None of us had moved an inch. We were too overawed by the sudden display of military muscle and the blinding lights. Soldiers surrounded us and pointed their weapons.
The adrenaline returned to my body as swiftly as it had left, but this wasn’t a situation to try to fight my way out of. I wasn’t in control of the fire. Fear, anger, stress all acted as triggers, making me ready to swing punches despite having no clue how to. I could, however, control the impulse to lash out when the fire burned inside me.
I tried to calm myself. Those were real guns being pointed at us, held by men dressed all in black. Doing nothing was the only option. All around us, the soldiers were spreading out, some of them reeling out black and yellow striped “Police line, Do Not Cross” tape.
We shielded our eyes from the glaring headlights.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Mr Andrews said, stepping forward to confront the soldiers. To Mr Andrews’ credit, he did as good a job as possible of shielding the four of us.
The man who’d spoken on the tannoy got out of the Jeep and marched towards us. He was a bald, short guy, with a fierce demeanour. His shoulders were broad and he had the stance of a professional boxer. He also had one of the most extravagant moustaches I’d seen in a long time. A salt and pepper handlebar deal that mutton-chopped its way up to his ears.
He stepped through the ring of soldiers, swiftly sized us all up with eyes like grey bullets. He waved a hand at the soldiers and they half-lowered their weapons.
“Have you seen or had any contact with the animal?” he asked us.
“Animal?” Kate said, “That was not an animal.”
“It was an escaped animal,” the moustache said, “And you’ll all be signing documents in triplicate which agree to that.”
“Now hang on a minute,” Mr Andrews started.
The moustache stalked towards Mr Andrews. He stood four inches shorter than the headmaster. He didn’t say anything. He just stared straight into Mr Andrew’s eyes. Unblinking. Unmoving. No expression on his face whatsoever.
Mr Andrews wilted under the stone cold stare of the Scottish guy with the moustache. Any will to resist or protest drained out of him. I’d never seen someone broken by a stare before. Five seconds was all it took.
“Good,” the moustache snapped, “That’s that sorted then. I’ll need to use some of your classrooms for debriefing the five of you. Is there anyone else on site?”
“Not...not that I know of,” Mr Andrews said, stumbling over his words.
“I repeat: Have any of you seen or had any contact with the animal?” the man said.
I’m still not sure why I stepped forward. Partly I wanted these men to stop pointing their guns at my friends. More than that, though, to my mind this was another lead. Anyone connected to the monster was another piece of the puzzle. Whoever these men were, they were clued up about the monster that had attacked me. My logic went that this group was government. Therefore they were here to help, and wouldn’t shoot British civilians.
If I’d known how close I came to a bullet in my head, I’d have kept my mouth shut.
“It chased me. No-one else.”
The moustache glanced at me.
“And you lived to tell the tale,” he said. He whistled, “Lucky man.”
The moustache’s tone was somewhere between hostile disbelief and outright sarcasm.
“Did it make contact with any of you?” he snapped.
I hesitated for a fraction of a second. The Scottish guy stared at me, his eyes boring into the back of my skull, daring me to lie. Like Mr Andrews, the will to resist drained out of me.
I opened the cloak to show the bloodied bandages beneath my ripped shirt.
“It scratched me. Only slightly though.”
The moustache nodded.
“I want this one quarantined. Take the other four and secure them in a classroom. Mobiles confiscated, no-one in or out without my say so. Get the doctor here and keep looking for that thing.”
“Quarantined?” Kate said, her voice on the edge of outrage. The moustache shot her a quick, no-nonsense look. Kate wanted to say something else but thought better of it. Even Forrest kept his mouth shut for a change. Dee on the other hand was having none of it.
“You can’t do that!” he said, “Mr Andrews, tell him!”
Mr Andrews shook his head, “Better to do as they say.”
“You won’t find it,” I said, “It’s gone.”
The moustache, who I later learned was called Major Wilson, rounded on me.
“Gone?”
I’d already put myself on his radar. Something told me I’d better tell him everything – up to a point at any rate.
“Some men showed up in helicopters. They captured the thing as it was attacking me. They flew it away. I’d be dead if it weren’t for them.”
Major Wilson grunted, “As I said. Lucky man.”
He considered, and then he snapped his fingers at me
“You. With me. Process the other four as usual. I want to hear this one’s story first hand.”
“Hang on!” Dee protested.
“Do as he says,” Mr Andrews repeated.
Dee looked upset. Kate and Forrest didn’t look any happier about it. There was nothing any of us could do. As the soldiers escorted everyone else back into the school building, I was taken to a separate classroom by Major Wilson and two soldiers.
You idiot Jason - what have you got yourself into now?
Chapter Eight: The Interrogation
“Name?”
“Jason Storm.”
Major Wilson sized me up. Then he started drilling me with questions, demanding every detail of the incident with ‘the animal’ as he referred to it.
