Legacy of the Fallen
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, this is Bravo, do you copy?”
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, this is Bravo, are you there?”
“Bra… …s is Al…a. Target …n sight. Position thr…two… … …st street.”
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, your signal is weak, repeat position, over.”
The radio was dead for several minutes afterwards, nothing but static coming through the headphones as Harold strained his ears listening. The volume was turned up as high as he could bear as the dedicated operator waited impatiently for a response.
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, what is your position? What is your status?”
“S…n…de Apartment B…lding, f…th floor, eight…n thirty-se…n East River,” the broken words came back over the radio, hurried and unfinished, “Requ…t backup, three m… down…” The words cut off as shouting and machine gun fire replaced them, several short bursts by two guns nearby, and a third, long spray, by another further away, which cut off long before the other two did.
“John!” Harold shouted into the mic, pounding his fists upon the panel in front of him, “John! What’s going on, John!?”
“Damnit, get us over there!” the dispatcher shouted, pulling his headphones down around his neck and leaning in his chair towards the front of the van. The driver simply shrugged in response, being en route to the address already, or at least to as near as they could get by way of the street. The radio transmission was simply confirmation that the team was still nearby their van, and that was easily enough located by the transmitter in the rear. As the van turned another corner sharply, the other four men in back simply clung tighter to the handles which kept them in their seats with one hand, and hugged their rifles tighter to their chests with the other.
“Four men down!” the transmission picked up again, “Get …ckup here n…w!” The signal cut off again suddenly with the sound of gunfire starting up in the background once more, and this time it stayed dead.
The rest of the trip was made in uncomfortable silence, being broken only by the sounds of the four members of Bravo in back shifting in their heavy Kevlar body armor when the van turned, and the repeated, almost rhythmic burst of static from the receiver as Harold asked for a response from the Alpha team.
“Two turns,” the driver called back over his shoulder as he spun the wheel to his left and sent the rest of the crew reeling and clinging to their seats, “…one turn.”
Snaps and clicks filled the rear of the van as the four well armed individuals secured their equipment, checking magazines and tightening buckles. Each pulled back the action on their weapon and readied it to fire at a moment’s notice; even Harold himself checked to see that his sidearm was loaded and ready. The van made one final turn, then began to slow.
“What the…?” the driver muttered from the cab, leaning forwards over the wheel to stare out the window into the night. The other men each turned to look, but were greeted, instead, by a shower of glass shards which flew through the small opening between the cab and the rear where they all sat. The shards changed course suddenly in the air as the van veered and skidded to a short halt, sending the sharp fragments hurtling towards the right wall where three of the four combat ready soldiers sat loosely in their seats.
Three men slumped against the bent and torn divider that separated the driver’s area from the open space in the rear which they took up, and two more clung tenaciously to their seats as the vehicle finally came to a stop, and the screeching of the tires died down enough for them to notice another screeching; the pained screams of one of the men, the one who had been in the middle on the right side.
“Thomas!” Jessie shouted from the corner, sliding away from the wall slightly and pulling his mask off. A large cut on his right cheek, from a shard of glass which had torn the fabric of the mask, oozed and bled down the side of his face, sending a trickle following the line of his jaw and, in the end, dripping from his chin onto the floor. This was nothing compared to the other man, though… Thomas couldn’t even speak, all he could do was cry out in pain and hold his quivering hands tentatively a few inches from his own face.
“Oh… god…” was all that Jessie could say, though it was more than the rest of them managed; the van was filled with grunts and moans, dry heaves came from Jason as he pulled his own mask back to try and vomit in the corner. Thomas had two cuts on the right side of his face; the first severing his cheek from the corner of his mouth to the joint at the back of the jaw, and the second just above the brow, superficial, but still bleeding enough that a pool of blood had formed in the hollow of Thomas’ right eye. Another shard had wedged itself under his left ear, catching in the fabric of the mask and holding fast; with each new scream of pain that Thomas let out, it cut deeper, like a knife blade pressed against his writhing body, leaving a fresh slice with each movement that he made. And the worst of them all was a large piece, which protruded from the base of his neck, cutting in where the neck met the shoulder and just barely missing the artery. It was so soaked with blood, both from the wound it had inflicted and from where it had cut into Jessie’s fingers when he had tried to remove it before seeing how deep it had gone in, and with the flickering electric light that had been shaken from it’s socket in the corner, a red hue danced upon the floor of the van, almost as if the shard was a prism refracting the light.
Another shout from Thomas as he kicked out against the wall of the van was enough to snap them out of their short daze and take action.
“We need to get out of here…” Jason said as he rushed out from the corner and kicked open the rear double doors of the van, revealing the street outside at the wrong angle than it should have been if the van had still been entirely upright. “We need to get out of here and help Alpha team. We’re sitting ducks in here and whatever it was that happened to us happened worse to them. They’re down to two men… at most…”
“And we leave Thomas here?” Jessie snapped back, “He needs a medic, fast!”
“Damnit, Jessie,” Jason shouted, “the medic’s dead! Just…” He cut off, and instead whipped out the butt of his rifle to the point at the floor beside Jessie, where blood was beginning to leak from the part of the cab that hadn’t been crushed. “…look at the BLOOD, damnit! We can call in another medic!”
“…no…” Harold answered, swiveling his chair around from the dead console that he sat in front of, “…the crash smashed the antenna and the transmitter’s out.”
Jason took another step backwards towards the doors at the back, waving his rifle in the air again and pulling his mask back down to cover his face and neck.
“Well, that’s just ******** perfect, isn’t it, Harry? I mean, what the ******** else could go wrong tonight!? I’d really ******** like to kno-!”
Jason was cut short as his breath was stolen from him and he was lifted, in a fraction of a second, by a strong grip about his neck. He was out of sight before he could make more than a sound, pulled right out from inside the van and into the night. A moment later it was apparent where he had gone to as a five foot long dent imprinted itself upon the van roof and the dark streets echoed with the sound of the man’s muffled cry of pain.
“Jason!” the two uninjured men shouted as they sprung up, their weapons at the ready as they sprung out the doors and into the street, turning in midair to face the van again and pointing their weapons towards the roof… though nothing was there; not even Jason. In the faint light that the streetlamps shed upon the buildings surrounding them, only one moving thing existed; the sight of Jason’s lifeless body being pulled into the building through a fifth story window. It was gone a moment later, and no sign of his assailant was left behind.
A cluster of bullets hit the wall around the window where Jason had just disappeared, though they accomplished nothing without a target to shoot at, Richard was simply firing blind.
From outside the van, it was apparent what had happened to make them crash, however; they had collided with the Alpha team’s van, which had been parked in front of the building… though ‘collided’ wouldn’t seem to be the appropriate word, since from the way that the second vehicle seemed to be on top of theirs, it seemed almost like the van had been dropped onto their own as they pulled up.
“Jesus ******** Christ…” Harold muttered to himself as he, again, checked to ensure that there was a bullet in the chamber of his pistol before he rushed around the left side of the van to check on the state of the driver. Through the cracked window and crushed frame of the vehicle, the condition that Jason had assumed he was in seemed to be mostly correct, from what Harold could make out, with one minor detail… their medic was unmistakably dead…
Sliding himself out from under Thomas’ bleeding body and propping the injured man, instead, against the wall, Jessie reached for the medical kit which had broken open on the floor and pulled a roll of bandages from their plastic packaging, then grabbed a bottle of painkillers and crawled back over to where Thomas lie.
“What’s going on out there?” Jessie called over his shoulder as he hesitantly pulled at the torn fabric of Thomas’ mask, pulling the entangled shard of glass away from the bleeding man’s neck as he tugged at the garment. The mask cut open a bit more as the sharp glass tugged against it, and came free without much resistance, allowing the blood-soaked mask to freely slide off from Thomas’ head.
Richard stepped back around the back of the van for a moment, keeping his gun trained upon the building beside them where his comrade had just vanished. Standing at the corner of the bumper, he looked into the back of the van towards the two blood-covered Hunters quickly before turning his attention back towards the shadowed windows of the building. “Oh, nothing much, really… Jason’s dead, ********!” Jessie shouted, his breath coming in quick, panicked gasps, and his fingers poised at the sides of the single large shard which sprouted from the base of Thomas’ neck; slipping a bit as the blood lubricated it against his grip, and not certainly not wanting the death of another comrade to weigh on his already tense nerves. “…what happened?”
“I’d be glad to tell you… if we could find him…”
“…oh, Jesus…” Jessie slumped down a bit, taking his twitching fingers away from the glass for a moment and dropping both hands to his lap, where he set to work removing his bloody gloves, “…you’re sure?”
