Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

Heisen noticed Klaus’ lips were so dry they were flaking. He got to his feet. “Stay here kid. I’ll get you some water. Then I’ll call in some back up and we can get out of here.” He smiled down at the cowering youth. “First thing though, I want a doc to look at you, okay?”

Klaus nodded, resting his head back in his hands. The device remained on the table, glowing softly. Klaus stared at it as though in a trance.

Heisen pushed through the small swing door, and blew air through compressed lips at the sight of the pile of dirty dishes. The congealed food smelt like a blocked drain. He’d seen worse; one guy had drowned his cat in the sink, and then hung himself. After a week, they found him… and the cat. By then, the animal had turned into feline porridge and they needed HazMat suits to even get near it.

Heisen guessed there were no clean cups, so grabbed one with the least amount of crap buildup and rinsed it out — he doubted a bit of extra bacteria was gonna kill the kid now. He turned the water off and froze. The rim of the swing door glowed, and the smell of ozone filled the air. He stared at it, confused for a second or two, half cup of water still in his hand.

It took him a few more seconds to guess what might be happening. He gently lowered the cup to the bench-top, crossed to the door and eased it open a crack. Klaus stood, arms up, as if surrendering to someone. He gibbered for a second or two, shaking his head until a tiny shaft of light struck him. The kid glowed for a moment, before falling backwards. Before he even hit the ground, his body was collapsing into dust.

“Fuck!” Heisen felt a shock run through him from his toes to his scalp. He pulled his Glock, sucked in a breath and kicked the door open, immediately diving and rolling. He came up fast, shooting at multiple targets. He missed.

A golden beam came out of nowhere, slicing through his shoulder and taking his arm. Then it all went to shit.

Monroe held up a fist. Behind him Raptor, Harper, Benson, Carter and Felzig froze and waited, focused just on him. They had cut the power to the building, throwing the old brownstone into darkness. Now each had L-3 Warrior night vision goggles pulled down over their eyes.

Monroe turned, his four red eyes taking in his team. He nodded, and then turned back to the door. Its outline was clean and green-lit by the NVGs. They were the latest tech, with two lenses pointed forward like traditional goggles, giving him his hunter’s depth perception, while two more tubes pointed slightly outward from the center to increase his peripheral view, allowing Monroe and his team to more quickly move through the OODA loop — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — in a few seconds.

Monroe pointed two fingers at his team — Raptor moved fast, attaching a shaped charge to the door in a large ‘X’ pattern. Then he attached a silver sheet from the top that unfurled covering the door — they wanted the entire wooden frame to be obliterated, out of their way, and most of the percussive blast to enter the room for maximum disorientation. Felzig had the EMP disc in her hand, rotated it, lights on its outside counting down as she slid it under the door.

Both agents got behind the wall to take cover. Monroe held up a hand, fingers splayed, and counted down, one finger at a time. He reached one and signaled the assault.

Raptor triggered the breaching charge. The door exploded inwards. Monroe and his five-strong team charged in, their laser sights quickly finding the small goblin-like creatures scattering in the darkness. There would be no attempt to communicate, no compromise, no hostages. These things had come here to kill — brutally — Monroe’s agents, the Defense, would return the favor.

Monroe counted at least fifteen moving bodies when they came through, in seconds they had halved that amount, even though the creatures seemed to be wearing body armor and moved agilely and quickly, like a cross between wolverines and deformed children.

Raptor took the centre of the room, gun up and spitting rounds into the smoke-filled darkness, his laser sight picking out bodies, and his unerring aim just as quickly putting them down.

Then it all changed. There came a high pitched squeal from out of the dark, and then a yellow beam shot out to touch Raptor. The big man froze as a hole the size of a dinner plate opened in the front of his body. There was no wet-matter dispersal, and no projectile follow-through, just an enormous hole burned clean through that didn’t even bleed. The big man fell backwards like a tree.

Carter targeted the shooter, following its nimble movements as it scurried from position to position. But from his three o’clock another beam shot out. This time there was no clean hole. Monroe watched as Carter’s entire body shimmered where the golden beam touched and stayed on him. The man simply collapsed into a mound of powder before Monroe’s eyes.

Monroe had to dive and roll as more of the deadly beams criss-crossed the room. He stopped with his back to an upturned table.

“Go to full auto,” he roared and dived again, flicking the selector switch on his rifle and firing back at the source of the beams. Around him, his remaining agents changed up their delivery, moving out of the OODA loop, and into a lethal spray mode — the intermittent coughs of the silenced weapons became a staccato beat as high velocity rounds punched through anything they touched.

The Defense backed up, keeping each other out of the crossfire, targeting anything below waist level. Beams and bullets crossed in the small room. Monroe felt like they were fighting a pack of high tech furies, so ferocious were the small beings in their resistance.

He saw Felzig go down on one knee to reload. Like magic, one of the small creatures appeared beside her in the smoke and pointed a small device up at her. She spun, but before she could react further, her face took the small beam front-on. Her entire head simply vanished, leaving a stump of neck seared dry. She stayed upright for a second or two, the arms dropping and then her body toppling sideways.

Monroe’s teeth clenched, feeling the fury ball in his chest. He liked Felzig. He’d fucked Felzig. She was a tough woman, an insatiable alley cat in the bedroom, and a tigress in the field. Now, she had simply ceased to exist — no scream of pain, no bleeding bullet wound or loud explosion, just a golden rod of light, and then… gone.

From his position, Monroe saw a small figure disappear into the shimmering doorway at the end of the room. The three foot glowing oval was fixed to an external wall, and inside looked to be a long horizontal tunnel. Given there was a three-story drop on the other side of the wall, this doorway had to lead to somewhere other than a Berlin street. Monroe remembered his initial code call — Non Terrestrial Incursion.

“And you guys sure ain’t going home.” He lifted his gun, sighted on the shimmering doorway and fired into it, emptying his magazine. Horns blared from somewhere deep inside it, and the portal snapped shut with a rush of charged air. “Fuck you. The rest of you are mine.” He ejected the empty magazine and snapped in another, yelling over his shoulder as he scanned the carnage in the room.

“Agents, count off.”

From out of the dark, Benson and Harper yelled in return. Monroe waited, the smoke was settling, a broken window creating a small draft of clear air. There was a tinkle of falling glass, the soft sound of dripping water or blood, and soft moans of pain from the downed beings. He held his breath. Silence settled around him.

He slowly pulled off his night vision goggles and blinked once, his eyes quickly adjusting to the semi-gloom. In his peripheral vision he detected a tiny movement, and snapped around to fire a single round at the small figure, as it tried to improve its position in relation to him.