The Warrior's Beckoning

by Patrick Howard

  “I see. So perhaps something will happen very soon,” she said, comparing the images.

  “He may be the one she is connecting with. He has a history of night terrors and possibly schizophrenia, which may in fact just be the manifestation of his intermittent connection with her. So far, he has not been very forthcoming about the nature of his…dreams.” He called up another file.

  “Keep me informed,” she said, looking away.

  The man sighed. When he looked toward the security monitor of the subject’s room, she looked up at the camera and waved. The camera was always on, and she had learned to ignore it, but she always knew when someone was watching her in real time through the camera. Her ability was astonishing.

  Night terrors, possible schizophrenia, dreams…and photos and information about me. They were talking about my life and the aberrations I’d experienced in recent years back.

  The vision stepped ahead a few years, stopping at a point just a few months prior to the present. The same man and the same woman stood outside the containment room.

  “Do you have an update?” she asked as she flipped through the folders he had given her. She came across a picture of me, taken after basic training. Immediately, she became speechless.

  “It’s confirmed a perfect match,” the young scientist said, smiling. The photo and the image were identical, right down to the pose. “We’ve also been able to focus the dark mass we tapped into.”

  “Can it be applied yet?” she asked.

  “Unknown. Currently the research indicates that the dark mass comprises a self-aware, sentient entity constructed of pure dark energy. We will need to better understand it before we unleash it,” he replied, looking into the containment room.

  “Very well,” she said, following his gaze. “And the crystals?”

  “We’re still trying to determine how to unlock their full potential. They seem to have been built to channel spiritual energy. Built by whom, or for what specific purpose, we still don’t know.”

  Time jumped ahead a little more in the vision to a point just a few days before I arrived at this place. The girl was being escorted to another lab by the chief. She felt that he cared for her, and she appreciated his gentle touch and supportive words. Both of them were silent, as she already knew what he was thinking. How can they do this to her? he thought. She knew he felt powerless to stop it. In the lab, she met the young scientist, who strapped her to a bed in the center of the room and rolled those bizarre machines to rest next to her, one on each side of her. A heavy, clear cable was connected to each through a Y connection, and the cable ran to the containment room, where the dark mass awaited.

  Though she knew what would happen, she felt anxious. She was troubled by the scientist’s plans, yet she knew that I would soon come to her and she would know a love she had not felt.

  The scientist gave her an injection, which placed her into an induced coma. He activated the machines and then left the room. The chief stood with the administrator in the adjacent room, watching through a heavy glass wall. The crystals churned with dark energy, all of which was being channeled into her. Images, evil and cruel, flooded her mind, scenes of torture and betrayal. The laughter of an entity not of this world, echoed by a thousand voices, followed the images. Suddenly, the energy transfer reversed direction. Soon, the lights in the room began to flicker as the dark mass gained control.

  “What’s going on?” the administrator asked, looking at the scientist.

  “The dark mass…it seems to be using her as a conduit,” he said. He stared at a bank of gauges and monitors, checking various readings, but seemed not to know what to make of the readings. The young woman read terror in his mind, confusion in the administrator, and anguish in the chief.

  Suddenly the chief’s radio erupted with screams of terror and panic. “All security personnel, report!” the chief shouted over the radio.

  “The shadows are alive! They’re attacking everyone!” someone cried into the radio. There was the sound of gunfire in the background, along with screams and breaking glass. “Reporting multiple incidents, at least two possible heart attacks. More reports coming in of serious injury and at least one fatality.”

  Another post reported in. “I’ve got a dozen wounded, and two cases of…I don’t know what to call it…hysteria? Insanity? Possession? They’re screaming and babbling about a coming darkness and cold. Wait, what’s—” The transmission ended abruptly.

  Similar reports of chaos and mayhem followed. The power fluctuated throughout the facility, and several sections went completely dark and silent.

