"You have got to be kidding me," Eric whispered.
"Well," Vanessa said from behind him, glancing over his shoulder, "it is called fuel storage."
Eric sighed softly and continued staring down the alcove of space that was ahead of him, created between twin rows of stacked, bright silver-and-red barrels of fuel. They said so themselves, each of them stamped with big, bold lettering that proclaimed: FUEL.
"We have to go through here?" Steven asked softly.
"Yes, we do. This is the most direct route to the airfield. In fact, that door down there, all the way at the end, basically lets out onto the airfield itself," Eric replied.
"This is incredibly risky," Vanessa murmured.
"We don't know if anything's in there," Eric replied.
"Exactly," Vanessa said.
From somewhere ahead, a zombie groaned. Eric sighed again, more loudly. "Great. Well, now we know, at least."
"Maybe we should consider the alternate route," Vanessa said.
"After what happened back at the freight yards, I think this might actually be less dangerous." He kept staring at the dozens upon dozens of fuel barrels. "Probably..."
Neither responded to him. The implication was clear: it was his decision to make. This was one of those situations where he really wished he didn't have to be in charge. After a few seconds, he realized that he was just delaying the inevitable by pretending to waffle about it.
"Okay," he said, and he flipped the safety on his machine gun and let it hang, then did the same for his shotgun, "we're going through. Under no circumstances is a trigger to be pulled. No guns fired. Only melee. Do you understand me?" he asked, turning to look at them.
They both nodded slowly, then began to flip the safeties on. He finished by putting the safety on his pistol, reholstering it, and then pulling out the combat knife that he'd grabbed from one of the dead Marines. "Steven, you still got that wrench?"
"Yeah," Steven replied.
"Be prepared to use it, but honestly, we're going to try and hurry through and avoid conflict at all costs. Do not touch the barrels, stay away from them as much as possible. I'm going to go first, wait for me to make some distance, then you go Vanessa, then Steven. Try not to get too close to each other. If we are going to have to fight, it's going to be brutal, and I don't want to accidentally stab either one of you. Okay...questions?"
There were none. Eric nodded. "Let's do this."
He moved up to the threshold between the corridor he was standing in and the fuel storage facility. For a few seconds he stood there, staring down the length of the room, trying to judge its distance. It had to be a good hundred and fifty feet.
Damn, this was going to suck.
Gripping the knife tightly, he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then stepped into the room beyond. Already, he could smell the powerful, pungent reek of fuel and it got worse as he started striding down the room, trying to get to that door as fast as he could. There were gaps in the barrels to the left and the right, likely mini-alcoves or access points to other areas in the room. The direct way ahead was clear, but that didn't mean much right now. His whole body tensing in anticipation, Eric kept walking, making for that far door.
Towards freedom.
He heard Vanessa start walking. Seconds seemed to be taking whole minutes to go by, stretching out painfully.
Something groaned up ahead, and then a zombie stepped out right in his path.
"Damn," he whispered.
It started coming directly towards him. Eric brought the knife back, preparing himself. This was going to have to be both swift and accurate. He wait two seconds as the zombie came towards him, then stepped forward, practically into its arms. As it prepared to swipe at him with those long, razor-like fingers, he jabbed the blade directly into the headcrab's body as hard as he could. The zombie froze up, and as he yanked it back out, it dropped to the floor. Eric let out his breath in a long exhalation. Okay, so, he could do this.
Which was good, because he heard more zombies.
He kept going, moving forward to meet them. Keep it steady, keep it tight, he told himself. Another zombie stepped out and he moved forward in two quick steps, then stabbed it through the face as he had the other one. This one let out a squeal and went down as he tore his blade out in a spray of yellow-red blood. Another three had joined him in the corridor, and behind him, he could hear Vanessa fighting as well.
Great. This was not going as he had hoped.
Eric stepped forward and jabbed the blade into the third zombie. It had the desired effect, only this time he couldn't yank it out. Instead, the zombie yanked it out of his grasp as it dropped to the floor. The blade had become embedded in the thing's skull. Talk about bad luck. With no other recourse, Eric freed the strangely painted black-and-white crowbar from his belt, raised it, and brought it down as hard as he could on the skull of the next zombie coming for him. There was a sickening crunch and a spray of blood, but the grasping terror merely staggered. Letting out a shout of exertion, he repeated the action, spraying his bulletproof vest with more monster blood. That did it. The zombie went down, joining the others.
