Dulce Base (The Dulce Files Book 1) (17 page)

“CAT-2 just reached Level 7…Nightmare Hall.” There was a slight pause and an audible sigh and Anderholt pictured Ellis shaking his head and rubbing at his brow back at Blue Lake. “Sir, there are thousands of them, thousands of abductees…the vast majority of them women.” He paused. “The men found a report saying there were 30,000 females alone.”

Anderholt took in a deep breath. He was afraid of this.

“That many, huh? And how many of them are in the shape to move.”

Once again it was a kind of loaded question, one with a double-meaning, and Ellis immediately took it both ways.

“The ones that aren’t too far gone genetically are mostly just drugged-up…at least by what Captain Leathers is reporting,” Ellis said. “Overall, I’d say eighty to ninety percent of the victims are salvageable.”

“Salvageable,” Anderholt repeated with a laugh, “Ellis, they’re–”

“They
were
human, at least in the case of most of them,” Ellis shot back quickly, cutting of the general’s words. He didn’t’ like challenging authority, yet it was something he did on an almost weekly basis.

“And what are they now?” Anderholt shot right back.

There was a tense silence on the line as the two men stood their ground. Finally Anderholt broke it with a sigh.

“Listen, Ellis – this wasn’t part of the plan.”

“The plans have changed sir, doesn’t this prove it.”

“So what do you want to do…save them all?”

“I want to give it the ol’ college try, sir?”

Oh, Hell’s bells,
Anderholt thought, but said, “it’s your show, Ellis, and your boy is running it on the ground.”

“Not anymore, sir – I’m going in.”

Anderholt was about to protest, but the other end of the line went dead.

32 – The Platform

Dulce Platform (Level 7)

Thursday, May 24, 1979

“Aaahhh!” First Lieutenant Robbie Biscaye yelled, bringing the two Ingram MAC-10s up and out so they were balanced on his hips.  Looking on from a few feet away, Major Fred Sayer could have sworn that the four Grays that’d been rushing toward Robbie had their huge, black eyes go just a bit wider. There was really no way to tell. A split-second later Robbie pulled the triggers, and besides the ‘buzzing’ sound, sixty bullets shot out as if they were a saw cutting through air. They tore into the Grays, slicing through the frail bodies like they were twigs in a forest. The bodies were shot apart and arms and torsos and heads and necks all hung suspended in the air for a brief moment before falling haphazardly to the floor, greenish-goo everywhere.

“Ha!” David shouted from nearby. “That was good, but check this out!”

David waited until at least one of his team members’ eyes was on him, then turned his attention back to the small pocket of Grays huddling beside the ruined tube train that he’d already twisted to hell with the earlier grenade launcher blast. He gripped the AR-15 tightly, then pulled the trigger to the China Lake grenade launcher positioned on top. A 40x46mm grenade shot out at 249 feet per second and, making David’s heart skip a beat in delight, two of the Grays just happened to turn to look at the flying projectile right before it reached them.

BOOM!

The grenade hit directly in front of the Grays, and since they were standing right in the midst of the ruined tube train, each of the creatures was ripped apart as the blast sent them flying into the sharp and twisted metal still sticking out at all angles. Another black char-mark was left on the tracks and part of the platform and much of the wall and once again, there were alien body parts lying everywhere.

“Heh,” David laughed, “how you like them apples!”

Robbie frowned, not liking them much at all, but liking being shown-up even less. Of course the situation they were in really took the cake when it came to things he didn’t like. He may have been the only super soldier on this small four-man team down in the bowels of Dulce, but he sure felt like an insignificant crumb. A lot of that had to do with the Reptilians.