A woman, who Wilson referred to as Doctor Pierce, removed the bandages around my chest. The wounds were still there, but they’d closed up and stopped bleeding.
“They’re just light scratches,” Doctor Pierce said, “but we should get samples to the lab. There’s no telling what infection he could have picked up.”
“I feel fine.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Major Wilson said.
I was seriously regretting opening my mouth earlier. The doctor took swabs then placed fresh bandages around me, but that wasn’t much comfort. I didn’t want her getting a second look at the wounds - by the time that happened they’d be gone, which would be a serious problem.
More questions ensued, Major Wilson issuing them in a clipped, quiet tone that was more frightening than if he’d been barking them.
I did my best to answer them without revealing that I’d kicked the thing halfway across the playground. Wilson was particularly interested in the other military unit.
“Who were they?” he asked.
I was treading a fine line between telling the truth and covering up my part in the incident. As I was being grilled by the Major and having my wounds examined, I suddenly didn’t feel like being co-operative. They’d pointed guns at us, marched my friends off, were interrogating me and the doctor seemed ready to treat me like a science experiment.
“I don’t know.”
The Major saw through my lie. His hard, grey eyes bored into mine. Looking into them gave me shivers at the implied violence. This was a man who would do anything he believed necessary, no matter what the morality of it might be. I felt more scared of this guy than of thing that had attacked me. That had just been a freaky, dumb animal type thing. In comparison, Major Wilson was sharp, intelligent, ruthless. And quiet. That was what got me more than anything else. He didn’t raise his voice to imply threat. He lowered it.
“You’d better not be holding anything back from me, son,” he said.
“There was a woman.”
“A blonde woman?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And as I’ve already said, I was at a school party and that thing chased me. I ran away and then these soldier types captured it and took it away. That’s all I k
now.”
I’d been repeating variations on the same theme for the past hour.
“Sir? Can I?”
A fresh-faced young man entered the classroom. He hesitated before going any further. The Major gave me another long stare and then nodded at the other man.
“Proceed.”
“Tech have captured and erased all mobile footage of the thing, including posts on social media. All offenders have had their phones and computers locked until the agents get to them.”
“And our agents?”
“On the ground as we speak. All witnesses will have signed the Act within the next two hours.”
“At least one thing is going right tonight,” the Major replied, “Identification?”
“We’re running it through the database but so far we’ve got nothing. We’ve never seen anything like it – though a lot of the footage we’ve retrieved has been blurry. We’re checking our paper records now, which would be a lot faster if we had them all digitised as I’ve repeatedly...”
“Now is not the time, Caleb. As I’ve repeatedly said, there isn’t room in the budget for it.”
Caleb, who spoke with a slight American accent, looked irritated.
“Yes sir,” he acknowledged.
“Keep digging. This thing didn’t come out of nowhere. Media?”
“Escaped lion from a private collection,” Caleb said, “Best we can do on short notice.”
“Alright. Keep an eye on anyone posting on social media about this thing. The usual. Make sure the local agents shut down persistent squealers hard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. There’s nothing more to be done here. The thing has gone, we’ve locked down the incident. Have those other four signed the Act?”
“In triplicate, sir.”
“What do you want me to do here?” Dr Pierce asked, indicating me.
“Recommendation?”
“I didn’t find anything foreign,” she replied, “but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. I need the lab for a full analysis.”
The Major considered, “Bring him with us back to HQ. Find out what you can there. If there’s nothing, process him the same as any other civilian and cut him loose. I’ve got further questions for him anyway.”
“Just what I was hoping for, more questions,” I muttered.
Major Wilson’s moustache twitched. It was the slightest movement. I was pretty sure it was his version of a smile.
“Don’t worry,” he said in a suddenly amicable tone, “There’ll be plenty of time for us to answer all the questions you must have in the meantime.”
“Really?”
Finally some answers.
“No,” Major Wilson snapped. With that, he left me with the doctor and the two soldiers.
I walked right into that one, I thought.
*
I was escorted to one of the vans which, for all their military upgrades, were dated by a good ten years.
I didn’t see Dee, Kate or Forrest on the short walk outside and hoped they were okay.
Six of the soldiers climbed in the back with me. Someone produced a black turtleneck sweater and handed it to me. It was too big, but I put it on. Then I was locked in a metal cage fitted behind the passenger seat. I wasn’t handcuffed, but I was still a prisoner. As we drove away I could hear the van’s engine needed a tune-up and remembered Major Wilson’s words about a limited budget.
We drove through the night in silence. The soldiers ignored me. I was too drained from the night’s events to feel scared, though I should have.
I reminded myself that I was hoping to get some answers and studied the six soldiers. Their faces were impassive. Not bored. They reminded me of the look you see on the faces of the Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace. Not going to crack a smile no matter how hard you tried.
The squad leader pulled off his helmet.
“So that was a total waste of time,” he said.
