Site Kilo-29
Military Area - Primary Hallways/Lower Levels
Winter, 1993
Day Two-Night
Gunshots rang out as Shads, Kincaid and Donaldson pulled their triggers. I'd kicked the figure square in the balls and it lifted up while my pistol cleared the holster.
And collapsed.
The arms went disjointed, the legs twisted weirdly, the torso folded over the groin, and the axe fell to the floor.
The head bounced into the hallway with us.
I put two shots into it without thinking, the head shattering.
"Fucking mannequins." Donaldson snarled.
"Holy shit." Meyers breathed. His hands were still empty, he was staring at the dismembered mannequin. "Holy shit."
"It must have been leaning against the doors." Kincaid said, breathing hard.
...in front of me stood a dark figure, dressed in a parka, with an extreme cold weather face mask across his face. His hands were hidden by trigger mittens, but the left one still held the bayonet tightly up next to his head. He was close enough that I could see every detail about him...
..His one good eye glared bloodshot rage at me as the knife came down...
I was panting, staring at the shattered head with the intact cold weather mask on it. I turned and looked at the uniform. Without thinking I stepped into the elevator and grabbed it's left sleeve, yanking it straight out.
The interlocked triangles of 3rd CosCom sat smugly in the circle. I glanced at the chest and my blood ran cold.
My name was on the breast, complete with first and middle initial.
"That looks like the tattoo on your shoulder." Shads said, moving up to look.
"Yeah." I mumbled, straightening up. I was sweating and shivering at the same time.
"You OK, Sergeant? You're shaking." Shads asked, putting his hand on my arm.
"Don't touch me." I snarled out of reflex, pulling my arm loose. I shook my head. "Sorry, I'm OK, Private."
Shads nodded, but backed up a step anyway.
"They think well enough to set boobytraps." Kincaid said, stepping next to me and tapping the broken mannequin with his toe. "This isn't the first trap we've found."
"No, this feels different." Donaldson said. I shot him a look and he shrugged. He grabbed the torso and flipped it, hiding the nametag that I knew he'd seen. "No bulletholes, someone wasn't killed while they were wearing this one."
"Help me pull the desks out." I said, stepping into the elevator. I grabbed the bottom edge of the top of the desk and lifted, relishing the bright pain from my injured ribs and shoulder. The pain was real, and I really needed real at that time.
It had been wearing my uniform. Not one of the ones I wore now, there was no reason to have my initials on the uniform when I wasn't stationed in the same unit as my brother. Plus, I hadn't worn that patch on my left shoulder since I'd left Germany, 2 years ago.
This was new.
And new was dangerous.
It was also old.
And I knew that it was dangerous.
We muscled two of the desks out of the elevator, flipped the other two on their sides so that one faced each set of doors, then crowded in. I looked at the buttons. In addition to the six numbered ones, it held two other buttons. One with a simple 'X' on it, the other labeled 'EL1'. The 'X' was the seventh button, so I hit that one and the elevator doors rumbled shut, squealing and groaning.
"Get behind the desks." I ordered, following my own advice. I unslung my rifle, reloaded the M-203 with a CS grenade, then loaded a magazine into the well, letting the charging handle slap home before tapping the forward assist.
The elevator shuddered at times as it slowly moved down. Kincaid kept watching the open access hatch in the ceiling. Donaldson faced the opposite way as me, his rifle over the edge of the desk, finger on the trigger. Shads was facing the same way as me, his expression slightly sad, but the tension in his shoulders told a different story.
Meyers kept glancing at Natchez, and I caught him once rolling his eyes and had to reign in the urge to smack his stupid ass.
The elevator slowed down and came to a stop.
..."Third floor, ladies evening wear." Nancy said, pressed tightly against the button panel, her helmet missing, wearing chocolate chips, her rifle held close to her body while she tensed to go around the corner...
I ignored her.
The doors groaned then shuddered open. The hallway beyond wasn't steel plate, not decor by US Army, but rather wood paneling, the lights soft and gentle from their recesses in the ceiling.
Across from us were three seals.
"Oh, fuck." Kincaid breathed.
Three seals that I recognized.
"What the fuck?" Donaldson said softly, turning around when his doors didn't open.
An FBI seal, only with "FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION-EVENT RECOVERY DET." on the bottom.
"That's not right." Meyers said, probably the most obvious thing he'd ever said.