Eric kept going, as another two zombies had joined him.
His arm rose and fell furiously as he beat the zombies down as fast as he could, staying clear of the rows of large, shiny fuel barrels. Even striking one of them might be enough to set them off. Eric brought his crowbar down one more time, and with another sharp crack, the final zombie fell. Breathing heavily, sweating now, he looked around frantically, seeing if any other hostiles had wandered in while he was busy.
All he saw was Vanessa pulling her knife out of a zombie corpse.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Fine," Vanessa replied.
"Y-yeah," Steven said.
"Okay, let's get the hell-" A loud hum began to fill the air. "Oh crap, come on! Come on!" he said, beckoning urgently at them. The pair began hurrying over the bodies to get to him. Eric turned and started running. He'd made it about halfway so far. He knew what that hum meant: one of those alien slaves was preparing to teleport in. Or more. Stepping over the corpses he'd made, Eric finally hit steady ground and started running.
He almost made it.
There was a flash of light dead ahead of him and an alien slave popped into existence. Partially blinded by the light, Eric realized he had no choice: he kept on running. There was just barely enough time to bring the crowbar up and then smash it down onto the oddly-shaped skull of the alien slave. There was a horrible, wet crunch and the thing let out an awful sound of fury or pain, probably both. It tried to slash at him with its claws as he smashed into it, but it quickly lost its balance and both of them went tumbling.
Eric scrambled to get at least partially upright. He had to kill this thing, and kill it right now. If it let off an energy discharge in here, it could kill them all. He finally managed to get onto his knees and he brought the crowbar down on it several times, the horrible crunching sounds filling his ears as blood splashed across the area.
Finally, he was left gasping for breath and shaky with adrenaline. Not wanting to be here if anything else showed up, he lurched to his feet and kept going. Crossing the last of the distance, he hit the door and opened it up.
"Come on!" he called, squinting into the bright sunlight.
The door led outside, and as he stepped out, he immediately heard a lot of sounds he didn't want to: orders being shouted, machinery running, pounding footsteps. Everything seemed to happen really fast after that. As his vision slid into focus, he saw a concrete barrier directly ahead of him and moved forward to duck behind it, hissing for the others to get down. At the same time, he swept the area with his gaze.
They had indeed come to the airfield.
And it was completely under the control of the United States Marine Corps. He could see dozens of figures, most of them gathered across the way, at the far end of the field where a control tower and a few buildings sat. But there were others that were closer, a few squads out on patrol maybe, sweeping the area for hostiles.
And planes, he saw a few planes. There was a big cargo plane that clearly the military had brought in, but he saw a few much smaller planes across from where they were. Right as he began thinking about maybe sneaking over there and the others came out of the fuel depot to crouch down beside him, two things happened. Someone shouted, and a spray of gunfire stabbed out at them. Eric heard the meaty impact of a bullet finding its mark and at the same instant felt something hot and wet spray the back of his neck and head.
He twisted around as he frantically grabbed for his assault rifle.
Steven was on the asphalt, limbs askew, blood leaking rapidly out of the crater that now was in the side of his skull.
"Steven!" Eric screamed.
A surge of blinding red rage swept over him and he finished snatching the rifle up.
"Hold fire, goddamnit! That's the fuel depot!" someone shouted.
Running footsteps.
"Drop your weapons!"
They were closing in.
Eric aimed and fired.
The gun clicked. For a few seconds, he had no idea what had gone wrong. And then, right as they finished closing the gap between them, he remembered: they'd turned their safeties on. And then a shadow fell across him.
He looked up, into the flinty eyes of a man in combat armor, his face sweaty and stained with dark stubble, and then the man brought the butt of his rifle down on Eric's head.
* * *
"Hey, I think one of them is coming around."
"Maybe we should check to make sure."
"Don't. Staff Sergeant's already pissed at you for capping that tech."
"What difference does it make? They're all gonna die anyway."
Eric heard this conversation drifting through his aching skull as he was deposited unceremoniously back onto the rocky shores of consciousness. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to be awake. He didn't want to be here, in this world of pain. But he didn't have any choice, and Eric hadn't made a habit of shying away from doing things he had to do.
He opened his eyes and took stock of the situation.
It was pretty bad.
