Free The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) by Paul Emil Page A

it. That’s exactly how I felt now.
    I mentally prepared myself and was ready for the challenge when Sgt. Coles said, “Alright, then. Count off!”
    We did, and then he said, “We have three stations here. Go to each one, get your gear, and come back here. Alright. Number One, go.”
    There were three tables set up in the no man’s land in front of the fence. A uniformed technician stood at each one. Open cases and equipment were spread out on each table.
    At the first table, my first thought was, Cool! We’re getting iPods! The device I got was black and had two long wires. But the wires didn’t end in earbuds. Instead, they terminated in electrodes in rubber pads that were gelled and taped to my temples.
    “Don’t take them off,” was the only instruction I got. I stood there waiting for more, and the man said, “You’re done. Move along.”
    At the next table, an Army nurse checked my vitals. A heart-monitoring device was attached to my belt. Electrodes were taped to my chest. I was moved along.
    I went to the last table. The officer standing in front of it had been replaced by Sgt. Coles. I didn’t see him taking this position while I was going through the other stations. I didn’t recognize him until this moment, now that I was up close. He checked the small camera and microphone mounted onto the sides of my helmet. I was surprised when he seemed to be extra concerned about the camera. He turned his back as if it bore a shield that would deflect wandering gazes and piercing stares. His eyes never left the camera he was inspecting. I heard a cryptic message breathed out like a ghostly warning.
    “Abrams … NO! Eyes forward! Don’t look at me! DON’T LOOK!”
    I kept my eyes forward, as ordered, as if I wasn’t hearing anything. Coles continued to “fix” the camera.
    “Listen to me. In the house, don’t shoot anything. Don’t kill anything. Don’t have sex with anything. You got that? You hear me, nod once.”
    I nodded. I saw the handler in the distance, looking over at us. Coles must have noticed him too, for at that exact moment, he declared the camera OK.
    “Good to go!” he barked. “Move!” He shoved me forward and on my way.
    I wanted to turn around and look at him, to see some verification in his eyes that he was serious and not joking or “fucking with me.”
    “Don’t shoot anything,” he had said. OK. Maybe that meant there were no terrorist pop-ups. Maybe anyone who fired his gun would be panicking and shooting at “civilians.” Maybe that was the test. It was about restraint. Firing on them could be grounds for failure. Maybe this was all about staying cool.
    But “Don’t have sex with anything”? What the hell did that mean? Was Coles jerking me around?
    My gut said no. He had slipped me the warning in stealth, and disguised the effort so he wouldn’t get caught. He put himself at risk by doing so. I didn’t know what to make of what he said, but whatever it was, I would take it seriously.
    I resisted the urge to look back as I walked back to the spot where the handler and the other troops had reconvened. After I got to spot, I casually looked. Kaz, who was Number Six, was with Coles. There was no problem with Kaz’s camera. Coles didn’t delay him to check it.
    Passing the equipment check, Kaz walked over to rejoin the group. His face looked worried, but not more so than anybody else’s at that moment. I didn’t see puzzlement. There had been no secret message for him to ponder. That warning was for me alone.
    I did feel a little better after Coles gave me the “head’s up.” It sounded like he knew what was going on. That meant the house wasn’t a mystery that uneven the military didn’t understand. That thought had appeared in my head like an apparition. It was scary, but now I felt like a child frightened by a fake haunted house on Halloween. The truly scary thing was how easy it had been to unnerve all of us. Here we were, men with machine guns, afraid of