A CIA seal, complete with "CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY-EVENT RECOVERY DET." on the top.
"This isn't good." Shads said quietly.
And an NSA seal with "NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY-EVENT RECOVERY DET."
"I think I know what those agents are here for." I said, feeling goosebumps erupt down my back. "And I think I know who they each work for."
"You think?" Donaldson asked. I was willing to excuse the sarcasm from him.
"Don't care, still gonna kill that bastard with the toothpicks." Kincaid said.
"We don't need to question them now." I said, standing up from behind the desk and stepping over it. "Let's get a move on, we've got a retrieval to get done."
"Yes, Sergeant." Kincaid and Donaldson said. I almost missed Shads voice. He was really quiet.
"Keep an eye out for a camera." I told them, looking in both directions.
The wood paneling was smooth. There was artwork on the walls, not your standard AAFES prints that you'd find in the PX, but honest to God artwork complete with brass plaques denoting the painting's name, the artist's name, and the date. The lights showed me that there were several alcoves that I could see statues standing in. There was T intersection to my left and to the right it ended in a door with the NSA seal on it.
"There's one." Kincaid called out, pointing a little ways down the hallway. The light was red but I went and stood in front of it anyway, pulling out my notebook and writing in it. The camera was within reach, so I'd be able to show them the writing without jumping or hoping it had zoom capability.
"What are we waiting for?" Natchez asked.
"For whoever it is we're rescuing to focus in on us." I said, waiting. "I don't think they're here."
"But this is the 7th level." Wilkins said.
"Only from that elevator." I answered. "Whoever it is might have taken a different set, and might be on a different level, or there might be sublevels that you can only access from certain elevators."
"How big is this fucking place?" Meyers asked.
"Fucking big." Kincaid said. "I don't think they're here. If I was waiting on a rescue party, I'd be watching the camera by the elevator."
"I think you're right." I turned from the camera. "Back in the elevator, men."
"Maybe they're in the civilian side, Sergeant, that's where we saw the majority of fighting damage." Donaldson reminded me.
"Could they access the cameras here?" Kincaid asked, stepping into the elevator.
"I'm not sure. Probably not." I waited for Shads to get in then hit the "EL1" button. The doors didn't make as much racket and I saw grease ooze out of the tracks as the doors set into place.
Self-greasing mechanism. Clever.
If I remembered right, the next floor was only about 40 feet below the floor we'd just left.
The elevator kept going down, ignoring what I thought.
"Damn, this next level is far." Kincaid said, reaching up to rub his sutures then wincing as soon as he touched them.
...event recovery...
Finally the elevator slowed, causing us all to kneel and get ready. This time the doors that shuddered and screamed open were on the opposite side of the ones that had opened normally.
A seal I'd seen only in the older sites was waiting for us on the other side. You have to say one thing about the US Government, well, governments in general, when they own something, they want everyone to know it. They slap seals, stencils, labels, decals, patches, and paint all over it. It'll say like 5 million places that they own it.
My uniform said the US Government owned me. A patch on my shoulder would show they owned me. My rank showed they owned me. The US ARMY over my heart told everyone they owned me. My ID card said in like 3 places they owned me. My dogtags said I was their property, like a chain around my neck. In my dreams they still owned me, trapping me in the dark and the cold. Hell, I even had their ownership tattooed on my shoulder.
Across from us the seal was triangle with the American shield on it. Around it read "FEDERAL CIVIL DEFENSE ADMINISTRATION". Like the others, it wasn't simply painted onto the wall, this was a full seal, a carved thing then painted in bright colors.
On the left of it a placard said "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" with the threat of "live fire authorized" as well as jail time. On the right was a placard that warned us that we should be prepared to show ID at any time or be subject to immediate detention and "possible termination" at the leisure of the facility commander.
The air smelled slightly off, reminding me faintly of standing in a walk in refrigerator. It also reminded me of somewhere else.
...we killed each other in the dark and snow, in the War Fighter tunnels and in the barracks, our blood freezing to the floor and walls and spattering the snow where it had crept into the barracks, our war cries echoing through the dark tunnels and halls as we hunted and killed with knives, bayonets, rifles, pistols, grenades, and bare hands...
...the eight of us standing there, panting in the cold, outside the lower entrance, snow whipping around us. Shouldering our rifles, we started walking down the road and into the snow, toward main post...