The creatures had first arrived just a few seconds before, on one of the many trains that kept rushing to Dulce’s underground platform…from wherever the hell they were coming from. It didn’t matter much, Robbie knew, just stopping the damn things. The only consolation was that while the Grays were capable of mind attacks, the Reptilians weren’t – that’d been drummed into all the super soldiers back when they’d first trained to become the elite special forces alien killers…and protectors. For no matter how many of the vile creatures, or the equally-vile Grays (for Robbie wasn’t one to discriminate, growing up poor in the South had taught him that) came at the men, he knew that his primary responsibility was protecting the men around him…and that something he could do just by being there.

“Here’s another one!” Donlon yelled out, breaking Robbie from his thoughts for a moment. The four men looked over, and sure enough, there was another gaggle of Reptilians coming up the tube train tracks, the sheer number of stopped trains now blocking the platform ensuring that any additional alien security forces sent in to stop the attacking human teams would have to hoof it down the tunnels, oh, probably a good 300 feet by now at the least, most of them figured. Already there were more than a dozen trains on either side of the platform, and who knew how many further back where the darkness became too much for them to see.

Robbie bit his lip and swallowed a curse, for no matter how many invectives he hurled, the damn aliens would keep coming. He gripped the twin Ingram MAC-10 submachine guns tightly before pulling the triggers. Immediately .45 caliber ACP Parabellum bullets spit out of the 146 mm barrels, and at the astonishing rate of 1,146 rounds per minute. He arced the two guns in two steady streams, back and forth, sending wave upon wave of bullets out.

CLICK!

David looked over at Robbie, who frowned.

“Damn things only get thirty to a clip!”

David scoffed and shook his head and looked back to where the Reptilians were still charging down the tunnel, just then reaching the platform and beginning to hoist themselves up.  He patted the 40mm pump-action China Lake grenade launcher at his side and smiled. “Time for the big dog to eat.”

He pulled the trigger and the grenade launcher spat out a single grenade right into the midst of the oncoming Reptilians, blowing them to bits and pieces every which way.  The creatures were something else entirely. They wore no clothes, just a sort of utility belt that held some of its weapons, and had large claw-like talons on their dinosaur-like feet. Their yellow, slit-serpentine eyes shone out of those hideous scaled-bodies as they jumped forth, a God-awful hissing sound shooting from their mouths.

David laughed and pulled the trigger again, sending another round out and right where the first had landed. As he’d expected, there’d been another five to six Reptilians rushing right through there, expecting the route to now be clear. He pulled the trigger a third time, sending the gun’s final grenade, but this time only two of the creatures were taken out.

“That’s the big dog!” he growled at Robbie before laughing and quickly sticking the shotgun-like grenade launcher in it’s holder at his thigh before pulling out his AR15 assault rifle.

“Now it’s time for dessert!” Robbie shouted back, his twin MAC-10s loaded once again. Another wave of sixty bullets tore into the oncoming line of Reptilians, but on they came.

“Shit,” Fred muttered, seeing yet another pocket of Reptilians coming down the opposite track. He put up his Colt AR15 Commando, the same assault carbine each of the men had in addition to whatever ‘toys’ they’d carried along, and the gun spat out several short bursts of small caliber rounds at a rate of 750 rounds per minute. A few Reptilians fell to the bullets, but the onrush continued.

“They’ll overrun us,” he said, lowering the gun. Around him the men of CAT-4 frowned, and started to wonder how much time they had.

33 – Nightmare Hall

Nightmare Hall (Level 6)

Thursday, May 24, 1979

Jake rushed forward, and then tried his best to skid to a halt. There before him was a man…a hideous, deformed man.

“Ugh…” he moaned, his head whipping down to catch sight of Jake, the movement catching his eye. Jake saw those eyes go wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Jake couldn’t believe what he was seeing, either. The man was stationed on some kind of large platform, at least ten feet up off the ground. It had to be that tall for the man’s testicles were as tall as small trees, and looked like large, overfilled balloons ready to burst. And between them, where Jake imagined the man’s penis was, or at least some gross caricature of it, was what he could only describe as a milking machine, like he’d seen on some dairy farms growing up. The man was being milked for his sperm, his balls somehow modified to produce the stuff endlessly. Looking up into his eyes again, Jake didn’t know if that meant he was in constant pleasure, or constant pain.

