SNAFU: Black Ops

BLACK TIDE James A Moore & Charles Rutledge

In the movies, Special Forces guys always landed their black inflatable boats with precision, drawing them quickly up the beach to be hidden in handy bushes. The choppy surf around Russell Island didn't make that possible, and in fact, one big mother of a wave lifted the boat at the last minute, spilling the six-man Alpha Team into the water and sending the men scrambling to grab weapons and ruck sacks before the tide took them.

Master Sergeant Tony Brent said most of the curse words he knew as he waded onto the sand. Looking back the way they had come, he couldn't see any sign of the much larger transport boat anchored a mile off shore. It was hidden by the night, the fog and the rain. A rain no meteorologist had predicted, and had seemed to rise from nowhere. The storm was so intense it also hid the lights of the town of Golden Cove only a few miles distant.

Captain Kevin Younger waved the members of his team over and said, “The Research Lab is about a half a mile north of us. Spread out in teams of two and converge from different approaches. I've already told you that we don't know precisely what we're dealing with so take no chances. This is a 'cleaner' operation. No witnesses. No survivors.”

Brent, who had actually read the brief file on the operation said, “This island has some residential homes on it. Not on this side, but it's conceivable we could run in to some civilians.”

Younger said, “Was there some part of no witnesses and no survivors that slipped past you, Sergeant?”

“No sir.”

“Good. Now let's move out. Visibility is shit so don't shoot any of our guys.”

With that, Younger slapped Medical Sergeant Eric Patton on the shoulder and the two men jogged off.

Warrant Officer Mason Gentry said, “I'll go with Brent. That leaves Lewis with Resnick.”

“I always get stuck with Lewis,” said Resnick.

“Somebody has to, “said Gentry.

The four men vanished into the cold, drifting mist. Brent adjusted his ruck, and he and Gentry started off at a jog. According to the report, Russell Island had a population of less than a hundred civilians, and the island was only accessible by private boat or plane. No ferries. Basically a small community of fishermen who competed with the larger community of Golden Cove on the mainland.

And then there was the research facility. Brent was on a need — to-know basis and he had been told he didn't need to know. Some nameless branch of the government had been up to some sort of bio-engineering project and today something had gone wrong. The command had come down to his own nameless organization. Clean it up. Burn it down. Salt the ground so nothing would ever grow there again.

The terrain beyond the beach was rocky and uneven. Brent was glad of his tightly-laced boots, which offered his ankles some protection, but the going was still difficult. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when Gentry pulled up short.

“Hold up,” Gentry said. “Thought I saw something up ahead.”

“I don't see anything,” said Brent.

“I got good eyes. Wait here for a second.” Gentry took a firmer grip on his modified M4A1 rifle and moved forward. Almost immediately he was just one shadow among other shadows, hidden by the heavy rain and drifting fog. The muted roar of the rain drowned out all sound as well.

Until the screaming started. Brent resisted the urge to hurry toward Gentry. He knew he had made the right decision a couple of seconds later when the darkness was rent by two controlled bursts from Gentry's rifle. Brent strained his eyes, staring into the rain but couldn't make out anything in the muzzle flash. The gunfire stopped and the screaming resumed only to be halted abruptly.

Now, Brent made his way through the fog, risking the use of the tactical light on the end of the A1 until he found what was left of Mason Gentry. Gentry was sprawled on his back, steam rising from the shredded entrails spilling from his freshly torn abdomen. Most of his face was missing too. It looked as if it had been bitten off.

Brent felt a wave of panic and pushed it down. Captain Younger had said they were looking for some sort of bio-engineered specimen gone wrong. Well it had sure as hell gone wrong all over Gentry. Realizing that he made a wonderful target standing in one place with the flashlight on, Brent deactivated the light and shuffled away from Gentry's body. Nothing he could do for the Warrant Officer now.

Brent had seen plenty of action in Iraq. He'd seen worse injuries, but none under such weird-ass circumstances. What the hell had done that to Gentry?

Brent realized he'd lost his bearings. He fumbled his compass out and checked the faintly glowing readings. He had just decided which way was north when something latched on to his rifle and tore it from his grasp. Brent went immediately to the .45 at his hip, but even as the pistol cleared its holster, a grip of terrifying strength closed on Brent's wrist and held his gun hand helpless. A moment later something struck Brent and sent him sprawling in the mud. His gun went spinning away.

Lightning rent the sky and Brent saw a huge man crouching over him. The man was dressed in black fatigues similar to Brent's own. Had they sent in another team? The only weapon Brent had left was his folding knife, but even as he tried to free it from his equipment vest, a rumbling voice said, “Draw that blade and I'll feed it to you.”

Brent didn't like being threatened. He grabbed the man's arm, shifted his hips, bringing one leg over the man's shoulder, and tried to cinch in a jujitsu triangle choke. He had done it in training a million times and he was good at it. Before he could get the other leg in place, the man leaned forward, jamming his elbow into Brent's thigh, breaking what little hold Brent had and sending him back into the mud. The man's hands dug into the front of Brent’s jacket and then the man stood, lifting Brent off the ground. Brent was an inch over six feet and went maybe two-fifteen. This guy had to be a giant.

“I'm about three seconds from breaking your neck,” the man said. “Now who are you?”

“I ain't telling you shit, pal,” Brent said.

Brent felt the man's grip tighten and for a moment thought the guy really was going to snap his neck. Then the man pitched Brent to the ground.

“That tells me enough,” the big man said. “Your bosses know something's happened at the research lab and you're here to clean it up. Just like Crowley said.”

“Got no idea what you're talking about,” said Brent.

The man said, “Gather your weapons. They won't do you any good, but go ahead.”

“I get the idea you do know what's happened here.”

“Some of it.” The man turned, but he said back over his shoulder, “Get in my way and I'll kill you next time.”

