Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

sure you don’t want to tell us your name?” Cortez prodded the bound soldier. Predictably, she said nothing. “Fuck it, I tried.” Cortez moved off, looking more annoyed than anything.

Summers sighed, still watching the woman. He’d hoped they’d be able to do something for her, or at least learn something.

As he stood, he saw one of the restrained, spider-like limbs twitch. Summers eyed the woman, suspicious. But she didn’t so much as look at him.

Summers turned, moving back toward the small bedroom at the back of the house.

At least they’d get a quiet night before they dove into whatever the hell was waiting for them next.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

Asle found it difficult to sleep that night.

There was noise outside—a party of some sort, she thought. Yells would break the silence every so often, just enough to keep Asle awake. Sighing, she quietly moved the covers off of her. Synel still slept quietly a few feet away, seemingly clueless to the girl’s movements.

Slowly, she moved to the door, and into the hallway outside. Only a few were awake at this time of night, but that was exactly what she needed.

Asle had been up all night thinking. She had no intention of letting the soldier go. The others knew that she was too dangerous to be let free, but at the same time, they didn’t have it in them to kill the woman in cold blood.

She understood that. They were strangers to her world. They had no idea what life as a slave was like.

Asle wouldn’t wish that fate on her worst enemy.

And so, with sleep eluding her, and nothing better to do, she crept through the hall, toward the living space that held the woman. Pat and Orvar should still be on guard. It wouldn’t take much to sway them to her side.

Death was a preferable alternative to the life of a slave, especially for a woman. They knew that, and she’d hoped they would help her sway the others. Asle was confident the woman herself would have agreed, if she was still able to think.

Even Summers had told them as much, when he’d pulled the monster from his head. He would have rather died than lived as something else.

Then, as Asle reached the end of the hall, she heard a scream. It was distant, but it was almost definitely one of terror. She turned her head toward the noise just as another erupted, closer this time.

Asle hurried her pace toward the room, sensing that something was wrong. When she got there, she froze.

Pat and Orvar lay unconscious, slumped against a wall. The soldier sat still in the seat at the end of the room.

Her body had opened up, split down the middle. And the black, almost liquid form of the hamr oozed from the opening.

It stopped in kind as Asle entered, a small tendril wrapped around Orvar’s leg.

Asle was sure that wasn’t good.

The tendril suddenly shifted, lunging for her. Asle fell to the side, more in fear than anything, as the creature sailed over her. She crawled, scrabbling for the sidearm at Pat’s hip.

Just as the creature would have enveloped her, she managed to fire off a single shot into the woman’s head.

Then, everything went dark.

Chapter 37: Turning Point

“Stay here.”

Asle’s mother spoke in a low voice, closing the hatch to their crawlspace, leaving Asle in darkness. Something like thunderclaps echoed in the distance, shaking the walls around her. Asle hugged her knees, doing her best to stay quiet.

Her father had started gathering the few from their village who knew how to use a spear, some only as old as she was. She could hear him yelling for groups to form ranks. They’d thought it was just another of the beasts that roamed the old wood, something they could frighten off. It was only now that Asle realized how bad things were.

More noise reverberated, closer this time, even as her father’s shouting grew further away.

She didn’t say a word. Asle barely dared to breathe as the sound of fighting, then screaming, echoed in her small home.

Then, suddenly, a sound like wood snapping reached her. It echoed, intensifying into a terrible crescendo. The ground rocked, throwing Asle to the side with almost impossible force. She curled herself into a ball, trying to muffle her cries as the house above her seemed to tear itself apart.

It stopped as quickly as it had come, and Asle was left in absolute, terrifying silence.

She waited there, beneath the floor, for what felt like hours.

Eventually, night fell, but still she didn’t move. Her parents had told her to stay hidden until they came for her. But even as the morning light leaked in from the floorboards, she heard nothing, saw no one.

So much time passed like that, with Asle straining to stay quiet.

It was only on the third day, as the hunger gnawed at her mind, that she heard something: footsteps.

“Mom? Dad!”

The footsteps stopped. Strange voices began calling to one another, coming closer.

Slowly, the hatch to Asle’s hiding spot opened, letting in the morning light.

Asle found a man standing over her, holding something pointed at her chest for a few seconds before he lowered it, shouting out to the others.

There were dozens dressed in the same strange attire.

Before Asle could react, a woman grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing?” Asle tried to pull away, but the woman wrapped a second hand around her waist. “Let me go! Where are my parents?”

Asle struggled against her grip, clawing at the woman’s arm, but she didn’t relent. Another hand grabbed her, pushing her roughly into the ground.

“Let me go!”

Asle’s eyes fell on what remained of her village. There was nothing left. Just a few haphazard piles of wood and stone. There weren’t even any dead to