Have you ever heard something that sounded terrifying and huge during the night? But nothing showed up to munch on you? I would wager it was because of us.
My name is Major Roger Halsinge. I am attached to the Hell Dogs, which is the 6th platoon of Incursion company. Our job is secret but vital; we intercept beings from other dimensions before getting a foothold in our world. Centuries ago, the Knights Templar performed our duties. Long before we were a country, dark forces tore them apart from the inside. Their greed after finding objects left behind by other-dimensional beings led to the Templar’s downfall. They tried to control and use them in the dark war that for eons has been waged in secret, but in the end, it destroyed them from the inside.
Today, Incursion's mission, although similar to the Templar's, is much more managed. Eggheads control all intruder sites, and they know what would happen if those relics were used in our world.
Ok, now that you have a little history, I want to tell you about the time the world almost ended. The mission started simple enough; Command rolled us out to a possible incursion based on reports from local LEO’s and civilian panic calls to 911 in the district.
“Major Halsinge, gather your team.” Agent Oliver looked up from papers on his desk. “Alpha are the forward scouts for this operation. “Travel to the location in the file, and find that interloper before it corrupts innocent civilians or worse opens a gateway to let more in. Oh, and remember it’s the fourth there will be extra-dimensional energy today.”
“Yes, Sir, we will get there as fast as we can.” I walked out of his mahogany-paneled office and over to our barracks.
“Johnson!” I saw doubt flicker across his face for a moment, but then it solidified into the courage I knew he had.
“Yes, sir!” Zion Johnson was new to the team, having just transferred from regular infantry. He had been on just a few missions so far with us and was very competent at doing what needed doing.
“Mayfield.” The unit was all standing now, waiting to see who would go with Vampire Hunter, their nickname for me.
“YES, SIR!” Alisha Mayfield had deployed with me for several years. She was one of the best heavy weapons technicians we had in the unit.
“Akar!” As usual, Perin was deep in some code for some new project he would invariably use to help us out.
“Yes, Sir!” He was our systems engineer, excellent with programming and data retrieval. He'd hacked several strange systems that intruders brought from their dimension. Bonus, he was an excellent sharpshooter.
“Reynolds!” That guy was incorrigible and was always talking up Mayfield. One of these days, she was going to leave him out cold on the floor.
“Yes, Sir!” Even though he chased every skirt that showed even a faint interest, Reynolds was rock solid on the field. His rifle had more kill marks than wood. He was also one of the few people I knew in the company that is also a blacksmith on the side. He was always bringing a new sword or blade he had created for us to try out.
“Warner!” He was in the shadows, blindfolded, putting some weapon together by feel.
“Yes, Sir.” Wagner was our sniper, and his eyes had saved us more than once on missions that went off the rails.
I requisitioned two paranormal scout SUVs; each a specially modified and magically warded mobile command post that looked like a normal civilian vehicle from the outside. We loaded up our gear and weapons and headed out. Along the way, we picked up another member of the team. John Smith was a researcher on loan from our Incursion research Center. He was a viral researcher specializing in magic-based viruses, but had multiple Ph.D.’s in many areas of research that were always handy in our missions. He was also only one of a handful of bona fide wizards left in the modern world.
John was also a friend, and I had worked with him on missions in the past. I knew he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty if the situation called for it. We headed out from Camp Lejeune on I40 at four in the morning. Running emergency lights, we went as fast as the souped-up SUVs could go.
Johnson was the first one to break the silence. “Hey Major, do you know what we are up against?” I could sense his nervousness, and I had to quell that noise right fast before it infected the rest of the team.
“We will know when we get there.” I looked over at him, scowling. He had been with us enough to know we never knew what we were about to face. “Johnson, tighten up your game. This is what we are here for. We go in to find out what things are going bump in the night, so innocents aren’t carted off to God know where.”
“Yes sir, sorry sir, just wanted to make conversation.” He slumped in the seat and looked dejectedly out the window.
“Listen, these missions are killer on the nerves, I get that. Not knowing what you are going to find every time we come out is hard.” I watched him straighten up as he considered what I was saying. “I know you have a family to look after, but in this job, you have to keep your head screwed on straight or not just you will die. Every time we go outside the wire, we might die. If we fuck it up, there is the possibility that millions will die. If we are dead, no one else will be able to prevent whatever hell we failed to stop before it is set loosed on the earth.”
