Another Fallen Soldier
by Houston Rogers
©2010
All characters belong to me. Using them without my permission is frowned upon and I will be very displeased. Any relation between this story and any real life events is entirely coincidental. Now enjoy the story!
Recon:“This is Echo 09 to base, do you read me?”“Uh... confirmation, Echo 09, we read you. What's the problem?” The young tech scanned the screens in front of him nervously, trying to remain calm. He was new here, and what were the chances that something would go wrong on his shift? He ran his hands over his face quickly, rubbing his eyes and peering at the screen again. No signs of trouble on there – yet.
“We've got signs of possible enemy forces hiding out here.”“No visuals?” The tech asked, whose name was Micheal Fielder. If they'd seen anything, so would he on his satellite feeds.
“Ah, no visuals, that's correct. Noises though. Disturbing noises. To be honest, they don't sound... human.”He was getting scared now. It was one thing to find a nest of enemy infantry; another thing entirely to find a nest of wild animals. Possibly dangerous animals. He tapped a few keys and zoomed in on Echo 09's location for a better look. Nothing on the feed though, just them and their camp. He started to tell them there was nothing out there, but he hesitated. He didn't relish the idea of telling soldiers they were just hearing things. He rethought what he wanted to say and pushed the button. “Um, anything besides noises? And what sort of noises anyway?”
He tapped on the window next to him and motioned with his hand, alerting his superior to the fact that he needed some help on this. His boss slid into the seat next to him and donned a headset.
“This is Major Technician James Grav. What is your situation?”
The soldier on the radio quickly brought him up to speed, then answered Fielder's question.
“Some muffled thuds, at first. Then a noise that sounded like something sliding across the floor. If there's enemy forces in there, they're not being quiet at all. I know the place has been abandoned for years- what? What do you mean he's gone?”Silence for a moment. Then:
“Fuck. One of us went in without alerting the others and he hasn't come back. This is just- goddamit! We're going to go in after him. Someone will stay here to monitor and relay our progress to you. Echo 09 out.”********
Zefallan
District 9012
2100 Hours
Echo 09“Crack this baby open, men,” Sergeant Collins said, motioning to the left of the two entrance doors. Nature had not been kind to this facility, the rain and wind beating it down, rusting it, decaying it. The doors were stuck, and that was their first problem. All they had were flashlights, and that was problem #2. The building wasn't hooked up to the power grid any more, thus all electricity based appliances and features would be useless to them, mainly the lights. One of the soldiers retrieved a tool from the camp and jammed it between the sliding doors, powering it on. With a whir it came to life, opening a gap big enough for them to get through. The doors groaned and buckled as they opened, showering rust down onto the ground.
The Sarge shined his flashlight into the building and stepped inside, the others coming in after him one by one. The air here was stale but not unbreathable. Collins noted that the inner doors were already open. He found it extremely unlikely they'd been that way when this facility shut down. Motioning for the soldiers to keep quiet and stay close behind him, he moved forward through the doorway and into what used to be the lobby. Seats remained folded into the walls, and the reception desk lay under a thick coating of dust. But someone had been here recently; if the open doors weren't an indication of human activity, then the footprints on the floor were enough.
Before he could mention it, one of the soldiers walked over to them and knelt, examining them closely. “They're Rodriguez's,” he said. Rodriguez was the missing soldier. “Notice the shoe pattern? All of our boots have the same one.”
Collins sighed and nodded. He looked up and noticed two open doorways behind the desk. One was partially open and led into a medium sized storage room. The other opened into a very dark and grimy looking hallway. Collins kept his eyes on the floor and followed the footprints till they came out into what had been an office/lab of sorts. He looked around at what had been left behind by those who came before – papers and folders, beakers and cages. Charts. He wasn't interested in any of that; he wanted evidence that his soldier had been through here.
“Sarge, look at this,” another one of them said. He picked up a rifle laying on the floor next to a pile of metal crates. Collins took it from him and turned it this way and that, examining it. It wasn't damaged in any way. After thinking for a moment, he popped the clip out. It was empty. “What the hell?”
He sat the clip and the rifle aside and pointed to three of his soldiers. “You follow those footprints and tell me what you find, got it? Stay in radio contact.”
“Yes sir!” They turned and trotted off in single file, following the prints like they were following train tracks.
“What about us, sir?” one of the remaining men asked.
“We wait here,” Collins said gravely.
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Echo 09
Team 2Their footsteps echoed in the otherwise almost eerie silence of the base. One of them kept his flashlight trained on the prints, the others kept focused on not running into each other in the pitch black darkness. “Damn, I wish we had some better flashlights,” the one in front said. His name was Lester.
The one behind him, whose name was Hodgkin, nodded. How far could Rodriguez have gone?
Suddenly Lester stopped, causing Hodgkin and the third soldier to crash into him.
“What is it?” Hodgkin asked.
Lester's eyes were narrowed. He looked down the hall and then back down at the floor. “Look.”
Hodgkin looked. “What the fuck?”
