The transcript, p.1
The Transcript, page 1
The
Transcript
A S h o r t S t o r y C o l l e c t i o n
Nick Orton

Copyright © 2024 Nick Orton
First Edition | First Printing
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be used or reproduced in any fashion whatsoever without the permission of the publisher or the author except for the use of quotations.
Publisher: Dead Reckoning Collective
Book Cover Artwork & Design: IG: @Ram_Supply_Co
Editor: David Rose
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number:
2024948481
ISBN-13: 978-1-963803-09-9 (paperback)
Acknowledgements
A special thank you my family for listening to my ideas and being my first editors, and to the following individuals and organizations:
David Rose, Editor
Douglass Hoover
William “Buck” Bolyard
Levi West
Megan Mylie
The Lethal Minds Journal
The Havok Journal
The content within this book is entirely fictional and any relation to a shred of truth is nothing more than coincidental.
Whispers of the Raptors (Foreword) 13
Hunters from the Sky 19
Memories of Mons 57
The Phone Call 69
Just a Rock 81
A Feast Unseen in Ages 123
The Pointman 155
Reunion 173
The Taking of Clydesdale 66 181
The Transcript 205
Man’s Best Friend 215
Legion of the Damned 231
Whispers of the Raptors
What is it about that bump in the night that sends a cold shiver down your spine?
You know what made it. It’s just a loose shutter, or may-be the heat kicking on in the basement. There’s nothing scary out there—if there was, humanity would have seen it by now, right?
Catalogued it and dissected it and put its fanged maw on display in some dynamic exhibit in the Smithsonian.
It’s nothing. Just the wind.
You convince yourself of that truth as you curl deeper under your covers, the light switch only feet away and cell-phone held tight and at the ready.
But what if there was no light switch? What if you were out there, outside of the safety of your home, in the dark and surrounded by a thousand acres of trees and shadows, mountains and deserts? Huddled with your squad mates in the shallow recess of a fighting hole, each of you shivering in the icy silence that no one dares to shatter? Maybe then you’d consider the alternative—that we don’t know nearly as much as we claim. That the shadows may yet hold some terrifying, blood-soaked secrets that only the dead have seen. That a mouse may never know an eagle exists until it feels the piercing grip of talons.
It’s safe to say that most Americans alive now have spent nearly every night huddled in the security of their warm beds. But those who haven’t, those who’ve spent time deep in those vast, under-explored wildernesses, or the crag-gy, broken cities ravaged by war and stained with hate, they know a different truth. They know that when the bump res-onates through the damp night air, it’s a cold reminder that humanity’s position as the apex predators of this world may be little more than a comforting lie.
We fear the dark for a reason.
We are mice, and the stories you’ll read here are our hushed whispers of the raptors.
Sleep tight.
— Douglass Hoover
To Sage, Sadie, and Sierra. Love you.
The Hunters from The Sky
Part I
The night was silent in the shadows of the Hindu Kush, save for the quiet orchestra of nature. Civilization had only dipped its toes here, barely stepping over the line. This land was feral. Winter prowled just out of reach, but a cold north-ern wind reminded the land that Afghanistan’s winter was a guarantee. Winter was a promise, but survival was not. This was a promise the ancient denizens of these mountains un-derstood all too well.
Dark shapes emerged from their hides and caves, scrambling out from the mountains. On hands and feet, they scrambled down the rocks and into the forests. In groups, they bounded and searched across the harsh mountain range. They dug into the soil, ripped at bark, and grabbed after unlucky souls with desperate, but determined hands.
There was much work to be done. There were many bellies to fill before the time of struggle.
Nature would have its cull come spring. In a place as desolate and rugged as this, the work needed to be done quickly, efficiently, without remorse if one wanted to sur-vive. Instinct and memory ran the show now, all the nooks and crannies needed to be searched to fatten up with the hope for survival.
Screams and roars pierced the silence; as well as yelps of pain and calls for help. Conflict was sure to erupt in a place such as this, there were many mouths in these mountains but not nearly enough to eat. Many creatures and clans called this harsh land home, and the tyranny of scarcity forc-ed confrontations that were a tale as old as time.
The dark shapes that searched these mountains would catch what they could, even if that meant engaging in the natural acts of violence that survival demands. Man, or beast was fair game. The night was alive with the hauntingly alien, yet familiar, sounds of whoops and chatters across the peaks, forests, and valleys.
And then, they went silent. A familiar apex predator, not of this land, had once again returned.
The two black CH-47 Chinook helicopters announced themselves with soft rumbling and whooping as they sliced through the air. Their roar grew in intensity as they appr-oached their final destination. They appeared out of no-where, sweeping from the sky and diving with such speed that it seemed they were destined to crash onto the false peak that they seemed aim for. But before the collision, they reared back with such a scream it filled the valley with deafening noise. Blades kicked up a billowing cloud of dirt and dust, shielding the monsters from view.
