Ancient Weapons

Gareth Arthur never thought the war would last this long, when he left England.

It wasn’t until much later, long after his ship had sailed, long after Oxford and his cramped, dusty little flat there had melted far beyond the horizon, that Gareth realised he was the only one in his party who had been so optimistic.

Gareth thought that it would never spread so far, and that even if it did, it wouldn’t concern him, he would have no role in it. He had already been passed over for the draft, on account of his bad eyes and meagre frame. His brain was sharp and he had his degrees behind it, but they were of no use to the war effort. He had been told so and he had been glad to hear it. Gareth didn’t need to find out he didn’t have the stomach for it, he already knew. He would often feel exhausted just carrying equipment around the dig-sites for an hour or two, never mind the pack-muling life he would be in for, were he in the army.

Though they might have expected this war to last, none of the other five men who had set out on this expedition with Gareth from London had expected it to reach them quite so quickly, so precisely, or under such unregular circumstances. It was surprising to each and every one of them, to have made their long, gruelling journey, over and land sea and air, through maintain, swamp and valley, only to find their destination swarming with the panicked, dark-eyed minions of war.  A disturbing shroud of secrecy and paranoia had been lain over the small, insignificant excavation during their journey.  A small contingent of British army soldiers had entrenched themselves in the jungle, bordering the camp. The tent of the head archaeologist and site manager, an American, Ranger Mills, had been full of stone-faced and tight-lipped officers since their arrival, Gareth had barely seen him.  When they arrived, they had been advised by nervous fellow researchers and hesitant local workers not to unpack. Something seemed to have caused quite the stir, on the days preceding their arrival, enough of a stir to have roused the British Army, but no one seemed exactly sure what. Heavy silence hung between the shovels and picks, unused in their racks.

That was, until shortly after Gareth and his party arrived.

After a few minutes of standing in confusion, looking at each other, a short, stout and red-faced soldier had marched up to tell them they were wanted in the ‘command’ tent.

As Gareth approached the heavy, beige canvas flap of the tent he could hear the gruff, barking voice of Ranger Mills leaking through the edges.

‘You don’t have no fuckin’ right!’ he raged.

When Gareth drew aside the flap, he saw the contemptuous sneer on Ranger’s face turn to resent, resignation. Rangers scratched at his beard and threw his hat on the table.

The man Ranger had been throwing his sneer at was a thin, dark-haired and sharp featured man in plain khakis.  

He turned his attention to Gareth, as Gareth entered the tent.

‘I assume, you must be the Arthur party?’ the man said.

His tone was warm, but false. He had the glinting eye of a viper, and an air of intimidation.

‘What’s going on here?’ Gareth asked in the short, abrupt manner of a man who won’t be intimidated, after his time wasted.

The man’s face remained emotionless, because he knew he held all the cards, the game had already been won.

‘This site has been closed, under authority of The Crown, the…artifacts, are to be returned to London at once, along with you and your team. You will be taking responsibility of their examination, upon your return.’

The serpent spoke with the plain assuredness of a man restating the terns of deal that had been long proposed and agreed, as opposed to a deal dumped upon Gareth’s shoulders at the end of an entrapment.

Gareth felt his blood boiling.

He should have known something like this was going to happen when he signed for the funding. He thought about telling the khaki’d spook that they had no obligation to do their bidding, but Gareth could tell by the smirk growing in the corners of the man’s insidious mouth that he had a retort for Gareth that Gareth did not want to hear.

Gareth suspected he was obligated, by his own signature.

In times of war, in far-away places, hidden from the eye-at-large, governments break their own rules. Powerful men, in infinite number, with superior firepower, will take your principles and honour before your life, and a light that could reveal the way for others or illuminate the lessons of life to those that seek them, will be snuffed out into nothing.
Gareth agreed to the viper’s extortion.

It’s always better to die another die, if you have the chance.

***

Deep beneath the acrid, wet hell of the humid southeast jungles, in long forgotten caves lain bathed in darkness since the squabbles of modern man were yet to be even a twinkle in the sky, something had been uncovered. Something important. Something valuable.

Whatever was inside the sturdy, brown crates being hauled out of the tunnels in processions of twos and threes at a time, by fresh faced-faced and uninformed soldiers must have been so valuable, so important, that the trickery, deception and thuggery employed in the theft of it from its rightful discoverers was justified to the greater powers of the world.  Gareth sat with the disheartened, frightened young men he had brought with him, spiting himself for the inaccurate portrait of the wondrous, vast and beautiful world he had inadvertently painted them, with his thoughtless escapade. They had been quietly watching the crates being loaded into large, flatbed trucks, and waiting their turn to board.

