Darkest Night
By James Cherry
© 2012 James
Cherry
All characters in
this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased
is purely coincidental.
This book is
protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any
reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is
prohibited without the express written permission of James Cherry.
Prologue
Somewhere in Afghanistan
First Lieutenant Crafton held up a clenched fist and his
six-man team halted. Without a word, the men quickly dropped into concealment
behind the sparse vegetation and rocky outcroppings of the windswept hillside.
It was dark,
an inky jet-black blanket that covered the landscape. Without night vision
goggles, navigation through the hostile rocky terrain would have been virtually
impossible. The sky was overcast, with the damp smell of rain hanging in the
air. The low cloud cover blotted out the moon and stars above only adding to the
darkness and feeling of despair.
The lieutenant peered through his
night vision goggles and analyzed the objective, which was a small house set
within the confines of a low three foot tall stone wall. The homestead appeared
to be a typical Afghani stone and daub house, with two shanty outbuildings, one
at each corner of the house. What wasn’t typical was the eight armed men
huddled together just outside the front door of the house.
The lieutenant paused as he
contemplated the situation. Just why were all of the men huddled together out in the yard?
The Taliban fighters were talking
rapidly and pointing skyward but he just couldn’t make out what they were
saying. His team was still a good hundred meters away and they would have to
edge closer before he could determine what was going on.
Lieutenant Crafton signaled to the
sniper, Sergeant Billy Riddle. Sergeant Riddle darted to a large high rock
outcropping, and quickly scaled to the top. He wedged into a crack, seeming to
meld into the rock as his motionless body disappeared from sight. The
lieutenant nodded in satisfaction at the sniper’s ability to just disappear at
will.
Upon his signal, the lieutenant and
the rest of the team ghosted forward, moving from rock to bush, slowly and with
purpose. As the team neared the low wall, Lieutenant Crafton could begin to
make out a few words from the Taliban fighters on the other side.
One of the men growled, “Ana laa afham.”
The lieutenant deliberated the words Ana laa afham. That phrase was not Pashtun. Pashtun was the
main language of that particular region of Afghanistan, but what those men
spoke was Arabic. He searched his memory for the meaning and recalled that the
words meant, “I do not understand.” A sudden realization hit the lieutenant. Those men are not Taliban fighters at all,
they are Al Qaeda.
Again, the same man repeated “Ana laa afham,” this time his voice
was a couple octaves higher.
Understand what? The lieutenant didn’t spend too much time pondering the situation.
He had come to do a mission, and he was going to see it through.
He risked a quick peek and grimaced
as he saw the men scattering about in panic. Had they been spotted? One terrorist dropped to his knees and began
to pray, bowing in supplication. The others raced into the house and the door
slammed with a loud resonant bang.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
The lieutenant glanced at his men, they were all looking at him for guidance. He held up
his hand and signaled them to hold position.
What the hell was going on?
Suddenly two men burst from the house
and rushed to the side of the praying man. One of the men held an AK 47 at the
ready, peering into the night sky, his head swiveling from side to side. The
other held a small spotlight as he struggled to turn it on. He slapped the
light a few times and mumbled something under his breath. A brilliant lance of
light sliced through the night sky, and the terrorist began swinging the light
in a frantic search pattern.
The lieutenant cursed under his
breath and quickly ducked back behind the wall as the blinding light washed out
his vision. He blinked rapidly as he attempted to clear the dancing spots in
his eyes and he tightened his grip on his weapon in anticipation of an
immediate attack.
Of all the cursed bad luck.
The light suddenly extinguished,
plunging the area back into complete and total darkness. One of the terrorists
could be heard banging on the light again, attempting to turn the finicky piece
of hardware back on by brute force. The lieutenant risked another look.
Both men were staring nervously into
the sky, oblivious to the American team just a few feet away. They continued to
frantically work on the light, banging and cursing. They began to argue and tug
on the light, attempting to wrest control from one another.
The lieutenant smiled to himself. If
the terrorists were preparing for an attack from the sky, they were going to be
more than just a little surprised. He let out a slow breath to steady his
nerves and silently said a quick prayer. He turned to his men and gave the
signal.
The lieutenant stood and took aim. He
fired a short burst into the two arguing men, tearing holes through their
bodies. The men dropped as if made of stone, their lifeless bodies slamming
into the dirt ground in unison in a puff of dust.
To the lieutenant’s immediate right,
Specialist Randy Fernandez targeted the praying man as he stood and leveled his
weapon at the Americans. Fernandez’s rifle barked three times and the man
folded without getting off a shot.
