Delta Force. It’s one of the United States’
most mysterious special operations groups, working under the direct authority of the
Joint Special Operations Command. To many, this elite group of soldiers is known only as
The Unit - the team you send in when nothing else will get the job done. Since their inception
in the 1970s, they’ve been involved in some of the most vital counter-insurgency operations
of the 20th and 21st centuries. But today, some of them were about to embark on a mission
like no other: They were going monster hunting. And not just any monster. We’re talking
about Siren Head, the forty-foot monstrosity created by Canadian Horror Maestro Trevor
Henderson. But these unfortunate soldiers didn’t know this quite yet. All they knew was
that something evil was lurking in the woods... It was a situation so strange that to many it
would feel like pure fiction, but Americans had been disappearing in scores within the dense
forestry of the Pacific Northwest. Of course, the occasional disappearance is to be expected
- the United States is a huge country, and people fall off the face of the
earth all the time, but not like this. And what’s more, whatever was causing these
disappearances seemed to be growing bolder. Families in small communities near the
forests were going missing from their homes. People were being stolen off of the streets
at night. Chaos reigned in the dark. Typically, disappearances like this would
be the responsibility of local authorities, or by the FBI if disappearances could be connected
across state lines. But given the increase in missing people, various national security
agencies began to take a keen interest in the phenomenon. They began to theorise that some kind
of woodland cult or insurgency group was behind the over seventy anomalous disappearances
that’d occurred during the last two months, and if a group like this was growing in confidence
enough to start snatching people from their homes, they could be preparing for a grander
strike against a high-value target. Of course, the Pentagon didn’t like the idea of
dispatching high volumes of mIlitary operatives into the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Firstly, such a large mission could alert the insurgents, and force them into hiding.
Secondly, knowing that the military was pouring soldiers into the forests to address mysterious
disappearances might cause a state of unwanted public panic. This is where Delta Force came
in. We’re talking about a special forces group with discretion in their DNA. Most of
the group’s most critical missions are still a complete mystery to the general
public, and this would be no exception. Joint Special Operations Command authorised six Delta Force operatives to conduct a secret
reconnaissance mission into the Hoh Rainforest, located on the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific
Northwest. It was both the largest forest in Washington State, and had the highest
concentration of recent disappearances. The six operators were drawn
from Delta Force’s G-Squadron, the sabre squadron specialised in clandestine
operations, and few were more clandestine than a secret counter-insurgency operation hidden
right in the heart of the United States. If only these six soldiers had any idea
what horror they were truly in for... But still, they had a better fighting chance than
most. The chosen six, known internally as “The Snakes”, had personally been involved in some
of the United States’ most vital operations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe - and their
identities were considered so mission-critical that their true names and ranks were classified.
They were known only by the following codenames: Viper, Anaconda, Adder, Rattler, and
Copperhead. They were organised under the authority veteran field commander Jack
Vasquez, better known to his men as Mamba. If they couldn’t deal with a situation,
then the situation couldn’t be dealt with. The Snakes were dispatched from
the Delta Force HQ - Fort Bragg, North Carolina - to their first checkpoint
in the Hoh Rainforest. As the team wandered into the depths of the forest, bordered on
all sides by ancient spruces and hemlocks, they had no idea that they were already being
watched. But the watcher wouldn’t strike just yet. It’d wait until it had the cover of night
and darkness to make its first attack. As we alluded to earlier, the true cause of
all the mysterious disappearances wasn’t some crackpot insurgency group stationed deep in the
forest, it was Siren Head - a mysterious living nightmare that seems to enjoy one thing and one
thing only: Making people vanish without a trace. It stood among the trees, inhumanly
still, as the Snakes walked right past it. It dulled the quiet crackle of its speakers,
teeth chattering silently in anticipation. More easy prey. Yes, it would take all of them.
Every single one. And it would relish in the task. Though his prey may not have been as easy as the
monster anticipated. They were outfitted with state of the art ballistic armour and night
vision goggles. Most were armed with HK416 assault rifles, designed specifically for Delta
Force by Heckler and Koch - with the Colt 1911 as a sidearm. A few members of the team, like
Anaconda, were a little more traditionalist, favouring the pump-action M870 Shotgun with the
classic M3a1 Grease Gun as a secondary weapon. Mamba even packed a few frag grenades on
his person, as a kind of good luck token. Typically, Siren Head’s most well-armed prey
were hapless hunters shouldering bolt-action rifles or double-barrel shotguns. The
Snakes were in a different league. As the day began to creep into night, the
six elite soldiers broke off into groups of three - henceforth known as Beta Team,
comprised of Viper, Adder, and Rattler, and Alpha Team, comprised of
Mamba, Anaconda, and Copperhead. They formed two discrete base camps and
established comms over a secure radio link. They’d perform secret reconnaissance missions
in shifts, gathering potential intel on whatever could be causing all the disappearances
to report back to their superiors. Alpha Team were on first patrol, locked
and loaded, with their night vision goggles engaged. They were charged with
exploring six pre-determined quadrants before the end of their shift, and they would
make short work of it. Mamba took point, with Anaconda and Copperhead covering his six.
