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Our first place Middle School category winner was written by Scott Sullivan, a student attending Seneca Middle School in Seneca, SC. |
“Word’s arrived that our mission is to return to Washington, command needs us to transport another creature to the containment zone,” Lieutenant Carson said, our commanding officer.
“Washington? If we’re going there, I want a handshake from the President!” Private Mack joked.
“Yeah? And I want a vacation to Hawaii, but we all can’t have what we want now, can we? Now give that thing over to security and get on the osprey, A-S-A-P!” Carson replied.
We handed the creature over, a large being with a human-like silhouette, standing in the middle of a high-tech cage made by the government’s top scientists, and all four of us- Carson, Mack, Jemma, and I- returned to the aircraft. When we boarded, the osprey leapt up with a roar of the engines. I gripped my seat, with my left hand holding onto a picture of my family back home.
“You’ve been quiet the whole op, Jones, what’s the matter?” Carson asked.
“Nothing, Sir. Just a bit homesick is all,” I replied.
“Ay, Martin, nothin’ like a bit of meat to take that off your mind,” Mack said, shoving a piece of jerky into my hand.
Just then, our pilot set down the radio. “10 minutes till landing, Lieutenant.”
“Alright, suit up!” Carson replied, turning to us.
I ate the jerky quickly then put on my vest, looking down at the patch on my arm, which read Supernatural Anomalies Guarding and Escort: S.A.G.E.
Was this really the right choice, I thought to myself, leaving my family to escort these… things, around the world?
I was snapped out of my thoughts when the osprey landed with a jolt. As the door started to open, I caught the blood shot eyes of our director, Commander James.
“You all know why your unit was formed,” the Commander said, “to safeguard the supernatural beings that’s been threatening our country for five years. Today you are about to face the biggest challenge in your careers.” He paused, taking a sip from his mug, shaking from the exhaustion of planning night after night.
“That being, Sir?” Carson asked.
“That being, Lieutenant,” replied the Commander, pulling down a board with images of a young girl, with thick black hair and skin as white as a ghost, “Is a level six anomaly.”
Level six anomalies were the worst on the scale, causing mass destruction and chaos wherever they went. Some had the forms of giant beasts, others hid in plain sight. The most notable part of this anomaly was the deep red eyes glaring back at us from all nine of the pictures.
“Hold up, how does a little girl like that become a level six?” Jemma asked.
“It kills whatever it can touch, mangling the body whenever possible,” Commander James answered, “and its ability to walk through walls doesn’t help.”
“So, keep a distance. Got it.”
It was then that I noticed the background of every picture: there was none.
“Sir, how come there is no background in any of those images?” I asked.
“Every team we sent in to do recon has not reported back. When we sent in rescue teams,” he continued, putting up two more pictures, only this time bodies of soldiers, pinned to a wall with the words “Leave” and “Alone” written beside them, “they saw this. When the pictures were taken, the background was deleted from the picture itself, meaning we have no idea where she was before and how the soldiers ended up there.”
After a mere minute of us looking at eachother, Lieutenant Carson stood up and said, “Well, if that’s it, Sir, we’ve got a transport to complete. Team, let’s roll out.”
We all stood up with a salute and left the bunker that housed our squad. I was the last to leave, when Commander James called me to stay.
“What is it, Sir?” I asked.
“Martin, I know you’re a caring guy, but this- thing- isn’t human, and no matter what it seems to be doing, it’s not. It DOESN’T have emotions. Remember that.”
I pondered on the Commander’s words as our truck hummed to life and traveled down the rough terrain, the girl caged in the back with us. We were traveling down the road when we heard a loud bang.
“Something must be angry out there,” Jemma stated.
“Pro’ly nothin’. Quit your worrying, we’ve got this guy to back us up,” Mack Joked, slapping my arm.
Suddenly, I heard a loud ring as my body was jolted into my seat, and saw Mack’s jerky fly from his glove and onto the door. Carson’s body fell on top of me as our MRAP shifted over on its side, flinging the cage onto the ground behind us. When I finally could hear, I stood up to the sound of electrical popping coming from the wires above my head. The MRAP was trashed, the door to the outside was caved in, our driver was dead, and several of the windows were gone. Lucky everyone else survived, I thought to myself. When I turned around to the door, there she was: standing right outside the broken cage, staring towards the woods. She may have looked in the direction of our truck, but I wouldn’t have seen because I was too busy ducking out of the window. I heard the light footsteps across the grass, which sounded like giant’s feet due to my aching ears.
