At this point, Jack was just waiting.
Nearly two hours had passed since they had bombed that building, and progress felt tortuously slow. Between streets choked with debris and the worsening demon presence the deeper they made it into the city, they were having to fight or reroute roughly every five minutes. Four times now they'd had to full-on stop and duke it out with the demons. Twice Jack and the other Marines had actually had to deploy and leave the safety of the APCs.
Each time felt like it could be the end.
The demons were coming out in full force.
Presently, he was buckled into his chair to keep from being thrown around as they drove over debris or vehicles or piles of corpses, or took sharp turns. He was studying his map of the city. According to it, and his calculations, they had made it roughly three quarters of the way to their destination.
It still felt like lightyears of distance separated them.
But they had made progress. Meter by meter. Street by street. Demo by demon. They had made progress, and would continue to do so.
"Oh FUCK ME!" Spencer yelled from the cockpit at the same moment Diaz screamed "HOSTILES!" and opened fire with the chaingun up above.
The APC jolted to a halt. Jack cursed as he undid his belt and shot to his feet. It sounded bad. They'd been through some shitty battles so far, but nothing had elicited such a strong response from the others. He staggered into the cockpit, staring out through the windows, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of what awaited them.
They had just finished turning onto a new road, and halfway down it, a small army of Revenants awaited them. There had to be twenty of the skeletal bastards, all of them letting out that high-pitched roaring shriek as they launched rockets from their shoulders. And at the head of this army, leading it like a Lieutenant from Hell...
Another one of those bulbous-headed monstrosities that could conjure explosions.
Which was exactly what it was preparing to do.
"Target the big-headed son of a bitch! Put it down!" Jack snapped as he fell back into the main cabin and began gathering up his gear, preparing to get out there and defend them. He activated his comms. "Abrash, we need to-"
The world went white and suddenly he was airborne.
Everything turned into crazy confusing chaos as he felt his stomach flip and extremely brief weightlessness.
And then the APC landed with a jarring, metallic crunch and Jack yelled as he was thrown violently off his feet and smashed onto the new floor of the vehicle, becoming a tangle of armored limbs as Vekovious landed with him. He heard screaming, roaring, and chaingun fire. Jack felt pure, pulse-pounding terror as he struggled to get to his feet. Where was the bomb?! Was it damaged? It took him a second, but he finally realized that the APC had landed heavily on its left side. The wall was dented badly, but he saw the hardcase that had held the bomb was undamaged and felt some measure of relief.
It would stay there, for the moment. He had to assess the damage.
"Vekovious, get the back door open!" Jack snapped as he hunted around for his weapons.
"On it!" The Sergeant headed back for the rear exit and began struggling to kick it out. He could hear Diaz screaming in rage and the chaingun still firing. The chaingun nest was now above him, laying on its side, still attached to the roof apparently.
"Spencer, get back here!" Jack snapped.
"Coming!" he replied as he tripped and fell out of the cockpit. Jack grabbed him to steady him, then stared into his faceplate, trying to judge his awareness. He seemed a little out of it.
"Spencer." The man blinked a few times. "Spencer!" Jack shook him. "Focus!"
"I'm here, Sergeant," he said, shaking his head.
"Stay here, and guard this motherfucker with your life," Jack said, making him focus on the hardcase. He hammered on it a few times with this armored fist for emphasis. "The bomb in here is the only goddamned thing that matters, you got it?!"
"Yes, Sergeant!" he replied, hefting his rifle and then putting himself in between the hardcase and the door Vekovious was still trying to open.
"Good." Diaz seemed to be doing a good job, still firing away even though she had to be laying on her side now, so Jack turned his attention to the back door. "Vekovious, move!" he snapped.
Vekovious shifted out of the way and Jack sprinted forward, moving as fast as the dented interior would allow, and threw himself violently at the door. It finally crashed open, admitting a smoky red light to spill in.
