Chapter 9: Appeasement
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, 06:50
Just before sunrise, Metzger and the rest of the Air Force field team were strung out in a wide semi-circular arc facing the Medicine Wheel. Bradford had insisted they stay back several meters further than Sergeant Phan thought was wise, but he’d been overruled by the Colonel who said it was best in this case to defer to the archaeologist.
“This is a delicate situation,” Bradford said, hands on her hips and trying to look important. “I don’t need SG-1 here breathing down my neck and antagonizing the Awwakkulé with their blasters.”
“SG-1 don’t use blasters,” scoffed Whittaker. “Have y’all ever seen that show?”
“Zip it, Whitts,” said Phan. “Like it or not, Doc Bradford’s the expert here. Stay frosty, all of you. We have no idea what’s really going to happen.”
“What about us?” whined Groenke, standing off to the side with Cathy and Violet. “I want to take some readings.”
“You will stay behind us and out of the line of fire, Groenke,” said Phan.
“But—”
“No buts. I’m sure your gizmos can take perfectly good readings from where you are. Shut up and deal with it.”
“Unless, o’course, you Blue Shirts wanna become Red Shirts,” sneered Whitts.
Metzger turned and shared a glance with Cathy. She and Violet looked worried, even afraid. No surprise there.
Now that Metzger was clued into the truth about Key Master, she was certain that the Awwakkulé, these spirit-world imps—or whatever they were—would never return the people of Van Cleef just because Bradford offered them a basket full of feathers, seeds, strips of cloth, and an antique stone knife. This whole business of placating the spirits with a “traditional” ceremony was nothing more than a cruel charade. Cartwright and her stooge Groenke knew perfectly well what needed to happen to make this craziness stop. But they wouldn’t do it, because that would mean admitting they were wrong.
And in the meantime, the people of Van Cleef would suffer—unwitting pawns in a game they didn’t even know was being played behind a curtain of military secrecy just down the road from their sleepy little town.
Metzger quietly seethed, but she couldn’t let her anger at Cartwright’s duplicity cloud her judgment now. Innocent lives were on the line.
Stay focused, Metzger. Phan’s right—anything could happen out here.
Bradford advanced slowly into the middle of the ring of stones and placed the basket on the ground. Kneeling, she lit several incense sticks and murmured some words that Metzger couldn’t catch. Ritualistic prayers, maybe? Then the archaeologist got up and retreated to where the airmen stood, their weapons lowered but at the ready.
“So, what’s our next move?” asked Phan.
“Now we wait,” Bradford said.
Great, Metzger thought. She scowled at the world in general. Despite her efforts to keep her head in the game, Metzger found herself brooding again. Mary Bonds and her neighbors hadn’t deserved this. If there was any justice in the universe, Cartwright and her paymasters in DC would get what’s coming to them for this shitshow.
Emily Metzger wasn’t sure she believed in a merciful God. But she knew there was a just God. There had to be. Her mission as a TACP operative in Afghanistan was all about bringing God’s own justice down on the heads of the worst people on the planet. At least, that’s how she had framed it to herself sometimes. But what about the fate of her squadmates—her friends—that night on the mountain in Nuristan? Why would a just God have allowed that? What she saw that night was evil. Incomprehensible, inhuman evil. What kind of just God would permit such evil to exist?
She didn’t have answers to any of these questions. But maybe she didn’t need to. None of her anguished uncertainties and doubts changed the fact that those terrible events had brought her here—in this place, at this moment, when people were in danger. She knew her duty. Protect the innocent, at whatever cost to herself. But was she up to the task?
Metzger didn’t pray often. In fact, she hadn’t prayed at all since that last fateful, horrible mission. She’d always felt awkward during Mass in the base chapel at FOB Messina. She rarely received Communion. She wasn’t comfortable with all that “personal relationship with Jesus” stuff. But, if there was ever a time to ask for Divine assistance, this was it.
God… If you’re listening… Innocent lives are on the line here and I’m not sure what to do. But no matter what happens to me, if you can use me to bring Mary Bonds and the others home safe, so be it. Just point me in the right direction and let me loose… Amen.
Huh? What kind of prayer was that, anyway? She wondered what Padre Adamski would’ve thought of it. Whatever. It was the best she could manage at the moment.
The minutes ticked by… slowly. The Medicine Wheel was silent and still. Nothing happened. Or nothing seemed to happen.
Wait… Something’s not right…
Everything around Metzger seemed… off. Like the whole world had gone crooked by a degree or two. No, that wasn’t exactly right. But she couldn’t find a better way to describe this weird sensation to herself. She had the distinct feeling—like on the morning she first arrived at the Ranch—that she was a trespasser on someone else’s domain.
The wind died and no bird or insect sounds disturbed the chill morning air. Metzger felt the urge to say something, anything, to break the uncanny silence. Whitts beat her to it.
“Quiet as a graveyard out here. Anyone feel like whistling?”
“Shut up!” snapped Sergeant Berg.
Several more long minutes passed—or was it hours? Metzger began to feel a strange sensation of drowsiness, lulled perhaps by the only distinct sounds she could hear—the constant humming and clicking of Groenke’s equipment. She blinked and shook her head, trying to regain focus.
“Woah!” Groenke practically squealed like a little kid at the circus. “That’s a huuuge spike in PKE values!”
Metzger felt sick. The world seemed to tilt crazily one instant, then return to normal just a moment later. She suppressed the urge to heave.
“You okay, Metzger?” Berg said. He was standing nearby on her left, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away.
