SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

The metamorphosis must have been painful, for the creature’s cry rose to an ear-splitting shriek, the sound so powerful that it brought tears of pain to Duncan’s eyes as he struggled to hold on in the face of it all. He didn’t think it could get any worse, but the next moment proved him wrong as every other demon in the room suddenly gave voice to the same cry, the sound echoing throughout the interior of the church.

If the defenders hadn’t been all but immobilized by the tortuous sound of that cry, they might have had the opportunity to finish off their opponents then and there, but by the time their thoughts had cleared and reason returned every single demon in the room was in full retreat, swarming back the way they had come like the retreating tide.

Duncan looked up to find Cade staring at him from across the room.

“What did you do?” the Knight Commander asked in an awed tone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I didn’t do anything!” Duncan said as he climbed to his feet, but Cade barely heard him. He was watching the last of the demons disappear through the remains of a door at the rear of the church. They were fleeing the battle, returning the way they had come...

Returning the way they had come.

Cade took off at a run after them.

He crossed the nave and reached the door, which was barely hanging by its hinges. A stairwell lay beyond, leading downward, no doubt to the church hall or basement. He hesitated at the top of the steps, staring down into the darkness below and wondering if the enemy might be lying in wait just beyond the edge of the light, then threw caution to the wind, hit the lights, and plunged down the steps, knowing that this might be their best opportunity to understand just how the creatures had gotten inside.

Enough light spilled out of the stairwell for him to see a few feet into the basement beyond and he could see that the room was quite large. Cade could hear movement somewhere out ahead of him, but it seemed to be coming from a good distance away.

Had they gotten outside already?

Noise from behind him caused him to spin about with his sword at the ready, but it was only Riley and the others, come to back him up.

“Easy, boss,” Riley said, gently pushing Cade’s sword away from where it was pointed at his chest. Thankfully he’d left a few steps between the two of them. “We thought you might get lonely rushing off on your own like that, so here we are.”

Cade answered Riley’s levity with a grin of his own; sometimes, that was the only way to face the hellish creatures they regularly fought against. It might not save their lives, but it had certainly saved their sanity over the years. “It’s your funeral,” he replied, as he made room for Riley to join him at the base of the steps. Duncan and Olsen stepped up behind the two of them, ready to go.

Cade hit the light switch on the wall, flooding the hall before them with light. The four men advanced as a unit, each of them turning as they did so to guard one quadrant of the compass, waiting for the enemy to come rushing at them as the darkness fell away.

But the room around them was empty.

It hadn’t been moments earlier, though; that was easy to see. A trail of blood led across the floor to a pile of covered furniture on the other side of the room and as the four men drew closer it was easy to see the iron door in the wall just beyond standing wide open.

The trail of blood leading over the threshold and into the earth and stone tunnel just beyond let them know just where the demons had gone.

Cade stared into the darkness of the tunnel, considering. His instincts screamed at him to give pursuit, to hound the enemy when they were at their weakest, to take advantage of their difficulties, but reason prevailed. The narrow confines of the tunnel would make it difficult to fight with their swords and if the demons were able to use a side tunnel to come up behind them, they’d be cut off from the only known exit.

Prudence said wait for another day.

Cade had just come to his decision when Duncan spoke up from behind him. “You aren’t planning on going in there, are you?”

“No,” Cade replied, shaking his head. “Too many unknowns. Let’s at least get this door shut though and see what we can do about barricading it against another attempt to get inside. It won’t hold for long, but all the noise the demons will make trying to get in might give us some advance warning next time.”

As the four men got to work, Cade didn’t fail to notice the condition of the furniture piled near the entrance to the tunnel. If the demons broke inside on their own, the furniture, especially the older wooden pieces, should have suffered much more destruction. As it was it was barely touched...

Almost as if someone had opened the door.

But who?

The answer, as it turned out, was waiting for them upstairs in the nave.