The Claws Of The Chimera
Prologue
Howling, screeching monsters were close on his heels. He didn't need to look behind to know they were.
In the short time that PFC Marcus Jenkins had spent in Truth or Consequences – or 'Hell Town' as the forces involved in the fighting there had dubbed it – he had quickly learned that the Roaches tended to hunt down and fight their prey until either of them was utterly annihilated.
He also had learned that fighting them on their terms was not a thing a man should do if he wanted to stay among the living.
That's why he was running at the moment.
Jenkins had seen how Parker and Hobbs were torn limb from limb. He had felt the arterial blood spraying over his face when a woman, who now was no longer a woman, had sliced open Clarke's throat with a razor-sharp appendix sprouting from it's shoulder, before impaling her upon it's forearms, which now were just two enlarged, crystalline spikes. Nobody had seen what had grabbed Edwards and dragged him into the darkness of the nightmarish labyrinth of warped hallways and wrecked rooms of the hospital. But they had all heard his screaming and the terrible wet smash that had abruptly ended it.
One of the Roaches had leapt onto him and he had fired his shotgun in panic, but he missed it. Instead, the shot had hit Simmons, who had stood less than two metres away from him, square in the back, almost cutting him in half. The monster had struck out, but Jenkins had stumbled backwards and tripped over a part of someone's body on the floor, dodging the swing more effectively than he could have ever done so consciously.
The claw still had torn away his shotgun and lying on the floor, disarmed and shocked into paralysis, he was mere moments away from getting his thread cut. Suddenly the monster's head was rocked back, it's body shivering, then it collapsed. Sergeant Faison had stopped beside him, roughly pulling him on his feet „Get the fuck up Jenkins, where's your gun?!" he yelled, firing more bursts of his assault rifle into the encroaching horde, felling a few, but there were still many more.
So many more.
At that moment, Jenkins had despaired. He had not enlisted to fight mutated zombie-monsters straight out of a child's nightmare in some backwater town in New Mexico. He had enlisted to have a safe job, to help evacuate civvis from hurricanes, scare away demonstrators and raise his chances with the women when telling of his heroic, selfless efforts for the community.
And he certainly didn't want to end up skewered while trying to clear this fucking horror-hospital of Roaches like he was some over-ambitious exterminator. As far as he was concerned, they could fucking keep it.
His feet had moved without him actually thinking about it. He had managed almost twenty paces away from the massacre, back the way they had come into this disaster, when he heard Faison shout „Where the fuck you go-", his voice cut short by a bestial roar.
Jenkins didn't look back.
He rounded another street corner, immediately turning the other way as he saw two of the creatures that he had heard Faison call 'Grunts' running towards him. Desperately pulling out his MEUSOC pistol, he forced himself to take a moment to aim properly and shot twice, hitting each of the creatures in the chest.
Neither of them even recoiled at the hits.
With growing dread, he noticed that the spots on their bodies where he had hit them turned into a bright shade of glowing red, matching the colour of their crystalline outgrowths. As if all his shots had done was to provoke his adversaries to grow some more exo-armour.
Fuck this.
He broke into a run towards some small grocery store, through which's shattered windows he could see an open backdoor. As he dove through the remnants of the showcases he grunted, feeling the glass slice open his cheek, letting his blood mingle with that of Clarke on his face. Racing between and over toppled shelves, he reached the backdoor just when the shattering of yet more glass told him his pursuers were inside as well.
He rushed through the door and quickly pushed it closed again, looking around in frantic search of something to block the door with. There. A large garbage container, obiously filled to the brim.
The adrenaline lent him the strength to move it in front of the door, then he engaged it's brakes, hoping for it to buy him some time. He heard guttural sounds from the other side of the door, then something smashed into it, repeatedly. Both the door and the container moved visibly.
He shook his head in disbelief, but he knew, this time there would be no saviour coming if he froze in place again, so he got moving again.
Barely half way he made it along the street, then he was brought face down again, tripping over something on the ground he had obviously missed in his tunnel-vision.
No, in fact something had ensnared his leg. He yelped hoarsely, trying to pull his leg free. It felt as if his leg was entangled in a sling of barbed wire, but holy shit – it felt like this barbed wire was alive! The living rope crawled up his leg, stinging through his boots and pants and hooking into his flesh.
Finally, Jenkins turned around and saw what had got him.
He took a breath to scream.
As the title says, this is the prelude to a story about the Outbreak event featured in Rainbow Six: Siege's Operation Chimera. Unlike my BlitzxIQ story i will publish this one split into several chapters and see if it works out any better, worse or no different at all than the all-at-once-approach. I'm still quite a newbie at writing fics and i appreciate all your support regardless of it's form, you guys are awesome :)