“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

The man turned back and grinned. “Which one of us is lying in the mud? If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.”

The guy had a point, Brent had to admit, as the man lumbered off into the darkness. He sure as hell did.

Kharrn went loping away from where he left the soldier. The man's equipment marked him as some sort of Special Forces operative, but his uniform wasn't from any of the normal branch of the military. Jonathan Crowley had expected someone like that might be coming and he had been right.

Kharrn and Crowley had split up right after arriving on Russell Island. It gave them a better chance of reaching the laboratory undetected. The machine gun fire had drawn Kharrn to the spot where one of the soldiers had been eviscerated, and he had caught a glimpse of something. Not what he had been expecting. Not exactly. But something.

The storm seemed to be gaining in intensity. The wind whipped Kharrn’s long black hair and tugged at his clothing. The wind also dispersed some of the sea-born fog. In the distance, Kharrn could just make out the exterior lights of the laboratory. He picked up his speed. If he could see the place, so could the soldiers.

As Kharrn started up a sandy slope, a misshapen figure loomed up between the giant man and the lab. There was enough light now that Kharrn could see the thing clearly. It had the rough outlines of beings he had seen before. Humanoid in shape, with protuberant, fish-like eyes and a squamous hide. But this one was far bigger than any he had ever seen of the species, bigger than Kharrn himself.

Its arms were too long and its webbed hands had long fingers tipped with wickedly-hooked claws. The creature’s mouth was open, showing rows of sharp teeth. So this was what they had been doing at the research facility. Making something inhuman into something monstrous. The thing made a gurgling hiss and started toward Kharrn.

“Wait!” Kharrn said. “I came here to help you.”

Kharrn knew the creatures this thing was based on were extremely intelligent and capable of human language. Some of them had once been human. But this one wasn’t listening, and if it was capable of speaking, it didn’t have anything good to say.

Kharrn unbuckled a strap that held a flat leather case across his back. He swung the case around and unzipped it with the speed and ease of much practice. He reached into the case and withdrew a huge double-bladed axe. He didn’t want to hurt the creature, but it looked like that decision had been taken from him. The thing had gutted one of the soldiers with ease. Kharrn didn’t plan on sharing that fate.

The fish-man lunged forward, swiping at Kharrn with its claws, trying no doubt, for the same disemboweling cut that had finished the fallen soldier. Kharrn evaded the cut and returned one of his own with the axe.

Despite the keenness of the blade, the axe didn’t penetrate the creature’s thick skin, through it left a deep gouge in the hide. That was something else the bio-engineers must have done. The creatures Kharrn had encountered before didn’t have that sort of skin.

Missing the cut had left Kharrn too close to the thing, and he paid for it when the fish-man’s claws tore through his fatigues and the flesh of his shoulder. Kharrn threw a kick which stopped the creature’s forward rush and made it stagger backward.

The fish-man roared in frustration and lunged forward again. Kharrn blocked with the haft of the axe and the creature grabbed onto the weapon with both clawed hands, attempting to wrest it from Kharrn’s grasp.

As close as they were now, Kharrn was looking directly into the thing’s eyes. He could see nothing of the intelligence that had built great cities in the deep, nothing of the skilled artisans who had crafted intricate gold filigree on bracelets and tiaras. Just an unreasoning, mindless fury only death could stop.

Kharrn let his own fury match that of his opponent, calling upon the sheer savagery born before the memory of man, which had carried him down the long years. He twisted the axe away from the fish-man and drew it back in one motion. Kharrn grunted with effort as he aimed a blow at the creature’s neck. The axe sank deep and brackish blood spurted and the fish-man stumbled back.

Kharrn pressed forward, cutting again and again at the creature until it finally collapsed from the sheer force of the blows. Kharrn stood, breathing hard, and glaring down at the fallen fish-man. He felt no surge of pleasure in his victory. Someone had made this being into something that couldn’t be reasoned with. That same someone had forced Kharrn to kill the creature. And that someone would pay.

Phone calls made the difference. Back in the time before technology allowed for phone calls, it was often a game of waiting and hoping that someone would get to him via postal service and later by telegram.

He smiled at the thought of Mister Slate, his companion back when telegraphs allowed the first glimpse of fast communication. The man had once asked him how it was that he could come into a town and have a telegraph waiting for him. Not giving his friend a straightforward answer had proven a very amusing diversion.

That was a long time ago, back when most firearms were single shot and the notion of a telephone was impossible for most people to even consider.

The cell phone in his pocket was all that was needed for most people to call on him in their time of need. Small wonder he was always busy these days.

This time around the call had come from Jacob Parsons, a dabbler in paranormal research who made good money off his bestselling novels and movies. He was nice enough, but Crowley had no doubt the man would get himself killed if he kept going. He'd come close enough times.

“Hi, Jonathan.” As was often the case, Jacob’s voice had a dreamy quality when he called.

“What's on your mind, Jacob?” Sometimes he had a pleasant conversation with the caller, mostly because it amused him. They seldom remembered the calls.

“Well, a few years ago I went on a trip to Golden Cove, Massachusetts. Have you heard of the place?” Crowley admitted that he had not. “It's a hell of a story, Jonathan. Hell of a story.” Parsons spent almost an hour filling him in on the details of Golden Cove. The most important first detail was the fact the town had once been known as Innsmouth.

After that the story came down to a man who understood the denizens of Innsmouth, and their progenitors, the Deep Ones, were chimeric in nature. They could quite literally mate with anything.

“What's your point, Jacob?” Crowley kept his voice pleasant enough, though he had already turned his car around and was once more heading for the Eastern Seaboard. The idea of going home and resting had been a pipe dream, same as it almost always was.

“My contact says they're doing genetic research on the Deep Ones, Jonathan. That has to be a bad idea. That has to be the worst idea I've heard in years. I don't handle that sort of thing. You know that. I'm strictly ghosts and demonic possession.”

