Beneath The Earth

Horror short story

    Mark Robertson watched without feeling as the last bit of life drained from the Iraqi soldier. He pulled the knife from the Iraqi's throat and guided the body to the ground silently. He had no idea why this building was necessary to the US military, nor did he care. As a mercenary, he was paid to do the job, not ask questions. "Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do and die." The words passed through his mind briefly as he moved through the hallway like liquid.
    Mark peered around a corner to see the rookie he was to meet up with. What the hell was that kid's name, anyway? The battle hardened 43 year old couldn't remember if he'd even bothered to learn it in the first place. He stopped and listened when he heard the  young rookie whispering to himself.
    "Always point the rifle where your eyes are. Never point the gun where you're not looking. Stay sharp."
    A smirk crept it's way across Mark's face. "FNG's", he thought as he approached the rookie. "Hey, kid." He whispered. The rookie jumped a little and looked back over his shoulder to see Mark crouching right behind him.
    "S**t," breathed the rookie. "Man, don't do that! You're gonna give me a heart attack!"
    "Come on, kid. Let's just get this done. Follow me."
    Mark took the lead and moved silently down the hall with the rookie in tow. They saw a door leading into a room. "That's the comm room," Mark whispered. "We gotta clear it." Approaching the door, they could hear enemy soldiers speaking to each other, sounding distressed and agitated. "Damn," thought Mark. "I've either got to learn the language or get the f**k out of this shithole country."
    Peeking around the door he saw two enemy soldiers facing away from the door. Both were holding rifles, but both were gesturing frantically towards to opposite wall, their voices seeming to become louder and more panicked with every word. He tried to see what they were looking at, but there was nothing there, just a plain wall. Nothing remarkable whatsoever, as far as he could tell.
    Turning to the rookie, Mark whispered, "We'll have to do this at exactly the same moment. You take the one on the left. Let's go." Mark slipped into the room with his rifle trained on the enemy's head. Getting into position behind the enemy, he nodded at the rookie. They removed their combat knives from their sheaths. A bead of nervous sweat trickled down the rookie's face as he waited for Mark's signal.
    With blinding speed Mark grabbed the soldier's forehead and ripped the head back while simultaneously thrusting the blade of his knife into the throat. The blade penetrated the vulnerable flesh and twisted in one motion, spilling blood out onto the soldier's clothing. The rookie, however, didn't do as well.
    The rookie had reached out and grabbed his victim by the forehead, just as Mark had done, but the soldier had slipped almost instantly from his grasp. The Iraqi's elbow flew back instinctively crashing into the rookie's jawbone like a freight train. The rookie flew back and fell on his a*s, his rifle slung worthlessly around his neck, his legs splayed widely apart, his hands cushioning his impact on the floor.
    Mark shoved his victim to the ground, knife still embedded in the throat. His movements were a blur as he kicked the upright soldier behind his knee dropping him to his knees and chopped at the Iraqi's neck with a ridge hand. Ripping the rifle from the soldier's hands Mark tossed it aside before smashing into the soldier's temple with his knee. The rookie jumped up and lept onto the Iraqi, driving the combat knife up to the hilt into the soldier's chest.
    Mark almost laughed out loud when the rookie looked up at him with a helpless look on his face as he tried desperately to keep the soldier on the ground with one hand while simultaneously muffling the screams with the other. A moment passed.
    Once the Iraqi had stopped moving, the rookie slowly and uncertainly got up. His hands trembled slightly as they returned his knife to it's sheath and sorted out his rifle. The rookie looked up at the older mercenary sheepishly. "Sorry, man. My hands were sweaty, he just kinda got away from me."  Mark pulled his knife from the other soldier's neck. "Don't worry about it, kid. As long as the job gets done and we all get to go home at the end of the day, it's all good." A look of relief crossed the rookie's face. "Just don't want to be the guy that f***s up the whole mission. You're Robertson, right? Thanks for, you know, saving my life just now." But Mark clearly wasn't listening. He was looking around the room.
    There were a couple tables set up against one wall with four chairs positioned in front of them. There were some papers scattered around on the tables. Besides that, themselves, and two dead soldiers, the room was bare. Mark's expression slowly soured as he looked around the room. "What's wrong?" asked the Rookie.
