“Finish it before it gets up again!” Kristen yelled at him.
Kendal drew the pistol holstered on his hip and fired a trio of rounds into the creature’s skull. The thing’s head was almost pulped by the point-blank rounds as they hammered into it. Its body thrashed a final time and then it lay still.
“What the freaking devil is that thing?” Kristen asked, holding the barrel of her rifle aimed at its unmoving corpse.
“How the heck would I know?” Kendal snapped at her.
The creature had torn a literal hole in the room’s wall where the window had been as it entered. A cold wind blew into the room through it as Kendal looked out into the night. There didn’t appear to be any more of the things flying around outside, but his field of vision of the night sky was limited from where he stood.
“You guys okay?” Payne asked. She stood at the bedroom’s door, looking in at them and the monster sprawled out on the floor in a pool of its own blood and brain matter.
“That for sure isn’t a vampire,” Kristen spat at the monster’s body. “At least not a kind I’ve ever heard about.”
Kendal stared at the thing’s corpse. “It’s more like some kind of messed-up animal based on how it acted.”
“Just be glad it was alone,” Payne told them both.
“We don’t know that it is,” Kendal warned her.
Kristen had picked one of the two halves of his M3. “That thing’s claws cut clean through your gun. Those soldiers we found on the roads, how those tanks were torn apart… I would wager it was these things that did it.”
“What do we do?” Payne asked, looking at Kendal.
The fact that she looked to him to take the lead spoke volumes about how much she trusted him now. Kendal didn’t have a blasted clue how to answer her though. There was a fragging hole in the side of the house. If more of those things were out there and wanted inside, there would be no stopping them. Heading out into the night wasn’t a smart plan. The creatures, if there were indeed more of them out there waiting, would have all the advantages. Kendal didn’t doubt that the things were nocturnal and had all the senses that went with being that. They could come swooping in without warning and hit the group hard even if they were on the move.
“We’re going to have to try to make it through the rest of the night here until dawn,” Kendal finally said. “There’s no other choice. We’d be too exposed outside with those things flying around. They could hit us wherever and whenever they wanted… And we likely wouldn’t see it coming either.”
“Kendal…” Kristen said his name, looking at him as if he were crazy. “They can come at us here too. They just did, and next time, it’ll be easier for them. There’s a bloody hole in the wall.” She waved the barrel of her rifle at it to make sure she was getting her point across to him.
“We’ll lock this door, all the doors up here,” Kendal said. “That will at least give us some warning if they come and break through them.”
“And we’ll be holed up downstairs waiting on them,” Payne finished saying what he was thinking.
“That plan sounds a touch risky to me,” Kristen said.
“No one asked you,” Payne growled. “I’ll start locking the doors up here.”
Payne left the bedroom, leaving Kristen and Kendal alone.
“I think we need to run this plan of yours by Lance before we commit to it,” Kristen said.
“Fine,” Kendal said. “But it won’t hurt locking the doors up here just in case.”
He followed Kristen out of the room as the two of them headed downstairs. Payne joined them a few minutes later.
****
“That’s your plan?” Lance asked as he paced back and forth across the small house’s living room. Kendal and Kristen sat on the couch while Payne stood watch at the room’s only window.
Kendal nodded. “All we can do is wait for the sun to come up. If we go out there, we’re dead.”
“I don’t disagree,” Lance cautioned him, “but we’re just as easy of targets here.”
“You think?” Kendal challenged him. “Here, we’ll know they’re coming at least. Getting into the house will slow them down. It’s not like those things are just going to shoot down the chimney. We’ve got a fire going, you know?”
Lance bit his lip as he appeared to think things over a bit more. “Yes, but…”
“Accept it, Lance,” Payne spoke up. “Kendal came up with a plan without needing you to hold his hand to do it.”
Anger flashed in Lance’s eyes, but he let her comment slide.
Movement outside drew Payne’s attention back to the window she stood by. As she turned, she looked directly into a pair of burning yellow eyes before a muscle-bound, hair-covered form came smashing through the window at her. The wolf creature slashed at her with its claws as glass shattered and wood gave way around the window in an explosion that sent splinters flying like shrapnel. Payne threw herself sideways, dodging the worst of the debris and the thing’s claws. They swiped through the space where she had been half a heartbeat before. Payne thudded onto the house’s wooden floor, her pistols aimed upward at the monster that towered over her. Booming in perfect unison, her pistols fired together. The bullets caught the wolf creature in its lower body, one ripping into its groin, the other blowing a hole in its right thigh. The wolf creature howled in pain and fury as it flopped to the floor near her, leaking blood. Payne finished it with a third, well-aimed shot that splattered its brains out of its head.
That creature was just the beginning though. From above them where the group was in the living room came the shrieks of several of the bat monsters as they tore their way through the locked doors upstairs and into the house. They weren’t alone either. The house’s rear door exploded inward as two more of the wolf creatures burst through it.
