Chapter Two CONTACT
Michael grimaced as he made his way through the increasingly dense foliage. Struggling to see properly, he turned to Linda. "Use your thermal scope ad check what's ahead of us." He said.
Linda raised her sniper rifle and looked round. "Can't tell. There's too much background heat, I can't pick up a damn thing." She said. Derek stopped in his tracks, raising a fist. "Movement! 200 meters." He called out. The three Spartans lowered to a crouch and slowly closed on their target.
A loud BANG rang out as Michael looked up to see a red flare shoot up into the sky. "Contact!" Michael called out as he turned back to his team. The three headed in the source of the flare to come across a terrifying sight.
A large humanoid creature sat hunched amongst the trees. Roughly 7 meters tall, naked, yet with no signs of sexual organs, an almost comically large head with unnaturally huge facial features pulling a mindless grin as it looked down on the source of the flare. A man lay at the feet of the monster, helplessly reaching out to them with a flare pistol in one hand. With pleading eyes, he reached to them before the monster snaked its' long bony hands around his legs and lifted him into its' gaping maw.
There was a cry of terror, abruptly cut short by a blood-curdling crunch. The man was no more. The beast stood, licking blood from its' lips as it set its' eyes on the three Spartans. "ENGAGE!" Michael roared and the three opened fire on the monster simultaneously. The creature was peppered by bullets as it clumsily stumbled towards them.
Linda fired a round of her sniper, the powerful round skimming the beasts' head and tearing away part of its' left eye. Steam and blood shot from the wound but the monster didn't even flinch. "Damn this thing's tough!" She roared as she kept firing.
"Fall back!" Michael roared as he slammed another clip into his rifle and fired again. Derek yelped as the creature's hand locked around his waist. He groaned in pain as it crushed him with enormous pressure. Saliva drooled down onto his visor as Derek was lifted up towards the beasts' open mouth. "Fuck you!" He roared as he held a primed grenade up to the creature as its' jaws closed around his chest.
The beasts' teeth hacked through the Spartan's shields and armor before Derek was torn in two and the beast swallowed the visceral remains in its mouth. Just as it lifted the rest of the body to its' mouth, the monsters' entire lower body exploded outwards in a shower of blood and steam.
Linda and Michael looked on at the monster as it mindlessly dragged itself along the ground towards them, grinning wide with bloodstained teeth.
The form of a person leapt from one of the nearby trees, directly onto the monsters' back. Raising a sword, the person slashed the back of the creature's neck. The thud of the beasts' sudden fall shook the ground violently as the monsters' severed head rolled away and the person looked up at the two remaining Spartans.