and spitting rounds into the smoke-filled darkness, his laser sight picking out bodies, and his unerring aim just as quickly putting them down.

  Then it all changed. There came a high pitched squeal from out of the dark, and then a yellow beam shot out to touch Raptor. The big man froze as a hole the size of a dinner plate opened in the front of his body. There was no wet-matter dispersal, and no projectile follow-through, just an enormous hole burned clean through that didn’t even bleed. The big man fell backwards like a tree.

  Carter targeted the shooter, following its nimble movements as it scurried from position to position. But from his three o’clock another beam shot out. This time there was no clean hole. Monroe watched as Carter’s entire body shimmered where the golden beam touched and stayed on him. The man simply collapsed into a mound of powder before Monroe’s eyes.

  Monroe had to dive and roll as more of the deadly beams criss-crossed the room. He stopped with his back to an upturned table.

  “Go to full auto,” he roared and dived again, flicking the selector switch on his rifle and firing back at the source of the beams. Around him, his remaining agents changed up their delivery, moving out of the OODA loop, and into a lethal spray mode – the intermittent coughs of the silenced weapons became a staccato beat as high velocity rounds punched through anything they touched.

  The Defense backed up, keeping each other out of the crossfire, targeting anything below waist level. Beams and bullets crossed in the small room. Monroe felt like they were fighting a pack of high tech furies, so ferocious were the small beings in their resistance.

  He saw Felzig go down on one knee to reload. Like magic, one of the small creatures appeared beside her in the smoke and pointed a small device up at her. She spun, but before she could react further, her face took the small beam front-on. Her entire head simply vanished, leaving a stump of neck seared dry. She stayed upright for a second or two, the arms dropping and then her body toppling sideways.

  Monroe’s teeth clenched, feeling the fury ball in his chest. He liked Felzig. He’d fucked Felzig. She was a tough woman, an insatiable alley cat in the bedroom, and a tigress in the field. Now, she had simply ceased to exist – no scream of pain, no bleeding bullet wound or loud explosion, just a golden rod of light, and then… gone.

  From his position, Monroe saw a small figure disappear into the shimmering doorway at the end of the room. The three foot glowing oval was fixed to an external wall, and inside looked to be a long horizontal tunnel. Given there was a three-story drop on the other side of the wall, this doorway had to lead to somewhere other than a Berlin street. Monroe remembered his initial code call – Non Terrestrial Incursion.

  “And you guys sure ain’t going home.” He lifted his gun, sighted on the shimmering doorway and fired into it, emptying his magazine. Horns blared from somewhere deep inside it, and the portal snapped shut with a rush of charged air. “Fuck you. The rest of you are mine.” He ejected the empty magazine and snapped in another, yelling over his shoulder as he scanned the carnage in the room.

  “Agents, count off.”

  From out of the dark, Benson and Harper yelled in return. Monroe waited, the smoke was settling, a broken window creating a small draft of clear air. There was a tinkle of falling glass, the soft sound of dripping water or blood, and soft moans of pain from the downed beings. He held his breath. Silence settled around him.

  He slowly pulled off his night vision goggles and blinked once, his eyes quickly adjusting to the semi-gloom. In his peripheral vision he detected a tiny movement, and snapped around to fire a single round at the small figure, as it tried to improve its position in relation to him.

  His bullet blew it off its feet, spinning it doll-like across the floor to land face down on the debris-strewn carpet.

  “Cover.”

  Harper and Benson came up behind Monroe, facing away from him, scanning the room for movement. Monroe knelt to examine the creature. He kicked its weapon away, placed one huge boot on its back and pressed down. It groaned. They were small, the same size as a three year old, but slim and perfectly formed. A helmet was pulled down over its face, and even though it looked to be wearing some sort of body armor, he saw that it was no match for the slug that had obliterated its shoulder.

  He used the barrel of his gun to turn it over – it groaned again. He reached out and lifted the visor off its head. There was a rush of weird smelling air, and then a face from a nightmare. Monroe grimaced – it looked like a hairless, deformed child, with no nose, large eyes and small shovel-like teeth. The skin looked transparent with pumping veins pushing dark blood into a large pulsating brain inside its potato-shaped head. It glared at him with a boiling hatred and revulsion that Monroe had never experienced before in his life.

  One handed, he lifted the small being and stared into its face. His own features twisted in disgust. “What the fuck are you?”

  There came a disgusted noise from the back of its throat and it bared its teeth. The eyes still burned into his own.

  “Yeah, feelings mutual, buddy.” Monroe pointed the big gun at its face. “Got something for you from Felzig – open wide.”

  The small being began to smirk and reached up with its remaining good arm to punch a button on its belt.

  “I’m Jax. Die, Gimp. It’s clean up time,” it hissed at him.

  Monroe’s eyebrows shot up. “So, you can talk.”

  A blinding light engulfed the small smashed body, then Monroe, then Benson and Harper, the room, and then the entire building. In another moment there was just a crater where the brownstone had stood for fifty years.

  * * *

  A month later, Detective Heisen sat in a taxi across the road from the empty lot where the brownstone used to be. His eyes were glazed.

  “What do you want to do, buddy.”

  “Huh?” Heisen blinked at the sound of the driver’s voice. “Give me a minute.” He got out and crossed the road to stand at a line of police tape still strung across the sidewalk – he didn’t know what it was there for – there were no clues, there never was to begin with. There was nothing to see, and nothing to steal – nada, zero, zip – case closed.

  He flipped up the tape and ducked under, groaning as the back-brace cut into his waist. He was out of work, pensioned off at thirty-eight – a one armed detective, with several separated discs in his back from the blast that had thrown him out the window that
night. The injuries, along with the potential therapy for the rest of his life, wasn’t exactly Officer of the Year material. His former squad hadn’t been real supportive. That’s the guy who saw hobbits, elves, leprechauns, they’d sniggered. Well, fuck ‘em all. His curse turned into a groan; his salad days had turned to boiled cabbage nights in the blink of an eye.

  Heisen walked in to stand in the centre of the vacant lot. Beneath his feet, pumic-like material crunched. The boffins had told him the bricks, the steel, everything, had been super-heated to a point of molecular transformation. He looked up, trying to judge where he had fallen from, trying to remember what happened; what was real and what was the result of impacting with a sidewalk after a thirty-foot fall. He lifted his stump, staring for a moment. A gas explosion had been the official explanation. A gas explosion that had been as hot as a sun had neatly cut away his arm and cauterized the wound so cleanly that an industrial laser could not have been so efficient.

  Heisen blew air through compressed lips. Nothing left but ghosts and memories. The agents, the Defense they had called themselves, had all vanished in the blast, as well as the tiny creatures he knew existed. For all his digging, no reference to the special agents, to the tiny beings, to Klaus, or to the case was on file anywhere. Even Sergeant Amos had been reassigned, and wouldn’t take his calls. Someone way above even his superintendent’s pay grade had shut this down and zipped it up so tight that even thinking about it was a dismissible offence.

  This case had been buried and him along with it. No loose ends, nothing to see here, move along folks, and enjoy your new life as a crippled ex-detective, Mr. Heisen.

  The cab honked and he turned to wave. But there was something they all forgot. He used to be a detective, and a damned good one. Agent Carter had said there was a strange radiation present. Xenon-135 he had called it. He had an in-law that worked for the university in the physics lab. If anyone could trace Xenon-135, it would be her, and if that material turned up again, then he was going to be there, waiting.