Pulp. Part 1.

It's been 8 years since the events that took place on the Rentram Estate.

10.6 acres. Rentram Manor and the surrounding lands, including a forest and a brook.

All of it bathed in fire and lightning.

It was like any other mission. 5 man squad, search, rescue, pacify if necessary. We were looking for a group of scientists who had been captured by a group calling themselves the "Horus Progeny". Nutjobs. Cultists and zealots parading under the banner of an "Organisation" for celebrities and the obscenely rich.

All of them went to the Rentham estate and were never seen again.

I was the leader of the squad - my first big mission. Russell James was our driver. He managed to escape but never reported in after the drop off. I think he must have been smart enough to get out while the getting was good. With how much we all got paid for any mission, I think he could be in the Bahamas right now, on a private island. With Hula girls. A man can dream.

Leia was our "Foreign exchange", from the Norwegian branch of the company. Good medic. Pretty good with a pistol too. I guess that's basic training for their medics, I know ours don't get to even touch weaponry until a mission. But she was good. She hit everything she shot at. 

Mike was my right hand man. Always had been through the academy. He and "Maylene", his personal piece of ordinance. She kicked like a mule but got the job done with 110% effort. I miss him, even now.

Frank was a bruiser. Former marine boxer, trained in a handful of martial arts, mostly defensive. He was a good man, had a kind heart, and even grandchildren - something about a shotgun wedding back home for his daughter, I didn't want to ask. He did all the heavy lifting.

And me? I specialised in explosives. Usage and disarming. I remember every inch of the spec diagrams they provided me with in training, even now, so long after...

I should go from the beginning.

We got dropped off - 4 hour window. that should have been the first sign of worry. Why such a huge frame? I realised then that we'd be in stealth mode for a while, due to the cultists... But that would have been 2... maybe 2 and a half hours at most. The bigwigs knew something we didn't.

We had a huge amount of ground to cover. We couldn't stroll up the gravel driveway, so we cut to the edge of the woods and made our way around to the back of the compound. All the while, we saw things in the windows of the house. At speed, you don't put a lot of things together, but upon reflection, this is what I saw:

One set of huge windows had a couple of people fucking on it. On, literally, they were pressed up on it, humping like dogs. And at the end of the hedge was another person, just looking at them. Nothing sexual, he, or she, was just observing.

Another had a pair of people staring out. I like to think we escaped their notice. But I don't even know any more...

We turned past the side of the house, and looked across the huge back area. Like a giant patio, I can't remember the term. The pool at the end was empty, full of leaves and mulch from seasons past. There were people in it, doing whatever they liked. Mike pointed him out to me. Cameron Dooley, the action star - joined in '07 and quietly stepped out of the limelight. But that wasn't uncommon, isn't uncommon, even now. He was naked. He was drunk. He was singing. 

Back from the pool was a huge set of archways - some mock Greek design. Against the pillars were... bodies. At the time, I assumed they were just drunkards, like Dooley. But now... they were uniformly placed, all sat at the bottom of the pillars, arms reaching behind, but not tied up. It doesn't matter now.

The last parts of the back were just flat stone areas. On the left side, a couple making out. On the right, People were sat in a circle, playing some sort of game. We moved on before they saw us.

Attached to the side of the manor were the servants quarters. Smaller in comparison, but the size of a large house. To think what this place must have been like in the glory days, back up until the 20's. I read "The Great Gatsby" once. I'd like to think hearts and minds were woven and broken in a place like that. Back in purer times.

Inside, it was dank and dark. The once refined house was now a storage facility. On the ground floor, the floor was disjointed in places, and discoloured. Upstairs, it was fairly normal. Save for the interconnected door to the main house. It was newer than the rest of the place, save for the discoloured floor and hundreds of boxes. It had the eye on it. The cult symbol - the eye or Horus. We couldn't get the damn thing open, so we investigated the boxes.

Guns. Circuitry. Uniforms. Ammunition. They had enough of it to build a small fucking army! We decided, or rather, I decided, that we should try to "Blend in". We donned the uniforms and hid our own guns underneath. Now all we had to worry about was the Door.

Nothing would budge it. Frank pointed out that there must have been a switch somewhere. And we found it. The floor sections were pressure pads! The door juddered open and, after placing a box on each one, we entered the asylum.

PART 2 TO FOLLOW!