“…yeah…” Richard replied, using his left hand to turn a small knob on the side of his headgear to close the visor off to visible light and instead switch it into nightvision mode in hopes of catching some movement in the darkness, “…very dead…”
The shadows of the building held no secrets, however, the windows sat still and the nooks were just as bare as the crannies… The only movement was from the swaying of the boughs of a small maple tree planted beside the steps. It seemed almost eerie that eight men could die here, yet either their bodies or any sign of their killer could be found… Richard looked from the ground to the rooftop, scanning past the corners of the building and along the edge of it, making sure that there was nothing on the roof of the building, since the windows seemed to be clear for now…
“Jesus ********!” he shouted suddenly, firing a spray of bullets at one of the corners of the roof and hearing them burry themselves into the bricks in answer. He caught his balance a split second later and aimed to fire again, though there was nothing to shoot at anymore; what he had seen, whatever it had been, that inhuman form, it was gone now…
A sudden solid form behind him made Richard jerk, reaching down to his side as he turned and pulling a knife free from the side of his belt, swinging it around blindly at whatever it was that had snuck up behind him. His arm was caught at the elbow and held back, however, and Richard found himself staring eye to eye with Harold.
“Richard! What the hell is wrong with you!?”
It took a moment for Richard to realize just what had happened, and another to lower his weapon away from the radio operator and return it to where it belonged. His head jerked back to the right quickly, looking again to the shadows of the rooftop, then glancing over the windows once more as he swept the barrel of his rifle along with his vision.
“…I saw something on the roof, probably what got Jason…” the words came out muffled, both from the effect of the mask upon his speech and from his own inability to admit when he had made a mistake…
“Well congratulations, you saw something… Great work there.”
“LADIES!” Jessie shouted between them as he leaned out the back of the van into the street, his hands pressed against the door jam on the roof of the van as streaks of Thomas’ blood ran down the underside of his bare forearms, “…I think we’d better get ******** moving and find us a goddamn radio so we can get the hell OUT OF HERE!”
“One problem…” Harold replied at almost a whisper as he pushed past Jessie and stepped up into the van, “…the radio in here is busted up from the crash, and I doubt Alpha team’s radio is in much better condition considering it was THEIR VAN that just hit us…”
“Look,” he added after a short pause, “there’s only one radio left and that’s the portable one that John had… Do you want to go in there and get it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do…” Jessie snapped back, brandishing a bloodied fist at the radio operator as he pointed out to the dark city streets around them. “I think getting a chopper in here is a damn better idea than trying to get out of town on foot, especially with Thomas in the condition he is. I don’t know if you checked the demographics of this damned city, but I’d be willing to put money on the fact that four guys in Hunter uniforms running through town is going end pretty damn badly!”
“Okay, fine… that makes the choice pretty damn easy,” Richard added in, still unwilling to lower his rifle from the rooftops as he continued to glance nervously around, “Somebody runs in there an’ grabs the thing, then we get the hell out of here with it and call in the artillery, right? Sounds like a damn good plan to me.”
“Sounds like absolute s**t, d**k…” Jessie walked to the back of the van and helped Thomas to his feet. The man now had bandages around his neck and shoulder that would make it seem as if he was in a neck brace, and all of them seemed to be soaked through with blood; though from the look of things the injury wasn’t getting much worse. “You go out there alone and you’re going to end up the same way that Jason did!”
“Then WHAT!? We go in and split up to search, then the same thing that happened to Jason happens to us? No way, buddy, I’m staying out here where it’s safe!”
“If it was safe out here then how the ******** did Jason get killed? MAGIC!?” Jessie screamed back at him, having to stop suddenly as Thomas nearly toppled and concentrate on supporting the wounded man. “…damnit, it’s not like we don’t know where the damn thing is! Harold, what ******** floor was Alpha team on?”
“…the fifth…” Harold said after a moment of hesitation.
“There you go, we only have to search one-“
“…it might have been the fourth…”
“…damnit, Harold! Which was it? The fifth or the fourth!?”
“The signal was bad, I got a lot of static and it screwed up reception.”
“Oh, now this is ******** great, isn’t it?” Richard snapped back to both of them, turning off the nightvision long enough to get a clear view of each of them in the flickering lights of the van. “And we’re taking the gimp with us, I’d suppose?”
“…yes…” the voice was soft, quiet, and sounded like it was trying to speak through a straw; Thomas had managed to get out a word past the bandages wrapped tightly about his neck and throat, his torn right cheek leaking another red splotch into the bandages that covered it when he moved his mouth. “…let’s… go… radio…”
“Jesus ********, he can barely talk!” Richard stepped away from the back of the van and adjusted his visor back to filter out the visible light around them and limit his vision to what the visor could pick up in nightvision mode. He took one step around the right side of the van, towards the entrance of the building, which stood about thirty feet away across a small courtyard. “…I’m not going back to save his a** if he falls behind…”
“…I… shoot…” Thomas attempted to respond, though the words were barely recognizable beyond the gurgling noises that emanated from his throat as the blood seeped down it once more. His intent was clear enough, though, as his right hand slid towards the sidearm at his hip, even if most of his weight was supported by Jessie’s body beneath his left.
“If we leave him here, whatever took Jason might come back for him,” Jessie added, pausing just long enough behind Richard’s lead towards the doorway to unholster his own sidearm and pass it to his left hand, before his right wrapped itself back about Thomas’ waist to help support the injured man, “…and we’re not losing another man tonight.”
“God DAMNIT, Jessie!”
“Quiet!” Harold snapped in a hushed tone, finally taking the initiative to step ahead of Richard and quickly close the rest of the distance towards the main floor entrance to the building, “No more arguing! Either of you! Do you want to set the entire neighborhood on us? Now cut it!”
The dispatcher’s outburst silenced the bickering immediately, both men obeying the order, as, with Alpha team missing, presumed dead, and Jason having been taken, Harold was the senior officer among them… though it also helped that neither of the two truly wished to draw any undue attention to themselves. The hostility between them quickly turned to the fear that it had been hiding as they reached the dark entryway to that tomb the four men were about to enter.
“Richard,” Harold said at almost a whisper as he adjusted his visor to display a layered mix of nightvision and thermal imagery, “take point, head for the stairs… I don’t want us pinned down in the elevator if something happens.”
Richard’s acknowledgement was little more than a grunt as his hands wrapped tightly about the grip of his rifle; the knuckles whitening beneath the thick black gloves of his 3rd Class Hunter standard issue gear. In truth, all of them were terrified of what might await them inside… but they had all resigned themselves to this task. It was quite literally ‘do or die’.
The lobby of the apartment building was nothing out of the ordinary, not even a bullet hole marked the peeling wallpaper, though the front desk seemed as if it had been rifled through; probably Alpha team’s doing, searching for the master key set. Other than that, however, the place seemed almost dead… it was eerily silent, not a thing moved and not a thing in the place made a noise other than the rustle of their own feet across the floorboards as they moved towards the left hallway. Two closed room doors and another that read ‘Basement and Boiler’ passed the four men before they reached the stretch of hallway leading towards the back of the building… and the first signs of Alpha ******** Christ,” Richard choked as he saw the hallway, and two similar expletives left the mouths of his able-bodied companions as they closed in immediately after.
The walls were bleeding.
It wasn’t a small amount of blood, it could hardly even be described as an amount… the walls themselves were covered in streaks, droplets still running downwards from each of them and over the molding to pool in the cracks of the floorboards throughout the entire hallway. Wide, wet streaks of blood, painted over the light yellow latticework wallpaper that had lined the hallway before. It was almost as if the skin of a body had been torn off and the bleeding corpse was dragged across the wall… and there was no mistake to any of the surviving members of Bravo team where this blood had come from.
Thomas was the lucky one amongst them; his head was too bandaged for him to wear his visor, and the thick smell of his own blood already clogging his nostrils so that the rotting stench that filled this hallway made no difference to him. Though even in his daze, the sudden tightening of Jessie’s stiff grip against his side was enough to panic him.
“…gun!?” Thomas moaned as his arm raised halfway, pointing the end of his pistol at the walls down the hallway, unsure of what the cause for their alarm was, but not wanting to simply be the dead weight for the team that Richard has accused him of being. However, a few quick words from Jessie calmed him enough to lower his weapon, and a quick reminder placed his concentration back upon keeping his own labored breathing steady.
The rest of Bravo team swallowed their own thoughts and pressed on… the sight was certainly discomforting, but they had experienced horrific scenes like this before. The team was composed of 3rd Class Hunters, which meant that they had all proven themselves capable of handling tough situations. However… as they continued down the blood-smeared hallway with not a sound other than their own footsteps and no sign at all of the bodies of the seven men that had vanished into this building… there was little training that could have prepared them for the dark feeling that overshadowed their training and their courage: They were going to die. Eight of their peers were now dead at the hands of a single creature that they had tracked for days across this city; following a trail of blood and broken bodies.
“Richard?”
Richard had moved ahead of the others, now several meters in front, with the muzzle of his rifle aimed towards a broken doorway near the end of the hall. Only half of the door was still hanging on the hinges, the other half lie upon the floor at Richard’s feet; covered in blood and with torn strips of black fabric clinging to every crack and sliver on the thing. He didn’t move when addressed, nor did he answer, though his hand did tighten upon the handle of his weapon as he inched forwards to the opening.
“Richard!” Harold repeated as he drew near to the open doorway, holding his own weapon ready to fire at anything that might come through the opening, “…Richard! What’s wrong…?”
The man’s answer came in a low tone, as the barrel of his weapon lowered to point into the black abyss below; down, into the bottom of the stairwell, where the crumbled and shattered remains of the stairs rested in a heap.