His head felt like it had been cracked open, his hands were bound roughly behind his back, he was in some kind of office, and Vanessa was passed out beside him, equally bound. Two Marines in desert camo stood over him, towered over him really, looking big and bulky in their combat vests and gear. Their eyes were hard and flat.
"And he's awake," one of them said. He sounded cruel.
The other man crouched down in front of Eric. "I'm going to give you some advice, man. When the Staff Sergeant comes in to ask you questions, don't BS around, don't be a smartass, just...tell him what he wants to know. He's in a really bad mood."
"You think I'm not?" Eric replied.
The man snorted. "Fair point, I guess."
"All of you can go to hell."
The Marine frowned suddenly and his confident mask seemed to slip briefly. "Probably," he said softly.
Before he could say anything further, they heard a loud voice come echoing to them from elsewhere in the building, getting closer. It had to be the Staff Sergeant, and he sure as hell didn't sound like he was in a good mood. The voice drew closer until it paused just outside the closed door. Eric could see a shadowy figure through the frosted glass.
"I don't care, just get it done you sack of dirt!"
The door suddenly flew open and a large, built, grizzled-looking man stomped in. The two Marines snapped to attention, stepping back against the wall. "Finally," the man growled, looking at Eric. He held a rolled up piece of paper in his hand. Marching over, he grabbed a chair and dragged it noisily in front of Eric. He sat down, then unrolled the piece of paper he was holding and placed it on the tiled floor between them, holding it down with his boots.
"I'd really like to keep this simple," he said. He sounded very tired. "Show me on the map where your friends are hiding."
Eric felt a wave of anger surge through him like he'd been lit up by lightning. "As one ex-Marine to a current one: go to hell. You're a disgrace to the corps. And you're going to kill me anyway, why the hell would I help you?"
The man regarded him with a mildly curious gaze. "You're an ex-Marine? What happened?"
"I refused to kill some civilians," Eric replied.
The Staff Sergeant sighed and ran a hand over his tired, sweaty face. "What a goddamned mess this is. I don't like this crap any more than you do."
"I think I like it less. You sit here and follow orders from some up-his-own-ass politician who's caught between covering his own ass and giving a reach around to his corporate investors, murdering American citizens and innocent civilians, and you expect me to go with it? I would rather die than help you," Eric growled.
The man stared at him with tired eyes, and then they hardened up. He heaved a sigh and held out his hand. "Fine, we do it the hard way."
One of the Marines stepped forward and slapped a combat knife into his hand. The Staff Sergeant stood up and stared down at Eric, knife in hand. "Last chance," he said.
"Piss off," Eric replied.
His frown deepened, and he began to crouch.
Eric prepared himself for the brutal end inasmuch as he could, (he was already in a lot of pain as it was), but instead of pain the world decided to deliver a surprise to them all. An explosion rocked the area and a huge fireball threw a glaring orange-yellow light into the room.
"What the-" The Staff Sergeant shot to his feet and rushed over to a window. Something let out a massive drilling sound that almost seemed like a roar. Immediately, Eric heard a lot of screaming and gunfire and explosions.
"What is that thing!?" the Staff Sergeant cried in genuine panic.
He turned and ran out of the room, calling for the other two Marines to follow him. Within seconds, Eric and Vanessa were left alone.
"What the hell is happening?" she asked groggily.
"We were captured, Steven's dead, something massive is attacking the area," Eric replied. He began shifting around and managed to get his hands under his feet and to his front. Carefully, he got to his feet, listening to the all-out firefight that had broken out in the area beyond. His mind working overtime, he looked around. There! On a nearby table, he saw a few of his items: the crowbar, his Desert Eagle still in its holster, and a combat knife. He hurried over and snatched up the combat knife, then moved over to Vanessa.
"Here, get up," he said. "We've gotta go, now."
She grunted with effort, getting to her feet, then presented her hands to him. They had thankfully gotten them done up with plastic cinches instead of traditional handcuffs. He took the precious time to cut through Vanessa's cinches as the building shook violently around them.
"What the hell is out there?!" she asked as she accepted the knife and returned the favor.
"I don't know, nothing we've faced so far," Eric replied.
Even the big tripod thing seemed like it would pale in comparison to whatever was out there. As soon as his hands were free, he gave Vanessa the knife, then snatched up the Desert Eagle and crowbar. As he began fitting them back in place, (he was glad that they hadn't taken his bulletproof vest at least), he joined her at the window.
