From hell, p.11
From Hell, page 11
part #8 of Alex Hunter Series
Longer-range comms were down, but in close they still had send-and-receive capabilities so they didn’t need to yell through their masks. He looked briefly over his shoulder at his team. It was a good one – Enrico, Leon, Carlo, and Franco, all mission seasoned, tough as nails, and totally fearless.
“Visibility now down to about a dozen feet,” Janus said.
One of his men shone his light around a building corner. “We’re going to have to fall over someone before we find ’em.”
“Roger that.” Janus knew they couldn’t stay bunched up if they wanted to maximize their chances. “We spread out in a skirmish line. But stay in sight of each other. We’ll sweep the streets where the movement is coming from. Then on the way back, we’ll do some door-to-door.”
Janus couldn’t see his team members’ eyes, nor they his. But he knew they probably burned with adrenaline-fueled intensity. They were on edge, but a good edge, the type that made you sharp, alert, and ready to react in a blink.
“Let’s do it.” Leon held out a fist.
They bumped knuckles, then turned to spread into a line, no more than ten feet apart, at the limit of visibility. Even though they were just ghostly outlines in the smoke, it meant every team member was still in sight of at least one other. It wasn’t much, but it expanded their search field. Each Gladiator had also swallowed a tracking pill, a small device that gave off a signal that was picked up by Janus’ control unit. Bottom line, no one got left behind, no one could be taken and hidden from him.
Their route led them down into the Piazza Del Duomo, a wide square with a fountain whose tinkling flow was the only sound in the ghost-quiet area. Though it was only midday, the lights blazed, triggered by the loss of sunshine. Thankfully the smoke seemed a little thinner here but Janus could still barely make out shapes.
He paused the team in the center of the piazza. It was hundreds of feet of open space, and the beams from their barrel lights didn’t penetrate very far in the gloom. At the end of the piazza was the Basilica Cattedrale Sant’Agata, the Catania Cathedral. The grand building was originally constructed in 1078 over the ruins of Roman baths, and it had already survived countless volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Janus suspected the huge building could potentially house hundreds of frightened souls who might have taken shelter in the house of God … or maybe just in a place made of solid stone.
“Move out.”
He’d sweep the team down through the piazza toward it, and then begin their door-to-door search, starting with that building. He wanted to yell, to call out to anyone listening that it was safe to come out, but something stopped him – a soldier’s sixth sense, maybe.
After moving into the town square only a few dozen feet, Enrico held up a hand and halted them. “Capo.”
His beam shone on a small mound on the cobbled stones. Janus and the team joined him to stare at it.
“Is that a dog?” Leon asked.
“What the hell, they burned it up?” Franco asked.
“Yeah, but only after they butchered it,” Enrico spat back.
Janus gritted his teeth. Enrico was right; the animal looked like it had been caught in some sort of giant vise, and its neck only just hung on the body by the empty skin of its neck. The bones, cartilage and muscle had been compressed down to nothing. Some of its tongue and throat bulged obscenely from the mouth, but it was hard to tell exactly what shape the rest of the dog was in, as it looked to have been roasted.
Janus’ lip curled; he was glad he was wearing breathing apparatus, as he would undoubtedly smell burned hair and roasted dog meat. “Where’s the accelerant?” he asked. “There’s no splatter stain, no initiator materials. It looks like the dog’s body was dropped here after it had been torched.”
The men scanned the ground for a moment with their flashlights – there was nothing.
Enrico shrugged. “Let’s just add it to our mystery file.”
“It’s already full, commilitone.” Leon nudged his friend.
“Okay, let’s find those missing people.” Janus led them on, and his men spread wide again.
They were hundreds of feet from the church, and there was still a total absence of anything. All four men were on edge and tuned in to register anything moving, making noise, or having a recognizable human shape.