...behind us the door to the War Fighter tunnels stood open silently, the lights from inside illuminating the blizzard, until the automatic mechanism slowly shut it, but by that time we were out of sight, walking through the snow towards Dead Man's curve, only six of us making it main post...
...Tandy taking two of us in the dark and cold of the road...
I shuddered involuntary before covering it by stepping into the hallway.
"Sergeant, camera." Kincaid said. I turned and looked in time to see it panning over to lock on me. I held up my notebook.
"WHICH WAY?"
The camera swiveled around to point down the right hand hallway.
Thank God, the elevator sat at a 5 point intersection. Someone had spraypainted over the labels for the lines on the floor.
"DO WE NEED TO TURN?"
No.
"IS THERE ANOTHER CAMERA BEFORE WE CHANGE DIRECTION?"
Yes.
"EXTRACTION ENROUTE"
Yes.
I pocketed my notebook and reached for my bottle of pills, only remembering after my hand was in my pocket that I'd dropped the bottle.
"Are you sure you can trust this person, Sergeant?" Meyers asked.
"If they jump, we'll kill 'em." Kincaid growled.
I needed to watch that boy.
"I don't leave men behind." I said, and started heading down the hallway.
"I knew he was going to say that." Shads said quietly. Donaldson and Kincaid chuckled.
The walls were different. Where the rest of the facility had either steel plating, maybe some tile, or wood paneling, these hallways were bare concrete, a barreled ceiling with heavy support vaulting every ten paces or so. The concrete was in strips, with steel strips connecting each strip. It looked raw, unfinished, and I'd only seen it in a few places. I knew that inside each concrete strip was an inch thick steel rebar. The hallway wasn't straight, turning and curving, and it wasn't long before I lost reference toward north and south. It narrowed and widened at random times, but it didn't fit the pattern for defensive chokepoints like 2/19th's War Fighter tunnels. We passed hallways with the labels spraypainted over that vanished into the darkness to our left and right.
Only the lights in the tunnel we were in stayed lit.
Our boots thudded on the strips of concrete that made up the floor, but didn't echo, instead the corridor seemed to swallow up the sound. Several times we passed cameras, but they all pointed in the same direction.
"Sergeant." Kincaid said, his breath steaming in front of him.
"I see it." I told him. I hadn't noticed that it was getting colder until he'd spoke, and my breath plumed out in front of me.
Up ahead was a sharp corner, and a blood smear was across the floor, leading around the corner. The blood was old, dried and black, soaked into the concrete strips that made up the floor.
"Stay sharp, hold your fire until you confirm your targets." I advised them, unholstering my Glock. "Donaldson, Kincaid, you're with me, Shads, you have drag, the rest of you, you're center, watch our flanks."
"It's just walls." Meyers said.
"Look." Kincaid said, pointing with his rifle.
A vent was higher up on the curve of the rounded ceiling, the cover missing, just a dark space two feet high and three feet across. There was blood smear up the wall to the vent.
"Watch our flanks." I repeated, then moved toward the corner, Kincaid and Donaldson spreading out.
The hallway was wide enough we could stand two abreast with our arms stretched out and not touch each other or the walls.
There were bullet holes in the wall, with blood spatters near them. There was blood on the floor, a streak heading toward us, under our boots, and around the corner behind us.
Up ahead was another corner, with a wooden desk on its side. There were two of the small crossbow quarrels stuck in the wood.
...they killed each other, down here in the dark and cold...
"What the fuck happened?" Meyers asked, his voice hushed.
"Maintain noise discipline." I hissed, moving up and watching the floor. Getting closer to the table I saw it, on the gap to my left of the table. Holding my breath I moved up and glanced over the top of the table.
A goddamn M-16A2 mine sat on the other side of the table, the tripwire deployed and attached to the far wall. I could tell by the offset of the fuze that it was the A2 version. Someone had hammered a nail into the concrete and dusted the wire with concrete dust. To top it off, the fucking prongs had been bent slightly, putting pressure on them, meaning the goddamn thing would go off if you looked at it wrong. Another line, this one black, was two feet behind the dusted one, and was the one I'd seen.
Someone knew their shit.
"Get back." I hissed, waving at them. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead as I stared at it. I couldn't see any modifications to it, but I knew how to make the fucker pop if you so much as touched it, so that didn't mean shit.
