Site Kilo-29
Event Sub-Levels
Winter, 1993
Day Three-Early Afternoon
Status: Full Offensive Measures Engaged
Facility Status: Alert Two
The once-human things swarmed out of the door while I was two steps from my gear, clad only in a surgical gown. My weapons were dropped in a pile, under my Kevlar vest and my NBC suit.
Kincaid was in between me and creatures, stark naked except for the flamethrower tanks on his back and the projector in his hands.
"Come to papa Kincaid, assholes!" He yelled out. The young man was gone from the tone, in its place was a growling voice promising pain and destruction.
With a whoosh he triggered it, and the flame streamed out, arcing across the first ones in a blazing yellow arc of burning fuel. Some of them had a chance to scream, but most of them went down almost instantly, without anything more than the crackle of their fat igniting and a strange muffled sound when their abdominal cavities ruptured from the intense heat.
"Save Natchez, Sergeant, I've got this!" Kincaid yelled, stepping forward. The other man was covered in sweat, running the flamethrower stark naked as he forced our attackers back into the airlock. "Come get some!"
I pulled my rifle and LBE out from under the pile, dragging my Kevlar vest along with it since I'd attached the two by running the straps under the shoulder protection. Moving quickly I retreated to the operating theater, dropping it near me.
"Donaldson, we need to start." I barked, running my hands under the sink again.
Outside the Plexi, Kincaid was standing all the way to the door of the airlock and blasting the interior with fire. I could see him lifting the muzzle to arc the flame as far as he could down the hallway on the other side of the wide open and compromised airlock. Wilkins was backed up against the wall, his rifle out and pointing at nothing, but Shads and Donaldson were with me.
Nancy stood at Natchez's head, looking down at him.
"This isn't going to be easy, Ant." She told me. "You'll need to excise some of his tissue, connect the artery to the vein, and remove the lower nerve cluster to hold off some of the phantom pain and sensations." She sighed and looked up, her face spattered with blood, frostbite on her nose and earlobes. Her cheeks were waxy looking and peeling. "I'll walk you through it."
I nodded to her.
"OK, Nancy's Field Surgery qualified. She's going to walk me through it." Donaldson nodded, same as Shads, as if they could see her too. "Anything we miss in the book, she'll point out."
We could hear Kincaid laughing through the Plexi.
It took over two hours before I folded the flaps together and stitched him up. It was ugly, but my stitches were small and neat from long practice. We woke Natchez up at one point and screamed at him to open his hands, that we needed him to open his hands, until his only remaining hand opened, and then we put him back under. Sewing the artery to the vein was strange, but Nancy told me it would keep blood flow proper through his arm.
What did I know? I was just a knuckle dragging thug, she was the educated one of all of us. Bomber was a brain damaged Texan, and I was nothing more than a waste of space with nothing better in my future than dying on some forgotten battlefield.
Twice more they came us.
Twice more Kincaid forced them back. I knew he had to be almost out of fuel, but he never called on Wilkins to reload him.
At least he'd forced Wilkins to help him back into his suit, so he wasn't running the flamethrower with his dick swinging around.
When I staggered out of the trauma bay, I was exhausted. My hands shook, my forearms were cramped, and my back felt like I'd been hit across the kidneys with a bat. I slumped down in one of the chairs by a gurney and went boneless, depending on the chair and physics to keep me in place.
I sure as shit didn't have the energy to.
"He gonna live, Sergeant?" Kincaid asked me, stomping toward me. I just nodded, and he kind of squatted down. I could hear the fans running on his backpack. "Listen, Sergeant, I don't care if you talk to Abe Lincoln in a Speedo and play trivia games with a lizard who lives in your ball sack. I've got your back the whole way, Sergeant."
"Thanks." I told him, rubbing my face. "If I take my meds to make them go away..."
"You'll go to sleep." Kincaid said, nodding inside his helmet. I could see him through the Lexan shield. He was sweating pretty hard, and he looked like he had a sunburn from running the flamethrower without protection. "I'd rather have you awake and talking to old friends than asleep while they kill us all."
He paused for a long moment, looking thoughtful. "The people you talk to, they were with you the whole step of the way, right?" I nodded again, and he suddenly grinned. "Cool, so even if these fucks manage to waste me, as long as you're alive, I'll still be around." His eyes glittered suddenly, and his smile looked... wrong. "I'm immortal. I so fucking rock."