A Revenant stood immediately beyond. It roared and prepared to attack. Jack shoved the double-barrel up into its bony face and squeezed the trigger, obliterating its skull as sure as an asteroid smashing into a small moon. He vaulted over the wall beside the now sideways door feet-first, kicking the huge skeleton away and landing heavily on blood-drenched, bone-strewn pavement. Snapping open the shotgun and reloading, he looked around.
"Abrash, give me an update!" he snapped as he began moving around the side of the wrecked APC. Vekovious came out behind him.
He could see the other APC ahead of them, still in one piece. The chaingun nest atop it was still firing away at the demons massing ahead of them. The back door was open and he could see Abrash and two others, he wasn't sure who, spilling out of it, getting into position.
"Main demon is down!" Abrash snapped as Jack moved forward. "There's too many of them!"
Jack switched to his rifle as he sprinted forward to help. He could indeed see the fire-summoning demon was little more than a pile of chewed up meat, and several of the Revenants had been reduced to piles of bone and armor, but there were more of them. Imps and zombies had come out to join them, and then he caught movement in one of the nearby buildings. To their left, a gutted apartment building with one collapsed wall held something massive in it.
No, two somethings.
"Fall back!" Jack screamed as he opened fire on the shadowy hole. "Fall back now!"
The two Mancubus demons that had waddled up to the edge of the collapsed wall had the perfect vantage point on the second APC. Jack had just reached Abrash and the others, and grabbed one of them, then yanked them back and gave them a shove towards his own APC. Someone was still in the chaingunners nest of the intact APC, still firing, just beginning to turn on the Mancubi-
They both opened fire at the same time, sending great balls of flame rocketing directly into the chaingunners nest.
It went up in a burst of flame and Jack heard someone give the briefest of screams over the net before being cut off.
"Go! Go!" he screamed as he began to run back. And then the APC exploded and he was sent flying through the air.
Everything became a confused blur once again as he sailed back down the street, tumbling around, and then he crashed into the front of his own ruined APC. Gasping for breath, he struggled back to his feet. "Abrash!" he groaned, desperate. "Find us an exit! Now!"
"On it!"
He had to get that bomb. He had to. Jack felt a few bullets pelt his armor as he got up and tossed a glance in the direction of the demons.
There were a lot of them now, dozens. Too many.
"Diaz, get the fuck out of there! Everyone get ready to pull back!" he snapped as he forced his body to function, ignoring all the pain running wild through it. He ran around the side of the flipped APC and got back to the rear.
"I can still cover you!" she snapped.
"That's a fucking order! Out! Now!" Jack roared.
"Fuck!"
He heard that one over the radio and in real proximity as he clambered back into his APC. Everything was a mess, bullets and guns and gear tossed everywhere. He saw Spencer was still standing guard. Good.
"Go," Jack said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as he approached.
Spencer complied immediately as Diaz dropped down into the chamber with him.
"We're gonna be fucked if we don't get out of here," she said as he got up to the hardcase and opened it up.
"I know, I know," Jack growled setting his gun aside and extracting the bomb. "Just watch my ass while I get this thing."
"On it," she replied.
"I've got an exit, alleyway, four o'clock!" Abrash said.
"Get to that alleyway and prepare to give me cover fire!" Jack snapped as he pulled the bomb on like a backpack. Here was hoping that it was as tough as it looked. After making sure it was on, he and Diaz moved to the exit again.
"We good!?" Jack asked.
"Good! Go Ward!" Abrash replied.
"Here we come!"
He could see Abrash and a few of the others gathered at an alley between two mostly intact apartment buildings, firing at the demonic forces. Bullets, fireballs, and rockets swarmed by. This was going to be hard.
Jack and Diaz got out of the APC, hunkering down behind it for a few seconds.
"Go!" Jack said, and they took off sprinting.
It was a hectic, hellish run and it only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like ages and was a skin-crawling nightmare as Jack waited for something to connect with him, or the bomb, and put an end to his miserable life.
But he made it, almost crashing into Abrash as he surged into the alleyway.
"Is this everyone?!" he asked as he stumbled to a halt, looking around.
"Holtz is gone! He was in the nest!" Abrash replied, reloading his weapon.