They looked down onto a scene of unmitigated chaos.
They had been taken to the control tower, he saw at once, at the other end of the airfield. Dead ahead of them, three stories down in a large lot that had been converted into a military headquarters, a terrifying behemoth was wreaking havoc on the local population of Marines. Whatever the hell it was, the thing had to be two stories tall. It was an immense, midnight blue, bulky creature that seemed mostly metallic. It had a big, oddly-shaped skull and two arms as huge as trees. As he stared, the titan aimed both arms at a cluster of nearly a dozen Marines peppering it with machine gun fire, and the ends of the arms opened up, and hot jets of flame shot out. It incinerated the entire squad in an instant. The creature began turning its flame jets onto any other nearby hostiles.
"Holy mother of God, we have to get out of here right now," Eric whispered.
"Yes we do," Vanessa replied softly.
The pair turned away from the window, listening to the screaming and gunfire and the loud, droning sound that he knew now the creature was making, and ran out of the room. Eric had his pistol drawn, ready to take down any bastards that wanted to stop him. They moved down a short hallway and peered into any doors they found. A few more offices and finally a stairwell. For whatever reason, the Marines had dragged them up to the third floor. Eric and Vanessa raced down the stairs until they came to the ground floor, then hesitated as they opened the door and peered out. Several Marines ran by and Eric closed and locked the door quickly.
"Crap," he whispered. "It's too crazy out there."
"We should go down," Vanessa replied, nodding to the nearby descending stairs.
Eric sighed and nodded. He was tired of underground. But what choice did they have? They hurried down the final flight of stairs, coming to the basement, and opened the door. And froze. Eric found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun, and on the other end of it was a Marine. Well, he thought, I guess this is how I die.
Then the Marine lowered the shotgun. "What's going on up there?" he asked, his voice tight and terse.
"What do you care? You gonna blow us away?" Eric replied.
"No. We aren't here to slaughter innocent civilians," the man replied. "What's happening topside?"
Eric thought about how to respond for just a few seconds. There really wasn't time, so he went with his gut: he believed this guy. In this initial burst of a first impression, for whatever reason, his gut said he was telling the truth.
"There's a two story monster wrecking everyone up there," he said.
"Jesus, are you kidding me?!"
"We need to hit the alternate route, Sergeant," another Marine said. Eric glanced over the man's shoulder and saw three more Marines: two men and a woman. She was the one who had spoken. She looked a little anxious, but otherwise calm. One of the men looked young and terrified, very likely a Private and green as grass, the other looked a bit more seasoned and pissed.
"Damn...all right. Come on," the Sergeant said, then about faced and marched off.
Eric and Vanessa watched them go.
"Well?" she asked. "Do we trust them?"
"I don't think we have a choice right now," Eric replied.
She sighed. "That seems to be happening a lot today."
They set off after the squad and followed them down a brickwork corridor. The whole area shook and rattled periodically, dust floating down from the ceiling, the lights flickering each time something exploded or that big beast upstairs took another step. They passed through a few dimly lit rooms stuffed with crates and barrels and shelves, and came at last to an old, decrepit elevator.
"This is your alternate route?" Eric asked.
"Yes," the Sergeant replied.
One of them hit the button and, after an uneasy pause, the doors squealed open. Eric didn't like the looks of the elevator. It seemed like it hadn't seen maintenance in a decade. Again, what choice did they have? The half-dozen survivors piled on and the woman punched the down button. The lift began a slow descent into the bowels of the installation once more. Eric stood to one side, gritting his teeth, just waiting.
Waiting for the ride to be over, waiting for the Marines to turn on them, waiting for the situation to somehow get even worse.
He didn't have to wait for more than about thirty seconds.
A huge explosion suddenly rocked the area, much bigger than anything else he'd encountered. The lights flickered and died. The elevator jerked to a stop and immediately the groaning, ominous sound of straining metal could be heard. Several heavy chunks of masonry hit the top of the elevator as the shaft began to become unstable.
Someone started to say something, and then, with a loud metallic snap, the lift abruptly gave up the ghost. Eric screamed as the metal cube of death began to plunge. He gripped onto a nearby railing, praying frantically that this wouldn't kill him.
Then the elevator touched down and he went with it.
His head slammed into something and for the third time today, he was knocked firmly into the dark depths of unconsciousness.