The other soldiers murmured in agreement, taking it as a signal that they could relax slightly. We’d been on the road for half an hour.
“I remember when this job used to involve some real action,” one of the men said. He was the oldest of the group, maybe late forties. A battle-hardened face.
There were more murmurs of agreement.
“Yeah, well, perhaps if your generation hadn’t been so bloody good at your job back in the Jurassic Period, there’d be more for us to do,” someone said.
There were low chuckles. I saw a chance to cut in.
“What is it you actually do, anyway?”
Six pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction as they remembered my existence. Six jaws snapped shut. The squad leader paused.
“Monsters exist. We neutralise them. If you tell anyone about it, you’ll end up in a deep dark hole. Move on,” he replied.
The rest of the two-hour journey passed in stony-faced silence.
By the time we arrived at our destination I had a big problem. The scratches on my chest had healed. After a second examination, the doctor would know something wasn’t right with me.
I wasn’t under any illusions about what the squad leader had meant when he’d used the word ‘neutralise’. Section 19 killed monsters for Queen and Country.
I was becoming increasingly certain that I fell into that category.
Chapter Nine: Somewhere in England
It was past midnight when we arrived at Section 19’s base. The soldiers got out of the van as the squad leader unlocked my cage. He waved at me to follow, his rifle casually trained on me.
We were in a parking lot in the middle of what looked like a cross between a run-down industrial estate and a military base. It was half deserted.
The night was freezing, my breath clouded as I took in my surroundings. I was unimpressed. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting – maybe a James Bond style high tech super-secret underground lair – but this definitely wasn’t it. The buildings were shoddy, like they’d been built in the seventies and left to deteriorate since then. The whole area was the size and shape of six unkempt football fields. A squat, square three-storey office block dominated the centre of the grounds. Scattered around were some warehouses, the barracks and several Nissen huts – the type which look like a Pringle box cut in half and dropped on the ground. Their corrugated cylindrical roofs were rusted.
A handful of soldiers marched here and there. The central office block was the only building which had lights on. I saw a shooting range in the distance. The whole base was surrounded by a three-metre high fence with intermittent signs attached, which no doubt said: “Warning, Keep Out”. Massive floodlights stood at the edges of the grounds.
I noticed a large, reinforced steel cage standing alone off to one edge of the drill yard. It was around three metres on all sides, a thick chain and padlock keeping the door closed. It was empty.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Somewhere in England,” the squad leader replied, “This way. Major Wilson wants to see you.”
I tried to keep my cool, but it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t think of a worse place for me to be. A military base with a bunch of armed soldiers all trained for one thing: killing things like me, whatever I was. This situation could turn lethal for me at any second. As soon as anyone examined me again, it would be over for me. For the second time that evening I’d managed to stumble into a deadly situation.
Queen’s Guard it, I told myself, full on poker face like everyone else here.
I set my face to as neutral an expression as possible and forced myself to walk normally.
Give nothing away. Look for an escape route.
And then what? Even if I can escape, what then? Go on the run? Never see my family and friends again?
The thought almost caused me to throw up as we approached the squat, office block building.
Come on, Jayce, keep it together. There has to be some way out of this.
The squad leader escorted me through a small reception area where he
nodded to a bored soldier manning the desk, then he took me into a conference room. Large television screens lined the walls. Major Wilson was flicking through a pad. He nodded at the squad leader, who left. Two unarmed soldiers stood to attention.
A woman’s face appeared on one of the screens. I recognised her immediately.
“Was this the woman leading the other unit?” Wilson asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she give you her name?” he asked.
His tone was neutral, in the same way a predator ready to pounce might appear neutral. There was no point lying anymore.
“She said she was called Victoria Pryce.”
“And?”
“She said she’d be in touch with me. And she told me to, um, to send my regards to you.”
“She named me specifically?” Major Wilson asked.
“No, she, well, she said ‘give my regards to the moustache.’”
One of the soldiers standing to attention went a shade of red as he tried to prevent a sudden laugh.
Major Wilson didn’t look up from the pad he was studying.
“Why did she say she’d be in touch with you?”
I shrugged.
Another sharp glance from those pale grey bullet eyes. This time I was ready for it. My Queen’s Guard face held.
“She took an interest in you.”
“I guess so. Yes.”
Major Wilson studied me. It wasn’t one of his hard-man stares this time. It was another assessment. Memorising details.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Starving,”
I still hadn’t eaten anything since my power rush while fighting the creature at the party several hours earlier.
“Private, get the kid a sandwich.”
One of the two soldiers left the room. Major Wilson considered, then he dropped his interrogation tone. His voice wasn’t exactly friendly, but it was less demanding.
“Let me make something clear to you. If you breathe a word of what you’ve seen tonight, you’ll be in breach of the Official Secrets Act.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you know what happens to someone when they breach the Act?”
Personal Demons Page 4