The group sprang into action. Lance moved to meet the charging wolf creatures in the kitchen. His M1 cracked as he blew a chunk of meat and hair from one of the creature’s shoulders. The impact of the bullet sent the wolf-thing reeling straight into the path of the creature behind it. The two of them crashed into the wall of the kitchen as Lance fired again.
Kendal leaped up from his seat, readying his M3 as he moved. A fourth wolf creature had entered the house through the broken wall where the room’s window had been. Squeezing the greaser’s trigger tight, he hosed it with a barrage of rounds that ripped its upper body to shreds. The wolf creature wildly swung about as the bullets ripped at its body before it stumbled back into the night outside and disappeared from Kendal’s sight.
Payne was back on her feet. Kristen had started for the stairs to intercept the bat monsters that would surely soon be appearing at the top of them. Payne followed after her. Neither of them was prepared for what came next. The trio of bat monsters didn’t descend the stairs; instead, they spread their wings, taking flight inside the living room between its ceiling and floor as they launched themselves one after another from the top of the stairs. Payne fired at the second of them to take flight, but even with the enhanced skill the game had given her, she was too slow. Her shots punched holes in the ceiling instead of the flesh she had been aiming for.
One of the bat monsters swooshed across the living room to come about in the air and streak back directly for Kristen. She tried to bring her rifle around toward it in time to get off a shot but failed. The move saved her life. The monster had planned on ramming into her and instead impaled itself up the barrel of her rifle. The barrel was driven through the monster’s chest like a spear as it hit her. The bat monster’s momentum carried her backward to slam into the living room’s wall. Blood and spittle flew from the bat monster’s snarling lips to splash over her cheeks and face. Its claws raked at her shoulders as Kristen twisted the barrel of her rifle inside its body, trying to finish the monster off. It wasn’t enough though. She screamed as the claws of its right hand drew blood, penetrating the cloth of her heavy coat to slash nasty gashes in the side of her arm. Payne appeared behind the b
at monster. The gunfighter grabbed the monster and hurled it away from Kristen. She had holstered her pistols but drew them again with lightning speed even before the monster’s flailing body crashed onto the floor. Payne’s pistols fired in rapid succession, cracking over and over again to send the monster back to whatever Hell it had crawled out of.
“Behind you!” Kristen warned as Payne stopped firing and coils of smoke drifted from the barrels of her pistols. Payne heard the warning and threw herself flat as another of the bat monsters swept downward at her. Even so, its claws made contact with her back. They ripped through the cloth of her coat but didn’t break her skin beneath it. Rolling over, Payne fired upside down at the bat monster as its flight path carried it away from her. Her first shot slammed into the bat monster’s back, punching a hole through its chest as the bullet exited. Her next two punched equally gory holes in its body. The bat monster, unable to hold its course in the air as it was dead, crashed into the living room wall with such force it seemed to shake the entire room.
The two wolf creatures had recovered and were on the move again. Lance had wounded the other one with a second shot that blew its left arm off at its elbow joint. The things were so bloody fast though that he was forced to abandon his position at the door leading into the kitchen as they came tearing through it. He sprinted across the living room to join Kristen and Payne at the base of the stairs near the house’s front door. Thankfully, Kendal had seen the wolves coming. He had exchanged the nearly spent magazine of his M3 from driving away the wolf he had faced and was ready for them. The two already wounded wolves never stood a chance against the sheer volume of fire the weapon spat them. Each of them was struck by a dozen rounds or more as Kendal emptied his weapon, his finger tight on its trigger. Their bullet-riddled bodies toppled to the floor of the room and stayed there as blood pooled around them. The battle was far from over though, as there were two of the bat monsters left. One of them swooped down to land on its feet directly in front of Kendal. Its clawed hands latched onto his M3, trying to tear it from his hands. He wrestled with the creature, determined not to lose his weapon.
Payne stepped up, firing over his shoulder into the bat monster at point-blank range. The bullet pierced its forehead and blew out the backside of its skull. Kendal screamed from the pistol going off next to his ear. He dropped to his knees, holding onto his M3 with one hand as the other rose to cover his ear. Still, it was better than dying, he supposed. Payne had very likely saved his life.
The last of the bat monsters wanted no more part of the group. It flew toward the hole the wolves had made in the living room’s wall where its window had once been and disappeared through it. Kristen ran after it, taking a final shot at the monster as it soared upward into the night sky outside.
Kendal could see that Payne was trying to speak to him as she knelt beside him, placing a hand onto his shoulder, but his ears were ringing too loudly for him to understand what she was saying. He shook his head and reached to remove her hand from him. Kendal staggered to his feet, looking around the battle-ravaged space of the living room at the bodies of the bat monster and wolf creatures they had killed.
“What do we do now?” Kristen asked Lance.
Lance just shrugged and sighed. “Keep trying to stay alive, I guess.”