"Go back around the corner, right now." I warned them.
"What?" Kincaid said softly. I could hear at least some of them following my instructions.
"Someone mined the fucking hallway." I warned them. "I'm going to cut the wire and pray that the fucker doesn't go off."
"I'm staying." Kincaid said.
"I need you and Donaldson back there, if something happens to me, it'll be up to the two of you to get those men home." I told him, holstering my pistol and pulling out my Leatherman.
"Roger that." Kincaid said. I heard him moving off, and could hear the others whispering, but I shut it out of my mind.
I hate dealing with mines. I had scars on my legs and my arm from them, once where we'd hit an old Nazi mine from WW-2 during night land-nav that had killed 2 of us and knocked me cold with a broken jaw, and another time from an unexploded MRLS bomblet that the truck in front of me in the convoy had hit, throwing shrapnel through the right hand windshield of the Gypsy Wagon.
People who called me unlucky didn't understand.
I was real lucky.
I took a deep breath, crouched down behind the table, wondering if I was inside the shrapnel arc, then leaned around to put the grips of my Leatherman on either side of the dusted wire. I closed my eyes, wrapped myself in the feel of Heather's arms, the warmth of the baby against my chest, the feel of her tiny heartbeat against my bare skin, the small baby noises she made, and the smell of Heather's hair, the taste of Heather's lips, and cut the wire.
Nothing happened.
My balls tightened up as I curled up into a ball, praying my Kevlar vest would protect my insides. My legs were under me, my arms in front of my chest with my hands covering the back of my neck. My ass and head was exposed, but it was the best I could do.
Three to eight seconds, that's how long the mine would wait before the deployment charge blew, throwing the main body of the mine about three to five feet into the air, where it would go off and spray the whole area with shrapnel.
My Father had scars on his cheeks where one had gone off almost in his face in Vietnam, he'd lived because both steel sleeves had rusted through and the mine had blew into pieces instead of blowing him into pieces. One of my brothers had been killed by one in the same war while on patrol in 1969, the same day I was born. Aunt Trudy had only one breast and had lost her left ear and eye thanks to one that had gone off in a cantina that she was in with a few other nurses, she'd lived, none of her friends did.
Ten seconds passed and nothing happened.
"It's clear." I called out, starting to relax.
That's when I heard the deployment charge go "POP!"
...sucker...
I had enough time to curl tighter, tight against the table.
"Hea..." I didn't finish her name.
The world vanished.
------------------------------
"Goddamn it, hold him down!" Kincaid was yelling, but it sounded far away and tinny, my ears ringing and my vision blurred. My whole arm burned from the shoulder down, and the asshole had his foot in my armpit, my wrist held tightly in a cravat he'd wrapped around it, the ends of the cravat in his hands.
"He won't hold still!" Meyers yelled.
"Sergeant, you've got to hold still, can you hear me, Sergeant?" Shads' face was above mine, and my head was held between his knees.
"Goddamn it, he's strong." Wilkins bitched. "Why is he fighting us?"
"He doesn't know where he is, the blast knocked him goofy." Donaldson said, "Now hold him."
"Just do it, Kincaid, you pussy." Nancy said, standing behind Kincaid. "He won't stop fighting, he's a boy."
"Fuck it." Kincaid snarled, and suddenly leaned backwards, dragging my wrist with him.
My shoulder gave a loud POP and I screamed, both in pain and sudden, almost orgasmic, release from the agony. He yanked again and there was another pop, and another when he yanked the third time.
I screamed through all three pulls.
"He's awake!" Shads said.
"Heather?" I asked, trying to look around. I could smell the soft smell of her hair and a faint whiff of breakfree. "Where's the baby?"
"He's a little confused." Shads finished.
"Someone married him?" Meyers sounded like he didn't believe it.
"Nancy, I'm coming, hold on, babe, hold on." I said, tears running out of my eyes.
"Sergeant Ant, it's Kincaid, are you all right?"
"Kincaid?" My mouth felt weirdly disjointed. My tongue hurt from where I'd bitten it again.
"He'll be fine." Kincaid said, unwrapping the cravat from my wrist.
"The Suits, where's the fucking Suits?" I said, trying to sit up. Shads put his hand on my head. "Did we get everyone out?"