"Fuck! Okay, fall back, grenades on my mark, we collapse the mouth of the alley and then get the fuck out of here!" Jack said.
He got a string of affirmative replies and they all fell back. The demons were getting closer. They got to a safe distance, then primed and tossed their grenades. Jack didn't even wait to see if it worked before hustling them on, deeper into the city, away from the horde.
* * *
They found shelter a few blocks away, in a derelict apartment building.
They came into a partially burned-out lobby and Jack checked it out as the others hustled in behind him. The walls were made of some cracked beige plaster, the floor covered in ugly, light brown, threadbare carpet. Bullet holes and blood marred every surface, and it seemed as if all the windows had been shattered.
"Is anyone hurt?" he asked as they gathered in the lobby. He looked at them, their small group, covered in blood and ash. As they all reported that they were okay, he did a headcount. Abrash was there, and Cortez. Diaz, looking pissed. Spencer, looking frightened. Vekovious, looking a bit dazed. And...that was it.
Jesus. That was it.
They now numbered six.
"Come on, we need to secure this location," he said. "Vekovious, stay here and guard the door."
"On it," Vekovious replied.
They set to work. It was a quick and efficient and thankfully easy task. The building wasn't all that complex: three stories, four cookie-cutter apartments per story, no basement. They cleared each of them, found and executed a handful of zombies stumbling around, and returned to the ground floor with Vekovious.
"Now what?" Abrash asked.
Jack sighed heavily. "Take a minute, grab a bite to eat or something to drink from those kitchens if you want anything, take a leak or a dump if you need to. I'm going to try and get in touch with someone from the other squads, try to get an update. Make sure someone is guarding the front entrance at all times. I'll check out the rear entrance."
He headed off while the others began making good use of their temporary break. As he checked the exit and found it locked securely, Jack headed upstairs and activated his radio. He began calling out over the network, cycling through the frequencies, and didn't get a response until he reached the top floor and sat down heavily on the top step.
"Ward! I hear you!"Anderson said, his voice coming in fairly clearly. "What's your situation?"
Jack sighed. "Thank God, finally. The APCs are trashed, totaled. Holtz, Rhodes, and Wells are dead. I have the bomb with me and as far as I can tell, it's still intact. None of us are injured. We're taking refuge in an apartment building right now. How about you?"
"Plague Squad is gone, as far as I can tell. Very likely one hundred percent casualties, their bomb lost. My team and Sergeant Taylor's have suffered heavy casualties as well," he reported, his voice heavy and somber.
Fuck, Jack thought, Hollenshead.
Could he really be dead?
"And Sergeant Taylor?" he asked.
"We had contact half an hour ago. Still alive and kicking as of then. Her team still had both their APCs and were pressing on. I've lost one of mine, but it's starting to look like it won't matter all that much. The streets are just too blocked off. We're going to have to make it on foot soon. How close are you?" he asked.
"Before everything went right to hell, we were roughly two miles shy of the portal," Jack said.
"We're a bit closer, and Taylor was roughly that distance...ah shit, I gotta go. Good luck and Godspeed, Sergeant."
"You too, el-tee," Jack cut the comms. Jennifer was alive, at least as of half an hour ago. He was tempted to try and call out to her directly, but he had other things he needed to be doing besides indulging in his own personal whims. He got to his feet and headed into the nearest apartment. There were a few whims he knew he needed to indulge in for the sake of his sanity, though. He walked to the bathroom, got his suit's crotch opened up, designed for just this occasion, and took a long piss. When he was done, he headed to the kitchen and raided the fridge. He found the remains of a salad and a turkey and cheese sandwich wrapped up, as well as a few cans of Mountain Dew Supernova. He tore into it, consuming everything in a few minutes.
Then he put his helmet back on and studied the map. It took a moment, but he found their location. In a way, he was extremely lucky. The portal wasn't actually in the center of the city. If that was true, they would have had to cross closer to a hundred miles, not the eight or so that was required of them. It was close what seemed to be the highest population density in the city, which was thankfully closer to Haydenfield than anywhere else.
