I came around angry. Where the fuck am I? I screamed. “Mmm mm murgh mm mm,” was all I managed.

  “Settle down, Earl. You’re safe.” It was Eustace’s voice. He was somewhere to my side. We were in a concrete cell, and the smell of disinfectant told me that the last resident didn’t leave here in the best of shape.

  “Despite the damage you did to my men, none of them died. So while they’ll all despise you forever, you’re not in any trouble for that. You’ll no doubt be glad to know.”

  “Trespass!” I managed to get out. My mouth slowly starting to wake up with the rest of me. “Let mm go. Press chargems.”

  “We’ve got a file on you longer than Seargeant Graham’s arm. You try to go down that road and you’ll… Ah, who am I kidding.” He walked around to the front of me and leaned against the wall opposite. “The only way you’re getting out of this is by doing exactly what I came to talk to you about.”

  “Baldy didn’t beat me. I’m not interested.”

  The tired sergeant rubbed black ringed eyes. “He did beat you. You’re here, aren’t you?”

  I tried to rub my face, like he had. But my hands were cuffed to the chair. I missed what he said next because all I wanted to do was rub my goddamn face and I couldn’t.

  I tested the cuffs. They wouldn’t break, but the bed might. Around a minute later, the stupidly strong bed still hadn’t broken, but the room had filled with armed soldiers, all pointing guns at me.

  “Earl. Calm down,” Eustace said. I got the feeling it wasn’t for the first time.

  I glared at him. “Somebody better get these cuffs off me, or rub my goddamn face now!”

  That gave them all pause. Far too long a pause.

  “Well?” I glared at Eustace. “I take it you’re not letting me free, so rub my fucking face.”

  “I’m not rubbing your face, Earl.”

  “Then I’ll die before I listen to another word that comes out of your mouth. And I’ll never do what you want me to do.” I started singing my own rendition of the Final Countdown at the top of my voice.

  He rubbed his face again, the lucky bastard. “Even to save your brother?”

  “WILL THINGS NEVER BEEE THIS LAME AGAIN! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, DO, DO. IT’S THE FINAL…”

  “Everyone out,” Eustace shouted, interrupting the best part of my Europe-inspired freestyle.

  Soon there was only me and him left in the room again.

  “Goddamn it, Earl. Why are you such a prick? If I take off the cuffs, will you refrain from attacking me?”

  I eyed him for a few long seconds. “What do you want?”

  My change of subject put him off guard, and he stammered, unable to spit it out after all this time trying.

  “Look, Eustace.”

  “Seargent Eustace.”

  “You’re not my sergeant, Eustace. But let’s not pissfart about with that conversation. I want to go back to my life. I was happy and I wasn’t hurting anyone.”

  “You call that a life? Hiding away from the world in a cabin?”

  “I do. Perfect life for me. Away from all of you lot.”

  “You’re not going back, Earl. Not unless you do something for us.” He looked up at a camera in the corner of the room. I got the sense that someone was speaking to him in the earpiece he wore.

  He nodded. But not to me, then sighed.

  “This is going to sound farfetched, but approximately every fifty years, an anomaly occurs in Jordan. It’s around an area called Ayn Gazal. You heard of it?”

  “Cut to the chase, Eustace. I’m getting bored.”

  “It’s one of the earliest locations of human civilization. Every fifty years, an anomaly appears and strange creatures come through and take whoever is around. We set up a base this time in preparation for their arrival. The creatures killed or captured everyone from that base. They carried those alive through the anomaly.”

  I frowned. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “It most certainly isn’t, Earl. Your brother, Adam, was one of the first taken. We don’t know exactly how long this anomaly stays open apart from some… questionable information from fifty years ago when it last happened. We’re working on it being open for two months. It’s been open for three weeks now.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Because you’re going through it.”

  “Me? You’re the army. Why the hell do you need to send me through?”

  “Because we’re not allowed to send any more of our troops to the area. They don’t come back.” His face was pained as he spoke. I guessed he’d lost people he knew well.

  “Believe me, we’ve tried. We’ve sent special forces in. The US have sent some of their best people. Our weapons don’t hurt the creatures.”

  I shook my head. “So hang on a minute. Your weapons don’t do shit. You won’t send any more soldiers to die. But you want to send me? What exactly the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  “Use your wits to find out what’s going on. If we can just get a glimpse of the other side, then we can act.”

  “Again, why me? Something doesn’t add up here.”

  “For god’s sake Earl, we need people who won’t be missed. You won’t be alone. You’ll be going through with a mercenary team. All ex-soldiers, all…”

  I felt the pause. My hackles rose. “All what?”

  He looked up to the camera again, then back at me. “All ex-criminals.”

  “Yeah. No thanks. You already got Adam killed, now you want to wipe out the Henshaw bloodline altogether?”

