“Now, Lieutenant Grayson, the question is, what do we do with you?” Heather met the lieutenant’s eyes and saw the fear in them as she did so.
“They killed Glen,” Roger said. “I say we take the eye for an eye route and be done with it. It’s the easiest way.”
“Easiest isn’t always best,” Nicholson piped up. “Any chance your colonel would be willing to bargain?”
Lieutenant Grayson hesitated but finally said, “No. Colonel Lee doesn’t believe in bargaining. He’ll likely kill me himself for screwing up dealing with you guys out here in the jungle.”
“Good answer.” Nicholson grinned, knowing how it would affect Heather’s choice on how to deal with the lieutenant. “At least she’s not going to kill you outright given that you seem like the honest sort.”
“Tie him up. Make sure he’s gagged too,” Heather ordered Roger and then looked down at Grayson. “If those things or the cannibals haven’t gotten you by the time we’re done, we’ll take you back stateside with us. Sorry, Lieutenant, but that’s the best I can do given the situation.”
Grayson didn’t argue or try to resist as Roger set about tying him up.
****
Two hours passed before Flagston returned. When he did, he looked haggard and tired. He had made it back in one piece though. Heather took that as a good sign.
Flagston took a seat, propped against the trunk of a tree near where Lieutenant Grayson was bound. Heather unscrewed her canteen and offered it to him. Flagston removed his helmet and sloshed some water over his face and hair before taking a long guzzle from it. When he was done, he handed it back to her.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“What did you find out?” Heather pressed him.
“Our new friend over there is right,” Flagston said. “His colonel has that clearing locked down hard. There are traps everywhere in the brush surrounding it. I disarmed a couple of them, but it was pure luck I spotted them or I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. This colonel has men patrolling the edge of the clearing at all times from what I could tell. The only ones that appear to be in a fixed position are near our VTOL … and they have our Browning out and set up.”
“What?” Nicholson stared at Flagston in disbelief.
“They must have found it on the VTOL and decided to put it to use,” Flagston answered. “They’ve got it covering a wide section of the tree line on the southern side of the clearing.”
“Bloody hell,” Heather rasped. Her own paranoia in being prepared had just turned on them in a very bad way. She told herself that she couldn’t have known they’d lose the VTOL. Taking out the Browning had to be a priority when they moved on the clearing. That gun could tear them all to pieces in a matter of seconds if they weren’t careful in how they handled dealing with it.
“I’d say we are royally and truly screwed, boss,” Roger said.
“We’re not exactly rocking it in regards to our ammo either,” Flagston commented. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve only got two magazines left.”
“Same here,” Roger said. “I’ve only got one beyond the one that’s loaded. Fighting those monsters and cannibals cost us.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Heather snapped. “We can do this. Those guys aren’t on our level. We just need a plan.”
“You got one?” Flagston asked. “Because I don’t.”
“Maybe we could bait them, draw some of them away from the clearing,” Nicholson suggested.
“That won’t work,” Heather said, shaking her head. “They might not be on our level, but they’re not stupid either. They know there’s no other way out for us but to retake the VTOL.”
“They’ve got two copters in the clearing that they rode in on,” Flagston commented. “One is purely a transport bird, the other is a Blackhawk. Getting our hands on one of those would work out just as well as taking the VTOL.”
“Which brings up another issue.” Nicholson looked at Heather. “If Glen’s dead, what are we going to do about a pilot?”
“I’m qualified on the VTOL,” Heather told him. “And Flagston, you can handle either of those two copters, can’t you?”
“Not as well as a pro, but yeah, I could manage either of them well enough to get us out of here,” Flagston answered.
“No matter how this plays out, we need to make sure at least one of the aircraft survives,” Heather said to them all.
“The VTOL is pretty heavily armored,” Nicholson said. “Nothing we’re carrying short of the MGL is likely to do serious damage to it unless we’re really making an effort at it.”
“How many rounds are left for the MGL?” Heather asked.
