SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

He paused, waiting to be sure the other had understood, and was getting ready to repeat his message when the signaler in the belfry replied.

H-U-R-R-Y

“Doing our best here, buddy,” Cade muttered beneath his breath even as he shoved his flashlight back onto the clip on his belt and turned away.

Duncan eyed him expectantly. “Are we going to get them out of there?” he asked.

“Remains to be seen if we can get ourselves out of here, but yes, we’re going to give it a try. Let’s go back down and rejoin the others, see if Olsen has any news for us.”

As it turned out, Olsen did have news, though none of it good.

“The choppers at Nurnberg are currently on lockdown due to the weather; seems they’re getting smacked by a bitch of a storm,” Olsen said. “They were surprised that we hadn’t been hit yet, actually, and said we should expect it pretty much at any minute.”

Cade could care less about the weather. What he needed was enough men to contain this thing before it got out of hand. “Ground units?”

Olsen shook his head. “Nurnberg’s CO basically said we’re on our own until the storm passes. Short of a direct order from the Seneschal, I doubt he’s going to budge.”

Cade cursed beneath his breath. For just a moment he considered getting the Seneschal on the phone and having him demand that the idiot in Nurnberg send him the men he needed but in the end decided against it. While he was certain he could convince the Seneschal of the necessity of the act – he was Cade’s direct superior after all – Cade didn’t think that the Nurnberg CO would actually comply. It would be too easy to make up some weather-related excuse for why he didn’t send out his men and Cade would have simply made another enemy in the process.

For the time being, they were going to have to make do.

Duncan cleared his throat, not so subtly reminding Cade of the other issue they were facing. Cade then quickly filled Olsen and Riley in on what had happened upstairs and what he intended to do about it.

“We move as a unit straight down the street to the doors of the church,” he told them. “I want the gunfire kept to a minimum. Use your blades first and only take the shot if you have to. We don’t want the noise to bring more of these things down on our heads.”

There was a chorus of “yes sirs” from the other three members of the team.

Cade knew that the church stood on holy ground and was therefore a natural sanctuary and boundary against the hellspawn. The only way those creatures were getting inside was to be invited across the threshold and that wasn’t bloody likely, in his view. If he could get his team inside without contact with the enemy, they’d have time to assess the situation and plan how to get the people inside, whoever they were, safely out of town.

If being the operative word; they might not be able to see any at the moment, but it was clear the village was crawling with demons.

Getting to the church was not going to be easy.

Cade moved first, slipping out the door with barely a sound. He headed down the street in the direction of the church, staying low and slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the nearby buildings to mask his passage from whatever might be watching.

One by one the others slipped out of the butcher shop and followed in his wake. They stayed close enough to be able to support each other if things went south but far enough apart that they wouldn’t get caught in a crossfire. Each man kept his attention on his area of concern, trusting the others to do the same. In that fashion they slowly made their way up the street.

Based on what he’d seen from the second floor window, Cade guessed that they had to travel about a quarter mile down the street they were on before moving a few blocks west to reach the church. The distance didn’t bother him as much as the tightness of the buildings on either side. Side streets and alleys between the structures were few and far between; if they came into contact with the enemy they would have little choice but to fight their way through to the end of the street and that could be some distance away.

Never one to shy away from a good fight, even Cade knew they wouldn’t last long if they got trapped in the middle and the enemy came at them in strength.

So don’t get caught in the open, he told himself as he continued forward, his gaze constantly sweeping the area around him, searching for threats.

They reached the end of the main road and had just turned west when the church came into view. Cade was about to point it out to the others when he thought he heard something. He sank to one knee and held up a clenched fist, the signal for the others to do the same, and then listened.

For a moment there was nothing, just the silence of the abandoned streets shouting back at him, but then he heard it again.

A furtive, scuttling sound.

It seemed to be coming from somewhere across the street.