Sergeant Paul Morris and Specialist
Terry Carter rushed to the house, stacking by the front door. As if on cue,
Staff Sergeant Bo Welsh appeared in front of the door and kicked. The flimsy
thin wood buckled and splintered from the hinges, falling inward with a loud
crash. Morris and Carter barged through the door, with Staff Sergeant Welsh
bringing up the rear. A rapid staccato of shots rang out and the house went
still.
Suddenly the side door burst open and
a single figure erupted from the house, stumbling toward the opposite fence.
Lieutenant Crafton fired a shot just as the shadowy figure dove over the low
fence.
The lieutenant signaled for Fernandez
to stay put, and he rushed into the night in hot pursuit of the escaping
terrorist.
***
Staff Sergeant Welsh rushed to the left
of Morris and quickly surveyed the interior of the house. Movement to his left
caught his eye as a figure darted towards the side door. He snapped off a quick
shot at the figure and as if in unison, Carter and Morris both opened fire
within their sectors. The audible twin thud of a pair of bodies hitting the
ground and the gurgle of a dying man could be heard from somewhere to his
right. Staff Sergeant Welsh fired again, just as the figure burst through the
side door. The man stumbled into the yard beyond and disappeared from sight.
I hit him! Welsh
thought to himself in excitement. The sharp report of an M4 echoed in the night
just outside the house, and Welsh sighed. Either the lieutenant or Fernandez
took down his target. He knew he would never hear the end of this one.
Morris shouted, “One clear."
“Two clear,” yelled Carter, as if in
a shouting competition with Sergeant Morris.
“Three Clear,” Welsh stated
nonchalantly.
An eerie quiet settled amongst the
camp.
Staff Sergeant’s intuition and
experience told him something was very wrong. The lieutenant always called for
a situation report at this point yet the radio was silent. Years of combat
experience and training took over.
With a firm but quiet voice, he
asked, "Delta one, this is Delta two, what's your status? Over."
Silence.
Welsh’s brow furrowed as he pondered
the situation. He hit the button on his Tac-Comm
again.
“LT?”
Silence.
“Lieutenant,” yelled Welsh with
desperation.
Silence.
Staff Sergeant Welsh switched
tactics, “Delta five, this is Delta two. Over.”
Fernandez answered, “This is Delta
five, go ahead.”
“What is Delta ones status? Over.”
“Delta two, delta one ordered me to
stay put and he gave chase to the Haji that ran out the side door. Over.”
Gave chase?
Staff Sergeant Welsh pressed the
button on his Tac-Comm and called the sniper. Perhaps
from his position he could see the lieutenant. “Delta six,
you seen the lieutenant?”
“Negative,” Riddle replied calmly. “Couldn’t see him from my position once he went over the wall.”
Staff Sergeant Welsh waved to Carter
and Morris and the two men approached. “Let’s get out there and find that
dumbass lieutenant. He decided to charge into the darkness after a Haji without
a battle buddy.”
Sergeant Morris snickered, “The Haji
that you shot at and missed…”
Staff Sergeant Welsh shot a withering
glare at Morris and the young sergeant’s smile vanished as if by magic.
***
With Carter, Morris, and Fernandez in
tow, Staff Sergeant Welsh raced to the location that Lieutenant Crafton
supposedly took. The four men hopped the wall and glanced around, frantically
searching for any sign of the lieutenant.
Welsh examined the area carefully,
walking around slowly looking for any sign of what happened to the young
lieutenant. Further up the hillside he spotted a body. “Man down,” he shouted
and rushed to the form laying supine on the rocky ground. Upon reaching the
body he realized that it was the terrorist he had shot at.
“LT?” Welsh risked a low shout.
When no reply was forthcoming, Staff
Sergeant Welsh ordered his men to fan out and search the area.
“Search for hidden tunnels, caves,
blood trails, anything.”
The men moved off in different
directions, combing the ground for any evidence of their lost lieutenant.
After a twenty-minute search, Staff
Sergeant Welsh found nothing. He finally pressed the button on his Tac-Comm and asked, “Carter, you find anything?”
Carter replied immediately, “No,
nothing. It’s as if the lieutenant just vanished.”
Welsh walked back to the body and
joined Carter. As the two men took up defensive positions next to the
terrorist’s body, Welsh’s mind raced with possibilities. There must have been an ambush; the lieutenant was captured. He
shook his head, but there is no sign of a
struggle.
He tried a few more times to reach
Crafton with his radio.
Silence.
Fernandez soon joined the pair and
his shrug told Staff Sergeant Welsh all he needed to know.
A sudden sense of dread fell over him
all at once. “Where is Morris?” He glanced around, the night vision easily
piercing the inky darkness. The sergeant was nowhere to be seen.