"Don't worry about them, Sergeant." Shads told me. "We're in one of the lower levels, that was awhile ago."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Here, give him his glasses." Donaldson said.
"A mine went off, it dislocated your shoulder." Shads reached down and I tried to flinch back, but he was only putting my glasses on me. "It was bent behind you when we found you under the table."
"You're lucky you're alive, Sergeant." Wilkins said. His voice sounded different.
Shads stood up and I looked to the side. The top edge of the table was ragged, a large chunk torn out of it. The concrete walls around us were scarred and pitted. It was face down on the floor, the damaged edge facing me.
"Luck, hell." I said, trying to sit up. This time nobody was holding me down, so I managed after the third try.
"It knocked you cold, I thought you were dead." Donaldson told me.
"I hate mines." I groaned, trying to stand up. "Where's my rifle?"
"Here, Sergeant." Donaldson said, handing it to me. "We had to pull it off your back so we could set your shoulder."
I looked over, and Kincaid was replacing the FM in the SF aid bag. I tried lifting my arm, and except for the soreness I usually had after it dislocated, it felt better than it had since the fight in the hallway. It must have been partly dislocated and I hadn't noticed through the swelling.
Chronic dislocated joints can be weird like that.
"You did a good job, Kincaid." I complimented him, flexing my arm and wincing as the abused and over-stretched muscles protested.
"Glad the manual was in there." Kincaid answered.
"Let's not stand around, we need to keep moving. The enemy might know where we are now." I told them, rolling my shoulders to set my gear properly. "We still have a mission."
"Are you sure you're all right?" Wilkins asked. I looked at him, and his face was pale, his eyes a little wider than normal.
"I've been hurt worse fucking." I grinned.
"You're face is fucked up." Wilkins told me. "I think you broke your nose."
That would be from the blast slamming my face into the concrete.
"He's a dude, he's supposed to be ugly. If God had wanted him pretty, He would have made him a girl." Kincaid quoted and I gave him a thumbs up. Donaldson and Shads chuckled. Natchez laughed, and Wilkins cracked a smile. Meyers looked offended.
I moved around the table. Down the hallway a little ways was the outer steel shell and I kicked it down the hallway.
Two passages later the camera was pointed left. The hallway in front of us was dark, same with the one on the right, but the right hand hallway was lit up.
"Deeper into the rabbit hole." I quoted, remembering the site's name.
"Who do you think set the mine?" Wilkins asked.
"Someone prudent." I answered.
"No shit. It would have killed one of those things." Kincaid said.
"Does that mean they're trying to kill us?" Natchez asked.
"No, it means that they're afraid of the other things." Shads said.
The tunnel suddenly ended in a heavy steel door. Someone behind me whistled, long and low, as we stared at it.
"Is that a submarine door?" Meyers asked.
"Same design." I told them. There was no keypad and I stared at the door a long time.
"Well, are you going to open it?" Meyers asked.
"In a sec." I said.
"Want to see a mine go off up close and personal like Sergeant Ant did?" Donaldson asked.
It looked clear, but that didn't mean shit.
...the dark figure who had been standing by the stairwell door stepped around and swung an axe.
And hit John in the stomach...
"Well, luck favors the bold." I said, stepping up and grabbing two of the spokes off the wheel. I tensed up, then hauled on it as hard as I could, expecting the door to be stiff with neglect and age.
The wheel spun, throwing me off balance, and I lost my grip and staggered against the wall. The wheel stopped suddenly with a loud THUMP. I straightened up, reached out, and pushed on the door with two fingers.
It swung out silently, the counterweights functioning perfectly.
Beyond the door a massive cave stretched in front of us. It was full of construction equipment, pallets of bags, pallets of plywood, stacks of windows and drywall. I could see temporary buildings in there, huge tanks that had to contain diesel fuel, and crates and crates of God knew what. To our left and right there were sandbags piled up higher than we were tall. The bags were ripped and torn in places, and sand had dribbled out. Above us was plywood, scarred and torn where shrapnel had done to the plywood what it had done to the sandbags. The little tunnel was about ten feet deep, and looked like it had been built recently.
"Don't fucking move." A woman's voice called out. She was nowhere to be seen, but I had that crawling feeling between my shoulderblades that told me she had me in the sights of a weapon.
Or I was standing next to a mine.
"Is that Sergeant Ant?" The woman called out.