Before I could say anything, he stood up and clomped over to where Donaldson was stripping a gurney and Shads was checking its undercarriage. "Shads, load my last tank, will you?"
Shads nodded, and the two men moved over to where the last fuel pack had been dropped.
"See if there's an extension cord or have him stand next to an outlet so he can charge the lithium battery." I said. I was starting to feel better.
"You OK, Ant?" Nancy asked, kneeling down next to me and putting her hand on my leg.
"I'm all right, Nancy." I told her, looking at her and trying to smile.
"Surgery's exhausting, honey." She told me. "I'd felt better after a 2 mile full gear run than I did after some of the practice surgeries we did." She shrugged, and leaned her head against my leg. "During training, they brought us goats or pigs that had been hit by rifle fire or shrapnel to practice on. By the time I'd be done, I felt like I'd been drug behind a truck."
I nodded, trying to massage out a cramp in my hand.
"Who's he talking to?" Wilkins asked Donaldson, who was standing underneath the decon shower and rinsing off.
"Dude, go away." Donaldson told him, flicking his hand so water sprayed Wilkins. "Probably that Nancy chick."
"But she's not really there." Wilkins sounded almost pleading.
"She is as far as I'm concerned." Donaldson told him, turning his back on Wilkins. "There were a couple things that the book had different than she told him, and his stuff worked better."
"What if he got it wrong?" Wilkins seemed more concerned with Nancy's real or not real status than the fact he was trying to talk a naked man who was busy soaping his balls.
"Dude, go the fuck away." Donaldson turned around and hefted his dick at Wilkins. "Or were you coming over to dry off my cock with your tongue?"
Wilkins stomped away, Donaldson's mocking laughter following him.
I stood up and stretched, feeling my muscles bunch then relax in my shoulders. I winced when I tried to straighten my right arm when it was above shoulder level. I could feel something in there moving and grinding.
When Donaldson got out of the shower, I took his place, putting one hand on the decon button and leaning forward, letting the almost scalding hot water run down my back.
"This ain't nothing, brother." Bomber told me, hopping up on the counter next to me and lighting a cigarette. "Remember when the LT had the shit beat out of us because he was convinced we were KGB."
I nodded, then rolled my neck to crack it.
"We were locked in our room, with nothing but our bare hands and a few knives, and we got out of that shit." He grinned without a bit of humor. "We killed every fucking one of them, and you sure as shit did for the LT. You've got this by the ass."
"True. Could be like later that winter when... when..." My brain suddenly shuddered and stopped, my thoughts freezing up as I approached something I didn't want to remember. Bomber hopped down and touched my shoulder, the water spraying through his solid looking skin. The Fates song began to sound in my ears, gaining volume, telling me what a failure I was, how I'd failed everyone.
I could feel the warmth of his hand.
"Stop. It was a vehicle accident while we were stuck up there again." He said softly. "Just a vehicle accident, brother. Say it with me." His voice drowned out the Fates, her were whispering a single name over and over.
"She died in a vehicle accident while we were at the barracks." I said softly, aware I was crying under the hot water. The song was getting louder.
"There was nothing you could have done to save her with what was going on, Ant. Nothing." Bomber told me, squeezing gently. "Say it with me, brother." I could barely hear him over the sound of the Fates' cruel triumphant chorus.
"I couldn't have saved her." I said softly. I was sobbing and didn't know why, but it felt like a knife was twisting in my gut. "There was nothing I could have done to save her, I was hurt too bad, blind, and dying." I couldn't even pick out individual voices from the Fates' song, just one overwhelming litany of my failures.
Bomber nodded, and I was aware of a hand on my other shoulder. I knew without looking it was Heather's hand. It was warm, comforting, and I could feel our wedding ring on it.
"Hush." Heather told the Fates.
The swelling song of the Fates shattered, and I could hear the spray of the water, everyone moving around, and the noises that the facility made.
"Leave him alone, Bomber." She whispered. "He'll be OK, you're just confusing him."
Bomber nodded, backing up.
"What the fuck is he talking about?" Wilkins asked, loud enough for me to hear.
"That's his business. Mind yours." Kincaid said. His voice wasn't muffled again, he must have taken off his suit while I stood in the shower.
"I'm telling you, he's crazy. He shouldn't be in charge." Wilkins said. "We don't have to listen to him if he's incapable of command. He's on goddamn medication because he's crazy."