  “We don’t think Adam is dead. We think they want our strongest people.”

  “You genuinely think he’s alive?”

  “We do. There’s no other reason for these things to go to such lengths just to kill. All of our top people agree. We’re being used for something. Get us some information. Any information. Then we have a chance at getting your brother back. And everyone else.”

  I wrestled with the choice, or lack thereof. I wasn’t really feeling it. Of course, I wanted to rescue my baby brother, but this sounded like suicide.

  “I’d say yes. But the desert doesn’t agree with me. If it was anywhere else but Jordan, I’d go.”

  Eustace smirked. It was the first time I’d seen humor from him. “You’re already in Jordan, Earl. All we need to do is get you equipped and send you through.”

  I felt my anger surge again. “You fucking what?”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Hell no!”

  He shrugged and left the room, leaving me in solitude.

  I spent the next ten minutes trying to break free of the bed. I didn’t stop even when bodies entered the room again. Nor when I felt a sharp stab to the neck and my strength seeped away.

  The next thing I saw was dust and sand. I was face down on the ground and it was hotter than a sumo’s arse crack.

  Groggy still, it took me a moment to realize that my arms and legs were free. I clambered into a sitting position when the sound of gunfire came to me.

  “Christ almighty,” I murmured, trying to push myself to my knees. The bastards dumped me in the desert.

  Through the shitty old ruins, I saw camouflaged men running away from something. The mercenaries, I assumed. Against some goddamned monster that bullets don’t hurt, and here I am with no fucking weapons at all.

  That’s when I noticed the pistol. “Thanks, Eustace, you wanker. A friggin pistol.” I still picked it up. It might come in handy.

  One of the retreating mercenaries was heading in my direction, screaming at me to run. I shot him in the knee. Maybe whatever was chasing him would be happy enough to catch him and leave me alone. I still snatched up his rifle. Just in case. Then I set off away from the danger zone.

  After a minute of steady jogging, the screaming of the mercenary whose rifle I’d borrowed cut off. Tempting as it was to look back, I increased my pace a little more and kept my ears peeled for any sounds out of the ordinary.

  For a short while, there was nothing obvious, and I was pretty sure I’d dodged an awful situation with my quick thinking.

  Of course, according to Sod’s law, that’s when an almighty thunk landed behind me. I spun and fired. I didn’t have to worry about if it was friend or foe as I didn’t have any friends. Shoot first, ask questions later—that was the motto of the day.

  It was a good choice. A huge, black armored lump of headfuckery had landed a few meters away. Huge shield and mace in hands, it was coming for me fast.

  I opened fire again, aiming its crotch, working on the assumption that even if I had impenetrable armor, I wouldn’t be okay with being shot in the dick ten times a second.

  Turns out, I was right. The mountain of armor staggered and moved his shield to protect his family jewels.

  Perfection!

  It meant I could slip to his left, use the blind spot the shield created and then… I didn’t have a clue, but I’d work it out once I was there.

  I kept firing until he was close enough to make my move, and then I pounced to his left. The bastard moved fast and surprised me by lashing out with the shield, catching my back as I jumped. I dropped and rolled in the dust, coming to my feet. A move that was actually helped with the extra momentum he provided, and gave me access to his back as he turned.

  I used the ridges on his armor to climb up to his head. It was like riding a bucking bronco, and by the time I got into position, I was blowing out of my arse regretting how much I’d let myself go.

  I managed to wriggle my fingers under his helmet, but just as I was about to remove it, the bastard freaked out. He threw himself on the ground head first. Or should I say, me first.

  Crushed between his head and the ground, my ragged breathing got a lot worse.

  “Get off me, ya lunatic! Who head dives the ground?”

  He pinned me with an impossibly strong hand before lifting his head away. A rumbling noise came from his helmet. Could have been speaking, could have been choking. I really had no idea, and I was too busy thrashing like an eel to really focus.

  He rumbled some more before he gave up on me understanding, and flicked me in the head with an armored finger the size of a fist.

  As hard as this was to admit, the fight went out of me. Not unconscious, but not a kick in the arse off. Bright lights fluttered across my eyes, and I couldn’t hold a thought in my mind.

  When the disorientation cleared, I found myself pinned to the big fella’s side, his immovable arm wrapped around my waist. Ahead of us was a swirling blue light. I ignored that and focused on the knife in the compartment on his thigh.

  Ever so delicately, I slid it out. Guns might be worthless, but I bet their own weapons would hurt them if I could get through to flesh.

  In the meantime, I was stumped on where to put the damn thing. It was razor sharp, and I had limited availability. I had to settle for the pocket of my sweatpants, slicing through the lining so that the blade sat against the leg and the handle remained in the pocket.