Please note that this is a bundled work of fiction. This bundle does contain graphic descriptions of sexual activity and graphic language. It is intended for mature readers aged 18 and over. All persons fictionally depicted are over the age of 18.

Delta Shift: Trevor

By Amanda Jones

Prologue (Three Years Ago):

It was a typical night in Afghanistan for the platoon. Even though it had been blisteringly hot earlier in the day, now in the black of night it was cool, and Trevor was grateful for that at least. He couldn't wait to get out of this hell hole and back to the green landscapes and home-cooked food of America. Only six days left, he thought as he walked quietly alongside some of his platoon members.

His four closest buddies, Michael, Alex, Derek, and Logan walked near him. They were an unlikely group of friends, different in ways that would have made friendship almost impossible if they had met back home. But they had met in the Army, and had gone through some shit most people didn't even know existed on Earth, so they were bonded in more ways than most family members were. The five of them were brothers in the truest sense of the word, and each would lay their life down for the others.

It was a simple mission tonight. Check this remote village for insurgents and clear them out if found. No one expected any problems; this village hadn't shown up on any intel reports. Trevor figured they'd be back to base camp in an hour, tops.

Their Commanding Officer had sent just the five of them, because it was a quick and dirty run. No need to attract too much attention.

They were approaching their eighth house of the night. Trevor crooked his right index finger, indicating that they should all assume their regular positions before entry. Michael kicked the door in and they all piled inside. Before Trevor took a breath he was attacked by some type of huge animal and bitten with teeth so sharp on his thigh that he knew immediately his femur was shattered. He screamed in agony and fell down to the floor, as his buddies started shooting at the beast.

The animal must have been rabid because the shots had no effect on it, and it attacked all of them, one at a time, while the rest of them tried in vain to kill it or at least maim it.

But the huge animal kept advancing and soon all five of the men had vicious bite marks and were bleeding out on the floor. The animal calmed down suddenly and ran out of the house. Trevor reached up to the radio on his shoulder and called weakly for help.

He could hear his buddies breathing heavily but otherwise they were silent on the floor. Trevor figured his femoral artery had been cut with the amount of blood he was losing, combined with the fact that his vision was blurring and he was feeling faint. He could see that Michael's left arm had been bitten almost in half, and it lay at a heart-stopping angle on the floor while he stared at the ceiling, seemingly in shock.

"You're gonna be okay, Mikey," Trevor told him, hoping Michael could hear him through his shocked haze, but he didn't even blink in response.

Derek was on Trevor's right side and he was clutching his abdomen and moaning. Trevor’s stomach bubbled up with nausea as he realized Derek was attempting to keep his organs inside his body.

"Derek," he said gruffly, and Derek rolled his head and looked at him. Trevor had never seen Derek look afraid before and he didn't now. There was pain and a resigned acceptance in Derek's eyes, and it terrified Trevor.

"Hang on, buddy," Trevor pleaded with Derek, and Derek nodded almost imperceptibly.

Trevor pulled his belt off and tied it tourniquet-style above the bite on his leg. He groaned in agony the harder he pulled. "Fuck!" he yelled. Then he rolled over and pulled Michael’s belt off. He tightened it high up on Michael's left arm, and Michael let out a low moan in response.

Trevor couldn't see Alex or Logan, and they weren't making any noise at all, which scared him.

"Alex! Logan!" he yelled.

"We're over here," came Logan's weak voice from across the room.

Trevor stood up slowly on his other leg and tried to find them. They were together about fifteen feet away, with Logan leaning over Alex, giving him CPR. Dread coursed through his body as he dragged himself closer to them.

Alex was gray and not moving, blood covering his upper body. Logan's hands were covered in Alex's blood as he pumped them up and down on Alex’s chest and then leaned up to breathe into his mouth. Trevor saw that Logan had a wound on his leg that was bleeding heavily and deep scratches on his lower left jaw that were dripping even more blood onto his hands and Alex's body.

Trevor yelled into his radio again for help, this time cursing in his panic. Many minutes later he finally heard a chopper landing and then thundering footsteps running up to the house.

Suddenly the house was filled with army medics and soldiers and both Logan and Trevor collapsed on the floor as they took over. The last thing Trevor remembered from that night was looking up at the cracked beige cement ceiling, thinking that it would probably be the last thing he saw before he died.

Chapter One: Present Day - Trevor

I walked into the house carrying several heavy bags of groceries and a 12-pack of beer. While I dragged it all back into the kitchen I yelled, "Assholes! Get up and help with the fuckin' food!"

I heard snores and grunts in response, and somebody told me to fuck off, but I smirked as not a minute went by before the guys all stumbled downstairs.

"Trev, no pop tarts?" asked Logan, searching through the bags with one hand and scratching his chest with the other.

"They’re in there somewhere," I replied as I shoved Alex out of the way so I could reach the pantry.

"Aha!" crowed Logan in victory, tearing open the box and immediately scarfing down two pop tarts covered in strawberry icing.

"How do you eat that shit?" asked Michael with his lip curled in disgust. The rest of us rolled our eyes at him because when we were home he was very picky, only eating organic fruits and vegetables. But when we were on missions, Michael was the first one to eat bugs and dirt, and God help him, uncooked donkey balls on a particularly bad day in Turkey that nobody wanted to discuss.

Derek moved between the fridge and the bags, putting stuff away in his quiet, steady way. Derek was the rock of the group, the one we all went to if we really needed to talk about something, or more likely if we didn't want to talk at all. Derek was steady and dependable, but most of all he was happy to be alive so he hardly ever got worked up over anything.