It seemed they wouldn't be finding Rodriguez after all. Beyond this point his footprints ceased to appear at all.
Recon:Fielder was pacing outside the equipment room with a cup of coffee in hand. He took a sip of it, the steam rising up from the hot liquid and fogging his glasses. He sat the coffee on the edge of a nearby desk and reached for his glasses to clean them off when he accidentally upset the cup, spilling it's contents on the desk and slashing his hand.
“Dammit!” he yelped, jumping backwards. He shook his hand and went for the sink to run it under cold water when the idea came to him. It was so obvious and so stupid that they hadn't done it yet. Forgetting the burns and his fogged up glasses, he ran for the computer room and threw open the door.
“Heat! Dammit, Grav, why didn't we think of that!?”
James Grav regarded him with an odd look. “What do you mean, Fielder?”
“The thermal! Check the thermal imaging!”
James typed a few keys and watched as the screen sent in the thermal feed.
“Oh my god...” Fielder said. He grabbed the mic and depressed the button. “Can you hear me, Echo 09 base? Get them out of there!”
“Hear you loud and clear. What do you mean, get them out?”“We just switched to the thermal imaging. The place is infested with something, nearly all of it is red, red, red. We don't know what, but we know it's not human. Get them out now!”
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Echo 09
Team 2
Lester felt like something was watching him.
It was spooky enough following a trail of footprints that just suddenly stopped without any apparent reason, but following said trail in the dark and now getting the impression that you were being watched by something that you couldn't even
see, yeah, Lester thought he was about ready to get the fuck back to Collins and the others.
He turned to tell the other two to give it up and head back when something slammed down the hallway. It was a hollow boom, and the sound of stretching metal accompanied it. A door, perhaps? Lester shone his flashlight down that way, but there was nothing. The hallway took a sharp left into more darkness. He decided to take a few steps forward when their radios crackled to life.
“Get out of there now!” the soldier back at base ordered.
“What? Why?” That was Collins.
“There's something in there with you. Scratch that, there's a LOT of things in there with you!!!”“What the hell-” Lester started to say.
Hodgkin leaped backwards just as a pair of pinkish (arms? legs?) reached down from a ceiling vent and grabbed Lester by the shoulders and pulled him up. Lester screamed, but there was no time to grab him. He was pulled up before Hodgkin had time to even twitch. But Lester was still screaming. His screams were cut short when a wet ripping sound came through the vent, followed by small trickles of blood. Hodgkin shone his flashlight away from the opening but he could hear them dropping to the floor.
“I'm getting the fuck out of here. Let's go!”
The other soldier didn't need to be asked twice.
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Echo 09
Team 1Collins and his men stood at the ready, awaiting word on whether Rodriguez had been found or not. Just as he was about to go after them himself, the radio came to life.
“Get out of there now!” “What? Why?” Collins asked, confused.
“There's something in there with you. Scratch that, there's a LOT of things in there with you!!!”He started to say something else when the screams started. They weren't coming from the hallway the other team had went down; rather, they were coming through the vents. Collins cringed away from that sound, backing up till he was close to the office doorway. “As soon as they get back, we're leaving,” he told the others.
He could hear them coming now, and they were coming fast. He stepped forward a few feet, but his confusion returned when only two of them entered the room. “What? Where's Rodriguez and-”
Hodgkin stopped and bowed over, hands on knees, catching his breath. “Lester... dead. Rodriguez... gone. We gotta... get out of here.”
“Nonsense, soldier. I'm not leaving unless both of them-”
He was interrupted by the sound of the vents bursting open. A pinkish creature leaped out from the nearest one and landed on Hodgkin's face, clawing and biting. The soldier screamed and pulled at the thing, but its grip was tight, and he never had a chance. The thing crawled to the top of Hodgkin's head and perched there, looking at Collins. It had a tail that it whisked back and forth in a frenzy, and it was almost purring at him. Without warning, it launched itself at him, revealing a mouth that was all teeth.
His last thought was:
Almost like a spi------------
Recon:Fielder asked the soldier at the base if the soldiers had helmets capable of video feed.
“Collins does. I'll open it.”Fielder watched as Collins talked to Hodgkin. His expression turned to one of horror as the thing from the vent killed Hodgkin, then went after Collins. He didn't even try to raise his weapon.
James Grav thought fast and pushed a button on his keyboard, snapping a picture from the video feed of the thing. The picture went on one of the other multiple screens while the feed kept running. The camera was facing the door now, and Fielder saw the other men running for it, but more of those strange spider-like monstrosities had shown up, and they never stood a chance.
“Oh my God... and we couldn't help them. We couldn't help them.”
James Grav patted Fielder on the shoulder. “I know how you feel, Mike. But Collins is another fallen soldier, just like his men... fallen to what, I have no idea. But I do know this: this... murder... this genocide... it was not committed by any human hand. No... this is beyond us. Excuse me.”
“Where are you going?” Micheal Fielder asked.
To which James Grav replied: “I have a phone call to make.”
The End