As he was trying to plan a route, he walked to a window that gave a view of the way they had to go, at the rear of the building, and then gave up on trying to make a plan that was any more complex than go north.
Because the area beyond the apartment building looked utterly alien, like the landscape of strange, computer-generated map, but the computer was broken. The area beyond seemed to be enclosed in a twenty-foot wall made of slick, polished obsidian squares, divided by dull gray granite lines. It didn't look real. It looked almost like a VR game being superimposed over his vision. For a few seconds, he actually thought his HUD was malfunctioning. But he took his helmet off and the strange visage remained.
Slowly, Jack put his helmet back on and then kept looking around. The ground out there was wavy black sand, almost like that of a beach. He saw another building in the lot behind the apartment, one made of plain red brick, and he was high up enough that he could see other areas that lay beyond the bizarrely artificial wall. Past it, they were contained within walls of a completely different nature, what looked from here to be very rough red-brown rock. Almost like the inside of a cave. He saw other structures, some of huge gray bricks, others of smaller red brick, and some made of that same obsidian material.
All of this beneath a pale red sky, wreathed in smoke.
"Fuck," Jack muttered. That was the direction they needed to go. He scouted as much as he could, moving to a few other windows, and then determined that what probably made the most sense was to get to another structure tucked away in the far left corner, the only other thing that was made of obsidian and granite...or whatever the hell it was made of. Everything seemed to be enclosed and that might be the only way out.
He wasn't sure why, his gut just said so.
And so far, it hadn't let him down.
"Shit," he whispered, and then headed back downstairs. Everyone was gathered in the lobby again, talking quietly, finishing up meals.
"Sergeant?" Abrash asked, having a smoke and leaning against one of the walls.
"It's about to get weird," Jack replied.
"I do not like hearing that," Diaz muttered.
"The way we have to go has obviously been heavily warped, but I think I've got us a way out of here. I also managed to get in touch with Anderson...Plague is gone. Famine and War have taken losses, but they're still going."
Several muttered curses sounded as everyone looked away for a moment, shaking their heads or closing their eyes.
They had all known Hollenshead.
"I know it's gonna be tough, it's gonna be brutal, but we have a job to do. I think I've found the way forward. So...make sure your guns are loaded and ready, make sure your armor is good, and make sure that your head is in the game." Jack looked around, considering who he wanted to pass the bomb along to, because he couldn't carry it. He took too many risks, and he planned on leading from the front. Finally, his gaze settled on Abrash. "I want you carrying the bomb."
"Yes, Sergeant," Abrash replied, stepping forward. No hesitation, no fear. Jack found that the more time went on, the more he respected the man. They took a moment to swap. "This bomb is all that matters right now. We have to get it to ground zero. Everything else is secondary. Are we clear on that, Marines?"
He received a string of affirmations.
"Good, now let's get it done."
He led them back to the rear exit after they finished prepping. Breaking the lock he found with the butt of his shotgun, Jack opened the door and looked out. There didn't seem to be anything out there. He made his way slowly out, the others backing up him, moving as a loose group out onto the black sands.
"This is wild," Diaz whispered.
All he could hear was the sounds of conflict, but they didn't sound close. It was amazing that there was still organized resistance after all that had happened. Although, he reflected unhappily, it could very well be the demons fighting each other. Then again...that would absolutely be a great thing. They walked along, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did as the group fully emerged from the apartment building and approached the first structure that they shared the area with. Jack was prepared to pass it by as he walked along its edge, but as he came around to the front, he saw the remains of two Marines and a cop, done up in gray SWAT armor, in the sands in front of it. It looked like they'd been protecting the building.
"Cover me," Jack said quietly, "Diaz, come with me. We're gonna check this out."
"Affirmative," she replied.
The others formed up as he approached the door, which was a flat silver rectangle covered in a curious series of ridges and studs, some of which almost, but not quite, looked like circuitry. Jack reached out and hit a button next to the door. It slid into the ceiling and revealed...something that made absolutely no sense.
Actually, several somethings.