Crowley bit back a few comments regarding what Parsons called work. “Are you asking me to look into this, Jacob?”

“Yeah. Yes I am.” The man sounded relieved.

“So go have a nice day. I'll look into it. Tell your wife I said hi.” He killed the call.

Parson's wife was another story. She actually had a modicum of talent. She was also deeply distracting in the best possible way, which was yet another reason Crowley avoided the two of them.

All of which came down to another busy day in the life of Jonathan Crowley.

Currently that day was getting very stormy, very fast and with a lot of help from outside sources. He could feel the magics in the air, summoning rain and fog and harsh winds. What better way to hide their presence as they came from below, from the ruins he thought long abandoned.

Crowley pulled off his shoes and prepared for dealing with the two men who had just walked past and never seen him. He hadn't wanted to be seen and once he was invited to a party, he tended to mostly get his way about things. Crowley had a great deal of power, so much so that he'd actually set limitations on himself to make abusing that power very difficult. First, he had to be invited to act before he could use any of his abilities beyond the sorcerous. Second, he virtually never carried weapons.

That the two men were highly trained was obvious. They moved with great care and made certain to check their environment. Both had night vision capability. Neither was using it. There was enough ambient light that it was more a hindrance than a help. Crowley took his time moving closer and finally reached down to grab his weapon of choice.

“Gentlemen.”

Just the one word, which had exactly the desired effect. Both of the men turned toward him, giving him enough of a view of their faces to allow the sand to blast into their eyes, blinding them for a moment and also causing extreme enough pain to distract.

While they were trying to recover Crowley kicked the one on his left — the one who was already recovering — in the side as hard as he could. The man grunted and sailed ten feet back. He had armor, and the blow would not kill, but it certainly incapacitated.

The other man got three fingers across his throat in a hard slap that had him gagging for a moment before Crowley slipped behind him and caught him in a proper choke hold. They were soldiers and they were doing their jobs. They were also trained killers and he was in their way. He wanted them down and out, but not dead.

The one he'd kicked was starting to get up. Crowley kicked him again, this time in the head and hard enough to rattle his brain in his skull. The man fell flat, very likely with a concussion.

Both of the men actually had zip-tie cuffs. He took away their helmets and used the ties to truss up the soldiers.

After that he was heading for the facility. There were likely more soldiers, possibly they would even see him first, but he had to hope. Besides, Kharrn was along for the show. Crowley usually preferred to work alone, but there were exceptions to every rule. The giant of a man was good company, just as no nonsense about how to handle situations, and capable of fighting off half an army on his own. Also, he had history with the creatures they were dealing with and that helped.

Just enough moonlight to let him see the shape that came for him. That it wasn't a pure Deep One was immediately obvious. The thing had all the standard characteristics: bulging eyes, a flattened, almost non-existent nose, the thick-lipped mouth so reminiscent of a catfish, and a powerful body better equipped for life in the sea. Webbed hands and feet ended in thick, deadly claws, and it let out a nearly deafening croak-roar as it hop-lunged toward Crowley.

Large? Yes. Deadly? Absolutely. Coordinated? Not really. Whatever the hell they had done to the thing, it had no real training and seemed barely capable of walking.

But both of those deceptively long arms went up and came down with terrifying strength. Crowley managed to not be where they hit, which was the only thing that saved him from massive injuries.

He caught one of those arms and bent it back until the bones creaked and the elbow joint popped out of shape. The beast let loose with another sound that was unsettlingly human, and then thrashed its body hard enough to toss Crowley aside. He rolled with the blow and bounced off a rocky outcropping, feeling his flesh tear and his muscles pulp. Good enough to avoid broken bones, bit painful just the same.

His healing abilities kicked in instantly and the nearly fiery itch of his body recovering from severe trauma left Crowley scowling.

The thing charged for him a second time, dragging one ruined arm along at its side.

The mouth of it opened and revealed teeth that would have intimidated a shark. Crowley smiled and crouched, waiting. “Come on then, you little fuck.”

Crowley waited until it was close enough and then reached into his pants pocket for the package he'd set up earlier. The cloth tore easily enough and let his powdery concoction spill into his hand. At his whispered words the dust tore through the air, against the wind and ignited as it touched the sea-beast's flesh.

Did it scream as it burned? Yes, yes it did. And Crowley was pleased. If he was truthful, yes. He hated the Deep Ones and this bastardization could only make matters worse.

Above all things the Deep Ones valued secrecy. They had likely already heard of this facility. They were likely already watching.

Soon enough, unless Crowley and Kharrn managed to defuse the situation, the Deep Ones would come to handle the matter themselves. They would be far, far deadlier.

The idea he and his companion would do less damage when cleaning up the situation was amusing and frightening all at once.

Still, the notion made Crowley smile. Or maybe that was just the fact he'd be meting out bloodshed against those who richly deserved to bleed.

“And how the hell did they get out?” Salk was angry. He had every reason to be angry. This facility was his to control and at the moment that control was sadly lacking.

The building had no name. The location was considered classified. Currently the only people who were supposed to know about it were in the building and doing their best to control what could only be called a clusterfuck of epic scale.

The specimens were escaping. That should never have happened.

Five years of research with the Chimera cells offered up by MIT, five years of research that showed the cells were amazing and complex and could be introduced into other specimens with remarkable ease. Infusing the cells through a blood sample into twenty-five volunteers had led to twenty-five cases of mutation. Each and every single case resulted in a much stronger end result than anticipated. The specimens — all prisoners with a promise of early release they would have never gotten without the agreement — had grown from fifteen to eighty per cent in size. Each had shown the exact same sort of result initially, what Dr Sterling identified as a perfect example of an almost forgotten medical condition called the ‘Innsmouth Look’ — skin rashes, joint deformity, bulging eyes, hair loss… all of which, ironically, lead to increased stamina and strength and the development of gills.