Things were relatively uneventful, until Anaconda whispered that he saw something moving in the
trees. Something big. Mamba asked whether what he saw could have been an Olympic Black Bear
or a Roosevelt Elk, both native to the area. Anaconda said no. It was much too tall and
thin for that. What he saw was human-shaped, but wrong. It looked somehow...stretched,
and he didn’t get a visual on the head. That was strange, to say the least. Mamba
realised immediately that they were dealing with a different situation to what they’d
first assumed, and Beta Team had to be updated. Mamba pulled out his radio and called
in, but he didn’t get a response. There was a strange buzzing, crackling sound,
almost like the device was malfunctioning. Until suddenly, a voice Mamba and
the two others didn’t recognise came shouting out of the speakers. It
just repeated one word, over and over. “HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE...” Mamba shut off his radio. He and the
team assumed it must be some kind of signal-intercepting technology from
the insurgents. They’d been rumbled, and their lifeline to the outside had been cut
off. Mamba changed the directive: They needed to rendezvous with Beta Team as soon as possible
and reassess the situation before moving forward. That was when they started
hearing gunfire and screaming. It echoed through the rainforest with
harrowing clarity. Bullets, pained yells, screams of pure terror - and it was coming
from the direction of Beta Team’s Camp. Mamba, Anaconda, and Copperhead charged in to
provide backup to their embattled teammates, but by the time they arrived, there was
nothing left. The camp was decimated. The little supplies they’d brought in were
destroyed. The trees around the encampment had been shredded by gunfire. And most bizarre
of all was the fact that there were no bodies. There wasn’t even blood. Just Viper,
Adder, and Rattler’s discarded guns. Mamba was shaken by the sight, but he didn’t let
it show. Their survival depended on maintaining composure. He ordered his two subordinates
to take the spare magazines of their vanished former teammates and proceed with him out of the
forest. When they attempted to reestablish comms, all they got was a disembodied voice
screaming the word “DIE” again and again. They were on their own. Their new
mission: Escape the forest alive. The Snakes already had the fastest possible
escape route planned out as a contingency, just in case everything went sideways.
Though none of them expected it to go sideways quite like this. The
team formed a tight formation, their weapons pointing in all directions,
knowing an attack could come from any angle. They just didn’t anticipate it coming from above. A huge hand descended from the darkness of the
canopy - gnarled and rotted, with fingers as long as a child’s arm. The three men were shocked and
horrified, only just dodging its grasping strike. Mamba raised the barrel of his HK416 and
fired off a staccato burst of gunfire, seeming to frighten the creature away.
All that Alpha Team could do was press on - they didn’t have time to consider the
nightmarish particulars of their situation. Whatever was attacking them wasn’t
human, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was survival. Anaconda was using his pump-action to blast
suppressing fire into the darkness around him when he was taken. The hand seemed to come from
nowhere, grasping him by the leg and plucking him from the ground. The elite soldier managed
to reach for his Grease Gun and rattle off some gunfire in the arm’s direction, but ultimately, it
was futile. Mamba and Copperhead watched in horror as the third member of their trio was pulled,
screaming, into the dark. Needless to say, he was never seen again. Just like all the others who’d
gone missing in or near these cursed forests. As Mamba and Copperhead ran for their very
lives, the forest came alive with a cacophony of horrific noises all around them. They
heard the crackling hiss of radio static, the harsh screams and whispers of heavily
modulated voices, and discordant fragments of old songs. The enemy was all around them. Was it one
or many? It felt like it was everywhere - and even for these battle-hardened soldiers, it was nothing
less than confusing and utterly terrifying. Copperhead was starting to crack. He was
spraying gunfire all around him, hoping he might hit something, or at least frighten this
mysterious assailant away. He didn’t want to be snatched in the darkness like all the others. He’d
take anything over that. Even though Mamba ordered him to keep his cool as they ran, Copperhead kept
blasting until he was dry-firing. At that point, he whipped out his handy 1911 and
just carried on burning through ammo. Not that it’d save him. Suddenly two legs, long as tree trunks,
planted themselves in the ground between Mamba and Copperhead. The latter looked up and
screamed at the monster standing before him: Forty feet of rotting flesh, topped by a rusty
metal siren that screamed enraged nonsense. Mamba levelled his rifle at the creature,
but was batted aside like a rag doll. The creature would deal with Mamba
later. For now, it wanted Copperhead. The soldier fell backwards in terror as those
gnarled hands darted down towards him. His screaming, flailing body was snatched, and pulled
into the darkness. Only Mamba was left now - alone with a monster that had taken five others like
him. And his ammo was starting to run low. Mamba regained his footing, his body still
stinging from Siren Head’s first strike. The beast had once again retreated into the dark, biding its
time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He levelled his rifle and aimed into the inky
blackness in front of him. A sudden movement out in the dark caused him to pull the trigger,
firing off the last of his ammo for nothing. It was in that moment that he felt the
looming presence of Siren Head standing behind him. He’d been outplayed. Game, set, and
match. Now, the creature would have its fun, just like it’d had with all the others.
As it encroached, Mamba fell and began crawling away, the hissing sirens full
of chattering teeth growing ever closer. The desperate soldier reached into his jacket
and pulled something out, something that the creature couldn’t quite make out. But it didn’t
matter. The prey was right there, for the taking. The creature reached out with a long,
probing finger towards Mamba’s chest, as though to deliver a taunting jab. That’s
when Mamba tore open his jacket and revealed his final trump card: Ten frag grenades, with the
pins pulled out of all of them. Just for luck. In his last seconds, Mamba smiled, as the
creature seemed to twitch in final hesitation. The following boom echoed out through the forest,
shaking the birds out of the trees. A brief flash in the dark, that soon faded, until only darkness
and silence remained. Mission accomplished. Check out “Siren Head - EXPLAINED”
and “Cartoon Cat - EXPLAINED” for more nightmares from the
twisted mind of Trevor Henderson!