***

The jungle flew by, shifting night into day, to night again, in the fumes of the convoy.

The trucks did not stop until the jungle had turned to mountain, the moisture to snow. When they did, they rolled to a halt at a tiny, isolated railway station, where there awaited a bulking, armoured behemoth to ferry them to their next destination.

In the few private moments that Gareth and his party had been afforded since they were in essence, kidnapped, he had little in the way of consolation to offer them.

How do you explain, to those who have yet to experience it themselves, the raw truths of the world? How do you compensate them, for your part in their peril?

The best he had been able to muster, was the half-hearted assurance that if they fell in line, they would likely live. It was hard to tell them openly, that being in the hands of their own government didn’t guarantee their safety, when things worth more than their mortal lives were at stake. It was the hardest lesson Gareth had ever had to learn in his own life; he would not be the one to teach it to others.

The surprisingly pleasant compartment of the train they were sequestered in had started its work in pulling the wool over the eyes of Gareth’s younger peers.

He allowed them their ignorance and allowed himself a few stiff scotches from the provided refreshments. The crates from the dig site had been loaded into the rear of the train, surrounded on either side by compartments of soldiers. The loading and departure of the train had been swift and precise, the soldiers at work with lightning focus and stern expressions, though once the train was rolling with momentum and the journey was under way, the controlled, regimental energy had begun to slip. 

At this point, the soldiers in their compartments were raucously engaged in various states of recreation. The sounds of their revelry and the rambunctious, flitting seconds of freedom in which they could purge the horror from their central nervous systems were loud enough to be heard over the howling winds roaring by.

The readiness of the soldiers to cut loose their responsibilities made Gareth think that there were definitely more refreshments on board, but it also assured him that there was no commanding or superior officer on board. This fact could only be bad news, however Gareth looked at it.

When the first terrible, guttural scream reached the confines of their compartment, Gareth and his party thought it could have just been an accident, an unfortunate mix of alcohol and firearms.

It cut through the noise of the wind, the engine, electrifying the fine hairs on their skin, snatching the words from their mouths. They all fell silent, their eyes searching for the confirmations of their own senses to be found in each other’s faces.

Then it started again, only this time there was no mistaking it as the result of an accident, as it was joined with a chorus of chaos from further down the train. Muffled screams, roars and obscenities filtered through the walls of the compartment, followed shortly by the unmistakable rhythmic thunder of gunfire. When the bullets begun to fly, Gareth jumped to his feet, the unknown disaster underway down the train had sobered him quickly, but as his feet hit the cold steel floor they wobbled under the pressure of alcohol evacuating his bloodstream to make way for the fresh rush of adrenaline flooding his system.

That’s when he saw it.  

As Gareth gripped the edge of the wooden table he had been sat at, a glint, through the bars of the small, rectangular carriage window caught his attention, and when he turned to face it there were a few brief seconds in which his eyes could not transcribe the madness, he saw staring back. His eyes, at first, refused to adjust and take in the horrifying visage that was grinning back at him, to comprehend how it even could be.

On the other side, Gareth could see the whites of two bright, delirious and insane eyes, above a set of razor-sharp teeth, painted crimson in the light leaking out of the compartment.  Words failed him, all Gareth could do was point at it, stammering, losing his breath whenever he found it. As the rest of the eyes in the compartment turned to see it, the creature let out a chilling, gurgling cackle and it’s face vanished from the small window.  Within seconds, Gareth and his party could hear the heart-stopping, incessant drumming of an unknown beast’s appendages, scraping and clawing and snorting around the exterior of the compartment, hunting its entrance.

When Gareth finally gathered his scrambling mind and threw himself towards the nearest compartment door, he found himself so glad it was locked that he didn’t even consider the anger he would have felt not ten minutes prior, if he had known he truly was a prisoner.  The riot was still raging, from the soldiers’ compartments, though the sound of gunfire was decreasing rapidly, while the sounds of violent, agonised pain only grew stronger and in number.  Gareth felt his soul struggling to leave his cursed body, when he realised that he was not listening to the work of one monster, but the work of many.

The sickening revelations only continued, as Gareth realised the train should no signs of slowing down. There had been no alarm, the sounds of unnatural death were never shattered by the banshee’s call of screeching brakes.

This was a runaway train.

The first scream they had heard, had been from the engineer, driving the train.

Gareth grabbed the scotch from the table and took a deep swig before forcing the bottle into the hands of the closest man.

‘We have to get off of this fucking train.’