****
The rest of the night was cold but uneventful. The group huddled near the living room’s fireplace, trying to keep warm as the wind from outside blew through the room from the hole in its wall. Kendal’s hearing had recovered. He didn’t think Payne’s shot had done any permanent damage. Having a gun go off that close to your ear hurt like Hades. He listened to the crackling and popping of the wood inside the fireplace and wondered what would be coming after them next. Already they had faced reanimated dead soldiers and the genetic aberrations based on werewolves and vampires.
“Sorry about your ear,” Payne told him for the fourth time since it had happened.
“It’s okay,” Kendal assured her. “I’m fine.”
“You might be, but I’m not,” Kristen said through gritted teeth. She cradled her bandaged arm against her chest. “This…” she tried to raise her arm higher and failed, “it hurts like hell. I think it’s infected.”
“We’ve done all we can for it,” Lance’s voice as cold as the exposed room around them as he spoke.
“If these things are like the zombies, you don’t have to worry about turning into one of them,” Kendal said.
“She’s not going to be able to fight next time trouble finds us,” Payne commented.
“Excuse me?” Kristen snapped. “It doesn’t take two hands to use a pistol.”
“But it does to reload it in the middle of a battle,” Lance said.
Kristen’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you even dare think about leaving me here. I can fight, and I can certainly walk.”
“Kristen…” Lance started, but she cut him off before he had the chance to say whatever he was about to.
“No,” Kristen told him firmly. “I’m going with you, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Safety in numbers,” Kendal commented.
“That’s relative, and you know it,” Lance snorted. “We’ve stuck together so far and what’s it done for us? Derek and Chuck are dead.”
“Forget it, Lance,” Payne shouted. “We’re not splitting up. Not now. We’re close to this base we’re headed for and when we reach it, it’s going to take all of us working together as a team to take it out.”
Lance grunted but made no other reply.
“Now that we’ve settled that…” Kendal sighed, “just how close are we to this base we’re headed for?”
Digging the map out of his pack, Lance unrolled it and spread it out on the room’s floor where they could all see it. After studying it for a moment, Lance said, “A few miles at most. If we leave here at dawn, we should make it there by the middle of the day.”
“The Nazis have to know we’re coming.” Kristen winced, still cradling her injured arm. “It has to be why these monsters keep attacking us.”
“There’s not a lot we can do about that,” Kendal said.
“We could stay here together for a while, let Kristen’s arm heal up,” Payne suggested. “If we did that, the Nazis might start to think their monsters got us and let their guard slip.”
“Wouldn’t work even if we tried it,” Lance said, shooting down her idea. “This game has a time table it operates on. Almost all games do. If we just stay here, you can count on more of those monsters showing up to force us back on track, assuming they don’t manage to kill us all next time. In case you haven’t noticed, each battle we’ve lived through has been more difficult than the one before it.”
“Frag it,” Payne muttered.
“This just sitting here…waiting on the sun sucks.” Kendal tossed a piece of wood into the fire. An explosion of ember erupted inside the fireplace before the flames settled back down. “We’re so close now, close to getting all this over with.”
“One way or the other,” Lance agreed, his expression grim. “Let’s just focus on getting some rest if we can.”
Payne leaned over onto Kendal and rested her head on his shoulder. He put an arm around her, hugging her closer to him.
****
The group got moving as soon as the sun was up. Its early rays lit their path along the road toward whatever their future held. More and more, Kendal was beginning to have a bad feeling about the Nazi base that was waiting on them. The Nazis had tried to take them out with creatures three times now, each a failure. Each of the battles had been rougher than the last, but they continued to make it through them.
The day was cold, but the temp wasn’t so far down that the sun didn’t help to warm them up as they walked. The countryside remained abandoned as if every living thing in the area had either fled or been killed long ago. Kendal found the lack of life disturbing. The empty houses that they passed from time to time reminded him of those in end of the world movies. H
e was a big fan of the post-apocalyptic genre in both books and film. Kendal had to keep reminding himself that this was all just a game and not real life, no matter how deadly it might be. A great sadness fell over him each time they passed a house where the residents hadn’t made it out and there were bodies in those lawns that could be seen from the road where they walked. The worst was that of a young woman who looked to have been nailed to the front door of her home. The stench of her rotting flesh had made him gag when the wind carried it to him. She wore a colorful summer dress. It was tattered and weather-beaten now and most of her flesh had been picked away by birds, rats, and other animals. Her eye sockets were vacant, black holes upon what remained of her mangled face. Kendal had stopped to stare at her until Payne had shoved him along so that they could keep up with Lance and Kristen.
Lance seemed oblivious to the horror around them. How the man blocked it all out was a mystery to Kendal. He imagined it was because Lance was entirely focused on beating the game at all costs in order to get home and nothing else mattered to him. None of the stuff around them was real, and maybe Lance was able to process and accept that better than he was able to. Kendal had never considered himself “soft” or overly emotional, but as real as everything felt, his heart couldn’t help but break for the dead NPCs that were part of the world’s setting here. He wondered if they had felt pain as they died like a PC would or if they had just been conjured up out of nothingness, already dead, to set the scene the game wanted to display around them.
Monsters of the Reich Page 7