David Golemon - Ripper

They had hoped to be at level forty-two and the main armory far before this, but with the obstacles around them they were slowed to the point of crawling. Just a moment before the attack came, Carl had thought he heard voices from the stairwell they were traveling in at least two levels below them. As one of the sergeants started to call out, Everett hushed him.

At that moment he heard a woman’s scream from down below and simultaneously the concrete wall beside the middle part of his remaining nine men crashed inward. Standing in front of them was one of the creatures, which had grown so much that its remaining tattered clothing had been completely shed. The beast was standing on one of Everett’s men as the others, including the captain, opened fire at point-blank range. The beast ducked and covered its head with its massive forearm, and in the darkened stairwell they could not get a clear shot at its head. It quickly swung outward and caught Lance Corporal Jimmy Dolan across the chest, sending him crashing into the hardened steel rail, snapping his back, and tumbling him over the edge. Then the monstrosity before them reached out with a backswing and grasped a young corporal by the neck. With its free arm guarding its most vulnerable area, the head, it pulled the young marine into the wall and then vanished into the honeycomb of the cave system that lined the entire complex.

Everett shook his head and watched as army staff sergeant Frakes emptied his M-16 into the large hole. The return flash made Everett turn away. The captain was now down to seven men. Hanging his head, Everett took a moment to collect himself. Then he remembered the scream he had heard just before the ambush hit. He steeled himself and waved his men on. The blackness of the staircase loomed and Everett realized for the first time that Smith’s men had smashed the remaining battery-powered light to bits.

“It didn’t take them long to discover the cave system,” Sergeant Frakes said as he came up on Everett’s rear.

“Yeah, well, we have a few surprises left also if we can just get to the damn armory,” Carl said as he looked back at Frakes. “And if I ever see you empty a weapon like that again, with the chance that my man is still alive, I’ll toss your ass right off this stairwell.”

Frakes gave a nod, happy the captain still had the fire to chew on his ass.

They would all need that fire in the next hour.

At thirty-five thousand feet the giant Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules opened her rear ramp as the thirty-seven men operating under the auspices of Presidential Order 122213, designated Operation Nerdlinger, lined up as the high-altitude, freezing air blasted into the open ramp. As Major Garcia stepped forward, the U.S. Air Force Special Operations team waited for the red light to flash to green. “Grateful Dead” Garcia didn’t have to turn to check on his DELTA element as he knew they were ready. Each man was self-sustained from radios to weapons. And their weapons were of the special kind. They each carried three of them and ammunition. Garcia felt the cold air coming from his oxygen system and knew it was just enough for the four-and-a-half-minute freefall to the desert below. He made sure his ambient-light goggles were secure on his helmet until he would need them as he neared the ground.

“Gentlemen, the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command wishes you all good luck!” the loadmaster called out through the secure radio channel just before the red light flashed green in the red tint of the sight-saving lighting inside the Hercules. “Go, go, go, go!” the loadmaster called out as four rows of men jumped from the ramp at the same time. As he watched, a single man brought up the rear and delayed his HALO jump by ten seconds. Then the plane was empty and the Hercules turned away to the West where it would head to March Air Force Base in Southern California to be hidden from prying eyes and immediately prepped as the special operations crew rested. In just ten hours the Hercules would be ready to be called upon once again to deliver any secure package anywhere in the world.

The group of nine men and women huddled in the far corner of the football field, not far from the goal line where Virginia had scored her winning touchdown not three days before. That event now seemed like it had taken place a thousand years before.

The eldest of the group, and by far the most tenured person on the Event Group staff was Professor Henry Thomas, a man who graduated from Cal Berkley in 1977. He kept all those around him silent as they heard time and time again loud, roaring screams, gunfire, and then as now, complete and utterly terrifying silence. They had been hiding since the power failed and the giant lift failed to return from level one.

“Take it easy. Captain Everett and old Pete Golding will do something soon; you can bet on it,” said the totally gray-haired professor of Middle Eastern philosophy.

In the near darkness of the sports complex he examined the young, frightened faces of technicians and chemists, photo analysts, and chefs. They all looked to him as the elder statesman for the nerve it took to sit in the dark and tell themselves time and time again that there was no such thing as the boogeyman, that there was never a monster under your bed, and that the thing in the closet was nothing but your own fertile imagination.

As Professor Thomas moved from person to person, reassuring as he went, a sudden crash sounded right above the high-ceilinged gymnasium. He flinched as several large chunks of plastic and plaster fell from high above and struck the fifty-yard line of the football field.

“Must be rats up there,” he joked, but when no one laughed he felt terrible for making light of the sound of the concrete as it hit the artificial turf.

The sound of laughing froze everyone, and those that were sitting stood. The old professor froze as the sound chilled him to the bone.

“It seems your friends have abandoned you,” came the deep, raspy, and booming voice from somewhere in the darkness. This elicited more than one of the frightened people to scream, and that alone made the others want to run in the opposite direction of the voice.

“Who are you?” Professor Thomas called out.

More laughter. “Why I am Darkness. I am Fear. I am Satan and you are in the ninth level of hell,” came the voice with almost hysterical laughter. “My hell!” the booming voice echoed.

A woman screamed and turned away, only to be kept still by two men next to her.

“Do not panic; it’s trying to frighten us,” Thomas said.

“Trying?” the voice asked with a chuckle. “I have achieved at least that,” came the horrible sound.

They heard the sound of something moving above them. Thomas looked up at the spiderweb of girders above the athletic field. His old eyes could not penetrate the darkness, but he thought he saw movement. Then he saw something move hand over hand above them that made him move away toward the group of frightened men and women.

Suddenly a screech sounded to their far right. Several men and women screamed as they thought whatever was taunting them was right behind them. They all realized at once that it was the sound of the cargo elevator descending the great carved-out shaft of natural rock. They heard the eight-inch cables as they creaked and whined in its powerful descent.

“Everyone move toward the elevator gate. Get ready to enter it and then close the gate behind you. Now move! Go as quietly as you can.”

“You’re coming too, right?” asked a young woman who had spent the past four years analyzing the download of information from the Group’s KH-11 Blackbird satellite, code named Boris and Natasha. She sounded as if she were near tears as she realized what the old professor had planned.