“Two,” Nicholson frowned.
“Fantastic,” Flagston quipped.
“Flagston,” Heather warned him. “We need to stay positive right now.”
“I say we hit them hard and fast from multiple directions, keep them guessing as to exactly where we are. Even if we can’t take the clearing on the first go, we can cut down their numbers and maybe take out the Browning in the process,” Flagston suggested.
“I think that’s a workable plan,” Heather agreed. “Best to wait for nightfall to set things into motion. They’re likely already jittery and wondering where in the devil we are. I’m sure that colonel realizes we should have returned by now. It’ll give them time to stew a bit more.”
“No argument here,” Flagston agreed.
“I want to see the layout of what we’re up against over there,” Heather ordered.
Flagston picked up a stick and begin to draw out a picture of what he had seen in the clearing. When he was done, Heather looked it over closely.
“And you say the only fixed position is the Browning emplacement?” Heather asked.
“Yeah,” Flagston answered. “The guys keeping an eye on the perimeter stay on the move making circles around it.”
“What about the copters? Are they guarded?” Heather stared at the layout he had drawn.
“Not compared to our VTOL. Their pilots are keeping close to them though. I’d wager they’ll be sleeping in their respective birds.”
“That’s a good bet,” Heather said. “So here’s how we’re going to handle this …”
****
Flagston and Nicholson crept towards the clearing from its northern side. Nicholson had stashed the container with the device in the jungle so that he could be free to maneuver and join in the fight to retake the VTOL. When it was over, they would go back for it. Nicholson was carrying the MGL instead of his rifle. The weapon was a key part of the plan that Heather had laid out for them.
“Watch it,” Flagston hissed sharply at Nicholson while trying to keep his voice low.
Nicholson froze where he was as he saw the wire that stretched across the jungle floor that he had almost walked into and would have without Flagston’s warning.
Flagston moved over to his position and examined the wire. His eyes traced over it to the grenade it was set to. He pointed at the grenade to let Nicholson know where it was.
“Thanks,” Nicholson whispered, pale and shaken from his brush with death. “That would have really screwed things up.”
Heather was moving in on the clearing from the East and Roger from the West. If things went as they should, they’d be putting a real hurt on the colonel and his men in a matter of minutes once everyone was in position. Nicholson had said that their helmet radios should be working, but Heather had ordered radio silence. Flagston believed the colonel was aboard their VTOL and that meant the man could very well be monitoring for transmissions and likely was in attempt to find out where they were.
Flagston and Nicholson moved on passed the trap that had been set for them. The clearing got closer with each step. Sweat from more than just the humidity and heat of the night slicked Nicholson’s skin. It was up to him to fire the first shot that set things in motion. He was supposed to blow the closest of the two copters with one the MGL’s last rounds. Nicholson was a tech and a medic, not a
sniper, so he was feeling the pressure of making the shot. He was only going to get one chance at it. If he blew it … well, he didn’t want to think about that. Flagston moved on ahead of them at a faster pace. The little man would be taking up a firing position to his right once they reached the edge of the clearing and putting a decent amount of space between them.
Nicholson caught a whiff on the night’s breeze that made him gag. It smelt of musk, rotting meat, and feces. The smell was so intense it nearly made him drop to his knees and vomit as it hit him. He raised a hand to cover his mouth and nose against the smell, looking about to see where in the devil it was coming from. He wasn’t able to see anything that might be its source. It seemed to be getting stronger with each step he took.
Suddenly, the jungle moved. It took everything Nicholson had not to scream as the monster lunged for him. It had been completely concealed by the camouflaging nature of its hair and scales. He had only feet from where the monster towered over him amid the trees and not known it was there until it started moving. Its yellow eye had opened as he had stumbled upon on it. Nicholson tried to throw himself clear of the monster’s grab at him, but the thing moved with surprising speed to grasp the sides of his head. They flattened his skull between them, silencing his cry of pain even as it started its way up and out of his lungs. Blood and brain matter splattered into the night air and over the jungle floor.
