Chapter 13: 13: Boom!

“Give him another check. If there’s no infection, we’ll send him on his way,” Major Wilson said. With that he left me in the middle of the Nissen hut.

Me, two soldiers and the doctor. There was a strained expression on her face. She indicated I should sit. The two soldiers positioned by the exit weren’t carrying any weapons, but they were watching my every move.

Perhaps I could have busted my way out of there, using the element of surprise. I like to think I could have if I’d timed it right. Instead, I decided instead to play for time and try to bluff my way through this. I didn’t want to become a fugitive unless there was no other choice.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about escaping from Section 13.

Things were about to blow up in Major Wilson’s face.

Quite literally.

Pierce instructed me to take off the black turtleneck sweater, then she unwrapped the bandages around my chest. The only sign that remained of the scratches I’d taken were three faint white scars.

She looked startled.

“What the hell?”

“Yeah, I tried to tell you, that wasn’t my blood. The thing was bleeding itself. Or, um, something.”

It wasn’t the most convincing lie, but it was the best I could come up with.

Pierce looked at me sceptically through her glasses.

“Alright, kid, cut the crap. Why are you here?”

I didn’t understand. The doctor waved the two soldiers over to show my healed chest.

“What is this?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Search me,” the doctor replied.

“He wasn’t in the mission briefing?” the other asked.

The three of them were speaking in low, urgent whispers. The strain on the doctor’s face had increased and was mirrored in the expressions of the two soldiers.

I had no idea what was going on - which was a feeling I was rapidly getting used to.

“Is this a test? A new recruit?” Pierce said. She turned to me, eyes narrowed, “Come on, kid, what’s your role in all of this? We’ve got less than four minutes here and if the plan’s changed we need to know right now.”

This wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. Pierce checked her watch. The two soldiers glanced at each other nervously.

“Three minutes forty-five seconds,” she said.

I looked at the three in total confusion. There was a conspiratorial tension in the room unlike anywhere else on the base.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! What mission? What’s going on?”

“Nobody human heals that fast,” Pierce said, “Even I don’t heal that fast so what are you? Who sent you? Is there another part of the mission we need to know about?”

She was speaking in a harsh whisper, trying to interrogate me without raising her voice.

“I. Don’t. Know. What. You. Are. Talking. About,” I repeated.

“Two minutes thirty seconds,” the soldier to my left said. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow even though it was cold in the medical lab.

“I don’t like this,” said the other soldier, “I don’t like this at all.”

All three took a step back to confer. They were as confused as me.

“Could someone explain what’s going on?” I said, putting the sweater back on.

“He doesn’t know anything,” the doctor decided, “It’s a coincidence. Either that or the Commander sent him here for some other purpose. Maybe he’s supposed to be the next mole. After all, who would suspect a sixteen-year-old kid? We’ve got to carry on with the plan. There’s no choice now.”

“One minute thirty seconds,” one of the soldiers said through gritted teeth. He wiped his forehead with his hand.

Pierce frowned, her mind racing. She moved to a computer and typed something in, her fingers fluttering urgently across the keyboard.

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“Kid,” she said once she had finished, “not that my word will mean anything after this but I’ve filed that there were no foreign bodies in your wounds. Nothing to see, no infection. If the Commander wants you on the inside and to keep us in the dark about it, that’s none of our business. Now I strongly suggest you stay out of the way for the next bit.”

“We’re just going to leave him here?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Three...two...one...now.”

All conversation was cut short by the sound of an earth-shattering explosion and a sudden flaring of white light coming in through the windows.

“What was that?” I yelled, backing into the far corner of the hut. The explosion had come from inside the base.

“Armoury,” the soldier said.

Another massive explosion followed, closer than the first. Windows shattered and bits of debris hit the roof of the Nissen hut we were in.

“That’s central command. Torches, now.”

The three of them pulled out hand torches and switched them on. Outside I could hear shouting, screams and boots hitting the ground.

“Kid, if you’re nothing to do with this then you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever you see, though, you need to know this: We’re not the bad guys here.”

She paused, then added, “Not this time, at any rate.”

A third and final explosion hit, the ground trembled again. The power cut out and the lights went dead. The three torches made sense now.

“Generator,” the soldier said, “That’s it. Let’s go.”

“Wait – you stay here with the kid,” the doctor said, “Something isn’t right here and I don’t want this plan getting messed up by a random civilian. We’ve waited far too long for this.”

The soldier she’d indicated pulled a pistol he’d had concealed under his uniform and trained it on me. I held my hands up to placate him.

“Woah, take it easy there.”

“Let’s go Brooks,” Pierce said.

The soldier and the doctor both kicked off their shoes, quickly stripping down to tank tops and their fatigues. I watched their quick strip down, even more confused about what was going on - if that was even possible by this point.

Then I gawped as the two of them physically transformed in front of my eyes.

It was difficult to make out with only three torches as lighting, but both of their bodies unmistakeably changed. Pierce grew in size and bulk, adding six inches to her former five foot six stature. Her skin roughened in texture and turned a dark shade of red. Her teeth sharpened to savage points, her ears thickened and elongated. Her fingers became savage claws as her eyes turned a glowing red. Muscles appeared where there had been none before as horns sprouted from her forehead.

A demon. I was looking at a demon. There were no two ways about it.

Brooks’ transformation was different. His body twisted as he fell to the floor, black fur sprouting all over his body. His feet and hands stretched. His face contorted and pushed forward, his nose turning into a snout as his mouth warped and stretched. Like the Doctor, there was no doubt what Brooks was.

“A damn werewolf,” I whispered.

The transformed doctor opened the hut’s door. I saw flames and smoke as the door opened. The fires outside highlighted the two monstrous forms, and then they charged into the chaos outside.

“Will you please tell me what’s going on?” I said to the remaining soldier.

The soldier stood at the door, too far away for me to make any move. Even if he’d been close, what was I going to do? Knock his pistol away before he fired it?

“Kid, you’re either a brilliant actor and are just pretending you don’t understand what’s going on, or you’re one of the unluckiest teenagers I’ve ever met,” the soldier said.

“Let’s work with the second theory, shall we?” I replied.

By that point, snappy comebacks were the only defence I had against a world that had gone completely insane. Nothing made any sense, at all. I’d been thrust into a random, increasingly dangerous chain of events that appeared to have no connection whatsoever.

That was what it looked like, at any rate. In fact it was all linked together: the monster, my powers, the timing of this sudden attack on Section 13.

Every last detail was connected.

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