    "This ain't a comm room." Mark said. He walked over to the tables and started shuffling the papers around. He saw Arabic writing on them. Nothing there told him what he was looking at. The rookie walked over and saw the papers strewn about the tabletop. "What's all this?" He asked.
    "No idea, I don't read Arabic."
    "Seriously? In this line of work, you don't read Arabic?" Mark shot him a glare that the rookie could almost feel stabbing him.
    "No, I don't read Arabic."
    "Well... I mean... I'm sure that's not that big a drawback. Besides, that kind of makes me more useful."
    "You can read it? What's this stuff say?"
    The rookie picked up a pile of papers and started thumbing through it, reading words from each sheet to himself. The more he shuffled through the papers, the more perplexed his expression became.
    "Well, what is this s**t?" Spat Mark, seemingly irritated by the rookie's silence.
    "I... I'm not really sure. It seems to be some sort of religious thing, but it doesn't belong. Not really sure."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I don't know, really, but this ain't Islamic stuff. Just a bunch of crap about the 'coming of insanity' and it bringing the end of the world or something. There's also stuff about demons... or... maybe just a spiritual entity of some sort, not really sure. This is some creepy s**t."
    "Well, it's supposed to be comm equipment."
    "What do you think this all means?"
    "It means we got s**t intel. That's it. Happens."
    "No, I mean about this 'coming of insanity' and the demons and stuff."
    Mark's brow wrinkled with annoyance. He stared at the pages on the table for a moment. He turned to the rookie.
    "It means we gotta find that comm room ourselves, that's what it means. Let's go."
    "Should we bring this stuff with us?"
    "I don't give a good god damn about some f*****g hadji toilet paper. Leave them."
    "But what if-"
    "I said leave them. Let's go."
    Tentatively the rookie left the pages on the table and turned to go. "Yes, sir."
    Mark started towards the door before stopping short. "Did you hear that?"
    The rookie looked around. "Hear what?"
    "Dunno. Nothing."
    The two began to walk out of the room when a faint creaking noise came from somewhere. "I heard that!" Whispered the rookie. They heard a louder cracking sound, followed by more quiet creaking. Turning around, they saw the wall that the two Iraqis had been pointing to and talking about had a hidden door and it was slowly opening. The rookie looked back and forth from the door to Mark's face several times.  "What is this?"
    Mark's eyes stared at the door. "Hidden comm room."
    "So the intel wasn't as bad as we thought."
    Mark looked at the rookie. The rookie was sure he saw a worried look on Mark's face for a split second.
    "Guess not. Let's move."
    Mark steadied his rifle and crept past the door into the darkness beyond with the rookie in tow. On the other side of the door they found a spiral staircase leading down. The old, rusty metal groaned it's complaints about their weight as they slowly descended for several minutes.
    "This sure is a long way down," whispered the rookie. "Are we sure this is the right way?"
    "No. Quiet."
    Finally reaching the bottom, they saw an ancient looking cobblestone tunnel, lit by torches. The tunnel extended further than they could see in the light.
    "Man, I don't know about this." Said the rookie.
    "Stay quiet."
    "Come on, man. What's a tunnel like this doing here?"
    "This is Iraq, dummy. What did you expect, 21st century architecture or something?"
    "Of course not, but I also didn't think I was going to have to go walking down the french catacombs after reading some seriously spooky s**t, either."
    "Will you just shut up so we can get this job done?"
    "Sorry, I ramble when I get nervous."
    "I've noticed. Just f*****g focus, alright?"
    The two moved along the tunnel for a couple hundred yards before there were no more torches. Mark stopped and crouched down. "Night vision on." He pulled his goggles from his pack and put them on his head. He turned to see the rookie pull his goggles down over his eyes, then immediately jump back and cry out while grabbing his rifle. "What the f**k?!"
    "What? What is it?"
    The rookie took off his goggles. "I don't know, man. I saw something. Not sure what."
    Mark looked around. "There's nothing. Stop creeping yourself out. Put your goggles back on." With that, Mark lowered his own goggles over his eyes. He looked down the dark tunnel and adjusted his eyes to the green hue before checking the rookie and continuing down the tunnel.