  The chief drew his pistol and spoke into the radio. “Lock the facility down, and have everyone proceed to the emergency bunker. Evac now! Get everyone out of here.”

  The administrator turned to the scientist. “Can we unhook her?” Just as she asked, the glowing, translucent form of the girl’s spirit appeared and stood beside her body, looking down at the comatose form. Beside her stood the dark form I had encountered. The dark form looked into the camera and smiled wickedly.

  “What have we done?” the scientist wailed softly. “We’ve separated her ethereal form into two halves! I have no idea what that will do to her…or to us.” He buried his face in his hands.

  “Get hold of yourself,” said the administrator. “There’ll be time for analysis later. Right now, we need to contain it.”

  “First we need to get everybody out. Move!” the chief said, motioning for them to follow. They left the observation room and encountered a shadow creature, thin and fast. The chief opened fire as it charged them, and it fell to the floor. They raced through the hall and into the break room. Security guards fired down a dark hallway filled with shrieking creatures. A woman screamed and cried as a creature pounced onto her and tore into her. Its touch damaged the soul more than the body. A security guard rushed to her aid, kicking the creature off and firing three rounds into it. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet and ran into the bunker.

  “All surviving personnel accounted for,” a guard reported to the chief.

  “Casualties?”

  “We’ve lost 70 percent of our total personnel,” the guard said.

  The chief gathered his squad. “We’re going to hold here until help arrives,” he said.

  “Help? From where? All external communications shut down before we could send out so much as a smoke signal. Who the hell is gonna come?” asked one of the guards, clearly petrified.

  “Her Warrior.” The chief was looking down at a photo of me. I hope you’re everything that she expects, he thought.

  The vision left me, and everything went black.

  “Are you OK?” a distant voice asked. I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It all went black again.

  “Come on, kid,” another distant voice called. I opened my eyes and could make out seven blurry figures standing around me. One of them knelt beside me and supported me as I tried to sit up.

  “Where…where am I?”

  “Still in the field,” the kneeling figure said. Things started to come into focus, and the voices sounded closer.

  “You just had one hell of an experience,” said one of the people standing.

  “The Specialist…where is he?” I asked, looking around.

  “Gone,” the chief said. “Took off before we reached you.”

  My vision finally cleared, and I saw that it was Mary who held me. The sounds around me drew near, and I could tell who the figures were. They had all come to me to help me.

  “Thank you,” I said as I leaned into Mary’s arm. She smiled and stroked my cheek gently.

  “We should get moving,” Josh said. “We’ve got to reach that facility ASAP.”

  With the chief’s help, I stood up. I slung on my rifle. “OK, I’m ready.”

  “Let’s do it,” Chuck said eagerly. We geared up once more and set off again for the facility. It was a good seven-hour walk—eight including brief breaks. Just o
utside the facility, we set up camp.

  “Rest up,” the chief said, sitting on the ground. We sat in a circle, staying close to each other.

  “We’ll sleep for two hours then hit the facility,” I said.

  I had been asleep for less than an hour when I awoke to find the others sleeping. As I geared up, the same white warrior approached me.

  “Will you enter without them?” he asked.

  This feeling, one of valor, was already embedded within my heart…the feeling that I must always charge in. Another feeling, one of love, had become alien to me for years, though now it was my nature. “I will not let them die for me,” I said, looking at them.

  “And if it means dying alone…with no one to witness and tell others of your noble deed?” the warrior asked, as if testing me.

  “I’m not interested in glory. If I have to die alone, if that is the price that must be paid to save her, then, yes, I will pay it.” I sighed. I didn’t want to go in alone, yet I didn’t want them to have to go at all. I would not lose them.

  With a nod, the white warrior stepped aside and allowed me passage. Raising my M4, I moved stealthily toward the facility. It was as dark inside as it was outside, and I detected no movement. Perhaps there were figures shifting through the darkness, but that could very well have been my imagination.