When she passed, I finally turned to wake up my knocked out partners. “Hey, hey! Wake up,” I whispered, fearing her return, “she’s escaped containment, and she’s heading for Manhattan!”
As the other two roused, Carson jumped to his feet. “She could destroy the city if we don’t stop her! Mack, Jemma, grab your guns; we’ve got an anomaly to catch!”
I turned to the door and tried to push; it wouldn’t budge. I looked back to Mack with exasperation. “Hey, tough guy, mind lending a hand?” I asked.
He slowly walked over and started to push the door. It took us a good two minutes before we could actually get it out of the way. I jumped out of the back, and moved to the bottom of the truck to assess the damage. The whole underside was totalled, there was no way we could get it in working order. The whole front was torn off from the explosion, which looked to have been from a mine. We must’ve forgotten about the field on this road.
“All our long-ranged radio equipment is damaged,” Jemma said, checking her radio pack, “we won’t be able to call for backup.”
I looked back to the squad, who adopted the look of which way? on their faces. We all knew what we had to do: find the anomaly and detain. I pointed into the woods where I saw her move, which is the direct way to New York City. We started our trek, looking through the destroyed building of the battle that happened five years ago; when the first level six anomaly appeared in the country. They were mostly ruined suburbs in the forest, not very big or interesting, but good for hiding.
“We have soldiers in this forest, lucky for us they’re on a patrol at this time,” Lieutenant Carson said, “so the best thing we can do is split up, try and find the patrol or the girl and report it in.”
We all went our separate ways, with me taking the left side of the forest, towards the base to find the patrol. I had only wandered a few meters out of sight with the others when I heard a creaking in one of the houses. As I walked in through the house’s bursted door, I caught a foul smell, like that of a dead animal. I saw nothing on the first floor and decided to continue upstairs. The aroma grew in strength each step I took up the stairs. When I arrived to the top, I whipped around to see three bodies, each mangled in their own special way, placed in a pile in the corner. No bugs had gathered, so it couldn’t have happened long ago. All I did was stand there and study the bodies in the dark, roofless house. They were close enough that I could catch their patch, which I started to read, however slowly: Supernatural-
I stopped as I heard a crying noise coming from the left of the bodies. Again I caught sight of her, only this time crying in front of a fireplace mantel. On top of the rotting mantel was a picture of a lovely couple and a daughter. The young girl- or whatever you want to call it- was crying, sobbing in front of the mantel with arms crossed around her chest. The young girl in the picture was around five or six, smiling with great happiness, all shown in her dark blue eyes. Her hair was tied in pigtails, the long black strands of hair hanging from her head. She would be close to ten now, about the age and height of this anomaly. Could that have been her family? Before the war? I wondered, paying no mind to the girl herself, rather the picture of before. I started to step forward, and the floorboard made a loud creak as I put pressure on it. The girl turned back and screamed at me, then ran out the gaping hole in the house’s walls. I ran to the hole just in time to see her speed off into the woods. Taking a minute to watch her until I couldn’t see her anymore, I immediately turned back, remembering the bodies. I ran over to them and grabbed one of the arms and read the patch, thinking of my squadmates. I was surprised when I read the patch, which read Supernatural Patrol and Operations Team, our sister squad, S.P.O.T. I sighed with relief that it wasn’t my squadmates, but then honored the dead soldiers.
I radioed in as fast as possible after the whole scene that unraveled before me. “Sage Three to Sage One, you copy?”
“Sage One to Sage Three, you got something over there?” Carson replied, although full of interference due to the density of the trees in between us.
“I’ve caught sight of the girl, and three dead bodies. It’s the patrol.”
It took several minutes for two of them to arrive to the house, but Jemma didn’t show.
“Where’s J-Girl?” Mack asked as he was coming over the hill.
Right as he said that, we heard a staticky scream come over the radio, and shortly after, gunshots. All three of us broke out into a full sprint to her location. When we arrived to the basketball court where she was scouting, we realized we were too late. There she was, Jemma’s body on the ground, fear-stricken, her cold hand grasping the radio. Beside her was the word “Next,” written in her own blood. Mack dropped to his knees and cried beside his dead sister’s body, pounding the ground until both me and Carson grabbed him.