Flagston caught a hint of the movement behind him in the corner of his eye and whirled to see the monster as it released Nicholson’s nearly mangled corpse and it turned to towards him.
“Holy …” Flagston gasped, sweeping the barrel of his rifle around at the monster. His finger froze on the trigger as he realized they if he opened fire everyone in the clearing would know exactly where he was.
The monster walked slowly towards him at unhurried pace as if it was sure that he would be its next meal. Flagston did the only thing he could think of doing. He darted as quietly as he could through the trees away from the monster, leaving the clearing and the now utterly fragged plan behind as he ran.
****
The jungle around the clearing came alive as the Mapinguari made their move. They came as one emerging from the trees. There were dozens of them, their singular yellow eyes piercing the darkness as they moved forward towards the mercs surrounding the VTOL and copters.
Alan stared at them in shock as some of his men opened fire around him. AK-47s chattered, spraying the beasts with streams of automatic fire. Willing himself into action, Alan charged into the path of one of the monsters as he yelled, “Hold them back! We have to keep them clear of the copters or none of us will be going home!”
Two of the Mapinguari had stepped out of the trees only yards from the larger transport copter. The pilot was gawking at them, trying to draw the pistol holstered on his hip as the two mercs who had been patrolling that section of the perimeter were already engaged with the beasts. The merc closest to the monsters met his end as one of the beasts ripped a tree limb down and swung it at him like a baseball bat. The heavy limb caught him in the middle of his body, knocking his rifle from his hands to send him flying like a broken ragdoll cast aside by an angry child. The other merc emptied his weapon’s magazine into the second of the beasts. The impact of the bullets he sprayed it with sparked in the night as they struck its scaled body and bounced harmlessly away. The merc screamed, whipping his rifle around in his hands to use it as a club against the beast as it closed on him. The rifle slammed into one of the creature’s raised arms and snapped in half from the force of the impact. The Mapinguari lashed out, swiping at the merc with the claws of its right hand. They met the man’s flesh, slashing deep grooves across his chest as blood splashed outward from his mangled ribs.
Alan found himself facing a nine-foot-tall giant that loomed over him. The mouth in the center of its stomach snarled at him as he drew his pistols with lightning speed. His matching .44 Magnums boomed in rapid succession. The heavy rounds they fired slammed into the monster, sending it reeling backward with each hit. None of them penetrated the armor-like scales which covered the thing’s body beneath its hair. Alan cursed as he continued firing anyway. The monster righted itself, recovering from his sudden onslaught. Rounds of his pistols kept pounding the creature. but it had braced itself against them now and had its singular eye closed to protect it. That didn’t stop it from taking a blind swing at Alan though. One of its thick muscled arms slashed through the air where he had been as Alan backpedaled out of the monster’s reach. His right-hand pistol clicked empty. Alan holstered it as he fired the last round in the other pistol directly at the monster’s closed eye. The creature grunted as the heavy round found its target. The eye flicked open, burning like a miniature sun in the darkness of the night. Alan heard the Browning open up. From the direction he knew it was aimed in came inhuman cries of pain that sounded alien and unlike anything that should exist on Earth.
The Mapinguari in front of him took another swing at Alan as it lunged forward. Alan spun, dodging the creature’s claws. His legs pumped beneath him as he sprinted away from the monster towards the VTOL in the center of the clearing. As he ran, he saw that the Browning was tearing up the monsters within its field of fire. As impervious as the monsters were to small arms fire, that Browning was having no trouble ripping them a new one. He watched two of the monsters take numerous hits from the .50 caliber weapon. Their bodies jerked about as the .50 caliber rounds went through the armor of their scales and sent chunks of meat flying like shrapnel. The two beasts collapsed, dark blood flowing freely from the wounds the Browning had dug into them. The bodies of several other monsters lay scattered about on the section of the clearing that the Browning was protecting. The machine gun was the key to winning this battle and Alan knew it.