Look deep enough and you can learn a few things. The closest actual town was Golden Cove, a commercial property with a growing tourism business and a steadily increasing population, some of whom also suffered from early stages of the Innsmouth Look.

The specimens they treated with the Chimera Cells, however, were changing faster. There had been talk of trying to increase the alterations. Adding predatory cats to the mix or even something with wings, but they had not progressed to that level, the only exception being a declawed Maine coon cat that had changed as dramatically as any of the human specimens. First it increased in size. Then it grew new claws — a lesson learned the hard way — and then it had started exhibiting the exact same traits before it was killed and the body incinerated.

All of which came down to the same thing: Salk was looking to blame somebody for everything that had gone wrong, and mostly he was looking at Marcos to take the fall for him.

“Look, Tom, I was on vacation. I just got back yesterday. I don't know what went wrong because I was not here.” Javier Marcos had no intention of being anyone's patsy. Ever.

Salk looked at him and shook his head. “This wasn't me, Javier. I had nothing to do with this.”

“Who the hell is in charge of security?”

“Lipmann, but he's dead. Killed when the first one broke out.”

“So point at him. In the meantime, are any of them left here?”

“Of course. Seven got out. The rest are in containment.”

“Oh. Only seven,” his voice dripped with sarcasm. “And have we contained any of them?”

“No. I had to report it, Javier.”

“What?” One sentence and his pulse jackhammered. “God, Tom. They'll crucify us and that's if we're lucky. Do you know how they deal with breaches like this?”

“No. I'm just a research guy.”

Tom was looking a bit pasty around the gills. Ha ha, get it? Around the gills? Javier cracked himself up, but he suppressed the laughter.

“With extreme prejudice, you asshole! We need to get the hell out of here and burn the rest of the specimens.”

“Burn them?” Salk's voice cracked. “Do you have any idea how hard I've worked to even begin understanding them? I haven't even finished mapping their DNA yet!”

“Good! All the better. Get your personal belongings and get out of here. I'm going to start erasing files. All of them.”

“We can't do that, Javier! There's so much I've already started to uncover. These things, they don't even get cancer. They're like sharks. We could find the key to nearly immortal life in the data we collect.”

“Not going to matter if we get our fool heads blown off! Get your things, Tom.”

Salk looked at him and pouted, but nodded. Javier liked the man well enough. Which was a pity. He was obviously going to have to kill him. Salk would never be able to keep his mouth shut about what he'd discovered.

The alarms started up as he was heading for the mainframe and computer room.

There was only one reason the klaxon scream of the alarm would start. More of the damned things were trying to escape.

Captain Kevin Younger was running scared. Something had come out of the mist and torn Sergeant Patton to pieces and had almost gotten Younger too. Younger had only escaped by shrugging out of his equipment vest as the creature had sunken its claws into the garment.

Younger had lost his rifle. He had his .45 sidearm gripped in one fist and his folding knife in the other. He stumbled through the fog, jumping at every sound and striking out with the knife at every moving shadow. He had lost all sense of direction. The wind had died down and the fog had become thicker, so that even the lights of the research facility were obscured. And he knew it had to be close by.

The sharp, discordant clanging of an alarm started somewhere off to Younger's right. That had to be the facility. If any of his men were still alive, that was where they would go. They would head toward the alarm just like he was.

Younger started in the direction of the alarm and within a few moments he could again make out the facility's lights. It wasn't that Younger was trying to complete the mission, that had been over when Patton's head had gone rolling across the sand. No, Younger had lost his flares with his vest and he needed to find some way of signaling the transport ship to pick him up. His superiors wouldn't like that he had scrubbed the clean-up operation, but that came under the heading of too fucking bad.

Now Younger could see the blocky, white shape of the facility. All the lights were on, which meant the place probably had its own generators. He became aware of the sound of the surf off to his left. The facility had been built on a rocky slope near the water, far above the tide line.

Younger sensed movement before he saw it. He turned to look at the ocean. The light from the facility allowed him to see there were several people standing in the shallows.

No. They weren't people. Not regular people. Their shapes were too hunched and somehow… wrong. Younger couldn't see their eyes but he could feel all of their gazes upon him. Even as he raised the .45 he felt something reaching into his mind. Fiery tendrils of alien thought.

Younger clamped his hands against his temples and fell to his knees in the sand, knife and gun forgotten. They were in his head. He couldn't keep them out. They were in his…

Master Sergeant Brent reached the facility and took cover behind what looked like a tool shed. He could see a door in the side of the main building. Not the primary entrance. But maybe a way in.

Brent had hoped some other members of the A-Team might have made it to the facility, but he couldn't see anyone. Brent had recovered his rifle and his .45 and he had managed not to look at what was left of Gentry long enough to scavenge the dead man's ammo and ruck sack. Brent figured he would need all the equipment he could get if he was going to get off this island alive.

And that was his intention. The mission was obviously Fubar-ed. It was time to call in the transport ship and get the hell out of Dodge. An alarm klaxon began to sound just then and Brent stood, bringing his rifle into targeting position. The door in the facility slammed open and a man staggered out. There was blood on his face and on his shirt.

Brent was about to call to the man when a huge, misshapen figure lunged out of the door. There was plenty of light now and Brent figured he was looking at the thing that had killed Gentry or one of its brothers. As a kid, one of Brent's favorite movies had been The Creature From the Black Lagoon. This thing looked like the titular creature's bigger, meaner sibling.

What had Captain Younger said they were looking for? Genetic mutations? Yeah, this thing was mutated all to hell, whatever it was. Brent raised the A1, but not before the fish-man grabbed the running man and broke his neck with a quick twist.