"Wilkins, I'm going to tell you one last fucking time." Kincaid snarled. "Sergeant Ant has gotten us this far, we'd all be fucking dead from those things or the goddamn CIA assholes if it wasn't for him."
"But..." Wilkins started.
"Shut the fuck up." Kincaid continued. "I don't give a shit if he thinks he's the goddamn Energizer Bunny, he's the reason we're fucking alive, and that's all I care about."
"But..."
"Say one more thing, Wilkins." Kincaid's voice was soft, deadly. "One. More. Thing."
"One of us should..."
I turned in time to see a naked Kincaid bury his fist in Wilkins' stomach, the other man folding over and retching. Before he could recover Kincaid drove an elbow into the back of Wilkins' head, throwing him to the ground. Kincaid dropped down, a knee in the middle of Wilkins' back, grabbed him under the chin, and hauled him backwards, so he was arced back painfully.
"I don't know if the Army calls what you're trying to do mutiny or not." Kincaid snarled at him. "I don't give a shit. Either shut your fucking mouth or..." Kincaid dragged his thumbnail across Wilkins' exposed throat. "I'll fucking do you."
He let let go of Wilkins and walked toward me, grabbing a towel off of one of the gurneys and tossing it to me when I stepped out of the water.
"I'm gonna wash the piss off my legs." He said, stepping by me. "I think I'll thread the dick-wire when I put the suit back on."
"Good plan." I told him, drying off. Wilkins was getting up, his face beet red. I could tell Wilkins was furious that Kincaid had man-handled him again, embarrassed him in front of the conscious members of our little squad. When he reached for his rifle, Donaldson grabbed it and just stared at him.
"Problem?" Donaldson asked, dropping out the magazine and racking the charging handle so the loaded round flew across the room.
Shads bent down and picked it up.
"I'm fucking sick of Kincaid thinking he can get away with hitting me." Wilkins said, fury making his voice shake. "I don't have to take that shit off of him."
"Then keep your goddamn mouth shut and stop trying to undermine me." I told him, stepping up from behind him. "Do you think I can't fucking hear you?"
He turned around, his mouth opened and closing wordlessly.
"I'm ugly, not deaf or stupid." I told him.
His eyes flicked down to my chest, to the scars, to where the bruising from my shoulder colored the flesh in various yellow, purple, red, and brown bruising. The tattoo on my chest, and the tattoo on my shoulder. He glanced down at my waist, where the scar went from under my belly button to my hip bone.
"Yes, I should be taking my medication." I told him. His eyes jerked back to mine. "Yes, I suffer from headaches and hallucinations unless I take my medication." I waved at the heat discolored airlock that Kincaid had held.
"Adrenaline flushes my medications out of my system unless I take a heavier backup dose or other medications to help bind with the adrenaline." I told him. "The side effect is that I go to sleep for a few hours."
I pointed at the charred and greasy remains of the creatures that attacked us.
"Do you think they'll wait till I finish a fucking nap?" I asked him.
He shook his head, a spastic, jerking motion.
"Then either head back on your own, or stick with us." I pointed at the airlock we'd come in through. "There it is. Step or shut the fuck up."
His eyes looked a little wild when he looked at the airlock we'd come through. He looked at me, and I could see he almost tried calling what he wanted to believe was a bluff.
"Wilkins, we have to work together, if we don't, we'll get picked off one by one." I told him. "Natchez got nailed even though we were together, think of how long you'll last in the dark by yourself."
He nodded, the flush fading from his face as he paled.
"You saw it. It's snowing in those tunnels. There's something in those tunnels that is stalking us, playing with us. How long do you think you'll last till you find out what it is?" I asked him, still trying to be reasonable. He swallowed thickly and nodded. "Stick with us, worry about your part of the mission, and we've got a better chance to survive."
He looked doubtful, stepping back from me, obviously uncomfortable with the fact I was naked and still damp from the shower. Behind us Kincaid was (badly) singing "I always feel like, someone's watching me! When I'm the shower, I'm afraid to wash my hair, I might open my eyes and find cannibals standing there!"
"You might be right, I might be totally crazy." I admitted. He nodded, and opened his mouth. "But! I know how these places are laid out. I know how to open the internal doors even if the power goes out. I know how to decipher what the labels on doors and hallways mean." I grinned at him. "I can even restart the emergency reactor, bring it off of standby, and if I absolutely have to, I can bring the reactor out of storage mode and get it hot and running."
I stepped back from him and started drying off my stomach. "Do you?"
He shook his head.