It was Janus who heard it first – faintly. A methodical clang, like someone gently tapping one metal object against another. He turned his head to scan the piazza – it seemed to be coming from the church. Perhaps his instincts were correct: there were people inside, and all they could do was tap out their signals because they were trapped or hurt.
Janus made a twirling motion in the air with one hand and pointed forward. The group picked up their pace.
He slowed them as they approached the huge double doors of the domed basilica. The imposing façade was gray stone that took on an alabaster shine in the light of their beams. He concentrated; the sound was clearer now: a soft clang, reminiscent of a school bell, or at least an iron-on-iron object. He could imagine someone in a state of semi-consciousness using one hand to tap out a message.
“Enrico, anything?” Janus spoke without turning.
The Spec Forces solder raised a movement scanner and swept it behind them over the piazza. He shook his head. “Not a breath – just ghosts out there, Capo.”
“Okay.” Janus looked up at the huge doors. “Franco, you’re up first. Carlo, Leon, right and left flanks. Enrico, stay here and cover us.” He put his hand on the huge door and pushed. “Let’s do this.”
There was no movement at first, so he put his shoulder to the wood and strained. The door still wouldn’t budge. Finally, with the combined strength of his team, they forced one of the doors in a few feet.
The opening was just two feet wide when he nodded and his men went in fast and low, one up the center, one going left and the other right, each stopping just inside the door, rifles up. Janus followed, with Enrico remaining outside.
Janus paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. He saw why they had trouble opening the door: there was furniture stacked up against it, piled high as if trying to fortify it.
Franco looked it over. “Do you think it worked?”
“Well, no one broke in this way,” Janus said. “And no one got out.”
The smoke had even permeated the building, and clouds of it hung like shrouds in the vast domed room. The room seemed to be empty and it looked as if a cyclone had ripped through it – the pews were splintered, overturned, and pushed aside against the walls. Some of the wood looked singed.
“Where is everyone?” Franco asked softly.
“Quiet.” Janus turned slowly; the soft clang became more distinct. “Follow.”
It was coming from the back of the room, and he moved quickly, gun up, his barrel light jerking from left to right. He came up on the altar and, staying low and fast, rounded the huge stone table to the source of the noise.
There was the altar cloth, weighted at the edges by small metal crucifixes. One of them had slid lower and was now banging against an overturned brass urn. It swung back and forth, and Janus reached forward to stop it swinging. It hung listlessly, and he continued to stare at it.
“There’s no breeze in here, and no movement. That thing shouldn’t have been swinging.”
He turned, seeing the small vestibules. He pointed to his eyes and then to the first room, whose door was slightly ajar.
Leon and Franco spun and silently moved toward the open door, guns ready, barrels unwavering. At the door, Leon nudged it fully open with an elbow, then moved in. The darkness was absolute in the smaller room. Franco lit a flare, illuminating the room with a hellish red glow. He held it up.
“Just like outside. Place is wrecked.”
The space was in disarray, singed, and the team noticed that the door’s lock had been torn off, and the surrounding wood splintered.
“Whoever it was that barricaded the front doors then must have retreated here, and tried to lock themselves in,” Leon observed.
“Didn’t work.” Franco was in the corner behind some piled furniture. “Look.”
The group followed and looked over the debris.
The floor had broken open, and a dark pit gaped below them.
“What the hell? It collapsed?” Carlo leaned out some more.
Janus eased toward it. “Deeper than the basement. Can’t see the bottom.”
“Sink hole, maybe, ” Carlo said.
“Doubt it.” Franco crouched. “The floorboards … they’re all blown upward. This wasn’t sucked down, but smashed up.” He tossed a loose board into the hole, and it dropped and clattered against the walls but they didn’t hear it hit bottom.
“There’s smoke coming up. Maybe tremors opened it, who knows? Etna is doing some weird stuff right now.” Carlo leaned out over it a little more.
Janus held up a hand and the group quietened. He crouched at the edge of the hole and concentrated. After a moment, he pointed to Franco. “Scan it.”