“The stairs are out… we have to take the elevator…”
“Please tell me that works and we don’t have to climb the side of the building,” Jessie groaned, finally sidling along the hallway wall with his and Thomas’ backs against it defensively.
Harold took a step back as the two approached, moving away from the black abyss of the stairwell while Richard remained, pointing his gun at nothing but his own fears. With a hesitant movement, the dispatcher turned and pressed the tip of his gun against the call button beside the elevator, though the device did not respond at all, and the cage, which sealed off the shaft from the hallway, made no signs of opening.
“God damni-” Jessie began, before being abruptly cut off by Richard.
“It’s already on the first floor,” he said, turning slightly to face the three others, though keeping the barrel of his weapon trained upon the doorway beside him, “…waiting for us.”
“…we have to go up…” Harold said softly, more intent on reassuring himself than his companions.
“Can you stand…?” Jessie asked Thomas, helping the bandaged man lean back against the wall. His answer was a grunt and the attempt at a nod which only served to wetten the bandages once more.
“Harold,” Jessie said as he gripped onto the cage in front of the elevator and began to push it aside; a quick jerk only moving it a few inches, “come help me with this.”
With the both of them pushing, there was little resistance put up by the cage as it slid out of the way with a sudden screech of rusted metal… followed by a sudden burst of gunfire from behind.
Richard’s rifle discharged into the floor near the top of the stairs, the doorframe, and the base of the stairwell in the basement below, though there was no sign of the man, himself, anymore. As soon as the firing stopped, Richard’s rifle dropped past the doorframe, crashing into the pile of debris below. The walls shook, again and again, as if the building were being shaken apart, dust shook free from every crevice and every corner, the pictures that had been hanging in the lobby fell from their supports, and the elevator groaned as it shifted in the shaft.
“Christ! Richard!” Jessie shouted, rushing forwards and raising his rifle up to point up the stairwell above them as he reached the doorway. The discolored forms of stairway debris clogging the upper levels of the stairwell obstructed the view to the top, but there was an unmistakable flurry of movement for a few moments near the fifth floor…
Jessie’s vision suddenly blacked out as something hit him; something warm, wet, that rained down from upwards in the stairwell on top of him. It covered his visor and blinded him in an instant, drenched his mask and the shoulders of his uniform, and slickened his rifle so that it nearly slipped from Jessie’s grip… though it was unmistakable for what it ********-” Harold stammered as he fell backwards into the elevator, nearly toppling Thomas over as he struck the floor of it and shook the ancient contraption with his weight.
“RICHARD!” Jessie dropped his weapon, letting it fall to his side and catch on the shoulder-strap; quickly wiping the back of his sleeve across the face of his visor, then tearing the thing from his head and throwing it down into the base of the stairwell when it only seemed to smear the blood around more, “RICHARD!”
“JESSIE!”
Harold was standing at the edge of the elevator, screaming towards Jessie, who was still staring blindly up the empty stairwell and into the darkness, which he could no longer see through now that his visor was at the bottom.
“Get on the damn elevator, Jessie!” Harold shouted at Jessie, holding tightly onto his own pistol as his gaze quickly moved between the stairwell door, Jessie, and the buttons on the side of the elevator, “You can’t see a damn thing out there, now get inside before we lose you, too!”
“It ******** took Richard!”
“It’ll ******** take you!”
“…on… ‘vator…”
Thomas’ interruption was almost unheard amidst the two men’s shouting, as silent as it was. He barely had the strength to stand anymore, and the volume of a whisper was the most that he could muster with his punctured neck… however, it was more than enough to stop the bickering and draw Jessie back to reality.
“I… Thomas… I’m sorry, it… just… Richard…” Jessie stammered, wiping with the back of his sleeve again across his forehead in an attempt to clear away Richard’s blood, only to find that, like the visor, all it did was spread it around. “…let’s go.”
Thomas was already there, waiting to press the button when Jessie stepped onto the ancient elevator. Harold didn’t even bother to shut the door when the motor started up and the rusted wheels that turned the cable began screeching and struggling on the roof above them. The elevator, itself, seemed stable enough, despite the protesting noises.
As they passed the second floor, going upwards, Jessie began to mumble to himself… carrying on over and over about how Richard had been right… about how they should never have come in… Harold, however, had other concerns, as each floor that they passed had a cage more mangled than the last… the bars were twisted and bent, the hinges turned sideways so that they would never work… If this continued they would never be able to get off of the elevator…
“Thomas…” Harold asked, breaking the monotony of Jessie’s ‘meaningful reflection’, “…what floor did you press?”
“Five…” the injured soldier muttered from beneath his layers of bandages.
“…stop it at four…” the dispatcher replied, his voice very flat and monotone as he said it, “…Richard was right… we are being herded.”
The fourth floor came into view on the side of the shaft, and, as expected, the gate was mangled just as badly as all the others. They never would have been able to open it without cutting gear, so, naturally, they were expected to continue on to the fifth floor… where the gate would undoubtedly be open already.
With a shudder and a screeching of wheels grating against steel, the elevator came to a stop in front of the fourth floor cage, and the two able-bodied men moved towards the back.
“One…”
It was clear enough what they were trying to accomplish. If the both of them slammed against the cage, with how poorly this building seemed to be holding together, it might give, and collapse into the hallway.
“Two…”
Both of the men readied themselves, Jessie pushing his weapon behind his back to hang on the shoulder-strap, and Harold sliding his pistol into the holster at his side.
“Three!”
The elevator shook suddenly, screaming out as the steel edges grinded against the shaft and the brakes which held it in place were wrenched from their positions and dragged along the edges of the elevator shaft with a spray of metallic sparks. The two men that had launched themselves at the cage did, indeed, knock it open; though now they were hanging half in, half out of the elevator as the contraption slid upwards along the elevator shaft and towards the fifth floor.
Thomas, who had fallen to the ground when the elevator shook, grabbed onto the back of Harold’s belt and pulled back on him… and Harold, who was lying beside Jessie on the floor of the hallway outside the elevator on the fourth floor, grabbed a hold onto the straps of Jessie’s body armor.
Jessie, however, seemed to have different ideas about how to cope with the situation. He made no moves to pull himself back into the elevator, though Harold was doing a fine job of dragging his lazy a** in on his own. Jessie, instead, pulled the rifle from his back and aimed it towards the top of the elevator.
“This is for Richard you b*****d!” he screamed as he pulled back upon the trigger and sent a spray of bullets into the top of the elevator, which would have easily pierced through it and continued up the shaft towards whatever it was that was manipulating their ascent… though the elevator showed no signs of slowing. “You won’t get another one of us you c**k-sucking piece of-!”
Jessie cut off short as the elevator reached the top of the fourth floor, with half of his left leg still hanging out of the elevator. The sound of it being caught between the fourth floor ceiling and the elevator edge was sickening; the shriek of pain that came from the enraged man rolling upon the floor, the snapping bone that tore through the flesh and the fabric of his uniform when the leg and the elevator were pulled in separate directions along the length of the elevator shaft, and the unending string of curses that followed as Jessie’s knuckles whitened under his gloves when his hand gripped down so hard upon the trigger of his rifle that it nearly snapped off.
“Jessie!” Harold shouted, falling backwards at the moment that Jessie began firing, and falling onto Thomas, who had still been pulling upon him. Jessie had lost it, even when the clip ran out he did nothing but wave the rifle in the air shouting curses at whatever force it was that was manipulating them like rats in a maze. “Thomas!” Harold shouted again, rolling off of the wounded man and trying to steady himself on two feet long enough to help Thomas with the same.
The elevator was still rising, slowly but surely, grating along the shaft with the brakes being the only thing keeping the little box from flying straight up through the roof. The fifth floor came into view past the top of the elevator, and, herded there or not, this was the stop they would be taking.
“Thomas, get off here!” Harold shouted over the metallic screech of the elevator brakes; taking the injured man by the hand and helping him to his feet… then helping him to move towards the elevator door and to climb over the small hump that still remained before the fifth floor came toe-to-toe with the elevator.
Harold followed after, falling into the hallway beside his companion, before rolling onto his back and calling for Jessie to drop the charade and jump off as well.
“Die! Die you murderous b*****d!” Jessie screamed at the top of his lungs as he continued trying to fire the empty weapon upwards through the ceiling of the elevator… and this was how it was, with him oblivious to the cries of Harold and the continued rising of the elevator, until it vanished, again, past the ceiling; moving a few feet higher before stopping, as it had reached the absolute top of the shaft…
“…hehehe…” the sound of Jessie’s hysterical laughter echoed down the elevator shaft… not stopping even as the building shook once again and the sounds of the elevator frame bending out of shape became clearly evident. “…you… hehe… I’ve been looking for you… You killed Jason… you killed Richard… you killed Jessie, hehe!”
“Jessie, damnit, RUN!” Harold began, screaming bloody murder at the man who had lost himself under the stress… though he stopped quickly and sat in silence as a voice he had never heard before answered Jessie’s own…
“Creatures such as you should not speak when in the presence of god…”
“G… god?” Harold muttered to himself, unsure of what to think now… his mind raced, and he remembered that the mission file had stated that the subject saw the human race as inferior… but to address itself as god?
