Chapter 11: Escalation
Field Station Delta: A paranormal military thriller.
Welcome to Field Station Delta. This novella is a paranormal military thriller that I am releasing as a serial for my readers on Substack.
Day 3, 09:13
A stark crimson glare flooded the conference room as Field Station Delta’s auxiliary power generator kicked into gear. Emergency claxons wailed like hungry banshees.
Metzger’s vision swam as she struggled to her feet. Her legs buckled under her and she hit the floor again. The whole building seemed to be swaying back and forth like a ship caught in a violent ocean squall. Her stomach heaved, and she tasted bile in her mouth. She suppressed the urge to vomit.
She could hear shouts and screams all around her and running feet in the hallway beyond. She crawled towards the doorway. A chair hurtled past just above her head and slammed against a wall. An unseen force lifted Metzger off the floor and flung her across the room. She landed with a crash beside the Colonel’s podium now lying upended in a corner.
“Metzger!”
She looked to her left and saw Airman Lucy Hopko crouching nearby. She seemed unhurt. Quickly, Hopko scrambled over to Metzger’s side.
“Are you alright?” Hopko said, shouting to be heard over the klaxons and the general clamor.
“I think so,” Metzger shouted back. There was a sharp pain above her left eye, and she felt a trickle of blood down her temple and onto her cheek. She must have cracked her head on the corner of the podium during her unhappy landing. She blinked and cursed—now the free flow of blood was getting into her eye.
The room seemed to sway violently again and both airmen struggled to stay focused. There were several indistinct shapes scattered about on the floor, likely the unconscious forms of some of their comrades. There was no one else around. Hopefully the others escaped to the emergency bunker. Suddenly there was a loud bang from somewhere in the facility and the red emergency lights began to flicker.
“We gotta get out of here,” Hopko yelled. “Can you stand?”
“If the room stops swaying like a top, probably,” said Metzger.
For a moment, all was still except the monotonous blaring of the klaxons. Metzger leaned on Hopko for support—her legs still wanted to wobble like a drunken sailor’s—and the two women moved towards the door.
“What about the others?” Metzger said, pointing to one of the bodies on the floor.
“We can’t help them if—”
A dark shadow streaked into Metzger’s field of view, still obscured by blood, and her legs suddenly gave way again. Hopko also hit the floor. The wail of the sirens died suddenly.
Another shadow, about the height of a child, stood silently in the doorway. Metzger couldn’t see the creature’s face, but she had no doubt at all about its identity. She knew, by some sense other than sight, that the shadow-creature was looking directly at her… and thinking about her.
A now-all-too-familiar hideous voice slithered its way into her mind.
You. Were. Warned.
There was a blur of movement as several shadows—three or four at least—rushed forward through the doorway. Lucy Hopko was screaming. “No. NO!! Get off me! Metzger, help!”
But Metzger felt rooted to the floor. She tried desperately to move, but it was useless—her arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. The Thing by the door touched Metzger’s mind again.
You. Stay. The others belong to us now.
She tried to shout, but all that came out of her throat was a strangled croak. Hopko thrashed and shrieked as the shadow-creatures dragged her violently towards the doorway. With a jerk she disappeared into the deeper shadows of the passageway beyond.
Her last scream of “HELP—” was suddenly cut off. There was silence.
Metzger lay motionless on the floor bathed in the red glare of the emergency lights, helpless and terrified. Hot blood dripped from the cut on her scalp and formed a little pool on the floor beside her. The shadows were gone, but she heard once more the hissing voice in her mind, echoing as if out of a distant cave.
Sleeeeeep.
A darkness deeper than the blackest night she had ever known covered Metzger like a burial shroud, and she knew no more.
Day 3, 17:20
“Nnnh…” Metzger groaned as she clawed her way back to consciousness.
She opened her eyes slowly and painfully. Her vision was blurry, but she soon recognized her surroundings by the sharp tang of antiseptic. She was in the infirmary. It was cold in the room, but the overhead lights were working again, and she could hear faintly the steady beeping of medical equipment. Metzger was lying on a cot by the wall. She could hear voices around her, indistinct and garbled. Her head throbbed. She felt a heavy strip of gauze wrapped around her forehead.
She winced and closed her eyes tight. Not again…
“Hey… who’s here?” she called out, her voice sounded strangely distorted in a way she couldn’t properly describe to herself.
“Metzger? Thank God,” said another voice close at hand, also distorted and uncanny. Metzger opened her eyes again, and a shadow fell over her. Her vision was still blurred and indistinct. “Can you hear me?” She recognized the voice now. It was Violet Olstead.
“Yeah, I can hear you,” Metzger said. Her vision and hearing were returning to normal, but the room still seemed unnaturally cold.
“How do you feel?”
“Well, for starters, my head feels like it had a run-in with a semi. Otherwise, I'm fine… I think. What happened? Where’s Airman Hopko? Is she alright?”
Before Violet could answer, a rapid clicking sound filled the room and Jacob Groenke bent over her, waving his weird Geiger counter device over her body.
“Like, what the hell!” Violet snapped. “For God's sake, Groenke. Give her a minute, will you?”
“Her XAP numbers are off the charts!” Groenke protested. “I was just—”
“Get lost!”
Groenke withdrew grumbling and Metzger sat up. She winced again.
“Careful,” said Violet.
“I'm fine. What about the others?”
Violet bit her lip and glanced at the floor. “Scrapes and bruises, mostly. Sergeant Berg is lucky that he’s only concussed—he was thrown headfirst into a wall…” She trailed off and was silent for several moments. “Alicia Bradford and Airman Hopko are missing. Gone without a trace. Just like—”
“Just like the people of Van Cleef.”
Violet nodded.
Dammit.
Metzger blamed herself. Of course, if she examined the situation logically—in as much as mundane things like logic mattered when being attacked by extra-dimensional trickster imps—she knew there was nothing she could have done to save Lucy Hopko from being abducted. But the memories of that night in the Nuristan mountains still lay heavy on her.
Not again! Please, God. Not again.
Just like during Operation: White Phantom, she’d been rendered helpless, unable to help her people, her squad mates, when they needed her most.
She knew that ever since her confrontation with the Pale Man something was different about her. She had access to a mysterious power that she couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend. But what good was such power if she couldn’t awaken it at will when lives were on the line?
Metzger tried to get her mind centered back on the here-and-now. “How long was I out?”
“About eight hours, give or take,” said Violet. “We just restored main power a little while ago. Oh, yeah—Valdes was here before that to check on you. He seemed totally gung-ho about something or other, but he wouldn’t tell me what.” She shrugged.
Just then, Valdes himself dashed into the infirmary. He had a black eye and a bandaged cut on his chin but seemed otherwise unhurt.
“Metzger! Groenke told me you were awake. Listen—Sergeant Phan's bringing together everyone in the squad who’s fit for action. We're headin’ back up to the Wheel. We've got a plan to get our people back, but we've gotta act fast. Cartwright wants to can call in the big guns. Real FUBAR shit. The Colonel said he'll run interference as long as he can. I thought… Well, from what you said about your time in Afghanistan, I thought you'd want in. Are you up for it?”
“You bet your ass I am,” Metzger said.
That cliffhanger was brutal-------- Metzger’s helplessness as Hopko is dragged away hit hard. Are you planning to expand Field Station Delta into a full novel once the serial is done, or keep it contained as a tight novella?
Aahh! I need to know what happens next!