The room beyond almost seemed randomly assembled. The floor was made of royal blue carpet that was very bright. To his right, he saw the walls were made of bookshelves. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed with books. To his left, a wall some weird wooden texture that looked vaguely inhuman, a torch burning, and a glowing orange-yellow platform attached to the wall. It was flickering, and its designed reminded him of an upside-down mountain. On it were a pair of tiny red skulls, and they, too, were flickering, all of it out of sync with each other. The strangest thing of all, however, made him jerk in shock and trip over his own two feet trying to get away when he noticed it partially concealed in the wall immediately to his left.
"Fuck me!" he snapped.
"What?!" Diaz asked, shifting her focus. "Whoa, what is that?"
Jack got back to his feet, angry and embarrassed, but also deeply curious. Something, what looked like a holographic image, hovered inside of a small niche in the wall. It was basically a green, flickering circle with a triangle laid over it and, within both, a large, pink-lidded yellow eye that was disturbingly human.
It sat a few inches above a tiny green-flamed candle.
"I have no fucking clue. I don't even know how the hell it's existing," Jack muttered. It didn't seem to be alive, the eye not following him in any way.
As he tore his attention from it, Jack saw several corpses spread around. It looked like a cluster of Imps had attacked a small group of cops and civilians and they'd all torn each other to pieces in here. And it also looked like someone had been through to collect all the ammo. They moved deeper into the room, beyond an opening in the wall directly across from the entryway and into a small room beyond. Jack almost jumped out of his skin again as he caught sight of a pair of demonic eyes glaring at him from behind a slot in the wall to his left.
"Jesus!" he whispered, aiming at it reflexively.
"What-whoa!" Diaz cried, doing the same as she walked in.
"Is everything okay in there?" Abrash asked.
"Fine!" Jack replied, staring at the eyes. They were intensely red, the skin around them a mottled green, and he could see hints of black horns to either side of them. The slit wasn't even a foot wide and was perhaps four inches high.
It looked more like a painting than something alive. Jack frowned, staring at the odd thing, and then gave in to the urge he was feeling.
He pulled out his pistol, aimed at it, and fired, shooting it between the red eyes.
The second the bullet landed, something snapped open immediately to his right.
"Fuck me!" he cried, whirling to face it at the same time Diaz did.
"Are you sure you're okay in there!?" Abrash called again.
"Yeah, sorry," Jack called back, staring at a newly revealed alcove. And it held something utterly unexpected. "You are shitting me," he muttered, holstering his pistol and walking forward.
"Is that a plasma rifle?" Diaz asked.
"Yep," Jack replied as he snatched up the crazy-looking weapon. He'd been forced to abandoned his in the interim between their assault on the force field generator and being inducted into Death Squad because it had sustained too much damage, or something. He still didn't know what actually had happened with it, only that he could no longer use it. But now...now he had another. And several cells of ammo, and it was fully charged, to boot.
"This is weird," Diaz murmured, looking around.
"It's all weird," Jack replied, pocketing the cells and rejoining her.
"Yeah but this is good weird. Why?"
"No idea. Maybe someone managed to hide it in there before dying? None of this makes any sense, so I've learned to just roll with it."
"Something bad's gonna happen," she muttered as they left the strange building.
"That's always true," Jack said, but as they walked across the black sands, out of the initial area and into the next space, he couldn't shake a sudden sense of foreboding. He focused up, switching to the plasma rifle. They began passing a few other smaller structures that seemed sealed up and closed off, and Jack was no longer tempted to search any of them. He wanted to get out of there. Diaz's words suddenly seemed ominous and intensely accurate.
Something bad was going to happen.
Walking in between the obsidian wall and the strange cave-like wall in a broad, open space, the next building ahead of them was the only other one made of red brick. Jack felt suspicion trickle down his spine as they approached. It seemed to be a simple square, with a door set into the exact center of the wall facing them. As they began making their way around it, he saw another door in the front as well. It wasn't a very large building, maybe forty feet across on each side.
"Should we be checking some of these places?" Abrash asked. "We didn't get an opportunity to grab much of anything from the APC before it went up."
Jack hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah, all right. Let's see what's in this one."