“God…” Jessie answered, “…it has a nice ring to it… I want to be god, too…”
A moment later the elevator floor gave way, buckling and tearing apart as it was punched through by a mass of machinery that fell quickly down the shaft below and into the darkness. The machinery was the ripped up remains of the elevator motor that had been on the roof of the building, and behind it trailed the steel cable that moved the elevator itself… tangled within this cord, Jessie also fell, the steel cable wrapped thrice about his neck as he fell into the darkness below the elevator.
The slack ended, the motor pulled tight upon the other end of the cable before breaking off and crashing into the bottom of the shaft on the basement level, and it was the echoes of that crash that covered the sound of the two wet thuds that quickly followed.
And then there were two.
“Damnit, Jessie!” Harold screamed, pounding his fist upon the floor beneath him as he peered over the edge and into the elevator shaft. “Damnit!”
Alpha team was gone… Bravo team was gone… all that remained was a dying soldier and a dispatcher from the van. Jessie had been there only real hope once the creature took Richard… now that hope, too, was gone.
“…Har… ld…” Thomas tapped lightly on Harold’s back as he pushed himself up from the ground and onto his knees in the hallway. “…Alpha team…”
Harold looked up at Thomas’ tap, and quickly realized what was meant by it. On the radio John really had said that they were on the fifth floor… or even if he hadn’t, they were here now. The building had been empty of any of Alpha team’s bodies until this point, but, here on the fifth floor, it was clear why.
Eight men, broken, bleeding, some even torn to pieces and put back together, hung from the walls, decorating the hallway in bloody splendor. One upon each door along the hallway… not lying beside, or leaning against… these men were crucified; hung by stakes, spikes, and many other sharp objects that had been pierced through their bodies to affix them onto the doors on the fifth floor. Each one with a stream of blood staining the doors and the floors beneath them, covering the hallway in a crimson carpet that covered almost every inch… even now spilling over the edge with a constant drip down the elevator shaft.
Harold felt like he was about to vomit in his mask… Thomas already had, and the bile stung fiercely at the open wounds covering the side of his face and his neck.
“…what…” Harold stammered, quickly pushing himself up from the ground when he realized what it was that he had been lying in, “…what would have…?”
“…radio?” Thomas choked out, doubled over, spitting bile and blood onto the floor beside the feet of Peter, Alpha team’s medic.
Harold nodded solemnly… that was why they had come here, after all… They needed that radio to call in an evac team. Though there was hardly anything to evacuate now. John was at the end of the hallway… though he was only recognizable now due to the badges on his uniform, and the fact that he was still wearing the portable radio on his back.
Leaving Thomas behind, Harold moved towards John’s body, trying not to look at the faces of those that he passed as he walked… closing his eyes as he passed the crucified corpses of Jason and Richard, who were pinned against rooms 504 and 503… Their limbs bent in unnatural ways, their faces so covered with their own blood that they were hardly even recognizable, and Richard, whose throat was missing, had his head hanging down at a horrifying angle.
“Jason… Richard…” Harold whispered as he stepped past them, “…I’m sorry.”
John’s body seemed to be in the best shape of all of them… despite the wounds left by the objects impaling him, there was little damage that showed. John had been a long-time friend of Harold’s, and despite the situation that they were in, Harold managed to hold a smile at the thought that John must have died quickly and without much pain.
“I’m sorry to do this, John… but I need your radio,” he said to the corpse, reaching up and pulling a broken chair leg from the man’s right shoulder; beginning the process of taking the man down so that he could get to the radio. A twisted iron bar came out next, from just below the rib cage, and then another short iron bar, which had gone through John’s left shoulder.
Removing just these three was enough for the body’s weight to overcome the rest of them, however, and the corpse upon the door doubled over as it came free, nearly splitting in half as it did. John’s uniform filled out quickly as the weight shifted, and in another moment the reason became apparent when the floor about his feet suddenly filled with the man’s organs; sliding out of his shirt as if they had simply been stacked on a shelf that had just been tipped.
“Oh, GOD!” the man shouted as he fell backwards against the wall behind him, bile shooting up and the unstoppable urge to vomit finally overtaking him.
“God…? What do you know about gods?”
A voice from down the hallway spoke to him, addressing him… it was the same voice he had heard before, atop the elevator shaft. It was the voice of that self-proclaimed god which had done all of this, which had killed all of them.
It took all of his courage for Harold to turn… he knew that when he did he would be staring death in the face… But he had to know what type of thing could do something like this without a hint of remorse in that twisted voice that had haunted him since he first heard it.
“Humans know nothing about god…” the voice continued, “…they think that their gods are merciful… they think that their gods will protect them…”
Harold pushed himself up from where he had fallen, sliding back against the wall with his eyes closed until he had reached the end of the hallway… only then did he open them to see what this monster was.
“The gods protect only the strong,” a hulking figure slammed it’s fist down, with a stake in hand, against another corpse being nailed to one of the doors… no… not a corpse, however… it was Thomas, and he was still alive.
“If humans think that they were created in the image of their god, then why would their god be merciful?” it spoke again, turning its head to the side to glance down the hallway at the cowering figure of Harold. Streaks of blood covered its body, dripping down the sides of its face and sticking the threads of blood-red hair to the skin. The blood of Alpha team soaked through the monster’s tattered clothes, and the blood of Bravo ran down the gleaming feathers of two raven-black wings which sprouted from the backs of this creature’s shoulders. “Humans show no mercy to the weak… to the inferior…”
“To slaughter the animals is the right of a superior breed…” Murdoc said with a grin as he turned away, leaving Thomas’ bleeding body pinned against the wall in a similar fashion to all of the others which lined the hallway.
“Th-… the angel of death…?” Harold stammered, trying to push himself back further from the monster that now bore down upon him with such a threatening gate, droplets of his companion’s blood shaking from its form with every step.
At that Murdoc could only laugh; a crazed laughter that chilled Harold straight to the bones to hear. Each step brought the monster closer, and with each step that evil laughter grew louder and stronger… it tortured Harold with just the thought of it, and the thought of what would become of him when that distance was finally closed.
“You could call me that…” the black angel replied, stopping to pull John’s body from the floor; lifting it with a single hand and staking it back where it had just been freed from, before the monster continued forewords again. “…the angel of death… here to show you the light… the error of your ways… Dear brother, angel of mercy…”
Harold’s hand shook terribly, so much that he could barely find the handle of his pistol which still sat in the holster by his hip. The monster may have come for his life, but he could still fight it, he could still hold out a little longer!
“You can’t take me yet!” he shouted as his hand flew up, only to be caught by that of the monster before him and twisted in its powerful grip. The creature moved with a horrific grace, its movements fast and flowing as it worked its deadly craft upon the dispatcher. In an instant the pistol Harold had pulled was on the floor at his feet, and the hand which had held it now hung limp at the end of an arm that had been crushed within the hand of this angel of death; the bones broken from the pressure of its touch and the limb twisted in ways he had thought unimaginable.
Harold would have screamed in pain, had his breath not been stolen from him first by the creature’s other hand, which plunged itself inside of him. The monster had shoved its right hand straight through Harold’s stomach, and, now, he could feel the appendage worming about inside of his body.
“Isn’t it exciting?” the bloody monster asked with his voice filled with the sound of utter glee, “…knowing that you are going to die…?”
“Your heart is racing… your pulse is pounding…” Murdoc’s hand writhed its way up through Harold’s body, pushing aside the less important organs that came in its way until it reached what it had been aiming for… the beating heart of his victim.
“Badumbadumbadumbadum…” he smiled, cracking a few of the trails of dried blood which had cached upon the sides of his face, and his hand wrapped more tightly around Harold’s heart… matching the speed and the rhythm of the heart’s beating with his own hand, “…it beats so quickly when you’re afraid… doesn’t it? …but you’re bleeding… the faster it beats the more blood you will loose…”
The pressure upon Harold’s heart increased, enough so that it could no longer beat against his hand, and could only do so when he loosened his grip to allow it… his rhythm continued along with that of Harold’s natural heartbeat, however, except for that it began to slow…
“Why don’t you calm down just a bit? Your heart is beating so quickly… badum, badum, badum, badum…”
The rhythm continued, slower still… with each beat of the heart the next came further apart, forcing it into a slower rhythm with his own hand.
“…you don’t look so well…” Murdoc said to the man with mock sympathy, “…perhaps you should take a break and rest awhile? It must be tiring for your heart to beat like that… badum… badum… badum… maybe a nice long nap is what you need… don’t you think?”
The rhythm slowed again… so slow now that it was barely enough to keep a person alive…
“Isn’t it soothing… the gentle rhythm of a heartbeat? Listen to it go… badum… badum… ba…” Harold’s arms hung limply at his sides, his head rolling backwards without restraint, his heart stopped within the grip of the angel of death.
“Oops…” the black angel said with a sigh, “…it seems I need to practice my rhythm a bit more…” His hand slipped out again, glistening with the man’s blood all the way to the elbow; and the monster hoisted one more corpse against the wall.