He pressed the button on his Tac-Comm, “Morris, speak to me.”
Silence.
Staff Sergeant Welsh called to Carter
and Fernandez as he swiveled his head from side to side, as if expecting an ambush
at any moment. He motioned for the two men to keep up and he jumped up and ran
flat out, back the way they had came. “Everyone fall
back now. Meet at the rally point. Go, go, go!"
Riddle's calm, monotone voice chimed
in. "Delta two, there is no evidence of any hostile action here. From my
position, I can see the entire camp and haven't seen any movement."
As Welsh ran, puffing hard from the
exertion, he replied to Riddle, “Something strange is going on here. I need to
keep us together for defense. I don't think that it was us that spooked these
terrorists. We now have two men MIA. Whoever the enemy is, they are picking us
off one by one. Stay near cover and move quickly.”
Riddle replied with a touch of panic
in his voice, “Delta two, something just passed over my head. . .”
Silence.
“Riddle, come in. I didn’t copy that,
what passed over your head?”
Silence.
Welsh stopped to stare in the
direction of Riddle's position and found it impossible to see him from where he
was. “Damn it, move it guys, something is happening here.”
***
Welsh and
Carter sat huddled together at the rally point. They were in an easily defensible
and thickly covered creek bed. A shadow moved from the right and detached
itself from a nearby tree. Staff Sergeant Welsh swiveled his rifle only to see
the familiar face of Fernandez. The young man jumped into the creek and quickly
took up a defensible position.
Fernandez broke the momentary silence
as the three men sat huddled and shivering together. “Welsh, it appears it’s
just us now. Crafton, Morris, and Riddle are not answering. What do we do?”
Staff Sergeant Welsh turned his head
slowly to look at Fernandez. He could almost smell the fear emanating from
every pore of the young man’s body. “I have no idea what threat we are facing, any
theories?”
“No, but I think I found Morris,”
Fernandez managed to choke out.
He looked at Fernandez with alarm.
“What’s his status? Where is he?”
“I think this is what’s left of
him," said Fernandez as he dropped a boot to the ground. "Found it
just outside the wall as we were running here."
Welsh stared at the boot for a moment
before he bent down and picked it up. It was heavy, too heavy for an empty
boot. He suddenly realized that the boot still contained a foot which appeared
to have been completely ripped off just above the ankle. He dropped the boot as
if it was on fire and looked up at Fernandez.
“Specialist, how do you know this is
Morris?” Welsh asked.
Fernandez looked up at Welsh. The
young specialist had removed his night vision and his eyes were brimming with
tears.
“Morris had written NIKE on the sides
of his boots in dark green. Said it would help him run like hell if he ever got
in trouble,” Fernandez explained, his voice shaking in fear.
Welsh removed his night vision and
risked a quick glance at the boot using his flashlight. There it was.
He steeled himself and began his
orders, “Okay, we have no way to call in an EVAC, since our communications gear
was with Sergeant Morris. It’s up to us to make it to the extraction zone.
Whoever or whatever is doing this, obviously it's from the sky." He
pointed to the sky in emphasis. "Ultralight?
Hang glider? Some new technology
from a hostile government? I don’t know. All I know is that it is silent
and fast." Pointing to the side of his goggles, he continued, "Keep
your eyes open and switch to thermal imaging on your goggles. Riddle may have
missed seeing the object using starlight. Hopefully, we can spot any heat
signature from a distance before they get too close. Let’s move out into the
trees, leapfrog. Maybe when we get under the canopy of trees they won’t be able
to get at us.”
Without another word, he ran across
the seventy-five yards of sparsely covered ground and entered the tree line. He
found cover behind a huge gnarled tree and pointed his weapon in preparation to
cover Fernandez.
Fernandez broke from the creek bed
and made for the trees.
Welsh intently scanned the sky
looking for the thermal image of anything flying above. A light wind picked up
momentarily, and he looked straight upwards.
The unmistakable heat signature of a
small plane sized object zoomed in over his tree and dove to where Fernandez
was running for his position. Welsh fired into the air in the general direction
of the object with no discernable effect. It happened
to fast for him to react. What the hell is that thing?
Staff Sergeant Welsh’s shots alerted
Fernandez and the young specialist dove to the ground in evasion. The attack
was silent and swift, and the object was gone as fast as it had appeared. It
quickly rose, banked, and was back over the trees before anyone could get off
another shot. Fernandez cautiously got up, seemingly unhurt. The specialist
paused for a moment in confusion, and then ran like a scalded dog to Staff
Sergeant Welsh’s location.