    After traveling down the tunnel for a few dozen more yards, Mark came to a corner. He turned to check on the rookie, but found no one there. He looked back down the tunnel and saw nothing. He keyed up his radio. "CM1, this is Pitbull 3, I've lost the rookie, over." Silence. "CM1, this is Pitbull 3, over." Nothing. "S**t, what the hell now?" He thought to himself. He sat debating for a moment. Should he try to find that stupid kid, or just continue on? He decided to go back and try to find the rookie.
    Mark crept back through the tunnel looking for any sign of the rookie. He was acutely aware of the two most likely things to have happened to the rookie. Either the kid was just a coward, and had left Mark behind, or somebody had taken him out without Mark knowing but left Mark alone for some reason. He felt very uneasy.
    Several minutes slipped by and Mark began to realize he should have been back to where the torches lit the tunnel by now. "S**t, the torches have been extinguished. Somebody's f*****g with me." He crept cautiously back, looking for the stairs. He became more and more sure the rookie hadn't run off with every step. Every breath he he took seemed to inhale more of the uneasy feeling. Mark shivered as a cold started to work it's way into his bones. A strong, oppressive feeling that he shouldn't be there grew the further he went. Where the hell was that damn staircase?
    Suddenly, light surrounded Mark as if someone had flipped a switch. Removing the goggles he found himself in a stone room lit by torches. Confused, he looked back at the dark path behind him. "What the f**k?" There was no way out of the room except the path he came in on. There had been no turns in the tunnel. There was no way this was possible.
    Mark stood stationary looking at the room and back at the dark tunnel behind him, trying to make sense of the situation. Eventually, he became aware of a faint dripping sound. He turned to look and saw what looked like a small puddle of blood near a corner of the room. He crouched to to look, and saw another drip splash into the small puddle. He looked up for the source. "What the f**k...?" His words quietly escaped his lips as he stood up, staring at the ceiling.
    The entire ceiling was covered with an upside down pool of blood, slowly dripping into the small puddle by the corner. As he stared up, stunned, he was sure he could make out a vague shape moving below the surface of the gravity defying pool. He squinted, trying to make it out. The shape seemed to be getting bigger, then suddenly smaller, as if something were trying to break the surface, then was pulled violently away. Sometimes the shape would get closer before getting jerked back, sometimes further away. Every time it got closer to the surface, it looked more and more human in shape. Then the figure in the blood got very close to the surface and Mark was sure it was human in form.
    Suddenly, a human hand broke through the surface. Instinctively, Mark's arms shot up to grab the hand and he began pulling. It felt as if he were trying to pull someone out of the water while something else was trying to pull them under. Mark pulled hard with all his strength as the rookies head broke through the surface with a loud gasp, filling his lungs with desperately needed oxygen.
    "Help me Robertson! Help me!" Shouted the rookie between gasps.
    "What the hell is happening?" Shouted Mark, the need for quiet now completely gone from his mind.
    "Help me!" And with that, the rookie's blood drenched hand slipped from Mark's grasp and Mark fell back onto the floor as he watched the rookie's shape disappear under the surface. Moments passed as Mark's brain tried like hell to wrap itself around what had just happened and the pool's surface slowly became still again.
    The sound of another blood drip hitting the puddle snapped him out of his stupor. Standing up, he put his goggles back on and pointed himself back down the tunnel, determined to find out what was around the corner where he'd first realized he'd lost the rookie. It was, after all, the only way to go now.
    Mark's years of training and practice took over as he stealthily traveled through the tunnel, the barrel of his rifle leading the way. He began to hear a crunching noise and was aware that he was stepping on something. Looking down, he saw hundreds, no, thousands of cockroaches running back and forth along the path. He continued to move, constantly aware of the insects being crushed by his boots.
    Finally he could see the corner he'd been at before. Except a dim light now drained it's way into the tunnel from around the corner. He crept softly up to the corner and took off the night vision. Cautiously he peered around the corner to see the tunnel gave way to a large, stone arched room with a large bonfire burning in the center of it. From his vantage point, he could see that the tunnel continued on the other side of the room. Just as he was about to resume moving, he saw a large, humanoid figure enter the room from the other side.