“…I’d love to show you my decorations when you come home… brother, dear…”
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, this is Bravo, are you there?”
“Bra… …s is Al…a. Target …n sight. Position thr…two… … …st street.”
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, your signal is weak, repeat position, over.”
The radio was dead for several minutes afterwards, nothing but static coming through the headphones as Harold strained his ears listening. The volume was turned up as high as he could bear as the dedicated operator waited impatiently for a response.
“*Ccckt…* Alpha, what is your position? What is your status?”
“S…n…de Apartment B…lding, f…th floor, eight…n thirty-se…n East River,” the broken words came back over the radio, hurried and unfinished, “Requ…t backup, three m… down…” The words cut off as shouting and machine gun fire replaced them, several short bursts by two guns nearby, and a third, long spray, by another further away, which cut off long before the other two did.
“John!” Harold shouted into the mic, pounding his fists upon the panel in front of him, “John! What’s going on, John!?”
“Damnit, get us over there!” the dispatcher shouted, pulling his headphones down around his neck and leaning in his chair towards the front of the van. The driver simply shrugged in response, being en route to the address already, or at least to as near as they could get by way of the street. The radio transmission was simply confirmation that the team was still nearby their van, and that was easily enough located by the transmitter in the rear. As the van turned another corner sharply, the other four men in back simply clung tighter to the handles which kept them in their seats with one hand, and hugged their rifles tighter to their chests with the other.
“Four men down!” the transmission picked up again, “Get …ckup here n…w!” The signal cut off again suddenly with the sound of gunfire starting up in the background once more, and this time it stayed dead.
The rest of the trip was made in uncomfortable silence, being broken only by the sounds of the four members of Bravo in back shifting in their heavy Kevlar body armor when the van turned, and the repeated, almost rhythmic burst of static from the receiver as Harold asked for a response from the Alpha team.
“Two turns,” the driver called back over his shoulder as he spun the wheel to his left and sent the rest of the crew reeling and clinging to their seats, “…one turn.”
Snaps and clicks filled the rear of the van as the four well armed individuals secured their equipment, checking magazines and tightening buckles. Each pulled back the action on their weapon and readied it to fire at a moment’s notice; even Harold himself checked to see that his sidearm was loaded and ready. The van made one final turn, then began to slow.
“What the…?” the driver muttered from the cab, leaning forwards over the wheel to stare out the window into the night. The other men each turned to look, but were greeted, instead, by a shower of glass shards which flew through the small opening between the cab and the rear where they all sat. The shards changed course suddenly in the air as the van veered and skidded to a short halt, sending the sharp fragments hurtling towards the right wall where three of the four combat ready soldiers sat loosely in their seats.
Three men slumped against the bent and torn divider that separated the driver’s area from the open space in the rear which they took up, and two more clung tenaciously to their seats as the vehicle finally came to a stop, and the screeching of the tires died down enough for them to notice another screeching; the pained screams of one of the men, the one who had been in the middle on the right side.
“Thomas!” Jessie shouted from the corner, sliding away from the wall slightly and pulling his mask off. A large cut on his right cheek, from a shard of glass which had torn the fabric of the mask, oozed and bled down the side of his face, sending a trickle following the line of his jaw and, in the end, dripping from his chin onto the floor. This was nothing compared to the other man, though… Thomas couldn’t even speak, all he could do was cry out in pain and hold his quivering hands tentatively a few inches from his own face.
“Oh… god…” was all that Jessie could say, though it was more than the rest of them managed; the van was filled with grunts and moans, dry heaves came from Jason as he pulled his own mask back to try and vomit in the corner. Thomas had two cuts on the right side of his face; the first severing his cheek from the corner of his mouth to the joint at the back of the jaw, and the second just above the brow, superficial, but still bleeding enough that a pool of blood had formed in the hollow of Thomas’ right eye. Another shard had wedged itself under his left ear, catching in the fabric of the mask and holding fast; with each new scream of pain that Thomas let out, it cut deeper, like a knife blade pressed against his writhing body, leaving a fresh slice with each movement that he made. And the worst of them all was a large piece, which protruded from the base of his neck, cutting in where the neck met the shoulder and just barely missing the artery. It was so soaked with blood, both from the wound it had inflicted and from where it had cut into Jessie’s fingers when he had tried to remove it before seeing how deep it had gone in, and with the flickering electric light that had been shaken from it’s socket in the corner, a red hue danced upon the floor of the van, almost as if the shard was a prism refracting the light.
Another shout from Thomas as he kicked out against the wall of the van was enough to snap them out of their short daze and take action.
“We need to get out of here…” Jason said as he rushed out from the corner and kicked open the rear double doors of the van, revealing the street outside at the wrong angle than it should have been if the van had still been entirely upright. “We need to get out of here and help Alpha team. We’re sitting ducks in here and whatever it was that happened to us happened worse to them. They’re down to two men… at most…”
“And we leave Thomas here?” Jessie snapped back, “He needs a medic, fast!”
“Damnit, Jessie,” Jason shouted, “the medic’s dead! Just…” He cut off, and instead whipped out the butt of his rifle to the point at the floor beside Jessie, where blood was beginning to leak from the part of the cab that hadn’t been crushed. “…look at the BLOOD, damnit! We can call in another medic!”
“…no…” Harold answered, swiveling his chair around from the dead console that he sat in front of, “…the crash smashed the antenna and the transmitter’s out.”
Jason took another step backwards towards the doors at the back, waving his rifle in the air again and pulling his mask back down to cover his face and neck.
“Well, that’s just ******** perfect, isn’t it, Harry? I mean, what the ******** else could go wrong tonight!? I’d really ******** like to kno-!”
Jason was cut short as his breath was stolen from him and he was lifted, in a fraction of a second, by a strong grip about his neck. He was out of sight before he could make more than a sound, pulled right out from inside the van and into the night. A moment later it was apparent where he had gone to as a five foot long dent imprinted itself upon the van roof and the dark streets echoed with the sound of the man’s muffled cry of pain.
“Jason!” the two uninjured men shouted as they sprung up, their weapons at the ready as they sprung out the doors and into the street, turning in midair to face the van again and pointing their weapons towards the roof… though nothing was there; not even Jason. In the faint light that the streetlamps shed upon the buildings surrounding them, only one moving thing existed; the sight of Jason’s lifeless body being pulled into the building through a fifth story window. It was gone a moment later, and no sign of his assailant was left behind.
A cluster of bullets hit the wall around the window where Jason had just disappeared, though they accomplished nothing without a target to shoot at, Richard was simply firing blind.
From outside the van, it was apparent what had happened to make them crash, however; they had collided with the Alpha team’s van, which had been parked in front of the building… though ‘collided’ wouldn’t seem to be the appropriate word, since from the way that the second vehicle seemed to be on top of theirs, it seemed almost like the van had been dropped onto their own as they pulled up.
“Jesus ******** Christ…” Harold muttered to himself as he, again, checked to ensure that there was a bullet in the chamber of his pistol before he rushed around the left side of the van to check on the state of the driver. Through the cracked window and crushed frame of the vehicle, the condition that Jason had assumed he was in seemed to be mostly correct, from what Harold could make out, with one minor detail… their medic was unmistakably dead…
Sliding himself out from under Thomas’ bleeding body and propping the injured man, instead, against the wall, Jessie reached for the medical kit which had broken open on the floor and pulled a roll of bandages from their plastic packaging, then grabbed a bottle of painkillers and crawled back over to where Thomas lie.
“What’s going on out there?” Jessie called over his shoulder as he hesitantly pulled at the torn fabric of Thomas’ mask, pulling the entangled shard of glass away from the bleeding man’s neck as he tugged at the garment. The mask cut open a bit more as the sharp glass tugged against it, and came free without much resistance, allowing the blood-soaked mask to freely slide off from Thomas’ head.
Richard stepped back around the back of the van for a moment, keeping his gun trained upon the building beside them where his comrade had just vanished. Standing at the corner of the bumper, he looked into the back of the van towards the two blood-covered Hunters quickly before turning his attention back towards the shadowed windows of the building. “Oh, nothing much, really… Jason’s dead, ********!” Jessie shouted, his breath coming in quick, panicked gasps, and his fingers poised at the sides of the single large shard which sprouted from the base of Thomas’ neck; slipping a bit as the blood lubricated it against his grip, and not certainly not wanting the death of another comrade to weigh on his already tense nerves. “…what happened?”
“I’d be glad to tell you… if we could find him…”
“…oh, Jesus…” Jessie slumped down a bit, taking his twitching fingers away from the glass for a moment and dropping both hands to his lap, where he set to work removing his bloody gloves, “…you’re sure?”
