It was a bright sunny day in Florida Suburbia. It was summer and the children were playing in the streets, catching up on some reading, and taking up various summer jobs. The sound of children playing and laughing filled the air, as did the smell of grass from moist lawns and the smell of baking bread. The troubles and politics of the Halo universe were far from reach and were only known in the form off foreign conflicts down played by the government-controlled media. A few troubled teens however, could not leave the neighborhood in peace.

A covenant ghost boosted down a road at incredible pace, recklessly swerving into lawns, up rooting small brushes and shattering mailboxes into splinters. However, the rider was not a highly trained interstellar invader, they were merely a few youths joyriding, desperately clinging to the ghost as their intoxicated driver sped up the vehicle they had some how acquired during the preliminary invasion. People dashed back into the homes, retreated from their Barbeques, yard work, and their blissful play.

The neighborhood crab wouldn't have any of this. Old Mrs. Avery who had dealt with these youths before and she came rushing out from her door and into her front porch with a broom threateningly clasped in both hands.

"YOU STUPID BRATS, THIS IS A NEIGHBORHOOD! LOOK AT YOU, LAUGHIN' YOUR SILLY LITTLE HEADS OFF WHEN YOU SHOULD BE HANGING YOUR HEADS IN SHAME! GET OFF YOUR FANCY LITTLE… eh… HOTROD RIGHT NOW!" . She shook her fists in fury at them as they passed.

She was shocked when they skidded to a halt right in front of her home. They merely looked her down for a few seconds from the safety of their hovercraft; they then proceeded to fling eggs at her porch. She stood shocked with anger slowly welling up inside of her.

"THAT. IS. IT!" She yelled, throwing her hands into the air, "I'M CALLING THE COPS ON ALL OF YOU HUDLUMS--"

Her next words were interrupted however, an Elite Flood Combat form bolted out of her back yard and leapt furiously at her and unto her porch and before it even landed, it swung it's deadly and wispy, spines at her abdomen, messily tearing her in half.

"Oh , son! It's one of those covenants from the See-en-en ! Let's Cheese it!"

The Ghost bolted forward, leaving behind the ruined corpse of Mrs. Avery and the Flood Combat form standing patiently on her porch, gurgling and brooding harmlessly while staring vacantly into space.

Flood Combat forms erupted from booth sides of the street as the ghost zoomed past activating its thrusters desperately. They leaped forward as the vehicle passed and landed neatly on the ghost's hull, smothering it, the ghost not being designed to hold that many passengers, swerved violently, spinning out of control and flipping over, it finally skidded into a nearby home and exploded violently in a glassy explosion killing all of it's passengers.

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Mr. Rick believed he had seen it all. He was a retired Marine, who had fought tooth and nail against the covenant on a dozen worlds. After he was honorably discharged, he went from odd job to odd job. Now he was just a lonely caretaker at cemetery. The mass grave, honoring many veterans of the UNSC campaign against the covenant. To him, they were just empty reminders of the abysmal fate that earth was presented. His town was far away from any covenant urban forces or even any orbital bombardiers. He knew that in this conflict, no nation would be spared, no geological barriers will be over looked. In war that defied all the parameters of human conflict, there was no nationality or race the covenant didn't have a beef with. He knew that many often times deluded themselves into believing that only a foriegn region would take the fall or that the issue isn't wide spread. He knew that if they have the capacity, they will murder every man woman and child on gods green earth.

He looked upwards into the gloomy gray skies as the freezing rain gushed down from the heavens and he thought of the perilous battles taking place in space above him. The ground turned soft and muddy under the relentless rain. He looked around bored, attempting to find something to busy himself with. He looked at the gate to the cemetery behind him, it had grown rusted and twisted over the long years. He noticed the strange vines that had been growing across the iron bars in the gate. Only, they didn't behave like normal vines that only grew in the absents of sunlight, these were very sturdy and stubborn vines, when ever you pulled them off, more just seems to grow in it's place. They were so strong in fact, they were pulling some of the iron bars of the gate together. He tried prying them off one more time, then as his hands began feeling flustered and sore, he gave up.

As night fell, the freezing rain continued to pour, as he was about to go home, a strange gurgling noise caught his ear, he wondered if they rain was going to cause the corpses to disgustingly rise from their graves again, when he turned and saw the most peculiar sight in all of his years. Dozens of tiny creatures crawled from the surrounding forest in a tight formation. They were like jellyfish with a bloated and swollen whitish-green sack for a head, with thick, veiny, red-orange tentacles protruding from their air filled sacks. He watched in horror and disbelief as the nimble little creatures poured over the iron fence on the opposite side of the graveyard with ease. He watched as they moved with purpose, spreading out and entering the graves of the fallen war heroes. They plunged down into the muddy soil eagerly. He felt like running away, yet curiosity got the better of him. He stared at the little creatures, watching as they all disappeared inside of the graves.

He turned away and gasped for air, realizing he hadn't been breathing all of the while. He wondered if anyone would believe such a story. He wondered just what those tiny little creatures would do with those corpses. He was deeply troubled by the images of the fallen war heroes festering in the bowels of those previously undiscovered animals. He turned around slowly, wondering what he would see and yet at the same time doubting any of that had truly happened. What he saw next terrified him.

Several limbs had slowly risen from their graves; they were gnarled and looked almost like the roots of rotten trees. The limbs moved slowly at first, then they gained more strength, and he saw the corpses shudder violently in their graves, and they all quickly shot to their feet. Their entire bodies were twisted and gnarled and spoiled to tones of white, green and brown. The looked like rotting vegetation, given new life and complex animation. The all slowly gathered into a group, and slowly paraded to the exit, where the still staring Mr. Rick stood.

About three dozen of the horrible monsters stood at the gate. Without warning, the leading form, whipped a strange appendage growing from it's arm across the iron gate, causing it to crumple and fall right off of it's hinges.

He was paralyzed in fear as the strange creatures walk past him and the entrance as the passed within feet of him. He took out an old M6D pistol he kept handy and aimed it at the chest of one of the creatures and squeezed down the trigger. The creature fell over dead and the other beast turned a looked and stared at him vacantly. He backed away slowly, wondering if he was going to die. As he backed into the gate, one of the strange vines wrapped around him and got him into a tight coil, he struggled against it desperately, and fired his pistol in his free hand at many of the strange beasts, and the tentacles soon entrapped that arm as well. The end of one of the many treacherous vines dug itself into the atlas bone of his spines, he immediately fell limp, then suddenly struggled against the vine and it let him be. The coils unwrapped themselves around him, the tentacle knew they would need a fresh corpse that knew tactics and knowledge of human weapons. The others had only managed to infest long deceased corpses, where the host had stopped firing neurons many cycles ago.