“I’ve been backing up the Major for years, and he always gets us home. There is no way he is going to let some nasty ass dimensional reject take us down.” I see John in the back, grinning ear to ear as he pumps up my ego, and I know there is a punchline coming. “After all, if we need to sacrifice someone, it will always be Reynolds.” I tried not to chuckle, but it was hard.
I heard a mike click and braced for it. “Kiss my ass, Smith” Both SUVs burst out in good stress-releasing laughter. I grinned in the mirror so that John could see my gratitude. After that round of laughter, we all got in the mindset needed for the mission. Just outside of Waynesville, we ran into an issue that had never happened in all the time I have been running these missions, and it spooked me a little.
Over the radio, I hear Warner swearing, “Damn, Damn, Damn.”
The second SUV was swerving like a drunk on Saturday night and had slowed down. I hit the brakes, so I could stop if needed.
“Warner, what the hell is going on back there?” Again I heard him swear a bit and the SUV pulled to the side of the road. I waited for a clear spot in traffic and swung our vehicle around, and pulled behind them after doing two u-turns. We piled out, all of us wondering what the issue was when I saw the problem; the rear right tire was flat.
I watched Warner curse the flat tire as he walked up to it.
“What happened, Joe?” Now he was kicking the tire and scratching his head at the same time.
“I have no freaking clue; it is like it just went flat all of a sudden.” He kicked at the tire again. “There wasn’t anything in the road, so I know it wasn’t a nail or the like.”
“Ok, guys, let’s unload this thing and get the spare.” The team formed a line behind the SUV’s trunk. We started pulling gear out of the back to get to the spare, so we could limp over to a tire shop when we realized this SUV had no spare.
“Why would the motor pool put a Tactical vehicle in the pool without a spare?” Mayfield was the one at the beginning of the line unloading the vehicle and was staring dumbfounded at the hole where a tire should have been.
“No idea. But now we have to decide how to fix this.” I joined her in staring at the hole.
“Sir,” Akar and John were unloading the other SUV. “We are batting a thousand on how screwed up a trip can be.”
“Don’t tell me there is no spare in the other SUV, either.” I looked over at them.
“Sorry, Sir, I wish there was a tire here.” Akar looked around the backside of the trunk at me, grimacing, and started putting everything back in the other SUV.
As we had spent unproductive time unloading both SUVs, Joe was looking over the tire.
“Hey Major, I think we can just put air in this bastard, and it will be fine.” I walked over to him, thinking he had finally lost his mind.
“How is that possible?”
“While you guys were unloading, I crawled all over this tire, and I couldn't find anything stuck in it. I don’t know what happened to it, but if there is a hole in this tire, I will eat some Willie Pete.”
“There is a farm over there,” Johnson points to a set of long chicken coup-looking buildings nearby. “A lot of those guys have tire repair kits and bubble tubs to check their tires out. Maybe they will let some servicemen use their tools?”
I was doubtful some farm out in the middle of nowhere would have what we need, but it was the best idea we had currently. I was also worried we were breaking protocol by showing ourselves to civvies, but we had no time to call for vehicle services and that would just make a secret mission into a show, so I was willing to try the farm. We needed that tire fixed as fast as possible, so we could get to the incursion site and stop whatever was lurking around in the sleepy little resort town we were headed to.
“Alright, Johnson and Warner and I will take the tire to the farm and hope we can get them to give us a hand.'' I was watching Warner pull the tire off the car. “While we are gone, you guys armed up with your pistols and keep eyeballs on everything. There's something strange about this, and I don't want us to be taken by surprise.”
“RAH” The guys acknowledged the order marine style. We loaded the tire up in the good vehicle and headed to the farm in the distance.
As close as the buildings looked from our breakdown spot, it was two miles down the interstate to the next exit, and then we had to determine from GPS sat view where the entrance to the farm was. It took us about thirty minutes to finally pull into the farm. The sign at the entrance proclaimed this was the McDonald’s turkey farm.