    The figure was that of a very large man wearing only a wrap around his waist and an old wooden box just big enough to cover his head. His skin was bleached white and horribly scarred. Slung over his shoulder, the figure carried an unconscious man. Mark took a closer look, but saw the man being carried was not the rookie, but instead looked like an Iraqi soldier. The figure approached the bonfire and the Iraqi soldier seemed to stir. Realization set in on the Iraqi's face and he started screaming frantically. Mark looked at the bonfire and noticed for the first time that it was not burning wood, but bodies. He may not have understood what was going on, but he knew what was about to happen.
    Just as the figure prepared to throw the Iraqi into the bonfire, Mark's finger pulled his rifle's trigger. Several shots spat from the barrel hitting the figure squarely in the back. An unearthly howl came from the figure who then dropped the Iraqi man on the floor. Mark's ears rang from the sheer volume of the outcry. The figure spun around to face Mark, but Mark saw no eye holes in the wooden box on it's head. The figure seemed to see him anyway and started coming towards him. His rifle burst out with more shots, all of them hitting their mark. The hulking figure was still coming for him. Mark retreated behind the corner and tried to think. The cold was beginning to take a hold of his muscles, and he was finding it a little difficult to move because of it. If bullets didn't stop this thing, maybe something with a bit more punch would. He started running back down the tunnel. He grabbed a concussion grenade from where it hung from his pack. Just as the figure came around the corner Mark lost his footing when he slipped on the crushed remains of at least a dozen cockroaches. The grenade rolled out of his hand when he hit the ground. The insects wasted no time and began crawling all over his body as he struggled to push himself back up to his feet. He felt the figure's monstrous hand grab his ankle and start dragging him back towards the bonfire room. Flipping onto his back, Mark hastily retrieved his pistol from it's holster. He fired three shots into the figure's arm. The box headed figure let out another ear shattering howl and dropped Mark's leg. Mark began to furiously scoot himself backwards away from the figure as he fired off three more shots directly into the box covering the thing's head. He quickly looked for the grenade. He found it, barely visible underneath the cockroaches crawling all over it. Just as he grabbed it, the figure grabbed his leg again. He felt himself being dragged across the floor like a rag doll.
    Mark's leg kicked as hard as he could muster, freeing himself from the figure's grasp just as he was being pulled back around the corner. Wasting no time, he popped up and began running back into the tunnel. The figure howled once again and began to pursue him. Mark was aware of how little time he would have to act. He pulled the pin on the grenade and turned to toss it at the figure. He stepped back when he threw it, only to find himself plummeting backwards over the side of a precipice of some kind. He fell for only a moment, then hit the ground with a thud and an intense, sharp pain in his back. His world filled with burning hot pain as he tried to get his senses back. Then the explosion from the grenade snapped his mind back into the situation. Then it was quiet.
    All Mark was really aware of at the moment was the intense pain in his back. He tried to roll over, but the pain spiked when he did, causing he to cry out. He felt around and realized he had not fallen onto the ground, really, but rather a pile of bones. He felt for the pain in his lower back and discovered that he'd been impaled on a splintered bone. Carefully, he removed the bone from his back, every inch causing the pain to become indescribably worse. He rolled over and saw the pile of bones he'd landed on was massive. Then he saw the skull next to him. These were human bones. Thousands of them.
    Carefully, Mark crawled down the bone pile. He saw his blood dripping onto the rot covered bones as he moved, trying not to injure himself any more than he already had. The thought of the pursuing figure came back to his mind, but when he looked up to see if it was in fact still chasing him, he saw nothing of the cliff he'd fallen over. He saw that it looked more like he was in a cave of some kind. "Okay," he said out loud to nobody, "I'm done. Just gonna go home now."
    Mark got to the bottom of the pile and pulled his first aid kit from his pack and began to dress his wound as best as he could. When he finished he looked around and couldn't find his rifle. Looking back at the path he'd taken to get down from the bone pile revealed nothing. "Of course," He stated sarcastically, again to nobody, "Why wouldn't I lose my gun right now?"
    He picked himself up off the ground and began to limp around the cave, looking for an exit. Eventually, he found a tunnel big enough for him to fit through the rock and earth. It was dark, so he went to get his night vision goggles out again and realized that they had been lost in the chaos as well.
