Джозеф Нассис - SNAFU - Heroes [An Anthology of Military Horror]

Seven years before, in an encounter with the supernatural entity known as the Adversary, Cade’s wife Gabrielle had been killed and Cade himself had been wounded. When he’d come to in the hospital, he discovered that not only had he been left horribly scarred and without the use of his right eye, but that he’d gained some unusual abilities in the process. One of which was the power of psychometry.

In short, he could read the psychic impressions left on objects just by touching them with his bare hands.

The gloves he wore ninety-nine percent of the time kept him from being exposed to feelings and memories he didn’t want access to, but there were times when knowing such could come in handy.

Like now.

He removed the thin cotton gloves he was wearing and, with a glance at the others to be certain that they were ready, he reached out with his bare right hand and laid it on the dead man’s chest.

At first there was only darkness and a lingering sense of unease, as if he knew something was wrong but wasn’t able to put his finger on what it was.

Then the images exploded across the theatre of his mind’s eye, hundreds if not thousands of them, one overlapping the other overlapping the next, a literal flood, until it was hard to tell where one ended and the next began. With them came a cacophony of sounds and voices, crashing around and over one another in their haste to be heard.

Within seconds Cade was drowning in the tide.

He couldn’t discern individual voices, but the tone of each was unmistakably the same – pure, unmitigated terror. Whoever these people were, they were in fear not just for their lives but for their very souls. The images were no better; Kodachrome snapshots of men, women, and children suffering hideous fates, images so disturbing that they burned themselves onto the backs of his eyelids for all eternity.

And behind it all, the sense that something dark was coming.

Something that wanted to rip and rend and tear his flesh, to devour him whole...

Cade pulled his hand back with a gasp, struggling to push the images out of his head and regain some sense of connection with the here and now. It was never easy coming back from the visions generated through his Gift and this one was particularly difficult as the sights and sounds he’d experienced tried to drown him with their savage intensity.

He shook his head, trying to cast the memories aside, but he knew that they were here to stay as permanently as if they had been engraved on the inside of his skull. Just one of the darker aspects of this thing he called his Gift.

More curse than Gift . Not the first time he’d thought this, either.

“You alright, boss?”

“Yeah... yeah, I’m okay. Just give me a second.”

Cade took a couple of deep breaths and then rose to his feet. He staggered, suddenly exhausted, and was thankful for Riley’s steadying hand on his elbow.

“Anything?” Olsen asked.

“Not really. Or, at least, nothing useful. There were plenty of images – more than I’ve ever seen before, to be honest – but there wasn’t any cohesion between them. Nothing to tie them together. It was as if I was watching the memories of a hundred different people at once, all wrapped about each other like some kind of twisted kaleidoscope of pain and misery. It was not pleasant, I can tell you that.”

Duncan looked away and Cade was reminded of his sergeant’s discomfort with his methods. For all his own secrets, Echo Team’s newest member could be damned stubborn when it came to stepping outside the Rule, the code of conduct that the Templars swore to uphold when they took the oath of investiture and became a knight of the Order. Cade’s personal philosophy was much simpler – use whatever means at your disposal to conquer evil wherever and whenever it reared its ugly head.

Like now.

Cade was disappointed the attempt hadn’t produced anything resembling concrete information about the extent of what they were dealing with.

They were back to square one.

And time was running out.

“So now what?” Olsen asked. “If this bloke was stupid enough to invite those things inside, we’ve lost what little sanctuary we had. There’s nothing holding them back now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Cade replied. “This is still holy ground and its difficult for creatures of that ilk to trespass on it, invited or not. And given the way they ran out of here with their tails between their legs, I’m not so sure that they’ll try again tonight. If they do, we’ll be waiting for them, as always.”

Cade’s quiet confidence was just the thing his men needed to hear. They’d been through a lot together and hearing his determination to hold fast to their mission no matter the odds was somehow reassuring.

“I don’t want any more surprises, however, so we’re going to stand watch in pairs. Duncan and I will take the first watch and—”

Riley’s deep voice overrode Cade’s with ease. “Nick and I will take first watch; you need to rest.”

Cade opened his mouth to argue, but then shut it again without saying anything. Riley was right; the use of his Gift on top of the battle they’d just fought had stolen the last of his energy and if he didn’t get some sleep he’d be useless when he was needed.

He caught the stony look his master sergeant was giving him and smiled in his direction to show his acquiescence. “Right, as I said, Riley and Olsen will take the first watch. I want one of you by the main entrance and the other stationed at the top of the basement stairs. Leave the door open so we can hear anything going on in the basement; might give us a few extra minutes of warning if it comes to it.

“If you hear anything unusual, anything at all, wake me up, understood?”

“Roger that.”

Satisfied that his men knew their duties, Cade wandered over to the nearest pew and stretched out on the wooden surface.

Within moments he was sound asleep.

Cade.

Wake up, Cade.

The voice pulled him from his dreams as smoothly as a fish on a line, dragging him up from the depths to leave him lying open-eyed on the hard wood of the pew on which he’d laid down to rest.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes and slowly sat up.

Around him, the room was silent.

Still.

No one moved; no one even seemed to breathe. It was as if everyone but him was frozen in time; locked in the space of a single moment that stretched on and on into eternity.

Cade felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

The voice, one he knew all too well, came again.

Cade.

With his heart pounding in his chest and his pulse racing wildly, he jumped to his feet and looked around. It only took him a moment to locate her standing at the top of the steps, the door to the basement open behind her.

Gabrielle.

She was wrapped in a long robe with the hood pulled up to partially obscure her face, just as she’d been the last few times that he’d seen her, but he had no doubt that it was her. He would know her anywhere.

When she saw that she had his attention, she turned and disappeared down the steps.

Cade hustled down the aisle and over to the doorway. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of Gabrielle as she stepped off the stairs and into the darkness of the room beyond.

He hurried to catch up.

When he reached the bottom, he found her waiting by the iron door leading beyond the church. The barricade he and his men had erected only a short while before had been cleared away and light could be seen emerging from the depths of the tunnel beyond.

What the hell was going on?