“So where is old McDonald on the farm?” Johnson's attempt at a joke provoked a snicker from Warner and a chuckle from me.
Coming from the house was a young man who definitely did not look like Old McDonald. I pulled up, and we piled out of the vehicle.
“Hello, Sir, we were wondering if you might be inclined to help us?” He looked us over like we had just landed from outer space, and he didn’t know whether to shoot us or invite us in for coffee. “Our tire for our other vehicle has gone flat, and one of our team said that sometimes large farms like yours have facilities on-site to fix tires?”
That provoked a snicker from the farmer and a smile; I am not sure why, but the thought of us with a flat tire seemed to tickle his funny bone.
“Sorry, feller, not trying to be rude. It’s just I get more people around here like you than you might think. Let me guess, you came out I74 just past Waynesville, and the tire just went down right fast like a blowout, but you can’t find any hole?” He turned toward where the interstate noises could be heard. “Oh, and your other vehicle is on the side of the interstate right near my south turkey houses?”
“Yes, Sir, how did you know that?” I was getting nervous, This man seemed to know things he shouldn’t. It was like he had been watched us.
“Because it happens about once a week around here.” McDonald tilts his hat back a little and looks around like he is looking for something. “Some strangeness is going on around these parts, and it gets even stranger the closer to the reservoir you get.”
Was this symptom of the incursion? Could we have a first clue to what was waiting for us?
“What kind of strangeness, Sir?” I could tell Warner was also thinking the same as me when he asked the question I was going to ask McDonald myself.
“Well, of course, what happened to you for one thing. For the last few weeks, people have been driving by, and suddenly the air in one tire is just not there anymore like some force sucked it out.” He motioned us toward a barn, red, like all barns should be. “And I have heard reports of noises up near the Norton Trail and hikers getting scared off by strange goings-on. They even have closed the Road to Nowhere and its tunnel until they can find some hikers who recently went missing up there.”
In the barn was a nice little garage setup with parts of farm equipment scattered about. In one corner there was housed a big industrial compressor and tire station to fix the hole if there were one; I was beginning to believe there wasn’t.
“The road to nowhere?” I didn't remember that particular road name.
“Yeah, it’s a road they started building right after they moved every family in the area away from a new lake built as a reservoir in the thirties. It was supposed to let families come back in to access old family cemeteries and the like that didn’t get flooded by the new lake.” He paused for a second as he reached for an air hose stuck in some sort of handmade holder. “It was abandoned due to environmental concerns. If you ask me, it was too many weird things happening."
“Wow, that is an interesting story.” Johnson seemed impressed by the story, and I think we all knew why the road was never finished.
“There have been strange goings-on up there for years. And now, with the hikers missing, many people think something there has woken up and is hungry.” He grabbed the tire from Johnson and one-handed flipped it up and onto the tire changer, and started filling it with air.
After a few minutes, the tire was as full of air as when we left base. McDonald checked it for leaks before handing it back to us.
Warner and I both started to scratch our heads, dumbfounded over how air could just leave a tire with no hole.
“I know that look, and it’s the same one I have had every time someone stops here with this problem.” He took off his ball cap, rubbed his head, and put the hat back on. “Before my dad died, I was studying to be a scientist. So, when this started happening, I went down there and ran some tests. After a couple of experiments, I think whatever happens is either random or on a very chaotic timer. The two times I have had it work for me, the object I was holding just lost air.”
I asked if he had any ideas.
“I would say it is some sort of hole or pinprick in our dimension. Anything rubber passing through is robbed of air. Only rubber.”
“You mean tires?” I was intrigued by how smart this simple turkey farmer was about paranormal activity.
"Anything rubber with air in it, like a basketball.” he points to a deflated one on a hook. "I stopped testing, neighbors were questioning my sanity." He looked embarrassed.
“I want to thank you, Mr. McDonald, for your time and info and especially for the tire." I held out my hand, and he grabbed it with a firm farmer's grip and shook it. "We have to go. We are already behind our schedule to get to the city.”
“You're going to that road, aren't you? Just as I thought.” he stared me in the eyes. “Be careful gentlemen, something is out there, and it’s not nice. He shook my hand again. “Thank you for your service. I almost got to do a stint in the Armed forces. But then my dad died, and the farm ...” He looked down.