    Mark squinted as he looked through the darkness. His eyes were getting adjusted to the low light, and he discovered he could see well enough to get through, as long as it got no darker. He forced his body to continue putting one foot in front of the other, despite the agony and cold. He followed the twisting tunnel for some time, he wasn't sure how long, until he heard a cry of pain. He stopped short and tried to remain still as his eyes tried to pull any detail out of the dark. It was then that he noticed he was standing on something that wasn't rock.
    Looking down he saw a hand under his boot. He moved his foot and followed the hand up it's arm to see an old, dessicated man lying underneath several large rocks. The man was clad in rags, his beard and hair were both very long, grey, and greasy. His eyes were dull and his breathing shallow. "Please," the man said in an English accent, "Help me, my friend." Mark looked at the rocks pinning the man down. He pushed with a heavy grunt, causing pain to explode out from his lower back into every fiber of his body. The old man drew a labored breath and said, "Thou lackest the strength, sir. I see now the Lord hath not sent thee to help me from this folly."
    "What the hell are you saying?" Mark panted. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
    "Thou canst not remove me, thou art injured." The man struggled to say. "I prayed that the Lord would send His help, but I fear it be not thee."
    "Man, I can barely understand you? Who are you?"
    "My name is Johnathan." The man spoke in gasps.
    "How long have you been here, Johnathan?"
    "I know not. My charge was to stop the Muslim advance at the source. I was lost from my regiment, foolishly fell into a hole in the Earth, and hath been trapped here ever since."
    "Stop the Muslim advance? The hell you talking about?"
    "We were here under the order of His Holiness Urban II, to remove the invaders from Anatolia. But I fear, the Lord hath forsaken our quest."
    "Invaders? Anatolia? What the f**k are you..."
    Suddenly a realization hit Mark's brain. A history lesson from high school returned to his mind. He stared down at the old man. This can't be happening, can it? Even after all he'd seen that day, this had to cross the line into impossibility.
    "Johnathan, what if I told you that the year is 2003?"
    "My friend, I fear that lunacy hath taken you, for though I know not how long I have been here, it cannot be. It is the year of our Lord 1097."
    Mark just stared in disbelief. Could Johnathan actually be telling the truth? Was it possible he was a soldier from the first crusade, here and now?
    "Johnathan, where are we?"
    Johnathan's head turned slightly to the side to better face Mark. "Thou knowest. It would seem a cave somewhere beneath Assyria."
    "We call this area Iraq now."
    Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could a shrill, high pitch scream was heard. His eyes shot open. "The leaper! Flee, my friend, flee!"
    "What? What's going on?"
    "We have no time, worry not for me, save thyself!"
    Mark had seen enough by then that he wasn't inclined to question any further. Instead he moved as quickly as his injury would allow down the rock tunnel. He heard movement close behind him. His eyes darted around, looking for cover. The shrill scream echoed off the walls again, sounding very close behind. Mark spotted a small hole in the wall shielded by a group of rocks. He ducked behind them, drawing his pistol as he sat in the dirt.
    Mark breathed silently, straining his ears for any more sound. He heard a faint scraping sound and it was getting closer. Then the sound stopped. Mark held his breath. His eyes opened as wide as they would, desperately taking in every bit of light they could. Suddenly, he heard the scraping sounds again, this time from directly above him.
    Slowly, Mark raised his head and looked up. There, perched on the rocks he hid behind, was a grotesque creature that looked mostly humanoid in form, if the skin had been completely ripped away. It moved from side to side on all fours, scraping it's claw like fingernails from it's misshapen, elongated fingers on the rock. The head lacked any human features outside of the mouth. No eyes. No ears. No nose. Nothing but a giant mouth slashed perversely across the entire front of the head. The mouth had no lips, just two rows of long, jagged teeth. Several drops of blood dripped off the teeth down onto Mark's torso, causing him to flinch in spite of his desperation to remain perfectly still.
    The creature let loose another piercing scream. Then lept off the rock and bolted down the tunnel, jumping from one spot to the next like it's arms and legs were spring loaded. Mark continued holding his breath until the creature's screams were barely audible. His body relaxed, finally, and now he sat, cold, exhausted, and in severe pain.