“Jemma!” he wailed as we pulled him back from the body.
“What should we do, Sir? She’s coming for the rest of us next.” I asked.
“It, Corporal, it,” he replied, and I could feel the hate now growing inside him.
“Simple,” Mack choked, “we kill the thing and get it over with.”
I looked over at the lieutenant, who simply stared at the body and nodded. We all paid respects to our fallen sister-in-arms, and grabbed our weapons. We knew what we had to do.
We followed the tracks the girl left behind from the house to an abandoned school building. The three of us formed up and moved in to finally end the menace, but I took the back. After what I saw, her crying over what looked to be a picture of her parents, I couldn’t be the one to end her. We traveled down the deserted hallways, watching for any sign of movement. As we passed the corner, we saw the eerie being, on the opposite side of the hall, hair covering her eyes.
“FIRE!” Carson cried, and both he and Mack pulled up their weapons.
All she did was raise her arms, and we were sent back with a blast of force. I tried to get up, but a set of lockers pinned me to the ground. I saw Mack as he tried to defend the Lieutenant, but failed and was thrown through a door by another blast. I watched as she walked over to Carson, smiling as he struggled to get a fallen part of the ceiling off of his back, and snapped his neck. I tried to lift the lockers off of me, but it was no use. She started to walk over, but didn’t get more than two feet towards me when Mack leapt from the doorway and onto her.
“FOR SIS!” He shouted as they hit the floor.
The girl screamed with fury, and threw Mack into the ceiling. I did not see the rest of what happened to poor Mack, I had gotten out from under the lockers and made a break for the exit. When I got there, I pushed on the handle, only to find it was locked. All our ordinance was back at the truck, and I lost my gun in back at the hallway, so all I could do was hide. I made a dash for one of the rooms and locked the door behind me. After mere moments of searching the room for a suitable barrier, I again heard the sobbing of a young girl. I creeped and peered out the door, only to find her standing there, in front of an open locker full of pictures of the same girl, and a candle set before a picture of the same couple whose image was above the fireplace.
No, this isn't what she's doing, it's not real, I thought to myself.
I slowly backed away from the door, just in time for her to turn around and not see me in the moonlit room. I waited until she was gone before I finally opened the door, looking back and forth to make sure the coast was clear. After a while of me looking, I decided to make a dash for the hallway, to try and find my gun. When I arrived, there was Mack, or what was left of him. His body was dangling from a hole in the ceiling, blood dripping off his broken nose. His dismembered arm was thrown to the side, several feet away from the rest of him. His eyes showed the fear he had just before his death, yet they also showed peace; he will be able to see his sister once again. I wanted to honor him and thank him for what he did, but I was running out of time. I grabbed my gun and went to face off against the being, one final time. I found her roaming the school hallways, running her hands against the lockers of her old classmates, or at least I think they were. The rage inside of me was so great, I didn't care. I whipped up my gun and aimed straight for her heart, but I hesitated; I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the life of a young girl, anomaly or not. That hesitation gave her all the time she needed to realize that I was behind her, and she flung her arms wide. I was sent back with a blast to the chest, and I held onto my gun for dear life. I felt the splintering crack of wood behind me as I was thrown through the door. As I got up, I looked around for anything to protect me as she approached. Sinks, tables, storage closet, gas lines. This must be the science lab. She had just entered the doorway when I backed up into the closet and opened fire on the gas line.
BOOM
The gas line exploded just as I dove into the large closet. No one could’ve survived that. As I returned to the room, there she was, lying on the floor with open eyes. Death had finally come to her. Her blue dress shined in the moonlight with red, the blood dripping from her forehead. It was over.
I finally made it back to base and reported the girl's death to security. I was told to go to the debriefing room and wait for the Commander. About five minutes later I heard a mysterious sound, like that of a dripping pipe. Moments later I saw a hat appear through one of the concrete walls of the bunker, then a nose, then a face. The bloodshot eyes appeared a second later, and I immediately knew who it was: Commander James. A minute later of staring with fear was all it took for his body to fully come through the wall, his eyes turning redder each second.
¨Hello Martin.¨
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