  I entered through the doorway where I had first seen her and found darkness awaiting me. The light on my rifle could not penetrate parts of it, which hung in masses along the wall. Hesitantly, I touched one of the masses and found it was cold, much colder than the ambient temperature. Its texture was odd, as if a black fog had solidified into frost or loose snow. Faint whispers echoed through my mind as I touched it. Shaking off the echoes, I proceeded down the hall.

  The black sludge was everywheree. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was drawing near, something…cold. I didn’t follow my tracks from before. Following the left hall, I entered a room filled with office cubicles, four in total. From one of the cubicles on the far side, I heard radio chatter. Moving cautiously around the panels, I found the cubicle with the radio. The voice shouting into it sounded increasingly desperate. I found the COM link and attached it to my ear.

  “I’m under attack!” shouted the voice. He sounded young. “Can’t hold it off much longer. Unknown entity. Repeat, I cannot hold out much longer!”

  “What’s your position?” I asked over the COM link.

  “Near a storage room, west side. Hurry!” the voice said. Gunfire rang out.

  “On my way!” I sprinted out of the room and down the hall. The sound of gunfire intensified, followed by a scream.

  “It’s inside!” he screamed in terror. “It’s wrapped around me, my body…”

  I was two rooms away.

  “So…cold…” the young man moaned in agony, just as I burst through the door. I found a blob of the black mass consuming him. His skin was turning gray and shriveled. Our eyes met, and he began to cry. Only his face was visible as the mass absorbed him. There was no chance to save him. I raised my rifle, took quick aim, and fired a single round into his forehead.

  Blackened blood sprayed the area, including me. The young man lay motionless now, his crying silenced. I fired another burst into the dark mass, but the bullets disrupted its form only briefly. It moved toward me slowly, with a cold determination. I darted down the corridor and ducked around a corner into the storage room.

  The dark mass slowly crept out of the room, searching for me. I locked the door. Inside the room, I found chemicals and supplies—a metal pesticide sprayer, a jug of gasoline, and a grill lighter with a flexible tip. Twisting the top off the sprayer, I filled it with the gasoline and replaced the top. I held the lighter with the sprayer, positioning the lighter’s tip in front of the sprayer. In theory, the gasoline would pass by the lighter and a wave of fire would shoot forward, like a flamethrower. As I pumped the sprayer, I felt tense. Trapped, and not knowing if I could kill it, I wondered about my team members, my friends. Could I kill one of them if this thing got them? Could they do the same for me, to end my suffering? I didn’t know.

  The door began to splinter and crack.

  Slowly but steadily the crack grew. The black mass began to seep into the room. I waited for the right moment, for more of the creature to enter. When about half of it had seeped through, I activated the lighter and squeezed the trigger on the sprayer. A wide wave of flame swept through the creature. A gurgled shriek pierced my ears, but I did not stop until the dark mass melted, emitting the strange gas that many of the other creatures had released in death.

  Kicking open what was left of the door, I pursued the rest of the dark mass as it oozed away down the hallway. The flames consumed it quickly, and all was quiet…for a moment. I carried the sprayer and the lighter back the other way, retracing my steps in search of the dark mass I had previously encountered hanging on the walls. Though I believed I was alone, I could not shake the notion that I was being stalked. I looked right, then left, and saw nothing. I knew the office area was clear, but then…a tingle…and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.

  Instinctively, I dropped to the ground quickly and sent a wave of flame into the air vent above me, just as it broke open and another dark mass poured out of it, directly into my flame. In only a few moments, it was dissolved. I stood, and I scanned the area. It was clear, so I moved down the hall to my left.

  I heard a faint cough, then a moan, from a room on the right. A thin trail of blood led me to the source. Before I entered, I nestled the sprayer into my pack and shoved the lighter into my pocket and raised my M4. It was a bathroom. I found a man, bloodied and near death, leaning against the far wall.

  “You…you must be the Warrior he talked about,” the man said with great effort.