Was she seeing things, or was there a heat mirage rising from the ground inside the Wheel? The air inside the ring of stones was distorted.
“What the hell?” someone said. No, apparently it wasn’t just her imagination.
“Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros, pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte…” Valdes’ muttered prayers sounded like distant echoes from some deep cavern in the earth. All of Metzger’s senses were screaming to her that something was horribly wrong.
“What the hell,” Metzger repeated.
Through the shimmering distortion inside the Medicine Wheel three figures appeared, prone upon the ground.
“Look! There’s someone out there!”
Without warning, an audible tone filled the air, a high piercing note that soon became unbearably painful. Everyone, airmen and scientists alike, dropped to their knees and cried out in agony. To Metzger it felt like knives were stabbing into her skull.
Please, God… No!
She forced her eyes open and gasped.
She found herself staring into a horrible face. It was the face of the creature from Mary Bonds’ cell phone video, or another monster just like it.
The inky dark wells of the Thing’s eyes seemed to transfix her. In her mind she heard a voice. The same terrible hissing voice that Metzger had heard during her late-night encounter with the menacing shadow-beings. The voice of the Thing spoke slowly and clearly.
You… Understand… Release them…
Then the world blacked out.
Metzger came to her senses and found the rest of her squad lying unconscious on the ground. She groaned and struggled to stand, but she stumbled, collapsing onto her hands and knees. Then she heard the sound of someone weeping.
Violet was kneeling by the Medicine Wheel with her face in her hands. Her slender frame shook with uncontrollable sobs. Slowly, with a weariness she could not account for, Metzger crawled over to the stricken woman.
“Ms. Olstead? Violet, what’s wrong?”
Between her anguished sobs, Violet managed to say, “Mr. Heller… The others… It’s all our fault! They told me so.”
With a sudden icy horror that froze her bones, Metzger remembered the prone figures. She hauled herself to her feet and passed between the megaliths that remained standing sentinel in their ominous vigil. In the midst of the circle three naked bodies lay crumpled on the ground. Their skin was covered in ugly bruises and other strange marks that might have been burns. Deep gouges—like clawmarks—crisscrossed the bodies. But there was no blood.
The body closest to her was an older man of stocky build with graying hair. It was Frank Heller.
The Awwakkulé had delivered their grisly response to Dr. Bradford’s “peace offering.”
Dammit! Metzger pounded the earth with her fist. Why had she delayed? She should have gone to Colonel Nolan as soon as she’d learned the truth. Maybe there would have been time to save Heller and the others.
Then Metzger felt the familiar cold fury rising up from the core of her being.
Cartwright…
All these events had been set in motion by the shadowy government scientist. Cartwright was tampering with forces she couldn’t possibly hope to understand or to control. But she needed results she could take back to Washington. The “data” was all that mattered. And three innocent people had paid for Cartwright’s hubris with their lives.
Day 3, 08:10
Metzger found Valdes in the barracks. He was sitting on a cot and staring at the floor. He looked like he’d been weeping. Metzger sat down next to him; he didn’t look up. His voice was a hollow, broken sound.
“Mary’s dead.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You saw those bodies out there! Poor Heller and the others… I’ve been to the Sandbox. I’ve seen the leftovers of suicide bombings and IEDs. But what I saw out at the Wheel…” He shuddered. “Who’s to say they haven’t killed Mary too?”
Metzger could have tried a logical argument: It’s true, the Awwakkulé might have killed all their captives at once, if they’d wanted to. But why only return three bodies? The imps clearly believed that as long as they held on to some of the townsfolk, they had the upper hand. Their message at the Medicine Wheel was starkly, violently clear—Do what we wish or the rest of the captives will die.
But Valdes didn’t need logical arguments right now. He just wanted someone to listen. Someone who understood.
Valdes placed a small silver object in her hand. It was an oval medallion with the image of a human figure with outstretched wings and wielding a flaming sword, as a writhing dragon lay pinned beneath his foot.
“San Miguel, ya know?”
Metzger nodded. Michael the Archangel. Patron saint of soldiers.
“My mother gave me that medal before my first deployment. It’s funny—Mama practically raised me in church,” he said. “Was an altar boy, and all that. Catholic school. But I never really was the praying type. Not even overseas. No atheists in the foxholes—that’s bullshit. But I saw things over there that I can’t explain…”
Metzger waited.
“Then ATLOG came calling, and I learned things,” continued Valdes. “Things I wish I hadn’t.” And then he looked Metzger straight in the eye. “It changes you.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I try to shrug it off. Or laugh it away. Whitts is real good at that. But after what I saw out there at the Wheel… People carved up like slaughtered livestock… all I could do was look at that medal and pray.”
“There’s still hope for Mary,” Metzger said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Just trust me.”
Valdes stared at her for a long moment. “Is it true what they say? About your time in the Stans?”
“What’ve you heard?”
“Just scuttlebutt. A lot of it’s BS. Most of us have seen things. That’s why ATLOG found us. But they say Cartwright recruited you personally because you can do things. Not like Violet.”
“Like what then?”
“They say you can take the fight to Them.”
“I guess you could say that. A whole lot of damn good it’s done me so far.” She moved to hand the St. Michael medal back to Valdes.
“Keep it,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something tells me you’re gonna need it.”
I really enjoyed this chapter. It was vivid, immersive, and delivered a satisfying payoff after the steady build-up in earlier chapters. I'm excited to see where the story goes next.
This was the best chapter yet!