"Debby?" I asked, suddenly matching the face with a person.
"If you're Ant, then you'll know the answer to the next question." She paused a second. "If you're wrong, I'll kill all of you and figure out who you were later."
"I can't see her, Sergeant." Kincaid said.
"I can hear you assholes." She shouted.
"Then ask, bitch!" I yelled back.
"Close the door first, you one eyed bastard." She shouted back.
"Shads, close the door." I told him. We stood there silently until we heard the wheel stop with another "CHUNK".
"Where did we first have sex?" She yelled out after the echo of the door locking died away.
"In a cornfield in Nebraska." I shouted back. "The scarecrow fell on us and scared the shit out of us."
"What did I wear to your wedding?"
"Your Air Force dress uniform. The baby spit up on you."
"What did Heather say to me when you got out of the hospital last summer and I came over to your house to see you?"
"Thank you for bringing her husband back alive, and that she loved you."
"Ant, oh thank God, Ant." She called out, and came around from behind what I'd thought was a pile of sandbags. She ran straight at me, her rifle still held tightly, and when she got close enough, she threw herself into my arms and started kissing my face, crying.
I held her tight, kissing her back. Her eyes were sunken and haunted looking, and she didn't close them when she kissed me, her eyes still darting around, watching the men behind me.
Someone cleared their throat, and Kincaid hissed for them to "shut the fuck up" when Deb began to sob in my arms, crumpling against me.
She was wearing OD green, not BDU's, and they were baggy on her, either because she hadn't been eating well or because they weren't hers. Her brown hair was hidden under an OD green cravat. She had bruises on her neck, her left cheek, and her bottom lip was split.
Debby suddenly straightened, stepping back from me, and hefted her rifle.
"Follow me, I want to grab my gear before we go." She said, and I nodded. She turned around and began walking into the cavern and I lengthened my stride to catch up with her.
"Debby, what the hell are you doing here?" I asked her. "I thought you were involved in that mess in North Dakota."
"No, I came with the reclaimation team. What happened in North Dakota?" She asked.
"A team clearing a site hit a bioweapon storage that was breached, casualties are pretty bad and their talking about just pouring concrete down the access shaft and sealing it up." I told her.
"I knew that shit was going to happen sooner or later." She said, her voice grim.
The slightly chubby faced Air Force woman I'd known was gone, in her place was a lean hard woman who moved furtively and who's eyes constantly darted around. Her rifle was an old M16A1 like mine, not the A2 she usually carried.
"What happened?" I asked again.
"I'll tell you when we get to where I've been hiding." She told me.
I noticed she was leading us on a meandering path, and there were prepared fighting positions. I saw extra weapons, ammunition, land mines ready for use, food, and coffee cans in each of the positions. Once she led us in the front door of a temporary building and then through a hole that had been torn in the side. A chainsaw was sitting on the ground outside the hole that she warned us not to touch.
I'd seen the wire attached to the handle.
"What the hell is all of this?" Meyers asked.
"Are they cleared to know?" Debby asked me.
"No. Just Kincaid and Donaldson." I answered.
"How long have you been down here, Ma'am?" Donaldson asked.
"You tell them who I am, Ant?" She asked. I noticed she looked angry at the thought.
"You aren't wearing rank." I reminded her. Her face softened.
"I don't know, soldier." She answered. "Forever?"
"Which team were you with?" I asked. "Before or after the engineers?"
"What engineers?" She asked.
That answered that.
She stopped suddenly in front of a small temporary building surrounded by plywood on top of pallets and turned to face my troops. I could see "RECOVERY OPERATIONS CONTROL" on a plate beside the door.
"Walk where I do." She warned. "Don't step on any other pieces of plywood or you'll kill yourself and anyone around you."
She carefully stepped on a piece and I followed her.
"You mined all of this?" Natchez asked.
"And I replaced the ones that went off three days ago." Her voice was hard.
It was a weaving pattern, and I saw she was counting to herself, keeping track of the route, and it took us a couple of minutes before we reached the door to the building. Debby reached under the edge of the door and I heard a switch click.
"Welcome to my humble abode." Debby said, opening the door and stepping up and inside.
