Yeah, we've got the infection on the run, just like the media says, but like everything else, it can only run so far. We push it all the way back to a hive, and then it digs in. As far as the civilians are concerned it's all over but the shouting, for us it's looking like this is going to take a lot longer than the so called experts said it would.

The infection isn't actively on the attack anymore, which is a good thing, but the hives are as bad as ever, and that's where we're going, to one of the worst remaining hives.

Really, it's two hives that became one after we took out the smaller of the pair. The surviving infection moved into the remaining hive, building it up and reinforcing it. Basically it's a mess and we're heading straight into it. Nothing we can't handle though, so why someone decided to send those things in with us I have no clue.

They came in with those Blackwatch guys, they must have because they work exactly alike, no names, no ranks, no obvious chain of command, no respect. Maybe they are Blackwatch, because thinking that there's more than one organization like that is too much. I mean I know no country is blameless, but to see guys like that in action, it makes you think long and hard about exactly what you're fighting for.

The ordinary Blackwatch guys are bad enough, but these things, they're the reason I'm quitting once this is over. To think that somewhere we have scientists coming up with this sort of stuff, labs cranking those things out and that's not the worst of it. These guys were sick enough to volunteer to…to become things.

One of the guys in the platoon thinks that they didn't volunteer, that they were brainwashed.

I don't know which would be worse, that they agreed to it or the thought they had no choice. I mean what does it say about a guy that he'd be willing to…

I know there's a lot of stuff they can do with drugs and surgery these days, but I don't think they can do that to a guy yet so I guess they must have known what they were getting into and agreed to go through with it.

I could be wrong though, there were a lot of things I used to believe they couldn't do. Now that I've seen they can do I want out before I'm too far in. What I've seen so far will stick with me forever, but those things bother me the most. The infected civilians, the monsters pouring out of buildings, the worms coming up from beneath the streets, the things Blackwatch brought in with them will be what keeps me up at night, but I'm stupid that way. Weird things get to me.

I thought the guys looking to make a career of the military were hardcore, but now I realize I had no clue what hardcore was, Blackwatch is hardcore, the others, the things, they're crazy.

When Blackwatch first called them in we heard talk of 'super soldiers'. To me and the guys that sounded like Blackwatch's Blackwatch, the guys that Blackwatch thought were crazy. We were expecting guys like their commander, that Cross guy, who supposedly fought that ZEUS thing one on one and was able to walk away afterwards. We were expecting them to be human.

I'll never forget when we first saw them, just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.

We thought they were funny at first because what we saw was so unexpected to us, so alien that we had no clue what we were actually seeing.

They arrived, ten of them walking towards our base with this little mouse of a man up in front, strutting like all of those Blackwatch bastards do when they're going to say something they know we won't like. We laughed when we saw them, because we needed a good laugh and because I swear it looked like there was a midget with them, a munchkin in one of those freaky Blackwatch biohazard suits and the super soldiers were pretty funny looking from a distance, all stooped over and round shouldered like their biohazard suits were the wrong size. Then they got closer and it wasn't so funny anymore.

The little guy wasn't a midget, the super soldiers were all monsters, easily over nine feet tall.

Like the other Blackwatch guys, they never talked to us except to give orders or demand information and never took off their protective gear around us, but they were nothing like the others.

We tried to ignore the rest of Blackwatch, but these guys you couldn't help watching, trying to figure out what they were. We were all watching them even more than we were watching out for the infected.

They sort of shuffled around and from time to time they would stop and rub at their joints like they had arthritis or something, but if there were any infected around or you got in their way you'd see that they could move just fine. Once, during a fight with some of the bigger infected, I saw one of them shove a tank out of his way.

Everyone seems to have a similar story though, we sort of collect them for some morbid reason, like the guy who says he saw two of them pull an infected in half.

I've talked to another guy who said he saw one of them get the sleeve of his suit get torn off after getting swarmed by infected. The guy said that underneath his gear the super soldier's skin was all gray and red with bumps and furrows that looked like tire tracks in mud.

I tired telling him that it was just another layer of protective gear and that the red was blood from the infected, but he insisted that the super soldiers were just like the infected under all the gear they wore.

And they're working with us right now, except with us isn't right. Just like the rest of Blackwatch, they're doing their own thing along side us, but now it's because none of the officers have any clue what to do with them. Everyone wants them gone, but no one has the courage to tell them to get lost.

Right now they're in front of us, where we can watch them, clearing the streets.

There are wrecked cars everywhere from when people tried to evacuate. They're a pain in the ass now, because orders are that before we go after this hive we have to have at least half of the roads to and from it clear. Apparently yesterday miscommunications and blocked roads caused some problems elsewhere in the city. No word on how many casualties, but there must have been to get a response like that. Just because the infection isn't spreading like it used to be doesn't mean that the higher ups don't think it's still catching. You get hurt and you vanish, or at least that's what I've heard.

When this is over I'm quitting.

One of the super soldiers picks up the burned out frame of a car and holds it for a bit, sort of looking at it like he's trying to figure something out before tossing out of the way.