"Just do what I tell you to do, and I'll do my best to get you out of here." I told him. "Alive."
He nodded again.
"Now go help Shads get a gurney ready for us to transport Natchez on." I told him, flipping the towel behind me so I could dry off my back. He nodded again and I watched him move over by Shads, who had him start stripping the extraneous crap off the bottom of the gurney.
Above them the camera tracked Wilkins, then slowly moved back to me.
I looked at Donaldson, who had moved back over to Natchez to check his vitals on the various machines we had him hooked into. He tilted his head at the camera and then nodded.
Someone was watching us.
Good call, Kincaid. I'd almost missed it.
When Kincaid got out of the shower, I had him search all the cabinets and shelves, looking for any uniforms he could find. He came up empty, so we put back on our damp and charcoal stained uniforms after we each showered. Natchez was moved to the gurney, wrapped in blankets, then strapped down, covered in more blankets, then his Kevlar was put over his chest before another thin blanket was put on top of him. The IV pole had extra bags hanging off of it. He was low on blood, but I was hoping the ringers would help him out. I couldn't risk having any of the others give him a blood transfusion and weakening themselves.
It was a shitty decision, I didn't like it, but I made it anyway.
The memory of what I'd done, how I'd done it, was already fading, receding into some kind of mental fog where I could only remember snippets, some of it weirdly enough as if I was standing just over my own shoulder and watching.
"Everyone ready?" I asked when we were gathered up next to the airlock that we'd come in through. The entry door was already open, and Shads was going to throw the bar on the external door then rush back behind Kincaid.
Everyone nodded, grunted, or said they were ready. Well, Wilkins grunted, Shads nodded from where he was holding onto the bar, Donaldson said he was ready, and Kincaid popped the igniter on the flamethrower.
Natchez didn't say anything, but I figured he was as ready as he was going to be.
"Let's move, men." I said.
Shads threw the bar twice and moved behind Kincaid. The sirens and lights kicked on, but no spray came down, and the door started to raise.
Snow blew into the airlock from under the door, swirling around our feet, and we could all feel the temperature drop suddenly.
Too long fingers, their ends nothing more than tattered flesh with sharp fingerbones poking out, appeared under the door, curling around the bottom on our side, and a low chuckle could be heard even over the wail of the sirens.
"Close it! Close it!" I bellowed out.
"FUCK YOU!" Kincaid howled out, stepping forward and crouching down, his knee almost touching the floor but not quite. He triggered a burst from the flamethrower, hosing it under the door, spattering the steel door and the floor too.
There was an unearthly scream of rage and pain, impossibly loud, that pushed us, made us stagger back, as something on the other side of the door howled in fury and sudden surprising agony.
"Fall back! Fall back!" I shouted, grabbing Kincaid and tugging. "Fall back!"
The hands, blackened and wreathed in flame, were still on the bottom of the door. I could hear the gears and hydraulic pistons screaming as pressure was put on those hands.
Shads jumped forward, grabbing the bar and pumping it twice before scampering behind us. Kincaid stood up when Shads moved in, backing up with me, and I could sense Donaldson and Wilkins pulling Natchez backwards into the emergency treatment center.
The door slammed down, the fingers vanishing a split second before the door sunk into the socket. The alarms cut off, and the lights panels snapped closed again.
"Fucker was waiting for us." Kincaid yelled. Even through the muffling of the suit I could tell he was pissed. "Goddamn it, how did he know? This is goddamn bullshit. I swear to God I'm going to burn his ass down."
"I don't think it will work." Shads said. "It hurts him, but I don't think it'll stop him."
"What makes you say that?" I asked him, moving over to the only airlock we hadn't opened up. We knew one led to wherever those things were lairing up, the other led back to Tandy/Bishop, that left the third one, which simply read "MEDICAL OPERATIONS" on the door.
"The flesh on the fingers didn't char or blacken, even though the hands were on fire." Shads said, moving up next to me and taking the bar. "I'll do it. I think the fire was just residual fuel burning off that got on it."
"Makes sense." I told him, dropping back next to Kincaid and bringing my rifle back up to port arms.
"He was screaming. It hurts him. That means I can kill him." Kincaid said, popping the igniter again.
"I scream when I cum, that doesn't mean you're hurting me." Nancy laughed, reaching out and running one hand across the fuel tanks. "Maybe Tandy thinks him and Kincaid are going out since they had a little foreplay."