“Son of a bitch!” Brent shouted as he triggered a controlled, three-round burst from the rifle. The bullets tore into the hide of the fish-man, but it didn’t fall. The thing turned bulbous eyes toward the source of its pain. With a snarl of rage, the creature moved with surprising speed toward Brent.

Brent fired again, and continued firing until he had emptied the magazine. The fish-man lurched, stumbled, and finally fell. It had taken close to thirty rounds to put the thing down. Brent ejected the empty magazine and pushed another one into place, noticing that his hands were shaking as he did so.

He was trying not to think about what he had just seen. He reminded himself the fish-man was some sort of genetic experiment. It wasn’t some supernatural monster. It was an animal, created by scientists.

Okay. What to do? Brent had hoped to find other team members here, but if there were more of the fish-men in and around the facility then he needed to get the hell away from there. He decided to head for the beach, send up a flare, and take his chances.

Brent turned toward the shore just in time to see three more of the fish-men heading his way. They must have been attracted by the gunfire. How many of these damn things were there?

Kharrn was crouched in the darkness, just a few yards from the main entrance to the research facility when he heard an alarm klaxon followed by the sound of an automatic weapon. The gunfire sounded like it was coming from the other side of the facility.

Kharrn had been wondering how he was going to get through the steel security door without smashing it down and revealing his presence, but now the door banged open and a man in a white lab coat ran out, leaving the door swinging in the wind.

Kharrn stepped into the light and grabbed the man by the front of his coat. Kharrn said, “What’s happening in there?”

The man’s eyes were wide with terror. His hands fluttered uselessly at Kharrn’s thick wrist. “Let me go. Jesus Christ, man. Let me go. They’ll kill us all.”

Kharrn shook the man like a dog shaking a rat. “Tell me what’s happened.”

“We lost the containment grid. They’re free. All of them are free. He was smarter than we thought. He helped them escape.”

“How many?”

“Please let me go.”

Kharrn hefted the axe in his other hand. “Answer me or I’ll cripple you and leave you for them.”

“Oh God. Oh please. I don’t know exactly. A couple of dozen maybe. Now please let me go.”

Kharrn caught the sharp odor of urine and he tossed the man aside. He stalked over to the open door and stepped inside. The bloody remains of another man lay on the tile about ten feet down the corridor. Bloody tracks smeared the floor. Huge, bare feet with webbing between the toes.

Kharrn paused as he felt a tickle in the back of his head. Something was reaching out and probing. But Kharrn had spent centuries learning to defend himself against that sort of incursion and he pushed the searching tentacles out of his head.

Still, it meant that the true Deep Ones had arrived. Crowley had told him they would come. The fleeing man had said the mutations had escaped. He had also said something about a mysterious ‘he’ who had helped them to escape.

If the Deep Ones were here then time was running out. They would think nothing of slaughtering everyone on Russell Island, including the civilians on the far side.

But what did they want? If they had come to free the mutations, then that was already accomplished. They had merely to wait for them in the surf. Were they after revenge? Or was there something more? Kharrn decided the answers waited in the main lab. He started along the corridor, alert for any attack from man, beast, or something that was both.

Marcos hit the computer room like a force of nature. He did not back up the files. That was begging for grief. Instead he went to each of the mainframes and gave them the command to reformat. It wasn't quite that easy, there were plenty of protocols to prevent what he was doing, but he managed it just the same. The only catch was that doing it took time he could ill afford.

There were ten mainframes in the facility. They were necessary evils. They cost more money than he would make in a lifetime and he crippled them without hesitation as that was the only guarantee he had that he would, in fact, have a lifetime.

Before he was even finished the first of the Chimera came into the area, sniffing the air and loping around on all fours, letting him see exactly how odd the legs were, how close the thing was to a toad or frog. The eyes were vast and the pupils were blown. One was easily three times the size of the other. Judging by the scars, this was one of the creatures Sterling had vivisectionalized.

It was mostly healed from the damage, another point in their favor, but the damage to the brain seemed permanent.

Marcos thought he would certainly die there, but the creature looked past him and finally left the room.

“Well, this is convenient.” The voice was low and calm and grated his nerves. “Just when I was looking for someone to ask questions to, here you are, ready to answer them.”

The man facing him was average. Maybe a little tall, but no giant. He was lean, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a dark sweater, a black shirt and black jeans. He wasn’t wearing shoes, which while peculiar was hardly unusual if one walked along the beach enough.

He was wearing glasses, rimless and with wire arms. He took them off as he came closer, and still he was unremarkable.

And then the stranger smiled, and nothing about him was average. That smile made him want to piss himself. “What's your name?”

“Javier Marcos.” He hadn't planned on answering but the words were out before he could stop himself.

“Javier, I need you to tell me what's going on here.”

He almost did it a second time but clamped his lips shut.

The stranger's smile grew larger, just at the edge of too large for his face. His teeth were broad and white and looked for all the world like they were made for biting faces apart.

“Javier, we're being civil so far. Don't make me start breaking things.”

“Things?”

“Fingers. Toes. Teeth. Whatever. Tell me what I need to know. Tell me right now, before things get ugly.” He walked closer as he spoke and Javier tried backing up, but soon found himself pinned against a mainframe computer that was currently cleaning itself of all possible evidence.

“I can't help you.” Javier shook his head and stared hard into those brown eyes. They stared back, and they smiled and that smile was just as bad as the grin below it.

“I don't want your help. I want answers. How many of them are there? What's the source of the materials you've been using? How long has this been going on?”

Try as he might, Javier could not look away from those eyes. The man was no taller than he was, but he seemed gigantic.

“There are twenty-five viable candidates and I don't know how many rejects. We've got a specimen in sub-level two. Been keeping it there and heavily sedated, as in comatose, last I heard. We've been at this for almost five years, but we've been moving carefully. No risk of exposure. I don't know what went wrong.”