  “Don’t talk. Conserve your strength,” I said to him, kneeling in front of him.

  “No need. I’m not going to make it. So…listen to me,” the soldier demanded, grabbing my vest. I leaned closer. “The Specialist has been taken over…by the dark entity,” he said. He had to pause to cough up blood. “He…he attacked us, slaughtered most of my team. Didn’t think I could hold on this long, but there was another… a warrior in white armor, holding me, telling me you’d come.” The soldier had to struggle to speak and was obviously in agony, but he would not give up. “He said only those close to death or born with power can see him…and he had a message for you. He said, ‘Tell him I will join him when the time is right.’ End this. Avenge us, Warrior. Don’t let this evil spread, even though we brought it on ourselves with our own evil…”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He took my hand and smiled. “She loves you, you know. And she’s the key…”

  With this, he gave up the fight and fell limp. I gently closed his eyelids.

  He had been carrying an M4 and a .45 pistol. All of his clips were full; I added the weapons to my own stock.

  I left the room, rifle at the ready, to continue my hunt. Instead of the dark mass, I found George standing in the hallway, his shotgun pointing at my gut.

  “Damn! I almost shot you!” he said, lowering his weapon. He clapped me on the back. “Good to see ya, man.”

  “Likewise,” I said with a chuckle, lowering my own M4.

  “Looks like you’ve been partying without us,” Chuck said.

  “You shouldn’t have come. It’s not safe here,” I said quickly. Christina and Mary stood between Josh and Bill.

  “The only safe place is together,” the chief said. “No more solo missions. We’re stronger united.”

  “I’m starting to agree with you,” I said.

  “You better. Come on. We have to get to the containment room. That’s where it all began—and that’s where it’s damn well gonna end!” the chief said sharply.

  We moved down the hall. The facility was unceasingly quiet. Aside from the blobs I had fried, we saw no creatures. Parts of the facility had been taken over by the dark entity, as the walls
became completely black. As we neared the containment room, we found scars in the walls and floor where the tendrils had lashed out, but the tendrils themselves were gone.

  “Josh, Chuck, with me,” I said. We entered the containment room and found the three bodies of the team that had gone in, their hazmat suits torn to shreds and their bodies shriveled.

  Save for ghosts, the room was empty. We exited and rejoined the others.

  “Is it gone?” Christina asked, staying close to Chuck. The chief and I looked at each other and agreed without a single word.

  “No.” I was recalling what we’d seen that morning.

  The chief apparently had the same thought. “The dark mass rising into the sky—that was the entity. And it wasn’t there when we woke up this afternoon,” he said.

  “I found one of your company’s black-ops guys. Before he died, he said that the dark entity had taken over the Specialist,” I said. “He was already strong when I met him; now his powers will be far beyond my own.”

  “Well, we can’t just punch out and go home. We came here to fight, didn’t we?” Bill said with a chuckle. “I say we charge.”

  Josh remained silent for a moment, then said, “Damn right. This thing’s going down.”

  “There is a force of light at work here. Some sort of guardian or knight. I’ve seen him, and he told the dying soldier to give me a message,” I said. “He said, ‘I will join you when the time is right.’ That means I’m charging and you guys are covering.”

  “So while you wrestle with the big bubba, we handle the small fries?” the chief asked.

  “Yup.” I grinned.

  “Works for me,” George said, cocking his shotgun.

  The ceiling above us ripped apart.

  “I will never get used to this stuff,” Josh said, raising his rifle and firing at the rupture. Soon, the room’s ceiling crashed down around us and the dark energy descended.

  “Fan out!” I ordered. The others began to move. “Stay within ten feet of each other and twenty feet away from me.” They took their positions.

  The vaguely familiar form of the Specialist appeared before me. His face bore some resemblance to the man I’d seen, but his body was completely changed. His eyes glowed with dark power, and he was shrouded in darkness, just as the dark entity we had encountered before had been.