"Did anyone else hear something?" Kincaid asked, turning slightly, trying to look behind him. "I thought I heard a woman's voice."
Nancy grinned from next to him.
"You overheating in that thing?" Donaldson asked. "There's no woman here."
"Can I keep him? He can wear a collar, sleep at my feet in bed, and I'll even feed him off my plate, slip him goodies under the table when he isn't licking my pussy at dinner." Nancy grinned.
"I'm telling you, I hear a woman." Kincaid said, twisting around the other way. "Are the speakers turned down low? Does this thing have a radio?"
"Drink your water." I told him. We'd refilled his water-pack using IV bags. He'd need the saline and the other stuff in them. "Shads, climb up and put your ear to that speaker, see if the system is broadcasting."
Shads let go of the bar and nodded, climbing up on the counter and listening close to the speaker.
"No, but I think I hear something too." He said, moving over to the vent. He peered into it, then put his head next to it. "It's coming from here." He looked at us. "Kincaid's right, I can hear a woman."
Nancy grinned at me, then walked through the closed door.
"Open the door, Shads, let's see what we've got." I ordered. Shads dropped off the counter and moved up to the door, grabbing the bar and throwing it from the down position to the up position.
The door shuddered, and we could all hear the sound of the master cylinder pressurizing. It took a minute before it began slowly rising, only a faint thump heard through the wall the door was set in. Shads knelt down to look, and blinked when the lights cut on on the other side of the door before the door was even up more than a few inches.
"...GENCY TECHNICAL TEAMS TO MAIN COMPUTER SYSTEMS! REPEAT! THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM. ALL EMERGENCY TECHNICAL TEAMS TO MAIN COMPUTER SYSTEMS FOR BRIEFING AND TRAINING! ALL SHIFTS AND SHIFT LEADERS FOR ALL EMERGENCY TECHNICAL TEAMS TO MAIN COMPUTER SYSTEMS!" blared out, immediately looping and repeating the message again.
Fuck. That wasn't good.
The hallway on the other side was tiled, white and antiseptic looking. Signs warned that whoever was in the hallway was about to enter an emergency triage and operating center and were warned that washing their hands prevented the spread of disease.
The hallway was immaculate. Only a few lightbulbs exploded, and the sudden brightness was almost blinding, even though the operating bay I'd used was lit better, this seemed brighter somehow.
"Let's go. Stay close." I told them. "Kincaid, you're behind me."
If anything happened, either Kincaid would move up past me, or I'd drop behind him. Shads was supposed to provide support to both Kincaid and me, Wilkins was supposed to push Natchez, and Donaldson was supposed to pull drag, keep an eye out for anyone running up our ass, and protect Natchez.
We passed by the doors marked patient recovery, inpatient quarters, operating theaters, nuclear medicine, stopping at each intersection to stare at the placards and hoping we were heading for the elevators and not in a big circle.
The elevators were in sight when the lights flickered twice and died.
The woman's voice, who had been haranguing the tech teams, slowed down to a crawl and died all together.
"If it wasn't for the dark I'd be happy she finally shut up." Kincaid said, popping the igniter.
"Give it a second, and shh." I listened closely.
No air pumps, no fans, nothing. Just silent and dark. I reached up and flicked on my flashlight.
The white hallway shone in the bluish white light from my flashlight. I'd bought hot-shit lightbulbs, Xenon or some shit, or maybe Krypton, all I knew is that the Shoppette had bragged they had about 10X power as a normal bulb. Of course, it was $4.50 for a pack of 2 instead of 5 for a dollar.
"This doesn't feel right." Wilkins said quietly.
"The fans are off." I said, moving up to the elevators and waving them.
Even the little white ring was dark.
"What does..." Shads started to say.
The lights came back on suddenly. The woman's voice went from a slowed down rumble to a high pitched gabbling scream that made no sense. The lights throbbed, going from pale yellow to bright white. The fluorescents almost seemed to scream as they flickered faster and faster until they were nothing but a harsh white bar.
"Cover Natchez!" I yelled out, turning away and shielding my eyes from the light.
The woman's voice was nothing more than one long screeching yowl, and I was aware of sirens kicking on, strobing faster and faster, until they joined the howl. I could hear fans roaring, and faintly smell scorched metal.
With one long rippling crack all the lights exploded. The woman's voice cut back out, and the hallway went silent except for Kincaid's suit fans and the hissing of the flamethrower.
That and our curses, that is.
"Shit." I said, looking back up.