“Kill…me…” the man said, and a teardrop fell from his right eye, skimming across the black teardrop tattoo there.

Jake didn’t have to be told twice. He raised his M16, took aim right at that small tattoo, and let off a huge burst of gunfire and a hideous yell, hoping to capture some of the man’s anguish at what he’d been put through for the past…God only knew how many years.

Jake lowered the gun and saw that the man was dead, the aliens robbed of one of their ‘cows.’ He shook off the terrible thought and continued on, his boots drumming on the metal walkway as he ran.

Ahead was Walter, still rushing forth into the larger, open-area of Nightmare Hall. He and Emil had gone ahead, expecting their super soldier Bobbie to be just behind. Thankfully both were just ahead and firing like madmen, oblivious to the detour off the beaten path the two men had taken.

After making the call to General Anderholt and then getting word that the mission had changed from one of search and destroy to one of rescue and run, Walter’s demeanor had changed. It was as if he were fighting for something more, something that wasn’t part of the regular agenda.

Jake rushed forward, actually getting ahead of Bobbie, but not enough that he was going to worry about it. His adrenaline was pumping, his heart beating fast – safety was the last thing on his mind.

He rounded the bend and the ramp began to level off, the next level-up of the base coming right up before them. Jake, Walter, Bobbie and Emil all made it up, shoes pounding on the pavement, that the only sound as they raced higher, and then reached the top and the opening.  It was there that Jake finally stopped and stood, his eyes wide and mouth agape. The TV monitors of the security facility were one thing, but seeing Nightmare Hall in person was quite another. It was the endless screaming and crying and wailing that hit them hardest of all.

“God, won’t they stop?” he said, his face scrunched up as he tried to block out the sound with his hands over his ears. It did little good.

“They will when we get them out of here,” Walter said, “now this is what we’re gonna do.” The other three men gathered closer as ahead of them the cages of women – nearly all that they saw were women, all naked, though there were a few that looked like men – and Walter laid it out. “We’ve gotta stay close, so I want Bobbie walking down that main hallway there,” he pointed, and the blackness hundreds of feet ahead swallowed up wherever it went, “and Emil, I want you and Jake opening those cages on either side.”

Emil nodded. “And you, Walt?”

“I’ll take the rear, hitting anything that could come up behind.”

“Think they can make it?” Bobbie said, nodding at the caged women.

Walter shook his head. “Looks like many can move, but how far they’ll get or where they’ll go…”

“Let’s just get to it,” Jake said, and the others nodded.

Bobbie moved ahead first, his Heckler & Koch machine gun held out before him, but there were no Grays to be seen. On either side of him Emil and Jake quickly opened the many cages. The things were kennels, really, about the size you’d find in an animal shelter, though in some spots they were much smaller, and stacked, with the women crammed into them, hardly any room to move. It was they that were the most far gone. With the larger kennels the women rushed out. From behind Jake and Emil, Walter had to call to them to move down the hallway they’d come from, to not cling to the men. It was hard, as many were crying with terror, most wailing that they’d be killed at any moment.

“Run down the hall!” Walter shouted at them. “You’ll be alright – there are men there waiting for you.”

He wasn’t sure it was true, but what else was he supposed to say? General Anderholt had assured him new teams would be mobilized, and that the women just had to make it to the tube station platform where CAT-4 was. He hoped that would truly be enough, and that the suffering and anguish of these women could end.

Most were little more than college-aged women, some even teens or adolescents. All were beautiful and nearly all were blonde. Most were short as well, and Walter couldn’t help but think of his two daughters back home in Tucson, as well as what awful things the Grays would do to them if they were here in place of some of these women. At one point one of the more held-together of the many women – they were all beginning to blend together as the team progressed down the seemingly endless-hallway unmolested – came up to him and grabbed his shoulder.