    He began to push himself up off the ground. He looked back in the direction he'd just come from. That was definitely not the way out, so he'd have to continue going forward. The way the creature had gone.
    Mark shuffled his way along the tunnel for awhile. He couldn't tell how long he'd been walking. Maybe minutes, maybe hours, he couldn't tell. All he knew for sure, was he could still hear the shrill screams of the leaper off in the distance every so often. Every time he nearly forgot about the creature's presence, he would hear it, snapping him back to the reality that he may have to fight it off eventually.
    Finally, after dragging his abused body through the tunnel for an unknown distance, he thought he could make out a light source further down the tunnel. Then he was sure. There was light. A red glow, to be exact. And it looked as if the tunnel widened out. "Thank God," Mark thought. "A literal light at the end of the tunnel."
    Mark reached the area with the red glow and saw that the tunnel did in fact open into a large cavern, with large rock formations all around visible in the red glow. He began slowly moving through them, careful to keep an eye out for any danger. Something about the eerie red glow seemingly coming from nowhere made him more uneasy.
    Mark stopped in his tracks as he looked at a large boulder shooting up out of the ground. It appeared to have writing on it. He got closer and saw that the writing was in Arabic. "Damn it." He thought. "That better damn well not be the directions out of here." Looking closer, however, he saw a fingernail embedded in the rock. This had been etched into the rock by the desperate clawing of a human hand. He felt pretty sure that these words, whatever they said, were definitely not directing him to the exit.
    Perhaps there was no exit. Mark's heart sank as his mind finally started contemplating the idea that there was no way out of wherever he was. After all, he couldn't have told anyone how he got there in the first place. He slumped down into the dirt leaning his back against the rock. As despair began to overtake him, he reached his hand inside a pouch on his pack. Slowly, his trembling hand withdrew a photo.  His eyes swelled with tears as he stared at the moment frozen in the palm of his hand. It had been at a friends backyard barbeque last year. He looked at the image of himself, his wife, and their two teenage daughters for awhile. Again, he found it impossible for him to tell how long he'd been staring at the photo before the high pitched scream of the leaper brought him out of his trance. He shoved the picture back in the pouch and quickly started forcing his body to stand. That last scream had been uncomfortably close.
    Mark stuck to cover as he slinked across the cavern. Moving from one rock formation to the next, he kept out of the open as much as possible. Movement this way was slow, but safer. Then as he rounded another rock formation, he saw it. The leaper.
    The creature was hunched over a small pile of something making perverse slurping and smacking sounds. Mark moved quietly around the rocks. He saw a slope on the other side of the leaper that led down to a flat area with another tunnel leading out of the cavern. He looked at the tunnel, then at the leaper, realizing that this could be his one chance to get around the creature.
    Mark crawled behind some smaller rocks. He was going to have to do this an inch at a time. Slowly, painfully slowly, Mark began to inch his way around the leaper. Moment after moment drug itself by as he pulled his body from cover into the open. Every second brought the agonizing knowledge that all the leaper had to do was glance in his direction and it would know he was there, but he had no choice. His eyes were all but glued to the creature as it squatted over the pile. A few more inches of crawling and he would be able to see what it was doing as he passed it by.
    Then Mark saw it. The pile was not a pile, but the remains of what appeared to be a girl, about ten years old or so. That was when it dawned on Mark's tired, foggy mind what the disgusting noises the creature was making were. It was eating the girl's corpse. Mark shuddered as he saw the leaper grab a hunk of flesh from the girl's face in it's gaping maw and tear it from the bone. He heard the muscle and sinew rip away from the bone. He heard the terrible slurping and smacking noises coming from it's mouth as it depravedly chewed. Then the horrible sound of the creature swallowing. It went in for another mouthful and he heard the scraping of it's teeth on the girl's skull. In spite of himself, Mark shuddered at the awful noise. Then the girl moaned.
    "Holy s**t, she's f*****g alive?" Mark thought. Slowly, silently, and with a shaking hand Mark reached down to his holster and drew out his pistol. Carefully he aimed for the creature's head. He let out his breath and fired the weapon.