Plates slid back in the walls, revealing red emergency lights that snapped on, bathing us all in blood.
"What now?" Wilkins asked. He didn't sound sarcastic, just scared.
"Back up, Sergeant Ant needs room to find the access." Donaldson said, and I could hear the wheels squeak on the tile as they backed Natchez up.
I searched the wall until I found the small plug set into the tile. It was in between two normal wall outlets, both of them covered with child-safety tabs.
"What's he doing?" Wilkins asked when I pulled the Claymore clacker out of my pocket and plugged it into the wall after thumbing down the safety and clicking it twice to check the little white spot to see if it went orange. The clacker was good, which was a nice change in our luck.
"Opening the doors to the stairs." Donaldson said.
"What fucking stairs?" Wilkins asked.
"Fire in the hole." I said, clacking it three times.
On the far side of the elevators a wall plate jumped off the wall with a ringing clang. Tile exploded from it to shatter on the floor. A thick layer of asbestos and insulation covered the inner side of the steel plate, scorched and smoking from where the micro-charges had gone off.
"Those stairs." Donaldson told him.
Shads and I threw the plate out of the way, grunting at the weight. It was heavy as hell, a lot more heavier than it looked. Then we used our feet to scrape the tile away so that they could get the gurney up to the opening.
"Kincaid, for the love of all that's holy, don't fire that fucking thing in the stairwell access, you'll fucking cook us." I told him. He nodded behind the face shield, licking his lips.
I turned to the others. "Donaldson, Shads, Wilkins, you'll trade off carrying Natchez up the stairs. Kincaid, you have drag, Wilkins, hand me your M-16." Wilkins looked a bit rebellious, but handed it to me anyway. I pulled out my Leatherman tool and popped the trigger guard off so it swung free. "There, you should be able to use this." Donaldson had thrown off all of Natchez's blankets and was trying to pull him into the Kevlar.
Kincaid nodded when I handed it to him, turning off the flamethrower and hanging it from the backpack in a smooth overhanded motion.
The boy was born to run one.
"I'll take point. Stay a flight behind me, don't come up to the next landing until I reach it." I told them. They nodded. Shads had helped Donaldson sit Natchez up so they could drape his battle-rattle around him as best the could. Shads put Natchez's boots back on him and tied them quickly and sloppily.
I looked up the stairwell. It vanished into the darkness, and I caught a whiff of rotting meat.
"He's ready." Donaldson said.
"Shads, Wilkins, you two first." I told them. Shads nodded, and grabbed the shoulder pads of Natchez's Kevlar vest. Wilkins grabbed his boots, and they slid the man off the gurney, Wilkins stepping between his legs and grabbing him at his bare thighs.
Donaldson pulled out a handful of chemlights, quickly stripping off the metallicized plastic wrappers and snapping them. He shook them, then moved to each person, tucking them where he could. He stared at Kincaid for a moment, then shrugged and shoved one into the fuel case and just handed the other to him. Kincaid tucked it between the armored suit and his LBE.
Down the hall, one of the red lights in the distance exploded.
"Sergeant, I think we need to get moving." Shads said as another one, this one closer, went out in a shower of sparks.
"Move out." I told them, hustling into the stairwell. My flashlight wasn't much help, the shaft was about sixty feet across, the stairs at least six feet across, and they wound up to vanish into the darkness.
I moved up the steps, deliberately stomping, feeling it rattle under me. When I got to the first landing, I grabbed the railing and started pulling back and forth, trying to set up a rhythm to get it to start swaying. It didn't work too well, the stairs just groaning.
"Clear." I told them, heading up the next set of spirals to the landing. I tried shaking it, then told them to come up before heading up again.
"Fucking rust." Shads sputtered, trying to spit out the rust flakes that were showering down on them as I moved to the next set and shook it. It swayed slightly, and something went "PING!" in the darkness.
"Goddamn, this is creepy." Kincaid bitched.
The stench of rotting meat got stronger.
"Stay sharp, I think they're around." I told them as I moved up to the sixth landing. That was the first one with another panel, the plastique and det-cord wired on the door and the wires leading into a length of PVC pipe and vanishing at the wall of the shaft. On the back of the plate, my side of the plate, was stenciled "SUB-NINE".
"Move up." I told them, leaving the door behind and moving up.
The spiral wound around about six times before I caught sight of the next access point.
