The Ghosts Left Behind - Part 4
Rescue Officer Mancera, the UNIRO team's geologist, saw his small tracked surveillance robot emerge from the North Portal tunnel. Its little LED headlights were all that lit the interior in the fading day.
"Colonel Anderson!" he called.
"What's up, Rescue Officer?" said Isaac, walking over.
"It's just as we feared, sir. Radiation levels inside are off the charts. Things started to pick up about two thousand feet in. Levels were so high I almost lost the robot. There is also severe structural damage to the tunnel. Some sections were flooded and badly cracked."
"Okay," Isaac sighed. "I'll tell Groenlund. What did the mini-UAV get?"
"Signs of subsidence everywhere. I was able to plot at least two-dozen separate landslides as well, all recent. The mountain is a time bomb and with these new explosion readings," Mancera shook his head, "I don't know how much longer it can hold up."
"Radio UNMK headquarters please and inform them of your findings."
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you," Isaac said. He began to turn away but Mancera stopped him.
"Colonel… There is something else we found, something you should know about."
"What is it?"
"The ground penetrating radar has uncovered something odd about this entire area. It's laced with a series of pipes, buried six feet below the ground in a grid formation with each box 600 feet square. The system goes on for quite a ways too, well beyond our scanning capabilities at this time."
"Hmm," Isaac said curiously. "We'll see if the other teams identify the same thing. Good work, Mancera."
Colonel Groenlund was holding his hand up to his ear, listening intently to his radio earpiece when Isaac came jogging to him with the news. "Colonel," said Isaac, "Colonel, we have - "
Groenlund swiftly held up his hand, stopping Isaac. Something was wrong.
"What is it?" Isaac asked.
Distant gunfire began from somewhere across the other side of the mountain. The soldiers immediately pointed their weapons in the direction of the sound. The quick cracks and pops of bullets furiously danced through the team's attentive ears. With each round of gunfire came a cry for help. It was as if the mountain itself had started to cry in pain. Everyone looked out in appalling silence over the 7,200 foot silhouetted giant.
"South Team, do you copy?" Groenlund asked into his radio. "South Team, do you read, over?"
No one answered.
"Major Hanley, what's your status, over?"
Nothing again.
"Everyone drop what you're doing," Groenlund ordered. "It will be dark soon and I want the high ground. We're making for the summit now." He turned to his radio operator. "Nordrum, contact headquarters and tell them to send the birds to pick us up now. Tell them we have come into contact with an unknown force and that we have lost communications with South Team. We need to…"
Isaac heard a faint click at the colonel's feet. Groenlund knew immediately what he had stepped on, a landmine, barely visible amongst the leaves.
"Oh, God," mumbled Isaac in horror.
Groenlund chuckled at his misfortune. "Well," he said.
The ground began to shake, accompanied by the same low moaning they had heard when they had first arrived. Groenlund struggled in the shaking to keep his boot on the mine so it would not explode.
From beneath the leaves a hissing sound arose from the shaking Earth. Isaac grabbed onto a tree for support. In amongst the dark trees he saw a white fog rise up from the ground. It was hastily grabbed by the breeze, fanning out towards the team.
"Groenlund!" Isaac shouted, pointing to the surfacing fog.
Groenlund looked over his shoulder. "Colonel Anderson!" he shouted back. "Get everyone to the summit, now! Don't go in that fog! Go!"
"We can't just leave - "
"Go! That's an order!"
"Damnit," groaned Isaac. "Okay!" he yelled. "You heard him, lets go. Get to the summit, now!"
The team began sprinting uphill, leaving all of their unpacked gear. Isaac made sure everyone got in front of him before running himself. He looked back at Colonel Groenlund one last time. Just before the fog overtook him he cocked his gun and brought it up to his chest, ready to fire. Groenlund saw Isaac staring at him. He gave a small informal salute and then disappeared.
Isaac started sprinting up the mountain to rejoin the team but stopped when he saw someone in a gas mask watching him, crouched beside a tree sixty feet to his left. They were wearing heavy camouflage netting stuffed with branches, leaves, and twigs, making them appear to almost morph with the forest floor. Another figure appeared to his right.
Screams and gunfire began ahead of him. He looked up the slope to see fog had engulfed his team. He was surrounded. In the pale blue evening light the fog took on a ghostly white glow, filling every available space there was to fill as if it were water coming to drown him. An explosion from behind him rang out from where Groenlund has been stranded.
"Who are you?" Isaac screamed. "I am Colonel Isaac Anderson of the United Nations Interna - "
Someone tackled him to the ground with a high pitch squeal, removing his protective facemask and respirator. Whoever had done it was already gone by the time he regained himself. He sat up as quickly as he could. When he did he was bound in the fog. Visibility was nearly zero. It did not smell natural.
"Colonel Anderson," Aasav called over the radio. "Colonel! Help us! They are killing us!"
The radio went dead. Isaac searched around him for anything to fight with. Voices began to erupt from the trees, mutilated and out-of-body. He saw flashes of shadow and images of agony.
"What… Wh-What is… this?" he stammered, trying to hold consciousness. A pounding pain began in his head. "Who are… Who are you?"
Someone answered. "The forgotten," whispered a voice from above him. "We're the ghosts left behind…"
Isaac looked up and saw a figure wearing a gas mask standing over him. "Why are you d-doing this? We come… We come in peace," he said wearily.
"Peace," the figure laughed grotesquely, "there is no such thing..."
Isaac waved his hand through the leaves around him and felt his defense. "Maybe… Maybe not," he chuckled. "But the same goes for ghost too."
With all his dying strength Isaac smashed his hand onto a landmine at his side, removed his fist from the trigger plate, and threw it up to the masked figure. After the explosion the mountain returned to its silence.