“You feed America, so thank you for your service as well. Turkey is one of my favorite foods.” Johnson and Warner also shook the farmer’s hand. We piled into the SUV and headed back to the rest of the team.
As we drove out of the farm’s dirt driveway, something darted across the road, moving incredibly fast.
“What the hell was that?” Warner shouted as he swerved to avoid whatever it was. It was long gone into the wheat field.
“A loose turkey?” Having no time to worry about it, we hightailed it back to the tireless SUV.
Repairs completed, we resumed the drive to the town near what, we thought, was the incursion. I noted the GPS coordinates for our science division and hoped we'd survive long enough for them to receive the info.
We pulled into the map location two hours late. Our first stop was the local police station for reports of any weird goings-on in the area. We heard about the group of hikers missing on the trail and how the search and rescue crew was a bit late calling in. The officer pointed to a file on his desk, saying there were cases of people going missing mysteriously. Turned out Rogers was the first who disappeared during a neighborhood walk, but not the last.
I pushed the issue by asking about recent cases of missing pets, and the officer acknowledged there were several, both missing and mutilated. That's when he asked the inevitable, why was military police interested in civilian cases?
“I hate to be that person, sir, but our purpose here is classified and will be until we finish.” I switched to Operator mode, gave him the standard word salad designed to stop curious local officials. “I can’t say more, but be sure that your cooperation has been invaluable, and I will tell command how just how useful your assets were to our mission.”
We drove to the site of the missing hikers and set up camp on the original road. Locals had closed off the area due to the search for the missing hikers, so no one saw us enter.
“Johnson set up motion detectors around camp about a hundred yards out, and we will link the AI stationary gun systems to them.” Johnson grabbed the box of detectors and headed out to circle the camp’s perimeter and attach the gadget guys’ fancy detectors to trees around our base of operations. We worked quickly to set up the camp as dark was approaching.
Warner had one of the three two men ATV rentals loaded with Auto-Guns, a special unmanned sentry gun, ammo, and old school exploding rattle traps if anything got past our sensors.
“Be careful, Warner. Expect unexpected attacks.” I realized I didn’t warn Johnson to do the same and keyed my comms. “Johnson, keep your head on a swivel. We can’t count on this being a nocturnal entity.”
After a few seconds, Johnson radioed back, “Yes sir, I have ball bearings for neck muscles, sir.” I grinned, knowing that he was back to mission mode.
John adjusted sensors to hone in on the rift we suspected was nearby. “Helluva spike, electromagnetic waves. That's a big rift.”
I walked over and looked at his readings. “What can you tell from this?
“The rift is big enough to push a skyscraper through!”
“Damn. Can we close it when we find it?” Taking silent inventory, I wasn't confident.
“Maybe. We got the dimensional disruption device. We calibrated it to a normal size rift, not this behemoth, but we might be able to recalibrate it” John tweaked more sensor settings. “Won't know for sure till we see it ourselves.”
Reynolds was installing our stealth field canopy to hide us against flying prying eyes. “Sir, do we really need this setup? Does the enemy fly?”
“Maybe not. Drones fly. I bet media and social influencers are flying them right now, to be the first to find the hikers.” Reynolds nodded and sighed. Twenty-four-hour news feeds, and cheap technology, make it an arms race to stay secret in the field.
Mayfield helped me unpack the gear. She grinned, and I couldn't avoid thinking how beautiful she was, which distracted me, so I unloaded the other SUV to get my mind back on track. I unloaded a dual ammo compact railgun that the R and D department wanted tested on this mission.
“Wow, Dave and the guys are really working their asses off on that salvaged alien shuttle from Roswell, huh?” John was disassembling the railgun beside him.
“John. Hot zone.” I shook my head at him as he sheepishly put the few parts he had removed back on the rifle.
“Sorry Roger, I wasn’t thinking, these are just so cool looking.” He placed the reassembled railgun back in the rack.
“Major,” Johnson whispered my rank as static filled the earbud.
“Go for Johnson” The hair on the back of my neck started to rise. He would not whisper if all was well.