Carter wasn’t far behind; he had
broken from his position early and run like hell. The young man dove in behind
Fernandez, crashing into the scrub brush and rolled behind a tree. Immediately
he got up on one knee and brought his weapon up in one fluid motion as he
scanned the sky intently.
“Just what the fuck was that?” yelled
Fernandez.
“Settle down, Fernandez, quiet.”
Staff Sergeant Welsh looked at Carter, “You were supposed to wait on Fernandez
to reach this position before you came this way,” scolded Welsh.
Carter whispered loudly, “Screw you
sergeant, you saw that thing. I figured I had best run to the cover of trees
while it was busy eating lunch.” As if in afterthought, he added, “Oh, by the
way, what the fuck was that thing?” His hands were shaking so hard, his grip
slipped on his rifle and he almost dropped it onto the ground.
Staff Sergeant Welsh looked at the
two remaining members of his team. He saw fear, confusion, and doubt. He
imagined that his own face looked very similar to theirs and made an attempt to
block out his emotions.
With the lieutenant gone, he was the
leader. He had to get his men out alive. He had to be strong. He pulled himself
together and pushed the fear and doubt to the back of his mind, blocking it out
with his years of military training. He had to make a decision and lead his men
to safety.
He swallowed hard, “I don’t know what
it is and really don't care. Let's get the hell out of here. Fernandez, take
point. Carter, rear. We have ten clicks to go to the
Extraction Point. Let's move.”
The trio quietly moved through the
trees in the hopes that the dense canopy would shield the group from whatever
had attacked the other team members.
“Just stay under the trees,” Welsh called out
to his men as he dodged from tree to tree, “That thing is too big to get us in
here.”
***
They made good time and were only a
couple of kilometers away from the extraction point when a light breeze picked
up. Welsh ordered a stop as the unmistakable whistling of wings beat overhead.
The trio went still and scanned the tree tops, weapons aimed towards the heavens.
Suddenly the loud popping of limbs breaking permeated the stillness, followed
by the sound of leaves and branches raining through the trees.
“It’s in the trees,” hissed Welsh.
Welsh scanned the trees in earnest
with his night vision, but didn’t see any immediate threats. He turned to
Fernandez and tapped him on the back as a signal for him to move.
Fernandez nearly jumped out of his
boots but regained his composure quickly. He ran to the next tree craning his
head upward as he ran. Welsh turned to Carter.
Carter?
Carter was gone.
Welsh panicked. His training and experience
went out the window and he ran like the devil himself was after him.
Maybe it was.
As he passed Fernandez he grabbed the
young specialist’s arm and pulled him along like a child dragging a stuffed
animal. He released his grip after a few seconds once he was sure Fernandez got
the message.
***
Fernandez instinctively knew
something had happened and didn’t offer any resistance. As he ran, he dropped
his heavy pack and most of his ammo. He was able to keep up with Welsh for the
first hundred yards, but lost him in the pitch black of the dense jungle.
Fernandez began to panic as he frantically
searched for Welsh. He used his night vision goggles to pierce the inky
darkness so that he could easily pick out the path which Welsh had taken.
Broken limbs and crushed plants showed the telltale signs of his passing.
After a few minutes of running, he
finally came upon a small clearing and slowed. He spied Welsh crouched beside a
large tree, his head weaving from side to side as he scanned the sky. The
clearing was forty meters wide and would only take a few seconds to cross.
Welsh seemed to note his approach and
pointed to the tree line on the other side.
Fernandez nodded in response.
Without saying a word, Welsh wheeled
around and raced across the clearing in a full out sprint. When he reached the
other side, he turned to cover Fernandez, pointing his weapon to the sky.
Fernandez knew he was going to make
it as the extraction point was only a few hundred meters away. He took a deep
breath and burst from the tree line, sprinting across the clearing.
***
Welsh saw the movement from his left,
swooping in exceptionally fast down the length of the clearing. He swiveled his
rifle in preparation to fire, but before he could react, the shape was on top
of Fernandez. He watched helplessly as the creature grabbed Fernandez in its
talons and bit into the back of the young man’s neck. Fernandez began
convulsing in death.
Staff Sergeant Bo Welsh stared at the
creature through his night vision goggles, it’s a horrific visage would be forever
burned into his memory.
It had huge, bat-like wings, which
were easily fifty feet in length from tip to tip. A long serpentine body, which
was laced with spines along the length of its back, was coiled about the body
of Fernandez in a protective cocoon. The infrared goggles made the eyes appear
to glow with a pulsing evil red light.
Welsh quickly switched his goggles to
starlight to get a better look at the creature. The eyes.
He could see them clearly now.
Evil.
Cold.
Calculating.
The creature stared back at Staff
Sergeant Welsh, unmoving, with its prey clutched in its claws.