“…yeah…” Richard replied, using his left hand to turn a small knob on the side of his headgear to close the visor off to visible light and instead switch it into nightvision mode in hopes of catching some movement in the darkness, “…very dead…”
The shadows of the building held no secrets, however, the windows sat still and the nooks were just as bare as the crannies… The only movement was from the swaying of the boughs of a small maple tree planted beside the steps. It seemed almost eerie that eight men could die here, yet either their bodies or any sign of their killer could be found… Richard looked from the ground to the rooftop, scanning past the corners of the building and along the edge of it, making sure that there was nothing on the roof of the building, since the windows seemed to be clear for now…
“Jesus ********!” he shouted suddenly, firing a spray of bullets at one of the corners of the roof and hearing them burry themselves into the bricks in answer. He caught his balance a split second later and aimed to fire again, though there was nothing to shoot at anymore; what he had seen, whatever it had been, that inhuman form, it was gone now…
A sudden solid form behind him made Richard jerk, reaching down to his side as he turned and pulling a knife free from the side of his belt, swinging it around blindly at whatever it was that had snuck up behind him. His arm was caught at the elbow and held back, however, and Richard found himself staring eye to eye with Harold.
“Richard! What the hell is wrong with you!?”
It took a moment for Richard to realize just what had happened, and another to lower his weapon away from the radio operator and return it to where it belonged. His head jerked back to the right quickly, looking again to the shadows of the rooftop, then glancing over the windows once more as he swept the barrel of his rifle along with his vision.
“…I saw something on the roof, probably what got Jason…” the words came out muffled, both from the effect of the mask upon his speech and from his own inability to admit when he had made a mistake…
“Well congratulations, you saw something… Great work there.”
“LADIES!” Jessie shouted between them as he leaned out the back of the van into the street, his hands pressed against the door jam on the roof of the van as streaks of Thomas’ blood ran down the underside of his bare forearms, “…I think we’d better get ******** moving and find us a goddamn radio so we can get the hell OUT OF HERE!”
“One problem…” Harold replied at almost a whisper as he pushed past Jessie and stepped up into the van, “…the radio in here is busted up from the crash, and I doubt Alpha team’s radio is in much better condition considering it was THEIR VAN that just hit us…”
“Look,” he added after a short pause, “there’s only one radio left and that’s the portable one that John had… Do you want to go in there and get it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do…” Jessie snapped back, brandishing a bloodied fist at the radio operator as he pointed out to the dark city streets around them. “I think getting a chopper in here is a damn better idea than trying to get out of town on foot, especially with Thomas in the condition he is. I don’t know if you checked the demographics of this damned city, but I’d be willing to put money on the fact that four guys in Hunter uniforms running through town is going end pretty damn badly!”
“Okay, fine… that makes the choice pretty damn easy,” Richard added in, still unwilling to lower his rifle from the rooftops as he continued to glance nervously around, “Somebody runs in there an’ grabs the thing, then we get the hell out of here with it and call in the artillery, right? Sounds like a damn good plan to me.”
“Sounds like absolute s**t, d**k…” Jessie walked to the back of the van and helped Thomas to his feet. The man now had bandages around his neck and shoulder that would make it seem as if he was in a neck brace, and all of them seemed to be soaked through with blood; though from the look of things the injury wasn’t getting much worse. “You go out there alone and you’re going to end up the same way that Jason did!”
“Then WHAT!? We go in and split up to search, then the same thing that happened to Jason happens to us? No way, buddy, I’m staying out here where it’s safe!”
“If it was safe out here then how the ******** did Jason get killed? MAGIC!?” Jessie screamed back at him, having to stop suddenly as Thomas nearly toppled and concentrate on supporting the wounded man. “…damnit, it’s not like we don’t know where the damn thing is! Harold, what ******** floor was Alpha team on?”
“…the fifth…” Harold said after a moment of hesitation.
“There you go, we only have to search one-“
“…it might have been the fourth…”
“…damnit, Harold! Which was it? The fifth or the fourth!?”
“The signal was bad, I got a lot of static and it screwed up reception.”
“Oh, now this is ******** great, isn’t it?” Richard snapped back to both of them, turning off the nightvision long enough to get a clear view of each of them in the flickering lights of the van. “And we’re taking the gimp with us, I’d suppose?”
“…yes…” the voice was soft, quiet, and sounded like it was trying to speak through a straw; Thomas had managed to get out a word past the bandages wrapped tightly about his neck and throat, his torn right cheek leaking another red splotch into the bandages that covered it when he moved his mouth. “…let’s… go… radio…”
“Jesus ********, he can barely talk!” Richard stepped away from the back of the van and adjusted his visor back to filter out the visible light around them and limit his vision to what the visor could pick up in nightvision mode. He took one step around the right side of the van, towards the entrance of the building, which stood about thirty feet away across a small courtyard. “…I’m not going back to save his a** if he falls behind…”
“…I… shoot…” Thomas attempted to respond, though the words were barely recognizable beyond the gurgling noises that emanated from his throat as the blood seeped down it once more. His intent was clear enough, though, as his right hand slid towards the sidearm at his hip, even if most of his weight was supported by Jessie’s body beneath his left.
“If we leave him here, whatever took Jason might come back for him,” Jessie added, pausing just long enough behind Richard’s lead towards the doorway to unholster his own sidearm and pass it to his left hand, before his right wrapped itself back about Thomas’ waist to help support the injured man, “…and we’re not losing another man tonight.”
“God DAMNIT, Jessie!”
“Quiet!” Harold snapped in a hushed tone, finally taking the initiative to step ahead of Richard and quickly close the rest of the distance towards the main floor entrance to the building, “No more arguing! Either of you! Do you want to set the entire neighborhood on us? Now cut it!”
The dispatcher’s outburst silenced the bickering immediately, both men obeying the order, as, with Alpha team missing, presumed dead, and Jason having been taken, Harold was the senior officer among them… though it also helped that neither of the two truly wished to draw any undue attention to themselves. The hostility between them quickly turned to the fear that it had been hiding as they reached the dark entryway to that tomb the four men were about to enter.
“Richard,” Harold said at almost a whisper as he adjusted his visor to display a layered mix of nightvision and thermal imagery, “take point, head for the stairs… I don’t want us pinned down in the elevator if something happens.”
Richard’s acknowledgement was little more than a grunt as his hands wrapped tightly about the grip of his rifle; the knuckles whitening beneath the thick black gloves of his 3rd Class Hunter standard issue gear. In truth, all of them were terrified of what might await them inside… but they had all resigned themselves to this task. It was quite literally ‘do or die’.
The lobby of the apartment building was nothing out of the ordinary, not even a bullet hole marked the peeling wallpaper, though the front desk seemed as if it had been rifled through; probably Alpha team’s doing, searching for the master key set. Other than that, however, the place seemed almost dead… it was eerily silent, not a thing moved and not a thing in the place made a noise other than the rustle of their own feet across the floorboards as they moved towards the left hallway. Two closed room doors and another that read ‘Basement and Boiler’ passed the four men before they reached the stretch of hallway leading towards the back of the building… and the first signs of Alpha ******** Christ,” Richard choked as he saw the hallway, and two similar expletives left the mouths of his able-bodied companions as they closed in immediately after.
The walls were bleeding.
It wasn’t a small amount of blood, it could hardly even be described as an amount… the walls themselves were covered in streaks, droplets still running downwards from each of them and over the molding to pool in the cracks of the floorboards throughout the entire hallway. Wide, wet streaks of blood, painted over the light yellow latticework wallpaper that had lined the hallway before. It was almost as if the skin of a body had been torn off and the bleeding corpse was dragged across the wall… and there was no mistake to any of the surviving members of Bravo team where this blood had come from.
Thomas was the lucky one amongst them; his head was too bandaged for him to wear his visor, and the thick smell of his own blood already clogging his nostrils so that the rotting stench that filled this hallway made no difference to him. Though even in his daze, the sudden tightening of Jessie’s stiff grip against his side was enough to panic him.
“…gun!?” Thomas moaned as his arm raised halfway, pointing the end of his pistol at the walls down the hallway, unsure of what the cause for their alarm was, but not wanting to simply be the dead weight for the team that Richard has accused him of being. However, a few quick words from Jessie calmed him enough to lower his weapon, and a quick reminder placed his concentration back upon keeping his own labored breathing steady.
The rest of Bravo team swallowed their own thoughts and pressed on… the sight was certainly discomforting, but they had experienced horrific scenes like this before. The team was composed of 3rd Class Hunters, which meant that they had all proven themselves capable of handling tough situations. However… as they continued down the blood-smeared hallway with not a sound other than their own footsteps and no sign at all of the bodies of the seven men that had vanished into this building… there was little training that could have prepared them for the dark feeling that overshadowed their training and their courage: They were going to die. Eight of their peers were now dead at the hands of a single creature that they had tracked for days across this city; following a trail of blood and broken bodies.
“Richard?”
Richard had moved ahead of the others, now several meters in front, with the muzzle of his rifle aimed towards a broken doorway near the end of the hall. Only half of the door was still hanging on the hinges, the other half lie upon the floor at Richard’s feet; covered in blood and with torn strips of black fabric clinging to every crack and sliver on the thing. He didn’t move when addressed, nor did he answer, though his hand did tighten upon the handle of his weapon as he inched forwards to the opening.
“Richard!” Harold repeated as he drew near to the open doorway, holding his own weapon ready to fire at anything that might come through the opening, “…Richard! What’s wrong…?”
The man’s answer came in a low tone, as the barrel of his weapon lowered to point into the black abyss below; down, into the bottom of the stairwell, where the crumbled and shattered remains of the stairs rested in a heap.