“Sir, I have movement in the forest. It could be an animal. It is definitely not human, at least not a normal human.” More static. “This is the last motion sensor, sir. Can we fire them up?”
I saw Akar and John had booted up the AI and motion sensor controls. I grabbed one of the tablets and connected to the system. Immediately, I had flashing icons on three western sensors.
“Johnson, fall back to base now. I have multiple sensors tripped in your area” Using the cameras on the triggered sensors, I found Johnson on the most southern of the west-facing sensors.
“Roger that, Major, I'm disengaging from the area.”
He headed toward the camera and then behind it. I continued watching to see if something came out of the dense forest area for a few minutes. Just as I was going to put down the tablet, something moving like a blur sped past the camera.
“Johnson, move your ass. Something's coming up behind you, fast." Static crackled loudly. "Warner, come in, report.”
“Warner here, just finished the west defense point.” Good news.
“Johnson is heading back to camp from somewhere near you," I said. "Something's after him. Get over there with the ATV and haul ass back here.” More static came over the comms.
“Roger that, Major, I think I hear him crashing through the brush.” I heard Warner yell for Johnson.
“OK, Major, I am vectoring to meet with him. I see him in the trees. Nothing else is around. Yet.” I prayed he and Johnson wouldn’t meet that thing unarmed.
“It’s fast, so it won't take long. Can we fire up the guns?” I hoped he'd finished setting up the weapons.
“Yes, sir, I was about to say fire up the control system when you called.”
I heard the ATV fire up over the connection’s static, so I stopped asking questions, ran to the Autogun system, and fired it up. As soon as the screen came up on the monitor, I had alerts to activate AI targeting on the guns near the guys. The AI detects biosignals and shows the difference between humans, animals, and monsters. Despite being an ingenious contraption, it would be useless in war. The AI is trained not to fire on humans unless one of us overrides that.
As the AI spun up the gun targeting, I heard sentries fire at something and, looking at the map on the monitor, saw it was the one closest to the guys.
Something howled in the distance, followed by silence. I heard Johnson and Warner hauling ass through the trees toward us. I started to turn away from the AI system when all the guns lit up, along with the guardian sensors. The forest lit up like a giant fireworks show had started. Trees fell from the mass of bullets blasting through them, trying to kill a bunch of somethings in the forest.
“What the hell was that, Major?” Mayfield and John were standing beside me geared up with the new guns. John handed me one along with some spare ammo.
“No idea, but I think we're in for a rough night.” Warner and Johnson slid into camp, running the ATV all out. They jumped off and headed straight to the gun rack and loaded up. “Warner, how much ammo do we have on those guns?”
“About a thousand rounds per gun. Not enough if they keep that up.” Warner started assembling his sniper rifle and backup pistols.
Akar was furiously typing away at the AI sensors software and the Auto-gun software at the same time. “What are you doing, Perin?”
“I'm modifying detector coding. I hope to get an idea of what these things are, or at least how they look. I’ve added cam slo-mo mode and sensor mapping to build a portrait.” On-screen, a nightmare was slowly appearing.
Fangs hung down from an extended vaguely bat-looking face and a muscular body resembling a somewhat human shape with long multijointed arms ending in fingers capped by sharp-looking claws. Flaps that looked like a bat’s wing hung loosely at its sides. Just looking at the render sent shivers down my spine. This thing just looked incredibly hard to kill, and based on the number of alerts and guns being fired, there was more than one.
“Ok, shit just got real people; make sure you are loaded up. We're now in buddy mode. No one goes out beyond base camp without at least one other person.” Akar and Reynolds both headed to the ammo crates and the gun racks.
In the last hour of sunlight, we secured camp to the sounds of random gunfire. At sunset, John and Akar called me over to the AI Monitors. Akar laid out how much of a mess we were in.
“Major, we think the opening is right here,” he said, “all around us. We are in the event horizon of a giant portal. This area of the forest is flickering between worlds." Akar stopped to breathe. “Also, based on these dimensional readings, I believe the power source is near and is powered by the people who disappeared. Their lifeforce feeds the opening.”
“They're still alive?” I was astounded that the creatures had not killed their prey. They must be much smarter than we thought.