This one was missing the plate. The stench of rotting meat was billowing in from the missing plate, and I suppressed an urge to retch. In between me and the landing were stacks of cardboard boxes, soggy and foul smelling, broken chairs, a mattress, and unidentifiable debris.
Cursing, I set to work, and cleared it out fairly quickly, throwing the pieces over the railing and into the gap between the spirals to fall into the depths.
When my flashlight panned over the opening, I could see the hallway beyond. The walls were smeared with primitive designs in either shit or blood, or maybe something that their shamans or wise-men brewed. Crude mushroom clouds. Crying small stick figures holding onto the hands of larger crying stick figures. Crying little stick figures with dead stick figure dogs.
The floor was covered with a thick blackish looking gunk.
That wasn't what held my attention though.
My light must have alerted them, or maybe my big clomping clown feet as I moved up the spiral steps.
There were six of them, crouched down and waiting, and as soon as I reached the landing and turned, then exploded into motion, charging at me. One knocked me off balance, knocking my rifle out of the way, and another grabbed my arm with both hands and bit deep into my forearm, the wrenching on my arm making my shoulder scream in agony as the arm was pushed past the max rotation I could do after the last surgery. Something inside my shoulder gave with a weird tearing and popping feeling, and my whole arm went numb, my rifle dropping from my hand. Another went low, wrapping his arms around my low while still another went for my left arm.
I managed to get my arm out of the way, to my waist, and pull my knife free as I let myself be shoved against the railing, setting my feet as soon as my back hit.
"Sergeant!" Someone, maybe Shads, yelled from down at the last landing.
I could see more in the hallway as I drove the knife into the back of the one that had me around the waist, the one trying to lift me up and throw me over the railing. The one with my arm was wrenching at it, like he was trying to take it off at the shoulder joint, and I could feel the burn from where he was biting me through my BDU's. One was grabbing at my leg, trying to lift it up, and the one that had initially hit me had a hold on my rifle, trying to pull the sling over his buddy's head.
"I'M THE FIFTY FOOT ANT AND THIS HERE'S MY FUCKING STAIRWELL!" I bellowed as the one at my waist screamed and let go. He collapsed into his friend, and I pivoted at the waist and stabbed the guy holding onto my arm twice under the bottom of the right side of his rib cage. Blackish blood poured out of his mouth as he collapsed, and the one tugging at my rifle looked at me with wide eyes.
My legs were free, and I stepped sideways into the one still holding onto my rifle, slamming the knife up under his sternum and twisting it before kneeing him off the knife.
My arm fell to my side, and my rifle fell down the steps. The tingling changed, and the way it ground inside let me know it was dislocated again.
Two more came at me, I kicked the first in the gut, drove my knife into the second and brought my knee up into the gut of the one I'd just stabbed before pivoting to let him fall off of the knife. The one leaning forward and retching I stabbed in his left, making sure I didn't hit the shoulder blade and hitting just to his left of his spine.
He dropped off the knife.
The one that had grabbed my leg and tried to fling me over the railing had managed to push his buddy off, and I stepped forward and kicked him under the chin as hard as I could. Dead or not, he dropped, and I turned as two more came through the doorway. I dodged the first one and stepped into the second one, letting him impale himself on the knife and fall away. The other one had hit the railing, and when I turned around, he was holding onto the railing and trying to keep from overbalancing.
I punched him in the back of the head and he flipped forward, vanishing into the darkness with a wailing scream.
When I spun around, knife up and ready, the entry was empty.
Donaldson came running up the stairs, his rifle out, and stopped on the landing I was on, staring at the wall my light was shining on.
At our feet, one of them groaned and twitched, and I stepped forward and stomped on his head with everything I had.
"Grab my wrist." I told him, managing to flop my arm around.
"Roger." He said, letting go of his weapon and grabbing my wrist with both hands. He pulled it up, straight out, and I groaned, feeling more sweat cover me. I looped my other arm around the railing.
"Do it." I told him. He nodded.
"On three." He told me. I nodded at him, sweating, watching the opening.
"One..." He suddenly yanked, and the joint popped back into place with a loud snapping noise.
It felt like there was a rock stuck in there, but I could move my fingers and move my arm again.
"Get up here, hurry up!" Donaldson yelled as I sagged against the railing in relief. The stairs shook as the other men quickly moved up them. Donaldson threw the bodies back into the hallway, watching the opening the whole time.
I just leaned against the railing, waiting for the shakes to pass.
Finally the others were up on the landing, Kincaid had two weapons in his hands, and I recognized my rifle.