“The stairs are out… we have to take the elevator…”
“Please tell me that works and we don’t have to climb the side of the building,” Jessie groaned, finally sidling along the hallway wall with his and Thomas’ backs against it defensively.
Harold took a step back as the two approached, moving away from the black abyss of the stairwell while Richard remained, pointing his gun at nothing but his own fears. With a hesitant movement, the dispatcher turned and pressed the tip of his gun against the call button beside the elevator, though the device did not respond at all, and the cage, which sealed off the shaft from the hallway, made no signs of opening.
“God damni-” Jessie began, before being abruptly cut off by Richard.
“It’s already on the first floor,” he said, turning slightly to face the three others, though keeping the barrel of his weapon trained upon the doorway beside him, “…waiting for us.”
“…we have to go up…” Harold said softly, more intent on reassuring himself than his companions.
“Can you stand…?” Jessie asked Thomas, helping the bandaged man lean back against the wall. His answer was a grunt and the attempt at a nod which only served to wetten the bandages once more.
“Harold,” Jessie said as he gripped onto the cage in front of the elevator and began to push it aside; a quick jerk only moving it a few inches, “come help me with this.”
With the both of them pushing, there was little resistance put up by the cage as it slid out of the way with a sudden screech of rusted metal… followed by a sudden burst of gunfire from behind.
Richard’s rifle discharged into the floor near the top of the stairs, the doorframe, and the base of the stairwell in the basement below, though there was no sign of the man, himself, anymore. As soon as the firing stopped, Richard’s rifle dropped past the doorframe, crashing into the pile of debris below. The walls shook, again and again, as if the building were being shaken apart, dust shook free from every crevice and every corner, the pictures that had been hanging in the lobby fell from their supports, and the elevator groaned as it shifted in the shaft.
“Christ! Richard!” Jessie shouted, rushing forwards and raising his rifle up to point up the stairwell above them as he reached the doorway. The discolored forms of stairway debris clogging the upper levels of the stairwell obstructed the view to the top, but there was an unmistakable flurry of movement for a few moments near the fifth floor…
Jessie’s vision suddenly blacked out as something hit him; something warm, wet, that rained down from upwards in the stairwell on top of him. It covered his visor and blinded him in an instant, drenched his mask and the shoulders of his uniform, and slickened his rifle so that it nearly slipped from Jessie’s grip… though it was unmistakable for what it ********-” Harold stammered as he fell backwards into the elevator, nearly toppling Thomas over as he struck the floor of it and shook the ancient contraption with his weight.
“RICHARD!” Jessie dropped his weapon, letting it fall to his side and catch on the shoulder-strap; quickly wiping the back of his sleeve across the face of his visor, then tearing the thing from his head and throwing it down into the base of the stairwell when it only seemed to smear the blood around more, “RICHARD!”
“JESSIE!”
Harold was standing at the edge of the elevator, screaming towards Jessie, who was still staring blindly up the empty stairwell and into the darkness, which he could no longer see through now that his visor was at the bottom.
“Get on the damn elevator, Jessie!” Harold shouted at Jessie, holding tightly onto his own pistol as his gaze quickly moved between the stairwell door, Jessie, and the buttons on the side of the elevator, “You can’t see a damn thing out there, now get inside before we lose you, too!”
“It ******** took Richard!”
“It’ll ******** take you!”
“…on… ‘vator…”
Thomas’ interruption was almost unheard amidst the two men’s shouting, as silent as it was. He barely had the strength to stand anymore, and the volume of a whisper was the most that he could muster with his punctured neck… however, it was more than enough to stop the bickering and draw Jessie back to reality.
“I… Thomas… I’m sorry, it… just… Richard…” Jessie stammered, wiping with the back of his sleeve again across his forehead in an attempt to clear away Richard’s blood, only to find that, like the visor, all it did was spread it around. “…let’s go.”
Thomas was already there, waiting to press the button when Jessie stepped onto the ancient elevator. Harold didn’t even bother to shut the door when the motor started up and the rusted wheels that turned the cable began screeching and struggling on the roof above them. The elevator, itself, seemed stable enough, despite the protesting noises.
As they passed the second floor, going upwards, Jessie began to mumble to himself… carrying on over and over about how Richard had been right… about how they should never have come in… Harold, however, had other concerns, as each floor that they passed had a cage more mangled than the last… the bars were twisted and bent, the hinges turned sideways so that they would never work… If this continued they would never be able to get off of the elevator…
“Thomas…” Harold asked, breaking the monotony of Jessie’s ‘meaningful reflection’, “…what floor did you press?”
“Five…” the injured soldier muttered from beneath his layers of bandages.
“…stop it at four…” the dispatcher replied, his voice very flat and monotone as he said it, “…Richard was right… we are being herded.”
The fourth floor came into view on the side of the shaft, and, as expected, the gate was mangled just as badly as all the others. They never would have been able to open it without cutting gear, so, naturally, they were expected to continue on to the fifth floor… where the gate would undoubtedly be open already.
With a shudder and a screeching of wheels grating against steel, the elevator came to a stop in front of the fourth floor cage, and the two able-bodied men moved towards the back.
“One…”
It was clear enough what they were trying to accomplish. If the both of them slammed against the cage, with how poorly this building seemed to be holding together, it might give, and collapse into the hallway.
“Two…”
Both of the men readied themselves, Jessie pushing his weapon behind his back to hang on the shoulder-strap, and Harold sliding his pistol into the holster at his side.
“Three!”
The elevator shook suddenly, screaming out as the steel edges grinded against the shaft and the brakes which held it in place were wrenched from their positions and dragged along the edges of the elevator shaft with a spray of metallic sparks. The two men that had launched themselves at the cage did, indeed, knock it open; though now they were hanging half in, half out of the elevator as the contraption slid upwards along the elevator shaft and towards the fifth floor.
Thomas, who had fallen to the ground when the elevator shook, grabbed onto the back of Harold’s belt and pulled back on him… and Harold, who was lying beside Jessie on the floor of the hallway outside the elevator on the fourth floor, grabbed a hold onto the straps of Jessie’s body armor.
Jessie, however, seemed to have different ideas about how to cope with the situation. He made no moves to pull himself back into the elevator, though Harold was doing a fine job of dragging his lazy a** in on his own. Jessie, instead, pulled the rifle from his back and aimed it towards the top of the elevator.
“This is for Richard you b*****d!” he screamed as he pulled back upon the trigger and sent a spray of bullets into the top of the elevator, which would have easily pierced through it and continued up the shaft towards whatever it was that was manipulating their ascent… though the elevator showed no signs of slowing. “You won’t get another one of us you c**k-sucking piece of-!”
Jessie cut off short as the elevator reached the top of the fourth floor, with half of his left leg still hanging out of the elevator. The sound of it being caught between the fourth floor ceiling and the elevator edge was sickening; the shriek of pain that came from the enraged man rolling upon the floor, the snapping bone that tore through the flesh and the fabric of his uniform when the leg and the elevator were pulled in separate directions along the length of the elevator shaft, and the unending string of curses that followed as Jessie’s knuckles whitened under his gloves when his hand gripped down so hard upon the trigger of his rifle that it nearly snapped off.
“Jessie!” Harold shouted, falling backwards at the moment that Jessie began firing, and falling onto Thomas, who had still been pulling upon him. Jessie had lost it, even when the clip ran out he did nothing but wave the rifle in the air shouting curses at whatever force it was that was manipulating them like rats in a maze. “Thomas!” Harold shouted again, rolling off of the wounded man and trying to steady himself on two feet long enough to help Thomas with the same.
The elevator was still rising, slowly but surely, grating along the shaft with the brakes being the only thing keeping the little box from flying straight up through the roof. The fifth floor came into view past the top of the elevator, and, herded there or not, this was the stop they would be taking.
“Thomas, get off here!” Harold shouted over the metallic screech of the elevator brakes; taking the injured man by the hand and helping him to his feet… then helping him to move towards the elevator door and to climb over the small hump that still remained before the fifth floor came toe-to-toe with the elevator.
Harold followed after, falling into the hallway beside his companion, before rolling onto his back and calling for Jessie to drop the charade and jump off as well.
“Die! Die you murderous b*****d!” Jessie screamed at the top of his lungs as he continued trying to fire the empty weapon upwards through the ceiling of the elevator… and this was how it was, with him oblivious to the cries of Harold and the continued rising of the elevator, until it vanished, again, past the ceiling; moving a few feet higher before stopping, as it had reached the absolute top of the shaft…
“…hehehe…” the sound of Jessie’s hysterical laughter echoed down the elevator shaft… not stopping even as the building shook once again and the sounds of the elevator frame bending out of shape became clearly evident. “…you… hehe… I’ve been looking for you… You killed Jason… you killed Richard… you killed Jessie, hehe!”
“Jessie, damnit, RUN!” Harold began, screaming bloody murder at the man who had lost himself under the stress… though he stopped quickly and sat in silence as a voice he had never heard before answered Jessie’s own…
“Creatures such as you should not speak when in the presence of god…”
“G… god?” Harold muttered to himself, unsure of what to think now… his mind raced, and he remembered that the mission file had stated that the subject saw the human race as inferior… but to address itself as god?