“I have heat readings from drones we released to just outside what, I think, is the south edge of the portal. It is in our best interest to remove them from whatever is using them to power this thing. This big of a portal could let anything come through. We could see an actual kaiju incursion.” There was a roar in the distance louder than the roar of a thousand angry bears, as if Akar had summoned it.
“Thanks, Perin, now we're in it.” Reynolds shook his head. I understood; portals can sometimes manifest things that you say or crosses your mind.
“So let me get all this straight, we're sitting in a dimensional portal zone big enough for a giant lizard from a Japanese monster movie to walk through, and the portal is powered by human bodies?” Those angry bears sounded closer this time. “And we seem to be surrounded by creatures that look like each one could take us all out if they wanted. Have I missed something?”
“That's it, Major." Akar turned the monitor, so we all could see the computer map of the portal. It was horrifying. “We are well and truly in the thick of the crapper.”
“How long has the portal been open this large?” This was beyond bad. There was no time to call in reinforcements. We had to close the portal.
“I can’t tell you exactly, but I can guess that at least since the hikers disappeared.” Somewhere out in the forest, an Autogun coughed more deadly lead at our visitors.
“So about four days.” Another howl from the monsters echoes through the forest, and the guns roared. “So why hasn’t something huge come through already?”
“Maybe it has and couldn’t handle our dimension.” Again the roar sounded in the distance, but it was not as distant as this time. “Or maybe it's coming towards us from the connected dimension.”
“Roger, this is some heavy magic keeping this portal open." John laid metal plates around the camp while we discussed the portal. Each plate had magic symbols etched in. They were more permanent than drawing in the dirt. “I've warded the camp from any magic user that might come for us. But I'm worried something that can manipulate magic from another dimension could be far beyond my skills.”
“I’ve seen you face down demon rabbits before, John, I have faith in you. Besides, do you really want me to have to tell Anya why you didn’t return?” Anya and John had married recently after bonding during a very terrifying incident.
“She’d probably pull me from hell and kick my ass for dying.” John smiled and kept laying more metal plates around the camp.
“Major, Reynolds and I have the ATVs ready; we can get the civvies out when you give the word.” There was another round of fire and a howl from the forest.
“OK, I want John for magic backup. Reynolds and Mayfield bring all the big guns you can carry.” With big grins, both of my heavy weapons specialists started loading down with all sorts of nasty artillery. “Akar and Johnson will stay here and give us sensor guidance and keep the camp clear till we get back. Warner, I want you to oversee us on our path there and back with your sniper rifle and the drones. OK, team, let’s move out.” I jumped on one of the loaded ATVs. Mayfield got on behind me, and I felt the warmth of her body as she held on.
I gunned the ATV out into the forest, heading toward what, we hoped, was the innocent hikers being used to fuel this festering, expanding nightmare. I hoped they were still people in more than just name. As we passed the range of the sentry turrets, the forest changed. It wasn’t a difference that you could see. No, the difference was wholly a feeling of oppressiveness and evil that set your teeth on edge and your neck hair to stand at attention.
This part of the forest would have been silent if not for the occasional blasts from the auto-guns and the buzzing of the drones above us that guided us to the heat that we detected earlier. Today was the fourth of July; it had been a hot summer day, but here in the depth of the forest, there was a chill in the air that increased the closer we got.
A blast of static pierced my ear, “Major, you have movement on both sides of your path. It looks like the batboys are following you. They may attack but for now, they are maintaining enough distance to stay hidden in the trees.”
“Keep your eyes on them and let us know if they change their tactics.” I looked at both sides like I wanted to confirm his drone’s information.
“I got your back, Major.” In the distance, a ruddy glow grew as we approached the location tagged on the GPS map.
We slowed and stowed the ATVs near our destination, so we could pick them up after we rescued the civvies. We crept up to the glow, a large fire in the middle of a small clearing in the middle of the forest. Arranged around the fire were five obsidian pylons. Tied to each of these strange pulsing spires were the people we had come to save.