The dark shapes that moved among the mountain lurched and ran for the cover of the darkest shadows, re-treating back into their hides, lest they fall prey to these predators of the sky.
These mountains were ancient, but its denizens had long memories. This wasn’t the first time the hunters from the sky stalked the land.
Before the mechanical behemoths’ wheels touched the ground, the hunters inside them began to stir: awakened to action by the barks of their alphas before the dust even began to settle. The metal behemoths touched down, and the hunters ran from their maws.
The bravest of the shadows—the ones who hadn’t yet fled—watched as the hunters began forming a circle, all holding their instruments of lightning and thunder. They faced out into the darkness.
Silently the hunters moved, planting their boots with the mechanical menace of intent that had been drilled into them. After they completed their circle around the behemoths, the machines let out a mighty roar, lurching up, back up into the air.
These humans that emerged were worse than the wolves that haunted these mountains, they brought nothing but death. Some of the bolder dark shapes stole glances from cover, while others still bore the scars and memories from the last time the hunters came to stalk their prey. The dark shapes hissed and bared their teeth in silent disgust, and most certainly fear, slipping back into the shadows.
One shape remained as the others fled. It crouched be-hind a tree on a ridge. Its eyes peered at the hunters below. It stared intently, pondering courses of actions.
She was the oldest of her troop, a matriarch of sorts. Unlike the others she was well fed, one of the few to possess that luxury afforded as a result of her status in the troop. In her world, the strong eat first. She possessed a large stature and muscular body, all coated in dark fur. Unlike her lesser members, she was for all intents and purposes, a healthy example of her species.
Such health had awarded her long life, resisting nature’s eternal call and the several attempts on her life. She snorted as she touched the scars on her chest: the wounds from her last encounter with these hunters from the sky. Some twenty years old, and they were still fresh in her mind. Her eyes narrowed as she bared yellowed fangs and a low growl escaped her lips.
Her kind were used to humans. Humans were some-times prey. Conflict was unavoidable. Humans were simply another challenge, simply another rival and food source, presented by nature. At times the troop had overpowered the humans in the valley, but never these hunters. The troop would have to tread carefully now, but there was still work to be done. Regardless of the hunter’s reintroduction to this land, the troop needed to prepare for winter.
She grunted as she turned and moved towards her hide. She crouched low, aware that her shape and size could be seen by the instruments of these humans.
But in the end it didn't really matter, these newcomers were nothing more than just… obstacles. She and her kind would do what they always had done. They would survive.
Part II
The whirring and whooping of rotors filled the night as the twin CH47 Chinooks hovered back into the sky and thundered down the valley. As soon as their black shapes vanished behind a mountain, silence filled the night.
The men were covered in darkness, but luckily for them, they owned the night. They were the elite operators of the United States Navy’s SEAL Team 9.
The clear night sky was free, unviolated by modern light pollution. Petty Officer Third Class James Meldrum too k in the glittering magnitude of stars as he stared through the single lens of his PVS-14 night vision goggles. The ambient light of the heavens was amplified by the 14s, revealing to Meldrum the rugged terrain of the mountains in a hazy, green hue.
This land wielded a primordial darkness that once brou-ght fear to the primitive man. A pervasive fear that few re-membered of what it meant to be prey. But with this modern wonder of technology, it was man who now lurked in the darkness. What man once feared was now held at bay by his own ingenuity.
Meldrum lay prone, pointing his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon into the darkness. He scanned from left to right, slowly taking in his “fives and twenty-fives.” His infrared laser, known as a PEQ-15, further illuminated the night with a solid beam that was only visible under Meldrum’s NVGs. If there was a Taliban fighter in these woods, he was ready to cut them down in a burst of 5.56.
Like many of the other Americans who now flooded into Afghanistan, James Meldrum enlisted in the Navy almost immediately after 9/11. He was a young and testosterone-fueled and wanted to fight. Sold on the legends that surr-ounded the SEALs, his prowess and aggression won him a contract to attend the infamous Basic Underwater Demo- lition/SEAL selection. Dropping out of college and some-time later freezing in the cold Pacific off a beach in Coron-ado, California, he cut his teeth to prove he was worthy of the almighty Trident.
Now in late 2002, here he was. After months of training, he was finally ready for a fight in this mountainous pineland that reminded him of his home in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, it was almost ominous how this foreign land reminded him of home. For a second he almost forgot where he was. For a second he was almost homesick.
Meldrum quickly snapped out of his daydream. “Get the fuck up, Meldrum,” his team leader had said. He was up and falling in behind his teammates as they moved single file into the valley. His platoon was on the move.
The SEALs quickly moved through the rugged terrain; they were silent other than their footprints in the loose soil and the movement of their gear. They were keen to remain that way; they were behind enemy lines. Out here, Meldrum felt eyes on him from all angles, and the feeling they weren’t alone on this remote mountain was a feeling he couldn’t shake. Their enemy was ruthless and knew every tree and pebble. The men they hunted had been bred in this land; the people here that had repelled many attempted conquerors, from Alexander the Great, the British, and the Russians. Now it was the American’s turn.