Inside was divided into four rooms. The doorways were open, the doors missing. A cot and a small table with a single chair was in the middle of the main room we'd walked into. There were FM's, TM's, notebooks, and what looked like a map on the table. There was a the lower part of a porta-john along with several empty white plastic bottles and some bottles full of blue liquid in one room off to the side. I could see some 5-gallon steel gas cans and the edge of a generator through the same door. The other had stacks of MRE boxes and OD green 5-gallon cans with "POTABLE" stenciled on them visible. The doorway on the left showed me a security station setup with cables strung along the floor, a chair, and some computers.
Sandbags covered the walls, all the way to the ceiling, droplights were strung up, rifles were by each firing slit, all that was visible of the windows, plywood was nailed to the ceiling, and black trash bags were in front of the back door. A steel plate with a handle on it was off to the side of the far wall, and a welder sat nearby. I saw four cardboard boxes, one marked "Medium/Small Tops", one marked "Medium/Small Bottoms", one marked "BRASSERIES, ASST." and the last marked "PANTIES, ASST." I knew where she'd gotten her clothes from now.
"Been busy, Deb?" I asked, looking around.
"Might say that, Ant." She said. "It isn't much, but it's home."
"How many times have they come at you?" Kincaid asked, walking around and peering out of the firing slits.
"At least twice a day until about two days ago." She said.
"About when we got here." Donaldson said. "Mind if we sit?"
"Mi casa es su casa." She waved her hand at the room. "Relax, gentlemen."
"Natchez, Meyers, Wilkins, Shads, pick a firing slot and keep your eyes out." I ordered. "Let's not get overconfident."
"The mines will warn us first." Debby told me.
"Like the one in the hallway?" Meyers voice sounded a little nasty.
"Don't make me smack you, Meyers." Kincaid said.
"You didn't lose anyone, did you?" Debby looked suddenly worried.
"No, everyone's fine." I told her. I waved her over to the room where the food and water was. Meyers was in there.
"If you sit on the toilet, you can see out the firing slit." Debby told him. He opened his mouth and I raised my hand.
"Confidential discussion, you aren't cleared." I growled at him, frowning.
He left.
"God, Ant, I couldn't believe it when I saw you sitting there with those other two in the Living Quarters." She told me. I sat down on a stack of MRE boxes and she sat next to me. "I'd just finished patching my cludged together system into the main system and was checking the cameras, looking for those things, when I saw you sitting there."
"We thought you were the CIA assholes we had with us." I told her.
"Had?"
"We had a... falling out. So that was you in the Civilian Operations Center?"
"Yeah, I left behind my Walkman." She glared at me suddenly. "Did you steal my tape?"
"Yeah, sorry about that." She smiled and leaned against me. I put an arm around her. "What happened, Deb?"
"Fuck, Ant, it was all normal at first, you know? A normal sweep." She shuddered against me. "We had a double strength reclaimation team, my guys and the Army guys, plus a couple of Army Corps of Engineers surveyors.
"We managed to access the site, and moved in, checking the areas. I'd found a map in the hallway, and we'd cut through the living areas to get at Operations quicker, and that's when shit got weird."
I felt goosebumps rise on my skin. "Weird, how?"
"The guy in charge of the Army side saw that big picture of the building, the one with some guy named Tandy..."
"What?" Everyone turned to look at me, and I realized I'd spoken a lot more harshly than I'd meant.
"There's this big picture of a Lima site in the hallway. There was a guy I was told is named Tandy standing out front of it." She told me. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Go on." I lied.
"Anyway, Lieutenant Colonel Bishop got kind of freaked out."
"Black guy, buff, southern accent, smokes Kools after tearing off the filter?" I asked.
"That's him. You know him?" Deb asked me.
"Yeah." Deb kind of stiffened for a second, then relaxed. "He was my first CO."
"Anyway, over the next couple days Colonel Bishop got kind of weird. He called me Stokes a few times. Some of our crew told me they saw him standing in front of that big picture just staring at it." She shivered again. "On the sixth day, when we'd finally managed to unlock the sites security on the elevators and found out about this place, we got attacked."
She sobbed, and I hugged her tight.
"Ant, they killed three of my people, including LT Rolands, remember her?"
I nodded. She'd been an Air Force technician, specializing in computer security. A cute little bubbly blonde woman with a fat ugly girlfriend that she'd call when she had the chance.
"One of them bit her fucking throat out while four others held her down, chewing on her. She was screaming at me to save her right until that happened." Her sobs got stronger and I hugged her tighter. "She was only 24 years old."