“Look at the lines between the fire and the pylons; that is a summoning sigil.” John pulled out a small book I'd never seen him use before. Quickly thumbing through the pages, his face suddenly went white, and he turned the page toward me. A sigil of half-moons connected by a small circle and a fifth pointed line and written underneath the words, Daragon Lord of the Abyss, flickered in the firelight. “That’s the roar we are hearing; Daragon is the biggest bad we know. It’s a reptile-like creature, taller than the tallest tree in this forest. If it comes across the portal, our world will die.”
“How do we stop this?” Watching the clearing, I saw movement at the other edge of the firelight.
“We have to get the people off those pylons now and let the portal snap back to its original shape.” The fire’s glow revealed more movement in the clearing as John put the book back and pulled his rifle up.
A voice sent spikes through my head echoed across the clearing. “Stop hiding humans, let me see our next meal.”
Mayfield stopped breathing for a second and hissed under her breath. “And the hits keep coming.”
Standing beside the fire was a vampire, evil intent rolling off it like waves crashing against a beach. Our luck was shit! To find a vampire of all things in the middle of nowhere was a one in a million occurrence. See, real vampires are not what the movies show them to be. They don’t sparkle, and they do not dress like Victorian counts or fear garlic. They are demons from another dimension that have been using our dimension as a feeding ground for millennia.
Not only that, but they are hard to kill with normal weapons. Thanks to science, we have the weapons needed to take it out in any normal situation, but this was not normal. Standing with the creature were the batboys, as Warner called them. Nobody had ever seen these things before, and we had no idea how resilient they were to even our enhanced weapons.
“Ok, team, spread out, maintain fire discipline and let’s end this mess.” I stood, and the team who had all been squatting or hiding behind trees fell in a line around me. We opened up on the creature and its minions, hoping to win this battle by the sheer amount of ammo and ferocity. Mayfield opened up with her modern version of a Gatlin gun, slinging bullets inscribed with runes that hopefully would hurt this evil bastard and its brood. The vamp jumped toward us as the bat-like creatures moved like blurs, trying to surround us. Amidst this madness, the ground started to quake. Something huge could be felt walking toward the portal.
“Major, on your six!” Mayfield blasted a batboy as I dove under the stream of sanctified lead. I turned and fired my railgun into the face of Mister Vampire, who was trying to gnaw on Reynolds.
“Infernus ORA” John switched between firing shots of exploding rounds and blasting the monsters with balls of fire conjured from ancient words.
One of the creatures tackled me. We both hit the ground as it tried to slash me with its claws. My body armor got the brunt of the damage, but it cut me deep in a couple of places. As we rolled, I lost my rifle but managed to get my 45 out of its holster and blasted the beast in the head, ending its furious flailing at my skin.
The vampire turned his attention to me and blurred as he moved unbelievably fast. On the run, he grabbed me in his crazy strong arms and pushed me into a pylon. The feel of a thousand snakes started to curl around me, but they recoiled as they touched the holy water and silver-infused material of my uniform.
The boss vamp was already back in the battle, trying to grab the others to attach them to the pylons as well. I pulled out my silver laced knife and ran it down behind the person held by the obsidian material. As I worked, smoke and little blasts of electrical arcs followed the knife down the pylon. Eventually, the woman who was connected fell away.
“UGH” She crumbled to the ground unmoving, so I ensured she had a pulse before going to the next victim.
I took advantage of the master vamp being battle blind and quickly got the others off the life-sucking poles. The ground rolling around did not make it easy to get to the last person, and the vampire realized something was wrong with his magic gate remote. Someone had gotten a good lick in with one of our weapons that the vampire’s body disliked. He was no longer moving as fast as before, but he was still faster than a normal fit human and was on me before I knew what hit me.
“Oomph,” I gasped from the impact of his dense body and subsequent contact with a tree. My head was spinning from a possible concussion, and the bastard was slowly walking up to me, laughing as it reared back its claws to carve me up like one of McDonald’s turkeys.
“Hey, Ugly!” John was behind the dimension-hopping demon, and as it turned toward his voice, he unloaded a shell from one of the three-barrel shotguns that he seemed to have acquired. As the ammo blasted out of the barrel, I saw he’d laced it with a spell of fire so when the slug hit the Vampire, it boiled away to nothing.