The soldier pointed his movement scanner into the pit, and held it there for sixty seconds. Then he shook his head as he watched the tiny screen. “Nothing.”
“Okay, scratch that theory.” Janus backed up. “Let’s get out of here.”
The men checked the other rooms one by one and found they were similar – empty, but may have been recently occupied. No people, no survivors, but thankfully, no blood or bodies either.
“If everyone got out, why didn’t we see them out there?” Leon asked. “Where the hell are they?”
“Did they get out?” Janus let his eyes run over the interior of the church, and also looked up toward the domed roof. “Whatever happened here was over quickly. Maybe they took them.”
“Took them? Who took them?” Carlo asked quickly.
“Down the hole?” Leon asked.
“Bullshit,” Franco spat back. “There was no rope or ladders, and they certainly wouldn’t have jumped.”
“What do you think, capo?” Carlo asked.
“I don’t know. But all these doors were locked from the inside.” He pointed with the muzzle of his gun. “Those doors are made from solid oak, and the locks are torn out of the frame. Looks to me like no one left by choice.” Janus exhaled. “Let’s try the next building, and then continue with our sweep.”
They headed back to the front double doors, silent and professional, but Janus knew they were all on edge now, conscious that things were about as far from being right as they could be. They had expected to find people overcome by fumes, maybe even some looters, but not some sort of mass vanishing act.
At the door Janus took one last look around the smoke-filled room – like his soldier had said, it was just full of ghosts now. Janus followed his men out through the opening and found them looking confused.
“Where’s Enrico?” Carlo asked. The team spun about, looking for the missing soldier.
“Hey, look.” Franco moved quickly down a few steps and grabbed the missing man’s rifle. “Cazzo!” He dropped it. “It’s red hot.” He turned his hand over and the palm of his leather glove steamed.
Janus immediately checked the Gladiator scanner that tracked the soldier’s position. Inexplicably, Enrico didn’t even show up on it. There were just four blips – him, Carlo, Franco and Leon. That wasn’t possible … unless the tracking pill had somehow been removed from Enrico’s body and destroyed.
“Alert.” Janus raised his gun, pointing it out at the piazza. Leon did the same, followed by Carlo and Franco, who grimaced from the pain in his seared hand.
If Janus had hated the smoke, the dark, and the breathless quietude before, he hated it double now. It was like being in a lost place where they didn’t belong. For all he knew, they were the last human beings on Earth, and now whatever happened to everyone else was about to happen to them.
The Gladiators waited, and the stretching seconds tore at their nerves as much as the silence. After a few more moments, Franco lifted an arm, checking his movement sensor.
“Anything?” Janus said without turning.
“Thought I …” Franco began to lower his arm, but then stopped. “Hold it.” The Special Forces soldier frowned at the scanner while raising his weapon to the shadow-riven piazza. “Something out there – movement.”
“Where?” Leon panned his gun barrel around.
Janus gripped his gun tighter. “I got nothing. Keep talking, Franco.”
“Eleven o’clock, a shadow.”
Leon’s eyes moved from the sensor to stare hard at the billowing smoke.
“Could it be Enrico? It could be …” Carlo focused on the direction Franco had indicated. “Can’t see shit.”
“It’s out there.” Franco cursed. “Can’t be Enrico.”
“Why not?” Leon said.
“There’s more than one. Closing.”
“Maybe Enrico’s found some of the residents and he’s bringing them in. Gotta be it.” Leon walked down a few steps. “Hey, Enrico, over here.”
“Quiet!” Janus had that feeling he sometimes got just before the shit was about to hit the fan. “Everybody stay in formation.”
“Doesn’t make sense.” Franco shook his head. “The signature is big, too big for a man. I don’t get it. This is all fucked up.”
“Shit,” Janus cursed softly.
“Capitano, ah, I got a real bad feeling.” Franco started to back up. “This is all wrong.”