Javier shook his head. “What have you been doing to my mind?”

“Nothing. I've just been asking questions. Show me to your specimen.”

“No.”

The man's smile got even worse and he moved his hand along Javier's face before grabbing his ear and crushing it in his grip.

“Owww! Leggomee!”

“Keep screaming and one of those things will come along. I can handle them. Can you?”

Javier tried to pull away, but stopped when the agony in his ear exploded.

“Take me to the specimen, or I'll start with your ear and move on from there. Seriously. I don’t mind taking pieces off of you, sweet pea. You're the one who tried playing God.”

Javier nodded and held up his hands. He would make his move as soon as the man let go of his ear. A quick jab at the man's solar plexus and while he was winded he'd knee the bastard in the face.

The man let go and continued to stare Javier in the eyes.

Javier nodded. “This way. It's this way.”

“Good boy. For a minute there, I thought you were going to swing at me and I'd have to rip your ear off.”

For the life of him, Javier did not know if the man was joking.

Javier was a nervous twitch away from pissing himself. Crowley was fine with that. Nervous Nellies made his life easier. The thought that he had used mind control to get his way was also amusing. While he could probably arrange something, it would take more effort that he wanted to invest, and as he had expected the man was quick enough to go along with the promise of pain.

The elevators were locked. That was what happened when security protocols set in. Why let the monsters they'd created get out the easy way? Still, there stairs here and there and Crowley watched while Javier fidgeted with his keys and finally managed to open a door.

“Careful sunshine. Might be more of those things.”

His point was made when they heard the thing roaring from below. The sound echoed up the stairwell and bounced through the concrete hallway. Javier turned to run and Crowley grabbed him by his arm.

“Oh, no.”

“Lemme go! Lemme goooooo.” The man was on the verge of tears.

“You played God with something that has its own gods.” Crowley's smile nearly split at the edges. “You decided you had to make a better soldier maybe? Or a better human being? Or just to see what you could do. That never goes well. The difference this time is I'm here to make sure you see firsthand what happens when it goes wrong. You don't get to get away.”

Damned if he didn't try. Javier thrashed and whimpered and pulled at his arm as if it were locked in a bear trap. Crowley shook him hard enough to rattle his body and gripped his arm even harder.

“We figure a way out of this, great. Until then you're my personal property. Come along now. I need to know where you're holding your 'specimen’.”

“I don't want to see it again! I don't!”

“You don't get a choice, sweet pea! You screwed up. Your specimen must be awake now and if it is, it's called to its brethren. The only chance you have is if we set that damned thing free!”

“Others?”

“Oh, Javier, you have no idea. They're older than mankind. Older than you can imagine and there are so many of them. For a while I thought they were truly gone, but no, they've just been in hiding.”

“I thought. They said there was just one!”

Crowley grinned harder and stared at him and Javier flinched as if slapped. “Only one? They're like cockroaches, Javier! See one and it's already too late. So you better fucking hope—”

Something lurched from the shadows, and then Javier's head vanished into the mouth of the beast. It bit down and sprayed blood over the walls as it pulled away from the stump of Javier's neck.

Crowley cursed and drove the thing backward, shoving it down the stairs. Javier's body slumped, still spraying crimson stains as it dropped, and Crowley jumped over the corpse with ease, but not before the blood sprayed his legs.

Later, if he thought about it, he might feel guilty about how the man had died, but it wasn't likely. The man worked at a top secret genetics lab. That would never be beneficial to anyone. Another variation of Pandora's Box only this one created bigger, badder fish-men.

The thing came for him and Crowley ran into it as it stood taller and loped up the stairs. The hand that hit him broke ribs. Crowley hissed between his teeth and rammed his hands into both of the bulbous eyes, tearing with his fingers.

The screech it let out was deafening, and he wondered if the monsters had more than one volume setting. Just the same it was too busy working on seeing through ruined eyes to notice Crowley dropping between its legs and slithering down the stairs, wincing at the hot pain of broken bones.

He didn't carry any weapons. Crowley had to jump to reach the thick neck of the thing, but he managed, hauling it backward down the stairs with the unexpected weight. On the humans he went for a choke hold. Here he went for maximum damage and wrenched the head of the creature around until the bones in the neck snapped with a firecracker series of reports.

It crashed to the ground and let out a gurgling hiss as it died.

Down below, further along than he would have expected, Crowley heard the sound of gunfire and though he could not make out the words, he knew the voice as Kharrn called out in rage.

Down the hallway past the door he was obligated to kick open, Crowley saw too many shapes. Not just humans. Not just monsters shaped by men. Deep Ones. True Deep Ones. They were coming in. Some carried weapons, others merely used their claws as they tore into the escaped nightmares Javier and his associates had bred.

One small part of him was horrified.

Another piece was repulsed by the shapes of the things.

Most of him was thrilled. It was so rare that he got to cut loose properly.

Kharrn followed the corridor until he reached an elevator. Though the building still had power, the elevator didn’t seem to be operating. Kharrn found a stairwell. The door was locked but the axe sheered through the bolt as easily as it had hacked down the gates of Uruk when he had attacked the city with the armies of Sargon. Kharrn didn't know if it was sorcery or time-lost metallurgy, but the blade never lost its edge and the metal had so far proved indestructible. Kharrn stepped into the stairwell and started down. Whatever secrets the place held, they would likely be buried deep.

He had only taken a few steps downward when another of the mutant creatures came roaring up at him. This one wasn’t as big as the one he’d seen previously but it had spines like a sea urchin and its head was just a shapeless mass with eyes and a roaring maw.

Kharrn braced his feet on the stairs, lifted the axe high, and then brought the heavy weapon down on the monster’s skull. The mutant’s hide wasn’t as tough as that of the other and the axe split the creature’s skull, sending blood and brain matter splattering down the steps. Kharrn was careful not to slip in the gore as he stepped over the dead creature.