Across the clearing from where Alan ran, Boulder and three mercs were engaged with three of the monsters. Boulder had given up on hurting the monsters with his rifle and discarded the weapon. In his hands were machetes which he swung wildly at the arms of the monster he fought as they grabbed from him only to be driven away by his blades. He was locked in a twisted dance with the monster, each of them slashing and parrying the blows of the other. Sweat poured from Boulder as hacked at one of the monster’s arms as it took a swipe at his head. The blade of his machete met the monster’s arm and sparks flew as they made contact. The blade of the machete snapped from the impact. Boulder stumbled, surprised by the sudden betrayal of his weapon. He recovered fast enough though to block the monster’s next swing with his remaining machete as the creature’s claws stabbed towards his guts. One of the men with Boulder screamed as a monster walked straight up to him, oblivious to the stream of rounds being fired into the scaled skin covering its closed mouth. The monster swept the man into a bear hug that lifted him from the ground in its embrace. Boulder heard the sickening crunch of bones as the monster’s closed tighter about the man, crushing him against its body.
“Grenade!” someone yelled.
A grenade landed in front of one of the monsters to Boulder’s right. The blast flung shrapnel not just into the monster it was intended for but at Boulder and the merc who had been in the process of emptying a second magazine into the monster. The merc died as the shrapnel ripped through his forehead and bits of his brain exited the backside of his skull. Boulder grunted in pain, dropping to one knee, as a shard of shrapnel tore into his thigh. The monster he was fighting took advantage of the moment, pressing in on him. Boulder managed to swing his machete upwards in time to save his life. The blade snapped beneath the monster’s hands came crashing down on it, but it turned the monster’s double-hand blow just enough to keep it from hitting him. Boulder dropped completely to the ground, rolling away from the monster as it rose up to its full, towering height with a roar of anger.
The grenade had done its job, however. The monster it had landed in front of took a piece of shrapnel in its singular eye. It shrieked, a high-pitched cry, and then toppled over to lay unmoving on the ground onl
y feet from the body of the merc that had been a victim of the grenade’s blast as well.
The last of the three mercs who had stood with Boulder had turned and was trying to flee as the monster he had been engaged with sunk its claws into the flesh of his back. They tore deep, red grooves in his skin, severing his spine in the process. The merc tumbled to the ground, still trying to move, struggling to pull himself away from the monsters with his arms. His fingers desperately clawed at the dirt he lay in. The monster simply raised one of its wide feet and brought it down on the mangled mess that remained of his back. The man’s body jerked as the monster’s foot crushed the center of his body.
Boulder came to his feet, drawing his sidearm as it was the only weapon left to him, and fired a trio of shots at the monster that was lumbering towards him. He got lucky and the shots struck the monster’s open eye. Blood and other fluid splashed from the ruptured orb as the monster let out a howl as Boulder fired again. His fourth shot ripped into the thing’s eye in the wake of the others, bringing its life to an end. Boulder’s moment of victory was taken from him as another monster plowed into him. It rammed into him like a runaway eighteen-wheeler. His ribs crunched as they folded inward, crashing down upon his lungs and heart. His limp body was flung a several dozen feet through the air before it thudded on the jungle floor.
****
Pete, one of Colonel Lee’s pilots, watched the two mercs who had rushed to his defense die easily at the hands of the monsters that had emerged from the jungle. He had managed to draw his pistol, but the small weapon seemed useless in the face of the monsters coming towards him and his copter. Pete held onto the weapon, but instead of using it, he ran. Pete scampered inside his copter and hurriedly began its pre-flight, trying to fire up its engine. The monster carrying a large tree limb roared as it closed on the copter. It hammered at the copter’s side with its makeshift weapon. The copter rocked as the limb struck it. Metal screeched and bent. The monster reared back and swung the tree limb again into the copter’s side. The blow hit with such power that the copter’s forward window cracked.
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