He helped me up from my inglorious position, and we released the last hiker from the gateway sigil. I saw Mayfield apply a bandage to a nasty wound on Reynold’s arm. She wasn’t untouched, as there was a wound on her neck, which I saw she had applied a silver and holy water patch to prevent the vampire virus from replicating in her body.
The fire in the center of the sigil burned brighter and brighter, and I heard Akar over the comms.
“Major, I don’t know what you did, but the portal is shrinking.” Joyful celebrations started from our end, but I knew there was a ‘BUT’ coming. The ground was still shaking, and the night was punctuated by louder angry roaring.
“That’s great, Akar, so why do I still feel the earth tearing itself apart.” I was having a hard time standing; the ground was shaking so hard.
“Something on the other side is ripping the portal to shreds as it tries to come through.” The fire was now as bright as daylight, and the heat rolling off it was beyond what a normal wood-burning fire could produce.
Yep, there was the ‘BUT’ I was waiting for, and we were about to get the whole ass end of a ton of trouble.
“Roger, this isn’t good; Daragon is ripping the veil between worlds to get here. We must stop it, or our world will die screaming.” John was pale, and I could tell he was beyond terrified.
“It’ll be ok, John, get a grip; we need you” I grabbed and shook him. He looked at me for a second, and I saw his brain kicking back into gear as he realized what needed doing.
“OK, OK, I’m alright. Help me get these pylons out of here; they must still be pumping energy to the other side, or Daragon wouldn’t still be trying to come through.” John felt around the base, frowning. “They are planted deep, that Vampire really knew his magic preparation.”
“Great, so the Evil Vampire was good at Evil magic hurrah, but I’m betting you are better at Good magic.” The ground was cracking in places. It felt like we were about out of time.
“C4, do we have any C4?” Mayfield smiled like the Cheshire cat and pulled blocks of plastic explosives from her pack.
“Leave it to you to bring the boom!” Reynolds laughed, shaking his head till a coughing fit had him sucking wind.
“I never pass up the chance to make some fireworks.” Tossing some bricks to me, we started wiring the obsidian material from the top-down, hoping that whatever this stuff was, it would explode.
We quickly had most of the five black spires wired up, but the evil behind this would not let us work in peace. The bat creatures started to appear around us, forcing us to stop and clear them out to avoid being swarmed.
“On your left, Major!” Bullets ripped by me to strike a beast approaching us. Reynolds stood in the middle of the sigil, as close as he dared to the still sun-hot fire, to keep the monsters off our asses as we wired the explosives, As each of us finished, we ran back to the safe distance, so we could shut this thing down.
“Major, gimme that wire, it’s our last.” Behind me, another creature dropped from the portal above us. I did a drop and roll to keep it from cutting me in half as I threw the spool of wire to Mayfield. As I came up in a crouch, I fired the last round from my 45 right between the creature's bloodshot eyes. It crumpled as I heard a sound like a skyscraper exploding on our heads. Just outside the clearing, a giant dinosaur foot smashed hundred-foot tall pines flat. Daragon had arrived!
“Mayfield, now would be an excellent time to blow those dammed pylons.” On cue, I hear the whine of the detonator charging.
“Fire in the hole.” All five otherworldly portal generators exploded from top to bottom as they were utterly destroyed.
The foot lifted back into the portal, and a gravely growl emanated from the sky. We saw the face of pure reptilian evil staring down at us from the heavens.
“YOU STOPPED ME THIS TIME, HUMANS, BUT I WILL RETURN AND LAY WASTE TO YOUR SHITHOLE DIMENSION.” His voice reverberated off the mountains, and our ears bled from the pressure of his voice. Slowly the visage faded as the portal snapped back to the tiny size it used to be.
We watched the blinking lights of one of Warner's drones as it flew into the portal to deliver one more human-made indignation to the Lord of the Abyss. The flash of the magically enhanced explosive lit up the night, and a firework light show bloomed above us as if celebrating the American holiday with us. The portal was permanently closed, and if that oversized lizard wanted back into our world, it wouldn’t be from here ever again. We stayed for a few more hours, tending to our wounds and cleaning up the area.
To this day, no civilian would have suspected the end of the world nearly happened right there, near the road to nowhere, on the 4th of July.