There was another locked door at the bottom of the stairs and the axe made short work of this one too. This led to a large laboratory. The room smelled of chemicals and pain. Kharrn narrowed his eyes as he saw the tables fitted with straps and restraints. This was where monsters were made. Kharrn had no love for the Deep Ones, but he did respect them. An elder race, older than humanity, and one of the few things that had survived the cataclysm that separated the forgotten age where Kharrn had been born from recorded history.

Kharrn heard a moan and he looked toward the far end of the room where there was a big door with a glass window. A man lay on the floor leaning against the door. Kharrn crossed the room, keeping alert for any threat. When he reached the door he saw the front of the man's shirt was covered with blood that ran from his nose. The blood mixed with drool from the man's gaping mouth. His eyes were fixed straight ahead but he wasn't seeing anything. The man's mind was obviously long gone.

“You still live then, savage?” a voice said from nowhere. “It has been so long.”

Kharrn stepped up so that he could see into the room beyond the door. The room was filled with computers and medical equipment. A table in center of the room held a Deep One in a web of straps and wires. It was looking at Kharrn with dark and ancient eyes. Deep Ones were immortal unless killed. He didn't remember this one, but it knew him.

“You and I fought once on an island far from here,” the voice inside Kharrn's head said.

Kharrn spoke aloud though he knew he didn't need to. “There are many gaps in my memory. I don't remember the fight, but I believe you.”

“You almost killed me.”

“This was before the cataclysm?”

“Yes, in the days when Father Dagon strode the Earth and the Ones Who Walk Behind the Angles held sway.”

“Few can remember those days. How did you end up here?”

“I was caught in a storm and washed up near Golden Cove. The men who found me turned me over to the scientists who have tormented me for the last five years. They had some sort of machine that kept my brothers in the deep from hearing me. But I finally found a way around it.”

“I will free you,” Kharrn said.

“No need. My brothers come. They are here even now. All on this pitiful island will die.”

“The people on the other side of this island have nothing to do with this place.”

“No matter. I will have my revenge.”

The big door wasn't locked and Kharrn swung it open with a hiss of escaping air. He stepped into the room and approached the table.

“You still have the axe, I see. Will you slay me here in my bonds?”

Kharrn raised the axe and used it to cut the restraining straps. He said, “Go and join your brothers. Do what you want with the men in this place, but I won't let you kill the innocent islanders.”

“No human is innocent. And you are too late, savage. For we are many.” The Deep One pointed over Kharrn's shoulder.

It was a feint, of course. Kharrn shifted his head but not his gaze. When the deep one tried to attack, Kharrn knocked the creature away with a backhanded blow of one huge fist. The Deep One had been imprisoned for a long time and it posed no real menace. The same couldn't be said for the group of Deep One's crowding into the outer room. The carried spears and knives and swords. They rarely needed more advanced weapons, as humans couldn't stand against their mental powers.

They wore garments that glittered like the scales of fish and all of them sported golden jewelry. Rings, necklaces, bracelets and anklets. It had been many years since Kharrn had seen the intricately worked golden creations of the Deep Ones.

Kharrn stepped out into the lab. He said, “You brother is here. Take him and go.”

He felt a dozen minds turn toward his own, seeking to take control of his actions. To seize his mind and destroy it from within. Kharrn grinned. He said, “Last chance to walk away.”

None of the batrachian creatures answered. He doubted they could. These were not hybrids, born on land and raised as men until their time came to go down to the depths. These were true denizens of the sea.

The Deep Ones brandished their weapons and began to stalk forward. Kharrn rolled his shoulders, preparing to hurl himself into the middle of his opponents.

That's when the soldier Kharrn had spared on the beach came running into the room pursued by a horde of the mutant Deep Ones. The old Deep One had learned to control his distant cousins. The other Deep Ones had no such chance, and apparently the mutants didn't recognize their progenitors. True Deep Ones suddenly found themselves locked in combat with things created from their blood.

And of course all of the Deep Ones, old and new, wanted to kill Kharrn. He raised the axe and waded in. He sent the head of the closest true Deep One rolling, then drove the heavy, double-bladed axe into the spine of one of the mutants. He jerked the blade free and the backswing tore through the throat of a creature that had attempted to spear him from behind.

The soldier was in a corner and apparently down to his last few rounds. He fired off three shots, then pitched the gun away and caught up a heavy stool to use as a bludgeon. Kharrn liked the fact that the young man didn't give up. He began cutting his way toward the Spec-Ops guy.

Four of the true Deep Ones converged on Kharrn, seeking to bring him down with swords and spears. The giant man bellowed in rage as he swung the axe in wide arcs. The blades of the Deep Ones' weapons shattered as they struck the axe and Kharrn hewed into the fish-men, cutting and hacking with the huge weapon.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kharrn saw Jonathan Crowley enter through a door on the far side of the lab. He struck one of the Deep Ones in the side of the head, crushing its skull.

Crowley had no idea how many ways there were to kill a Deep One, but he was willing to find out. Adrenaline sang through his system and drove him into the conflict. There was a blend of hybrids among the creatures, but even with mixed heritages, they were always the same beasts. That was what the scientists had failed to understand. No matter what the Deep Ones mated with, man or fish or even, he supposed, an alligator, they always had the dominant genes. The end result was always a Deep One, just sometimes with a few genetic advantages.

Crowley yanked the heavy spear from the hands of a monster coming for him and cracked it’s skull with the butt end. The sharp side was used on the next one to send it croaking in pain as it lost an eye.

The claws on one of the nightmare’s feet cut into his calf and bare foot and he growled at it as he shoved forward, knocking the thing backward and into a few more. Three cuts from claws and teeth were his reward, but he threw his new toy and pinned one of the true Deep Ones to the wall.