"You ever seen anything like that?" Fletch, one of my squad mates, asks.

"No," I lie. I've been watching them do this all morning and I know exactly what they're like, the way they're so impossibly big, inhumanly strong and not quite sure of themselves. They're just like mastiff puppies, but if I said that to anyone they'd think I'm crazy because everyone thinks puppies are cute. Kind of like how everyone thinks that zombies only show up in late night bad horror movies.

Mastiff puppies are not cute, I know because my mom used to show English mastiffs.

When I was little we had this massive, almost, but not quite champion, fawn mastiff bitch named Prudence Prim.

I was terrified of her and everything my mom did only made it worse. The dog weighed nearly two hundred pounds and I was hardly taller than her at the time, but mom made me walk that dog around the backyard every day like I was showing her for the judges at some stupid, fancy dog show. She was a gentle enough dog, but that meant nothing to my nine year old self.

I never let mom see how scared I was and I guess she thought I was cured of my dislike of Prudence because she started making plans to get a puppy, this one a dog.

The whole time I kept silent, hoping that mom would give up, and it took so long to get that damned dog that I was actually sure that she had. Then one day I got off the school bus and mom was waiting for me with this little, squirming brindle thing. It was our new dog, my new dog, but it was so small compared to Prudence my first impression was that it was a cat.

I went up to him and he was so excited to see me he fell over and when I helped him back to his feet he pissed all over my shoes in gratitude.

He couldn't have weighed more than twenty pounds and I loved him.

Stupid kid that I was, I made no connection between the little brownish puppy and the massive animal that also lived in our house. He already had some long, fancy show dog name, but I called him Gunter and for about a month I was happy.

He was the kind of dog I'd always wanted, one smaller than me, one I could actually play with.

In his first month with us Gunter nearly doubled in size, but he didn't realize it. He would still try to curl up and sleep on the little pillow I kept in my room for him. When he stopped fitting on it he would walk around, sniffing and circling it like it was the pillow that had changed.

He kept growing and by the time he reached a hundred pounds I stopped letting him sleep in my room at nights. The only reason he let me push him out the door was because he didn't realize that he was stronger than me. Because mom got him for me Gunter was my responsibility, so I had to keep walking him, training him, giving him baths and all the stuff that comes with owning a fancy show dog, even when he was bigger than Prudence.

I still tried to play with Gunter for a while though, just to prove to myself that I wasn't afraid.

Once a turtle got into our backyard, a big one too, the size of the softball I was throwing for Gunter to fetch. I never realized it was a turtle until the horrible crunch. Gunter crushed the thing when he was just trying to play with it. From that point on I was as afraid of Gunter as I was of Prudence, maybe even more so.

The sound that turtle made stuck with me. I imagined that the bones in my arm or skull would make the exact noise if Gunter were to grab me squeeze, not realizing that he was so big and I was still just the same.

When the Blackwatch super soldiers first got sent out to help us I saw one of them kill an infected by breaking its back and stomping on its skull. I wasn't the only guy who got sick from what they saw that day, but none of them were thinking about that poor turtle, the poor stupid dog who killed it because he didn't realize he was so damned big and the fact that he could have done the same thing to me.

Prudence got old quick and her hips started getting bad. When mom finally took her to the vet's for the last time it was all I could do to keep from doing a victory dance. I thought my dog problem was half over, but I was wrong.

Whoever mom had gotten Prudence from knew about Gunter and gave mom a new puppy, another bitch. There was some sort of deal between the two of them, but I never bothered to learn the details. All I knew was that it involved Gunter and the new dog having puppies.

When the puppies finally came they were Gunter all over again, only worse because the new bitch got mean when she was protecting them. She was fine with mom, but she wouldn't let me in the same room. I felt like a prisoner in my own house and Gunter only made it worse because he would try to follow me and put his head in my lap when all I wanted to do was get away from big dogs and little dogs who would turn into big dogs.

Mom decided not to keep any of the puppies and when the last of them was gone I realized for the first time that there was a way out. Just like the puppies left when they were old enough, I could leave when I was old enough. That became my goal in life.

So as soon as I was old enough I joined the Marines and said goodbye to mom and her mastiffs for what I hoped was forever.

Now I'm surrounded by them again, maybe they look different, but the rest of it is the same, the size, the clumsiness, the effortless and unknowing brutality.

The way the super soldier looked at the ruined car was just like how Gunter looked at his pillow, but because they're people and not stupid dogs it's different.

They might feel regret over what they've done to themselves, they might be bitter about what they've lost and if they are then we're in trouble.

It's already happened in a way. I don't care what the official position on him is, what we've been told to think, I know that ZEUS isn't an it, I've seen him. ZEUS isn't some weapon or virus, he's just a guy who they did something to, something that pissed him off. I have to wonder, what's to keep the super soldiers from doing the same after this is all over? I mean we all get to go back to what passes for a normal life after what we've seen, but normal isn't an option for them anymore.

When this is all over I'm quitting while I still have the chance.