Alex grabbed a beer and popped it open, guzzling half of it in one gulp and then burping loud and long. Logan snickered and Michael rolled his eyes, while Derek and I ignored him. That pretty much summed up the maturity levels of the five of us.

"Dude, it's a bit early," Michael said to Alex, after Michael had finally found some organic peaches in the bags and was washing them at the sink.

"Whatever, Mikey," replied Alex. "We're on leave, and I for one, am going to enjoy it. What I'm not going to do is eat sprouts and figs." Michael punched him in the arm hard enough to hurt a normal man, but Alex just shrugged it off.

Things had changed in unimaginable ways for the five of us after that night in Afghanistan three years ago. We had all been sent to the Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland for treatment.

At first it was assumed by the medical staff that at least Derek and Alex wouldn't make it. Their injuries were so severe that they each had lost over half of their blood volume before we arrived, even with transfusions along the route. But miraculously they had made it.

In fact, all five of us healed in astonishingly short periods of time, sometimes making such vast improvements in 24-hour periods that it attracted attention from the higher ups in the military command. Something was different about us, but at first we weren't sure what it meant. But three weeks after the attack, each of us was healthier and stronger than we had been before the attack.

So we were separated from the general population of the medical center. While it was a miracle that we had all survived, it defied the odds of human response to injuries that severe. Not only had we survived, many of our senses were heightened beyond normal human bounds. All five senses were enhanced, more for some of us than others. And on the first night of the full moon that next month, we discovered why. Before that mission in Afghanistan we were as close as brothers. After that mission we became family in a way no one anticipated. We were werewolves.

The Army found out when we did, because some commanding officers were there to witness the change. Needless to say, it scared the shit out of everyone, officers and us alike. But it was also obvious that even when we changed, we were still ourselves inside. Our personalities didn't change and we were still soldiers, capable of taking orders and carrying them out with precision.

The Army discovered they had a secret weapon. So a platoon was created called Delta Shift. There were only five members - myself, Michael, Alex, Derek, and Logan. Knowledge about the Delta Shift was on a need-to-know basis and the Army determined that not many people needed to know. So the five of us never went back to our original platoon, and information was circulated that none of us had completely recovered from the incident so we were all honorably discharged.

But in reality we were relocated to the Fort Carson army base in Colorado Springs. There, we were trained in how to use this new side of ourselves as a lethal weapon. Although the reality is that basically we trained ourselves.

Delta Shift was so secret that besides the medical staff and officers that had witnessed the shifts at Walter Reed, only the President of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew about it, in addition to General Lockhart, the Commanding Officer at Fort Carson.

Essentially, we received orders through General Lockhart and we went off into the night to carry them out. We walked into the most dangerous war zones in the world, and sometimes places where no war was visible. But every mission was the same – save an American from imminent death. All five of us embraced this new platoon. We couldn't deny what we were, and each of us knew we were being the best possible soldiers we could be.

The first few months after the attack were very scary, if I was being honest with myself, because I didn't know if I was even human anymore. Would I become a werewolf and never change back again? Even in my human form, would the werewolf inside of me change my personality somehow, make me more of an animal? And the question that I still thought about, that I never confided in anyone, even my Delta Shift brothers - would this change mean that I would never have a family of my own?

I had always wanted a family someday. A few kids and a wife, some joy that I hadn't had growing up in gritty South Boston as a foster kid. It had all seemed impossible when I was a kid and trying to outrun the gangs and violence of my neighborhood, but when I had made the best decision of my life and enlisted in the Army, I saw a different way to live. I had something to offer the right woman and a future that looked stable. And then I became a fucking werewolf. Army doctors knew next to nothing about whether we could have children. I was thirty years old now and wondering if I would have to sacrifice the family I’d always wanted.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Logan’s voice pulled me out of my reverie. “You’re standing here in a trance. Are you thinking about how much bigger my dick is than yours again? Bro, you gotta get over it.” I laughed and punched him hard enough to leave a bruise.

***

Meredith:

I thought I had experienced pitch black before, but I’d never experienced anything like this. My eyes were wide open, wider than they usually were, and I still couldn’t see a thing.

I could hear things though. I swiveled my head in the direction of the right corner when I heard a small scratching sound there. Then a loud thud hit my ears from my left and I jumped and looked over there. Nothing but a sea of black, just like before, just like every single moment I had been in this God-forsaken place.

I had lost track of the time but my best guess is that I had been kidnapped two days ago. Two days that I had tried to be strong. I had tried to do what they asked of me because I wasn’t a hero. I just wanted to survive.

Before I came here I’d been afraid of the dark, and I almost laughed at the thought of that fear now. Almost.

Darkness isn’t what scares me now. It’s what happens in the dark that has kept me awake this entire time. A noise that I haven’t heard before hits my ears and my pulse pounds in my chest. I don’t think I’ve had a normal heartbeat since I’ve been here. The sound is hard to identify, sort of a shuffling sound along the floor. But it’s getting louder. Which means it’s getting closer.

I start to cry, I can’t help it. I want to be strong, I really do, but I think they’ve finally broken me. I back up against the cement wall behind me as the noise gets closer. I shove my knuckles in my mouth to soften my whimper when I realize that along with the shuffling, I also hear breathing.

I want out, I want away from here, I can’t do this anymore, I just want to go home, can’t they leave me alone, don’t touch me please, please don’t touch me, please help me, please help me, HELP ME!

My scream starts somewhere in my chest and moves up my body and into my throat before it emerges into the blackness, a sound of terror that I never imagined I would ever make.

BOOK: Things That Go Hump In The Night

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