Meldrum was just a lowly “vanilla SEAL” in his platoon, a newbie who hadn’t been tested. This was his first mission and he understood why he was here. The SEALs were on a key leadership engagement, linking up with some local war-lord interested in what the Americans had to offer and to make sure this important negotiation happened in favor of the Americans.
This was but one of many simultaneous and clandestine missions happening all over the country. Many of the Tier One assets were already tasked out to further degrade the Taliban’s control on Afghanistan. While this mission was taking them deep into enemy territory, this particular war-lord was sympathetic to the American dollar. Two platoons of SEALs from Meldrum’s team launched from their com-pound on Bagram. It was evident that this mission was high visibility and of the upmost importance. Two platoons of SEALs were a significant force. However, four additional men joined them on the rumbling chinooks. Three predators in the guise of men, dragging along another who seemed more at home in a university coffee shop than in Afghan-istan. .
Meldrum looked up at the two CIA operatives that led the way. The men were members of the CIA’s Special Activ-ities Division, and they were dressed in a menagerie of local garb and tactical equipment that made them look more like the Taliban than the SEALs who escorted them. The diff-erence was the silenced MK18 carbines in their hands, and the fact that each man carried a half of a million green American dollars in their rucksacks. The additional weight didn't seem to bother them. They moved at an even faster pace than the SEALs, often slowing down to let everyone else catch up.
“These guys are like fucking cyborgs,” Meldrum whispered aloud, struggling.
“Shut the fuck up,” hissed Rivera, his team leader. “If you break noise discipline again,” the SEAL added, “I will fuck you up.”
Meldrum kept his mouth shut and his gun up. These SAD guys were something else. They would smile at you and grin, but behind those eyes, you saw something both more and less than human. The SEALs had all heard the stories. There was no doubt that these men were of the dangerous kind. These CIA types were the things that went bump in the night.
On they moved, deeper into the wildlands that seemed more and more alien. Soon the group came to a stop, the chosen location for their patrol base. It was a small hilltop with plenty of boulders and trees, and a wide view of the valley below that overlooked all approaches. More import-antly, this particular spot overlooked the village and its target destination in a valley.
As the SEALs bounded to their positions, Meldrum stole a glance at the third CIA man following a few bodies behind him, the leader of the CIA team. The CIA agent only went by “Barton,” and Meldrum thought he looked exactly like the crooked cop in Training Day with a pair of aviator glasses. He gave Meldrum the creeps, not in a perv way, but in a way that made him feel like he was locked in a room with a predator that could turn on him without warning. When Barton walked into the TOC, everyone felt the hot Afghan air suddenly go cold. No one bothered to stop or question why this plain-clothed man was suddenly standing in a se-cure location. He just seemed to take command of the room without saying a word.
Barton was the one who briefed Meldrum’s platoon back at Bagram and made it clear that this was his operation. The operation being to sway, which was a euphemism for flat-out bribe, a local warlord to the American side of the bloodshed.
Back at the patrol base, he wore a camo pattern uniform Meldrum didn’t recognize. He clutched a modified Russian RPD in one hand, while the other hand rested on their pan-ting interpreter. In fact, Barton never let the fourth man of the CIA team, Amir, get more than a hand’s reach away.
“Meldrum, get your fucking head out of your ass and pull security behind that fallen tree,” barked Rivera.
Meldrum moved and set up scanning his fives and twenty-fives into the dark forest that surrounded them. He got in the prone next to the tree, taking in his fields of fire and mapping out his sectors in his head. Soon the rest of his team joined him, pointing their weapons down range. Infra-red lasers streaked out into the darkness, solid beams of light cutting into the unknown. The air was silent save the wind and the whispering of the leaders behind him.
Peering into the darkness, Meldrum couldn’t help but feel something was peering back. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw something moving between the Afghan pines some hundred meters away. Meldrum stared into the wood line. Could it be some goat herder scoping them out or a Taliban scout? Or just his nerves on his first mission? Either way, something didn’t feel right.
Meldrum pointed his IR laser to the spot where he thought he saw the movement, placing it right on the tree. While the naked eye couldn’t see it, the IR laser lit up the spot under his NVGs. For a second he thought he saw the shape of crouched a man, slipping behind the tree. He narr-owed his vision to look for any movement, maybe it was his imagination.
But it wasn’t.
It happened fast, but he saw it. A head poked out from behind the tree – or something similar. It was too far away for Meldrum to see much else…but he recognized one thing: eyeshine.
He focused in on the spot now, staring intently. Two bright orbs, reflecting the infrared light of his IR laser, suddenly appeared from behind the tree. A head that had to be close to seven feet off the ground was looking out. The face was vaguely human, but not. As quickly as it appeared, the head vanished.
Meldrum was stunned; he didn't believe his eyes. Was that a gorilla? It certainly didn't look like a man.