A heavy necklace of gold and stone marked one of the demons as a high ranker. Crowley jumped over the back of one of the things that had dropped to all fours and shoved it down to the lab floor even as he grabbed the elder around the neck with one arm and twisted. The spines from the elder’s back pushed against his chest and stung, but the Hunter wrenched the vast head of the thing sideways until bones snapped and it dropped, dead.

So often he had to restrain himself, but not now, not this time. Whether or not he lived through the encounter, he would kill as many of the things as he could before he died.

Brent had run out of luck and ammunition. When the three fish-men had appeared from nowhere, Brent's only avenue of escape had been to run inside the facility and hope for the best. That plan had turned to shit pretty quickly when he ran into even more of the creatures. He fired off a few rounds and then dodged into a stairwell, and now he was trapped in one corner of a room filled with fish-men, some of who were wearing clothes and carrying weapons.

He emptied the .45 without doing much damage that he could see, and then caught up the only weapon handy, a metal stool of the kind he remembered from college science labs.

The big man from the beach was making like an escapee from a Schwarzenegger flick, chopping through the fish-men with an axe like Brent had seen in Viking movies. The guy was hell on wheels and he was doing heavy damage, but there were just too many of the things. They rolled into the room like a black tide of death.

There was one way out, but it wasn't a good one. A primary component of any clean-up operation, though not one Brent usually handled — two team members had been carrying mass quantities of explosives. Captain Younger and Warrant Officer Mason Gentry. Gentry was dead and Younger too, probably. But when Brent had scavenged Gentry's ruck, he hadn't just taken ammo. Brent had a bag full of explosive devices if he could just get time to use them.

Brent dug into the bag, and then dropped it as one of the big fish-men came charging his way. The explosive charges scattered on the floor as Brent took up the stool again. He jabbed with the legs of the stool like he was trying to push back an attacker with a knife. The fish-man slapped the stool aside and that was all she wrote. The creature snarled, and drew back one big, clawed hand.

And that hand and the arm it was attached to went spinning away. Blood sprayed everywhere as a second blow from the big man's axe struck the fish-man.

Brent said, “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“Changed my mind. Can you set those charges?”

“Yeah, though we'll die.”

“Maybe,” the giant said. “Do it.”

Maybe? Did the guy think he could survive ground zero of half a dozen explosive charges? Brent shrugged, he was out of options. He set to work, trying his best not to look up as he heard the big man chopping away at anything that came close. Didn't the guy ever get tired?

“Kharrn, what are you up to?” Brent heard another voice call. He didn't look up. He almost had the charges daisy-chained together so that he'd only have to use one detonator.

“Fire in the hole,” Kharrn called back.

“Do you know how long it will take to heal up from that?”

“Yes. Keep fighting.”

Brent looked up. A man he hadn't seen before was fighting the fish-men with his bare hands. Who the hell were these people?

Brent said, “I'm ready. Give the word.”

“STOP!”

Kharrn heard the single word so loudly inside his head that it made him wince. He glanced over at Crowley, who gave a short nod to show he'd heard it as well.

The ancient Deep One stood in the middle of the lab. The other Deep Ones had stopped attacking. As near as Kharrn could see, all the mutants were dead.

“I want to see the great depths again,” the old Deep One said. “I can sense what you are about to do. I would not survive such an explosion.”

Crowley grinned. “Kind of the plan.”

“Even you two might not survive.”

“We'll take our chances,” said Kharrn.

“I know that. I can't control either of you, but I can see it in your minds.”

Crowley said, “And you know that even if you fried GI Joe's brain, Kharrn or I can work the detonator.”

“Yes. Enough. We will go.”

“And you won't slaughter the islanders,” said Kharrn.

The old one shook his head. “No. But there are still men alive in this building. I want them.”

Crowley smiled again. “I've got no problem with that. Kharrn?”

“Take them,” said Kharrn.

“What about that one?” The Deep One pointed at the soldier.

Kharrn said, “Not part of the bargain.”

“Don't depend too much on my weariness. You realize that even if you kill me, an army of my people would come here.”

Crowley said, “You'd still be dead. Take your scientists to torture and go.”

The Deep One said, “And then what?”

“We'll give you half an hour to get out of here and then we're going to use this guy's explosives and blow this place to hell,” said Crowley.

“Yes, I would not wish to see this building stand.”

“You won't,” said Kharrn.

“Someday, when I am whole, I would like face you again, savage.”

Kharrn said, “I'll be around.”

The Deep Ones began to file out of the room. The soldier said, “Were you talking to that thing? I couldn't hear it say anything.”

“Be glad,” said Crowley. “It wanted to take you somewhere and kill you painfully over a long period of time.”

“And you're really going to destroy the facility?”

Kharrn said, “We are. Leave the explosives with us. We'll set them properly now and obliterate this place.”

“What do I do?” said the soldier.

Jonathan Crowley said, “You get to be a hero. The only survivor of an ill-fated mission.”

“Probably my last mission.”

“Probably wise.”

“Mind telling me who you guys are?”

“Better that you don't know,” Crowley said. “Trust me on that.”

Crowley looked at the soldier and said the words he almost always spoke with witnesses. Later, if the man found another case where things that should not exist were attacking human beings, he would place a phone call.

The soldier looked like he wanted to say something else, but he shook his head and left the lab. After he was gone, Crowley said, “I had thought the race almost wiped out, but there are apparently a lot of Deep Ones out there now.”

Kharrn nodded as he gathered up the charges and the detonators. “In various places, yes.”

“Sooner or later they'll come into conflict with humanity again.”

“But not today.”

“No not today. So what do you say, Kharrn? Let's blow this place up and then go get drunk and talk about old times.” He paused “And I need to find my shoes.”

“Old times,” Kharrn said, “We're the men for that.”