    The bullet tore through the leaper's head, which rolled obscenely to the side with the impact. The leaper screamed. That horrible, blood curdling scream. It turned towards Mark and screamed again. "Oh, s**t!" Mark exclaimed as he jumped up to his feet. The creature leaped at him, just missing as Mark spun his body out of the way. He fired another shot but missed. The creature bounded towards him again, but again he moved out of the way at the last second. He moved to the edge of the downward slope, hoping to grab the girl and make a break for it. As he turned to grab her, he saw her standing at his feet. Flesh from her face hung loosely from her skull, blood dripping down her body as she stared up at him through her one uneaten eye.
    The leaper hit Mark square in the back as he hesitated. The two tumbled down the slope. Mark tried hard to kick the creature away every time it got close to him, but one kick landed his leg directly in the creature's huge mouth. It bit down and tore a mouthful of flesh out of Mark's calf. Mark let loose a howl of agony. His pistol had become dislodged from his hand when the leaper had body checked him. He knew eventually the two would stop rolling down the hill and he would be killed. This was it.
    He felt his body suddenly become airborne. He felt himself falling, then splashing into a pool, along with the creature. Desperately he swam for the surface, but just before he reached it the leaper grabbed his foot and dragged him down. Mark kicked frantically, liberating his foot from the attacker. Swimming for the surface, he became aware of someone looking down into the pool. But again he felt the leaper grab a hold of his leg and drag him back down into the pool. Mark was going to drown soon. He had to get out. He pulled his combat knife out and slashed wildly at the leaper's arm, making contact several times. Finally the leaper's hold was broken. With burning, half full lungs, Mark swam for the surface. Once again, he felt fingers close around his boot and stop his progress.
    Mark thrust his hand up, breaking the surface of the pool, desperate to get help from whoever was standing outside looking into the pool. Two hands grabbed his and began to pull. He felt the leaper pulling back. For a moment, Mark's body sawed back and forth, as the two sets of hands played tug of war with his body. Everything began to go dark as Mark started to lose consciousness. But then the hands from outside the pool won the tug of war and Mark shot out of the pool with blinding speed. He did not get pulled over the edge of the pool, though. Instead, he was pulled directly up. Momentarily Mark lost all sense of direction. His body tumbled down onto whomever had pulled him out.
    Mark gasped and wheezed as his lungs filled themselves with air over and over again.
    "Easy, man. Just be easy." said the stranger who'd pulled him out. "Here, just lie back for a second." The stranger pushed Mark off himself and stood up. He rolled Mark onto his back. That's when Mark looked up and saw the pool of blood on the ceiling again. "No... f*****g... way." Mark exclaimed between gasps.
    "Yo, I been sayin' that all day, dog." Came the voice from the other man. Mark looked him up and down. This guy was another soldier, but he couldn't tell for who. The uniform the man was looked very modern and high tech. Then he saw the US flag on the uniform.
    "You're from the states?" He asked.
    "Sure am. Like to get back, too. Y'all don't know the way out, does ya?" Mark shook his head. "How 'bouts standing, y'all do that?" Mark tried to stand but buckled and fell when he put weight on his injured leg.
    "Woah, easy, dog, easy. Here, lemme see what I can do for ya." The soldier pulled out his first aid kit and began to do his best to clean and dress the wound. Mark looked at what the guy was doing. He'd never seen medical equipment quite like this before, but hell, it worked pretty well.
    "Who is you?" Asked the soldier.
    "Robertson, you?"
    "Name's Andrews, dog. How you get here?"
    "Not really sure, actually. We were taking an installation from the Iraqi insurgents when a whole hell of a lot of s**t hit the fan."
    "Iraqi? What's youse playing at?"
    "I don't understand."
    "Iraq ain't nothin I ever heard of, dog."
    "I... What the hell are you talking about, we're under Iraq right now!"
    "Yo, we under the Republic of Isis. Ain't no Iraq." Mark stared up at Andrews as he worked on Mark's leg. He looked at the weapons Andrews had on him. They were nothing he'd ever seen. The uniform was wrong. The first aid kit. The strange way Andrews spoke. Republic of Isis? He had an uneasy feeling he knew exactly what was going on.


    "Andrews, what year is it?"


The End.