Page 9 of My Eternal Light
“Sir?” Kincaid whispered. “Is that a house?”
“What’s left of one,” Darian added.
The outer walls of the building looked to be sagging inward. There were visible holes in the roof and if there had been a lawn at one point, it was reclaimed by nature a long time ago.
To their left they saw Brie’s group come up short. Brie motioned to Aiden, and he held up a fist. Everyone stopped and stared.
Aiden tapped his comms unit.
Kincaid did the same. Soon, they were all on the same channel.
“Brie your group is a bit closer. See, anything from your point of view?” Aiden asked.
“All I see is a building that looks like a soft, gentle breeze will knock it over,” she replied. “I’m not even sure the floorboards will hold us.”
Even from their distance they saw her wrinkle her nose. “And there’s a smell.”
“Decomp?” Aiden asked.
“No, sir. Not quite. It’s…”
“Shit. It smells like shit and old shit,” Ari answered.
Kincaid watched as his unit leader convulsed.
“Are you dry heaving?” he asked.
They heard Brie snort laugh. “Affirmative.”
“Wonderful,” Darian muttered.
“Kincaid, what do you think?” Aiden continued.
“Sir, not to be funny, but I may need a tetanus shot looking at this place,” he confessed.
Aiden smirked. He was about to answer when a single, thin wail floated through the air.
Brie turned toward the house. “Sir, either that was a baby or the most fucked up lure to get us to walk into whatever is waiting for us.”
Aiden readied his weapon and reached up to the comms unit. “Move in. You own every shot if there are infants in there. Go!”
Kincaid whispered a prayer and followed Aiden toward the dilapidated building.
Chapter Two
Kincaid followed behind Aiden. Brie’s team waited for them and took their six. The pitiful cry diminished then started back up weakly. He knew babies. That one was sick and fading.
“Sir, we need to move. If that’s a sick baby, we may not have the time to be cautious. They sound like they don’t have much time left,” he urged.
Aiden cursed then turned to him. “How much do you know about babies?”
“I’m the eldest of six. The last five were all born within the timespan of the past twenty years,” he confessed. “I help out a lot when I visit home.”
Aiden literally came to a halt in the middle of the rotting foyer. “What?”
He shrugged. “Mom is kinda like me, our magic doesn’t always work right. Dad used to say that her magic was having happy, healthy kids.”
Another tiny cry sounded from the back of the house.