“God…” Jessie answered, “…it has a nice ring to it… I want to be god, too…”
A moment later the elevator floor gave way, buckling and tearing apart as it was punched through by a mass of machinery that fell quickly down the shaft below and into the darkness. The machinery was the ripped up remains of the elevator motor that had been on the roof of the building, and behind it trailed the steel cable that moved the elevator itself… tangled within this cord, Jessie also fell, the steel cable wrapped thrice about his neck as he fell into the darkness below the elevator.
The slack ended, the motor pulled tight upon the other end of the cable before breaking off and crashing into the bottom of the shaft on the basement level, and it was the echoes of that crash that covered the sound of the two wet thuds that quickly followed.
And then there were two.
“Damnit, Jessie!” Harold screamed, pounding his fist upon the floor beneath him as he peered over the edge and into the elevator shaft. “Damnit!”
Alpha team was gone… Bravo team was gone… all that remained was a dying soldier and a dispatcher from the van. Jessie had been there only real hope once the creature took Richard… now that hope, too, was gone.
“…Har… ld…” Thomas tapped lightly on Harold’s back as he pushed himself up from the ground and onto his knees in the hallway. “…Alpha team…”
Harold looked up at Thomas’ tap, and quickly realized what was meant by it. On the radio John really had said that they were on the fifth floor… or even if he hadn’t, they were here now. The building had been empty of any of Alpha team’s bodies until this point, but, here on the fifth floor, it was clear why.
Eight men, broken, bleeding, some even torn to pieces and put back together, hung from the walls, decorating the hallway in bloody splendor. One upon each door along the hallway… not lying beside, or leaning against… these men were crucified; hung by stakes, spikes, and many other sharp objects that had been pierced through their bodies to affix them onto the doors on the fifth floor. Each one with a stream of blood staining the doors and the floors beneath them, covering the hallway in a crimson carpet that covered almost every inch… even now spilling over the edge with a constant drip down the elevator shaft.
Harold felt like he was about to vomit in his mask… Thomas already had, and the bile stung fiercely at the open wounds covering the side of his face and his neck.
“…what…” Harold stammered, quickly pushing himself up from the ground when he realized what it was that he had been lying in, “…what would have…?”
“…radio?” Thomas choked out, doubled over, spitting bile and blood onto the floor beside the feet of Peter, Alpha team’s medic.
Harold nodded solemnly… that was why they had come here, after all… They needed that radio to call in an evac team. Though there was hardly anything to evacuate now. John was at the end of the hallway… though he was only recognizable now due to the badges on his uniform, and the fact that he was still wearing the portable radio on his back.
Leaving Thomas behind, Harold moved towards John’s body, trying not to look at the faces of those that he passed as he walked… closing his eyes as he passed the crucified corpses of Jason and Richard, who were pinned against rooms 504 and 503… Their limbs bent in unnatural ways, their faces so covered with their own blood that they were hardly even recognizable, and Richard, whose throat was missing, had his head hanging down at a horrifying angle.
“Jason… Richard…” Harold whispered as he stepped past them, “…I’m sorry.”
John’s body seemed to be in the best shape of all of them… despite the wounds left by the objects impaling him, there was little damage that showed. John had been a long-time friend of Harold’s, and despite the situation that they were in, Harold managed to hold a smile at the thought that John must have died quickly and without much pain.
“I’m sorry to do this, John… but I need your radio,” he said to the corpse, reaching up and pulling a broken chair leg from the man’s right shoulder; beginning the process of taking the man down so that he could get to the radio. A twisted iron bar came out next, from just below the rib cage, and then another short iron bar, which had gone through John’s left shoulder.
Removing just these three was enough for the body’s weight to overcome the rest of them, however, and the corpse upon the door doubled over as it came free, nearly splitting in half as it did. John’s uniform filled out quickly as the weight shifted, and in another moment the reason became apparent when the floor about his feet suddenly filled with the man’s organs; sliding out of his shirt as if they had simply been stacked on a shelf that had just been tipped.
“Oh, GOD!” the man shouted as he fell backwards against the wall behind him, bile shooting up and the unstoppable urge to vomit finally overtaking him.
“God…? What do you know about gods?”
A voice from down the hallway spoke to him, addressing him… it was the same voice he had heard before, atop the elevator shaft. It was the voice of that self-proclaimed god which had done all of this, which had killed all of them.
It took all of his courage for Harold to turn… he knew that when he did he would be staring death in the face… But he had to know what type of thing could do something like this without a hint of remorse in that twisted voice that had haunted him since he first heard it.
“Humans know nothing about god…” the voice continued, “…they think that their gods are merciful… they think that their gods will protect them…”
Harold pushed himself up from where he had fallen, sliding back against the wall with his eyes closed until he had reached the end of the hallway… only then did he open them to see what this monster was.
“The gods protect only the strong,” a hulking figure slammed it’s fist down, with a stake in hand, against another corpse being nailed to one of the doors… no… not a corpse, however… it was Thomas, and he was still alive.
“If humans think that they were created in the image of their god, then why would their god be merciful?” it spoke again, turning its head to the side to glance down the hallway at the cowering figure of Harold. Streaks of blood covered its body, dripping down the sides of its face and sticking the threads of blood-red hair to the skin. The blood of Alpha team soaked through the monster’s tattered clothes, and the blood of Bravo ran down the gleaming feathers of two raven-black wings which sprouted from the backs of this creature’s shoulders. “Humans show no mercy to the weak… to the inferior…”
“To slaughter the animals is the right of a superior breed…” Murdoc said with a grin as he turned away, leaving Thomas’ bleeding body pinned against the wall in a similar fashion to all of the others which lined the hallway.
“Th-… the angel of death…?” Harold stammered, trying to push himself back further from the monster that now bore down upon him with such a threatening gate, droplets of his companion’s blood shaking from its form with every step.
At that Murdoc could only laugh; a crazed laughter that chilled Harold straight to the bones to hear. Each step brought the monster closer, and with each step that evil laughter grew louder and stronger… it tortured Harold with just the thought of it, and the thought of what would become of him when that distance was finally closed.
“You could call me that…” the black angel replied, stopping to pull John’s body from the floor; lifting it with a single hand and staking it back where it had just been freed from, before the monster continued forewords again. “…the angel of death… here to show you the light… the error of your ways… Dear brother, angel of mercy…”
Harold’s hand shook terribly, so much that he could barely find the handle of his pistol which still sat in the holster by his hip. The monster may have come for his life, but he could still fight it, he could still hold out a little longer!
“You can’t take me yet!” he shouted as his hand flew up, only to be caught by that of the monster before him and twisted in its powerful grip. The creature moved with a horrific grace, its movements fast and flowing as it worked its deadly craft upon the dispatcher. In an instant the pistol Harold had pulled was on the floor at his feet, and the hand which had held it now hung limp at the end of an arm that had been crushed within the hand of this angel of death; the bones broken from the pressure of its touch and the limb twisted in ways he had thought unimaginable.
Harold would have screamed in pain, had his breath not been stolen from him first by the creature’s other hand, which plunged itself inside of him. The monster had shoved its right hand straight through Harold’s stomach, and, now, he could feel the appendage worming about inside of his body.
“Isn’t it exciting?” the bloody monster asked with his voice filled with the sound of utter glee, “…knowing that you are going to die…?”
“Your heart is racing… your pulse is pounding…” Murdoc’s hand writhed its way up through Harold’s body, pushing aside the less important organs that came in its way until it reached what it had been aiming for… the beating heart of his victim.
“Badumbadumbadumbadum…” he smiled, cracking a few of the trails of dried blood which had cached upon the sides of his face, and his hand wrapped more tightly around Harold’s heart… matching the speed and the rhythm of the heart’s beating with his own hand, “…it beats so quickly when you’re afraid… doesn’t it? …but you’re bleeding… the faster it beats the more blood you will loose…”
The pressure upon Harold’s heart increased, enough so that it could no longer beat against his hand, and could only do so when he loosened his grip to allow it… his rhythm continued along with that of Harold’s natural heartbeat, however, except for that it began to slow…
“Why don’t you calm down just a bit? Your heart is beating so quickly… badum, badum, badum, badum…”
The rhythm continued, slower still… with each beat of the heart the next came further apart, forcing it into a slower rhythm with his own hand.
“…you don’t look so well…” Murdoc said to the man with mock sympathy, “…perhaps you should take a break and rest awhile? It must be tiring for your heart to beat like that… badum… badum… badum… maybe a nice long nap is what you need… don’t you think?”
The rhythm slowed again… so slow now that it was barely enough to keep a person alive…
“Isn’t it soothing… the gentle rhythm of a heartbeat? Listen to it go… badum… badum… ba…” Harold’s arms hung limply at his sides, his head rolling backwards without restraint, his heart stopped within the grip of the angel of death.
“Oops…” the black angel said with a sigh, “…it seems I need to practice my rhythm a bit more…” His hand slipped out again, glistening with the man’s blood all the way to the elbow; and the monster hoisted one more corpse against the wall.
“…I’d love to show you my decorations when you come home… brother, dear…”
