Hidden

Chapter 9 - A Shock

"You said this was taken in Romania?"

Des was suddenly very interested in what the man had to say. He leaned forward and quickly snatched the phone from Agent Smith. His hands trembled slightly as he looked at the first picture of his father that he'd seen in over a decade.

"Yes," said Agent Carter, "it was taken near Timişoara. We're not sure what he was doing or why the screamers were leaving him alone, but now that we've seen this, we are very interested in what he has been up to these past thirteen years."

Staring at the picture, Des looked at the changes that had come over the man who had raised him. The picture was in very good quality; the standard cameras in uninfected areas were of an amazing quality, and were instated in hopes of catching screamers in action, which was rare since they knew about the cameras and usually avoided them.

Ian Black looked twenty years older than when he had last seen him, which wasn't much different than the actual stretched length of time since they had met. His skin was tanned darker, and wrinkles had appeared on his worn face. His hair was still cut short and his face clean-shaven, but even with those same features, Des barely recognized his own father.

He struggled to let the words come out, wishing he didn't have to say them. "You're talking about him like he's alive. Why?"

"He is," said Smith. "We sent out a team to investigate the group. Standard procedure is to leave them alone until they get too close, but standard procedure also does not apply to circumstances involving the very first strike team."

He pushed a button on the side of the seat. His seat rotated to face the second row of seats, and Smith leaned towards Des. "When our team came withing shouting distance, he yelled at the team to leave him and the screamers alone, that he was on a classified mission. He ended by putting a gun to the squad leader's head and telling him he would use force if necessary."

"Why didn't your team retaliate?"

"That's the thing. The screamers became a problem right then."

Des sighed and looked at the floor. "How many of them were killed?"

"None of them."

Des looked up at him in surprise. "What? Why?"

"Your father called the screamers off. And for the first time recorded, these ones had weapons."

This came as a huge shock. First, that his father had some sort of control over the creatures that had ravaged the human race for the past decade. Second, no-one had ever heard of screamers using weapons. Everyone knew they were smart enough to use them, but for some strange reason, they simply refused to use anything more than their own bodies.

"The squad was lucky to walk away, and none of them were bitten. They checked their combat uniforms afterwards, and there wasn't any cloth that had been bitten."

Agent Smith turned his seat around and opened the glove compartment to retrieve some papers. Des started to ask what they were when Agent Carter suddenly slammed on the brakes, throwing everyone violently forward in their seats.

Des snapped into emergency mode. He made sure his briefcase was fine, which he had been holding tightly the whole ride. The soldier next to him, who had been quiet until now except to ask him a question earlier, was unbuckling his seat belt and getting out. Des quickly followed suit, taking his seat belt off and opening his door.

His black shoes hit the dull, brown dirt outside as he looked behind their car to see that the entire convoy had stopped and others were getting out of their vehicles as well to see what the cause was. Des looked around his door to see what the problem was. A group of figures stood thirty feet in front of their car.

He quickly counted seven and gathered some of the soldiers from the other cars using hand signals. Des signaled all of them to move forward as they all pulled out sidearms from the holsters that never left their sides. None of the people had given any signs to whether they were humans or screamers, but Des could tell; he'd always had a kind of sixth sense that allowed him to tell whether a person was human or monster.

He motioned to them to hold their fire but still move forward. When they came within fifteen feet, the center screamer reached into the back pocket of the jeans it was wearing and pulled out a pen, a notebook, and an envelope.

This is not a hostile confrontation, it wrote, holding up the notebook.

This was also new. None of the screamers had ever attempted to communicate to living humans in any way.

Des cleared his throat and spoke. "What do you want?"

We are looking for someone

His stomach suddenly became a bottomless pit. "Who?" he asked. But he already knew the answer.

The pen hit the paper once again. A few seconds passed that felt like an eternity. The creature raised the notebook.

Desmond Black