They walked over to the nearest door in the red brick structure. It was tall and narrow, another one of those weirdly designed doors, with the ridges and bumps and almost-circuits across its surface, only this time it was tan instead of silver.
Jack punched the button and watched the door slide up into the wall.
And then had to fight not to immediately vomit in his helmet.
A collective cry of disgust and raw shock went up from the group. Jack backed up instinctively, seeing nothing but what lay just beyond that door. He had seen a lot of things, a lot of things in his life. He'd seen limbs blown off and guts puked out, literally in a few cases. He'd seen decapitations and throats slit and bullet and stab and shrapnel wounds. And that had paled in comparison to the shit he'd seen on Deimos and in Hell.
But all of that didn't quite stack up in the same way to what he was staring at just now.
Beyond the door, absolutely packed in there, was a solid wall of bone and flesh. It wasn't just the contents of what lay within: the skulls, the ribcages, the meat and the muscle, the blood. It was that it was so solidly compressed and compacted inside that it wasn't falling out. It was like a literal wall of bone and meat.
Jack reached out and punched the button again, but the door wouldn't close.
"Jesus fuck, come on," he snapped, turning away from the building and marching off. No one argued with him, not looking back as they left it behind them and made for what he hoped was the exit. All that stood between them and it were some strange octagonal pillars the same texture as the cave-like walls enclosing them in the area. A dozen or so of them stood in a random cluster. Jack tried to push the image of what he had just seen out of his mind as he marched on, squeezing his plasma rifle. God...
How could he believe in a God after seeing all that he had seen?
After seeing that?
He was still processing it when a series of green flashes began popping off ahead of him and to either side. All around them.
Suddenly, a space that had been large and empty was filled with demons.
Imps. Dozens and dozens of Imps had suddenly popped into existence.
"Get to the pillars!" Jack screamed as he leveled the plasma rifle and opened fire. It was chaos again, sheer screaming chaos. The balls of plasma seared and flayed off the leathery hides of the Imps as they shrieked and roared, trying to throw fireballs at them. Jack didn't give them a chance, panicking at least a little as the sheer number of demons teleporting in became apparent to him. There were so, so many of them, so suddenly.
And not just Imps.
As he cleared the way and they got to the relative safety of the pillars, he saw some Revenants and Cacodemons and Mancubi mixed in there.
"Hide!" he yelled. "Hide in the pillars!"
They rushed into the collection of pillars and hid as well as they could.
"Hold fire unless they actually come after you!" he snapped as he ducked down and hastily reloaded his plasma rifle.
"Why aren't we killing them!?" Diaz snapped.
"Listen," Jack replied.
He heard roaring, groaning, screaming, bellowing, hissing.
"Yeah?! And?! They're coming for us!" Diaz replied sharply.
"Just wait!"
The quality of the demon horde's roaring and screaming changed. It became more violent, more frenzied. More pained. Nothing came in after them. Jack heard the sound of rockets exploding, fireballs bursting, flesh ripping, bones breaking, the creatures screaming in agony.
"What the hell is happening out there?" Vekovious muttered.
"They're attacking each other in their frenzy to get to us," Jack replied.
"Good. Fuckers," Cortez growled.
They all waited. Minutes passed. Occasionally, an Imp would wander or stagger in their line of sight, and they'd put it down. The sounds of the demons slaughtering each other was like the most blessed, pleasant music in the world as they waited for the awful, wretched things to whittle each other down. Eventually, the battle began dying off, and by the time it had grown almost wholly silent out there, Jack was ready. Switching back to his assault rifle to save on ammo, he stepped back out and saw a Mancubus covered in charred flesh and missing one of its arm cannons. He aimed and fired, finishing it off with a spray of rounds that toppled it.
After that, it was relatively easy to kill off a handful of injured Imps, still staggering around, on their way to the structure in the corner.
Jack's gut was right. Opening a doorway in the center of the corner building led to a pathway that led out of the area.
It wasn't perfect, it was a bit dark inside, but there didn't seem to be anything dangerous immediately evident.
And so they headed inside, continuing their miserable task.