Janus heard fear in the man’s voice, and that worried him more than anything else because he knew his team, and they feared nothing. He spoke through gritted teeth: “We’re sitting ducks out here.” He spun one way, then the next. “Fuck it, fall back into the church.”
“In the church? Didn’t help those other guys.” Leon was ten feet down on the bottom step and staring up at them.
“But we got the guns. Now move it.” Janus turned away, hearing Leon mumble something low about Enrico having a gun. “Go!” he yelled.
Carlo and Franco turned and headed for the double door and Janus followed them. From behind them there was the sound of an impact and a grunt, and the men spun back.
Leon was gone.
“Fuck you.” Franco opened fire on the square, followed by Carlo, their stream of bullets making the thick mist swirl and dance around the muzzle of their guns.
“Cease fire, goddamn it.” Janus felt his heart race in his chest. “Wait until …” He quickly checked the personnel scanner, and saw Leon’s signature blip moving away from them. The blip became fainter, and then it simply stopped sending out a signal. It was like the man dissolved before his eyes.
He looked up. “What the fu—” Then he saw them. The hulking shapes, twice as big as a man, and their outlines tore at his sanity. In the dark haze, eyes opened … too many eyes.
From a few miles to their east there came the sound of an explosion. Janus recognized it – a fragmentation grenade, part of the Gladiator’s ordinance kit. One of the other teams was under attack. He corrected himself: also under attack.
The huge forms started to close in, and Janus gritted his teeth to bite down on the fear threatening to engulf him.
He shook it off. “Lock and load, free fire. Let’s give ’em hell.” He opened up, laying down a line of fire directly into the massive shadows that stayed just at the edge of their vision.
Franco and Carlo did the same, and in a few moments their first clips were exhausted, they ejected them and like well-oiled machines, snapped in spares. The trio opened up again, the smoke from their guns adding to the veils of fog surrounding them.
The mad shapes with the burning eyes would vanish, but reappear somewhere else. It was impossible to tell if they were having an effect on them or not. But in the next moment, something like an express train came out of the smoke and barreled into them.
Janus fired into it, hit it multiple times – he knew he did – but on it came anyway. The impact was massive, then came the scalding heat. His armored suit sizzled, and there were long tears in the fortified material along his chest and down one arm.
Janus rolled away and came up on one knee, firing. He saw Franco tucked under the arm of something monstrous as it burrowed back into the haze. His man screamed and fought like the devil against the massive greasy-looking body, but his suit smoked where it touched the thing’s flesh, and the huge arm held him as easily as if he were a child.
The Gladiator team leader froze but Carlo went after Franco, screaming and firing, and the sight of his maddened soldier unlocked Janus’ muscles.
“Hold your position! Carlo, hold your position!” Janus yelled until he was hoarse, but it was too late as Carlo was in the grip of some sort of mad frenzy.
“Fuck!” Janus began to chase after his men, following the sound of gunfire. But then it was replaced with the tortured scream of Carlo. The sound made him grimace behind his mask.
Janus had heard men die before, and knew what pain sounded like. On a previous mission he’d seen one of their Gladiators lose a hand and simply fight on until a medic got to him. His soldiers knew how to deal with pain. But this sound froze him to his marrow. He backed up, checking his locator for his team members. Only one signature now remained – his.
It didn’t matter anymore; he now knew what had happened to the local residents, and it had nothing to do with noxious gas.
“Commander Mancini, do you read?” Janus’ logical mind knew he was out of communication range, but his primitive one was beginning to panic. “Commander, I need immediate evac, do you read? Do. You. Read. Me?” He started to back up to the church. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He bared his teeth and fired again, trying to pick his targets, and suddenly hit the church door. These monsters were what the town’s folk had barricaded themselves in the church to hide from.
Of course, it all made sense now – the damn hole in the church vestibule. These things had burrowed up from inside, ambushed the hiding people, and snatched them all down to Hell. They’d get him too if he tried to go to ground.