"You dropped this." He told me, grinning behind the face shield.
"What's so goddamn funny?" I asked him, waving at them to follow me as I moved up the next set of spirals.
"Do you remember what you yelled?" He asked, chuckling. Shads laughed.
"No. Why?" The stairs were stained black, and crude drawings were on the walls that made no sense. Most of them were spirals, squares, mushroom clouds, crude cars, what I thought was the moon, and a few were small crying stick figures moving into a cave with angry looking stick figures pointing at the cave.
What they might mean made me sick to my stomach.
"So, when you referred to yourself as the 'fifty foot ant', are you fifty feet high or fifty feet long?" Kincaid asked, laughing.
"Or do you have fifty feet?" Shads asked, snickering. "How much do you spend on boots, Sergeant?"
"Shut the fuck up." I said, feeling my ears redden.
"Seriously? Your nickname is the fifty foot ant?" Donaldson asked, and I could tell he was barely able to keep from laughing.
"It's a long fucking story." I told them.
"When we get back, you're fucking telling it." Kincaid laughed. "I gotta hear how you ended up with that fucking name."
"So, was like that your call sign during Desert Storm?" Shads asked, and all of them except Wilkins burst out laughing.
"Oh shut up." I told them. "Another access point's coming."
This one was blown open too, but nobody rushed us as we moved past.
"Fifty foot ant, seriously?" Kincaid chuckled.
They kept poking fun at me as moved through the darkness of the shaft. After three levels, the panels weren't blown open. The last one, we had to clear away wreckage that someone had piled on the stairs as if to block them.
"Now what, Sergeant Ant." Kincaid asked. He didn't use my name, but actually 'ant' when he said it.
"I'll blow off the panel, and we'll go back, smartass." I told him. He was panting and moving slower, the long climb in the armored suit with the flamethrower on his back really taking it out of him. We'd had to stop longer for everyone to rest, setting Natchez down on the steel grates while everyone sat down.
He'd started to come around once, and Shads popped him full of more morphine.
It took a few moments to trace the wires and find out where to stick the clacker in. There was one above the port, which should have made it obvious. When Donaldson saw it, he grabbed it and dropped it in his pocket.
"Fire in the hole." I called out, then snapped the clacker. There was a sharp crack that echoed and reechoed through the shaft, and the steel plate popped off, falling into the hallway on the other side with a loud clatter.
Blessed light streamed in. The power was on, at least up on this level. It was almost a religious experience seeing it.
I moved up through the smoke, waving my hand in front of my face and coughing, and stepped into the hallway.
Brushed steel, and instantly recognizable.
We were on the top floor, at the elevators just outside the living quarters area, between living quarters and the administration offices.
"Grab Natchez, double time it." I told them. I knew where to go.
We hurried as fast as we could, Shads slinging Natchez over his shoulders, Kincaid shuffling along in his armored suit holding onto his flamethrower, Wilkins rearmed with his own weapon and carrying Natchez's gear along with his.
I was staggering by the time we hit the entrance to the Officer's Quarters, running on adrenaline and stubborness.
"Hurry up, Ant." Bomber said while I punched in the code as fast as I could.
"I'm hurrying, Bomber." I told him.
"Those CIA goons are right behind you." He warned me.
"Kincaid, check our six, if you see those CIA assholes, burn them down." I told him.
"With pleasure, Sergeant." He replied, moving to the back.
The door thumped, and began to raise.
"Someone's back there, they took off running away when I popped my baby up." Kincaid told me. I could hear the pressurized hiss from the flamethrower underlying his words. "I think they're back at the intersection."
When the door raised up there were two of the Major's men, Meatheads I hadn't bothered numbering or naming, standing there pointing rifles at us.
"Thank God. We thought you guys were dead." One of them said.
"Major! Sergeant Ant and the others are back!" The other yelled.
"Out of the way, jackasses, I've got wounded." Shads said, pushing by me.
When the men saw Natchez, they exclaimed loudly, both asking if he was alive, what had happened, what was going on.
"Hurry up!" I said, waving everyone in.
Kincaid was backing up, flames dripping from the end of the muzzle. The barrel was obviously shot. We'd either have to find an armory that had a new one, or I'd have to figure something out, or Kincaid would have to abandon his baby.
When he reached us, I hit the bar and the door started sliding shut.
Three shots rang out from down the corridor we'd just left.
As the door slid shut, Kincaid went down on his knees.