"That's when everything went to hell?" I asked when her sobs died down.
"Kind of. We got the motorpool, but the system had locked us in here." I nodded, it had done the same thing to us. "But Colonel Bishop had a plan."
"He's smart like that." I said.
"Well, a small group of us went for one of the secondary access tunnels. Colonel Bishop, two of his guys, Tech Sergeant Blanchard, and me." She shuddered again. "One of Bishop's guys got killed on the third level, took what looked like a little arrow through the eye."
"Crossbow bolt." I told her. She nodded.
I could see Kincaid and Donaldson standing by the door, leaning slightly inward.
"We blew open the access point and Sergeant Blanchard started setting up the satellite radio." She shivered again. "It was dark and snowing, we were in the trees, and Bishop was really agitated. He told his guy, Sergeant Richardson I think, to check the perimeter and the guy went into the bushes."
My balls tightened. Richardson.
...I thought I'd never PCS from this shithole, Ant...
...Good luck at Fort Lewis, Richardson...
...Only a couple of us First Twenty left, Ant. Don't worry, you'll PCS soon, and this place will be nothing but a shitty memory and stories to tell at the NCO Club...
"A couple minutes later, while Blanchard was trying to align the dish, we heard Bishop's guy start screaming." She shivered and pressed close. "He sounded like poor Rolands did when they were biting her, and Bishop went into the woods with his rifle, yelling for him."
She looked at me, her face shiny where the tears had made clean streaks on her face.
"You have to believe me. The next part sounds crazy, but I'm not lying. I didn't imagine it." She shuddered and more tears came from her eyes. "I'm not mistaken, I see it every time I try to sleep."
"Tell me, Debs."
"I heard Bishop or the other guy fire his rifle, then there was silence. It was snowing, it was dark, but the light from the access tunnel provided enough light for me to see everything." She shook her head. "You're not going to believe me, Ant."
"Trust me, Debs, you'd be surprised what I'm willing to believe."
She was silent for a moment, and I was aware that none of the other soldiers were saying a word.
"Bishop came out of the trees, walking all stiff, I thought maybe he was hurt and he didn't have his weapon. He was walking toward us when Blanchard finally got tone. I was looking right at Blanchard when Bishop just reached out killed him." She looked sick for a second. "He just grabbed Blanchard's head with one hand, reached in Blanchard's mouth and grabbed the bottom of his jaw with the other hand, and... and..."
"Tore his jaw off." I finished.
Deb sobbed against me for a moment.
"You ran." I said.
"Fuck you, Ant." She pushed at me, but I pulled her back in. "You don't know what I saw, Ant, it was horrible, he just stared at me while he grabbed Blanchard's tongue and started pulling it out. Blanchard was making these horrible gobbling noises. Such horrible noises..."
I held her while she cried.
...Deep, sunken eyes, nothing but black pits full of hatred and dark mirth. Gaping open jaws, full of broken and jagged teeth that were too long for the mouth. White skin, with the edges of the mouth pulled up in a horrific grin.
Grimy, dirty, tattered BDU's, covered with frozen mud and a rind of frost.
A hand held in front of my face, at the end of a too long arm, the wrist and forearm protruding from a ragged torn BDU sleeve. The fingers were blackened, long, and twisted, with the fingerbones thrust through the blackened flesh...
"It's OK, Debs." I told her, holding her close. "It'll be OK."
"No, it won't." Deb sobbed. "You don't understand."
"What?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"He's in here too. He followed me in here and helped those things kill the rest of the team." My balls shrunk and my head started to pound. "I've even seen Bishop kill those things. He grabs them from out of the darkness and drags them away."
"We'll get out of here, Debs, you watch." I told her.
"No, we're all going to die in here." Deb sobbed, holding tight to me. "You don't understand." She shuddered and shivered in my arms. "A week ago there was four of us left."
"Bishop took Tech Sergeant Wreath last night."
She started crying again.
"I could hear Wreath screaming for hours." Debs wailed.
"Sergeant Ant, the lights all just went out!" Shads yelled, the loudest I'd heard him.
An icicle slid into my shoulder.
A bubbling chuckle floated through the air and Debs went still like a rabbit with a hawk swooping down on it.
"Oh, God, he's back." Air Force Colonel Debra Killain whispered.