Every moment seemed like an hour, waiting for the explosion to come. It was almost insubstantial, a small firecracker of sorts, knocking the iron door off its hinges and rattling the hallway slightly. No button, no lever needed; the small amount of C4 explosive destroyed the stronghold door. But the noise, that was the substantial part of it; the C4 went off like a thousand gunshots, the cracking and snapping of the iron and the bang of the explosives as they set off, filling the stone brick hall with smoke. That was what triggered the horde. Almost instantly after the explosion went off, a stomach-turning screech rent the air, the collateral cry of a thousand bloodthirsty undead who were enraptured by the sudden noise that echoed throughout their dark chambers. With them were sure to follow the Endermen, who appeared to be leading the horde onwards; as soon as the smoke cleared, we rushed through where the door had once been. The stone brick on the sides was charred, but hardly damaged, unlike the effect a TNT explosion would have had.
The chamber was a vast space of a vault; the bottom simply fell into the void, a black, heaving mass below that absorbed all light and sound that slipped into it. A small, two by one stone brick walkway on our side led to the platform in the center of the vault, which connected to four other walkways and four other doors at each of the cardinal directions, all leading to different parts of the stronghold. This was the center; this was the nexus of the stronghold. The portal lay at the center, a sleeping giant, unmoving, waiting to be awakened.
"That's the portal?" I asked, moving ever so cautiously towards it. Every single block of it had a slot that seemed to fit a spherical object…something like the pearls I now possessed.
"That's it. We've seen it, from up there…" Newell motioned to the small 1X1 hole in the ceiling about ten blocks above. "But we've never really been this close. Enough study to know how it works, I think…"
"Do these fit in there?" I asked him, pulling out one of the pearls. It seemed to pulsate with a growing light, as if realizing that home wasn't far away, within reach.
"It's more complicated than that, I'm afraid. It takes—"
His answer was drowned out by the cries of zombies, hungry for flesh. A sudden wind blew through the open doorway to us, carrying the stink and the moan. The horde wasn't very far away; they'd be closing in from all sides, including the closed doors. This left us only one passage to be concerned with.
"They'll only be coming in from just that one passage."
"What about the other doors?" one of the soldiers asked. His voice was monotonic, almost robotic.
"They won't be able to break through the iron doors," Newell responded. I could hear shambling now. The undead were in that hallway, trying to reach us.
"When's Mike Squad getting here?" the other soldier asked.
The captain did not respond. Five minutes? It seemed like nothing…but we were up against the undead and worse. Five minutes would be a lifetime in hell. I turned off the safety on the blaze gun I held; I wouldn't need it.
The first zombie shambled around the corner. No one shot; everyone was too concerned about saving their ammo. Finally, one of the soldiers grew some balls and fired his pulse gun directly into the zombie's head, destroying the brain in one critical shot, as well as cauterizing the wound. To our dismay, the creature fell over the side, falling off into the void; it wouldn't be blocking the doorway against the other zombies who would certainly follow it. More came around the corner, their glowing eyes lit with bloodlust and anger, their outstretched, rotting arms grasping for us, trying to be the first ones to bite into flesh. No one preserved their ammo here; it was a free for all. I fired my blaze gun once, knowing I had the shot straight into the zombie's forehead. It toppled over without a sound; its cranium instantly destroyed, incinerated by the flame, and fell off the narrow walkway with so many of its friends, down to the void below.
The horde kept on coming; to my dismay, the bodies didn't pile up as they should. The zombies were actively working to push them off as well as get to us, ensuring that they wouldn't be snagged in the corpses of their kindred. Instead, they were actually getting closer, despite the accuracy of our shooting. I could hear banging at the other doors; I could hear moans, more of them, the shrieks and cries, and out of my peripheries could see arms reaching through the doors, pushing on them. Despite Newell's assurance that the iron doors wouldn't budge, I was beginning to fear that they would crack.
At that very moment, an Enderman teleported right in front of me. I saw the claw swipe before I really even knew what was happening, and ducked down. The claw would've decapitated me; instead, it decapitated the InSec soldier behind me, tearing off his masked head in one clean swipe. I was stunned momentarily; that could've been me. For a moment, I felt pity for the man who died instead of me, whom I had allowed to die. He most likely took part in his share of atrocities, for sure, but still…to see another human being die before my eyes, when it should've been me…
The Enderman fell next, hit square in the head by three pulse blasts. Even a shadow could not withstand pure energy; it collapsed, its essence destroyed, and fell directly on top of me. The thing weighed at least four hundred pounds, despite its thin, wiry and muscular form; I couldn't breathe with the dead monstrosity on top of me, and I struggled against the weight of the creature to throw it off the side, down to the yawning void below. Blue bolts of light flew in my vision, as the pulse blasts continued to hit the zombies. Arrows joined them, too; and the cracking of Jeff's hunting rifle resounded in my ears, adding to the shrieks of the zombies and the muffled thumps of the pulse guns. I didn't know how long it had been; I wasn't able to keep track of time. My vision was beginning to blur, due to the crushing weight.
Finally, summoning all my strength, and with the help of adrenaline, I heaved the dead Enderman off of me, throwing the crumpled body over the side. I nearly threw myself over, as my momentum carried me up with the corpse. Only the weight of the stone in my pack kept me from following it down. The zombies were nearly on top of me as well, despite the constant fire from the pulse guns. My blaze gun worked wonders again; yanking it from its holster, I fired at the nearest zombie, incinerating its head, and continued to fire into the mass. I didn't care where the bolts hit; I knew that they hit, I could hear the searing of flesh and the cries of the injured undead. As long as they hit their targets, it was enough for me.
A crash on the other side of the room drew all eyes there; the door was broken open. The iron door that Newell had promised would stay strong. Two creepers came into the door, with another horde of zombies piling in behind them. I could see another Enderman behind them, jostling for position, unable to teleport due to the mass of bodies. I couldn't get a straight shot at the creepers, but my attention was fixed on the green bodies struggling to get to us. One of them was hit by an arrow right in the chest, and knocked over the side. The other managed to reach us; with a roar, Wil drew his sword, throwing his bow down onto the ground with a clatter, and slashed the creeper, knocking it backwards against the surging zombies. I was sickened by the sight of green and black blood; driven into a mad frenzy by the killing and the horror, I drew my own sword and faced my own horde, slashing maniacally, whipped into a killing frenzy. Black blood spewed everywhere, and the bodies of zombies fell into the void one after another. They met their end at the point of my sword, hacking off limbs and heads without a care. My gun was knocked off the walkway in the melee; I barely noticed. I also barely noticed the ladder descending down to the platform and four Sec troopers descending with it, armed with swords and SMGs. They fired randomly as the third iron door broke, and the hinges on the fourth began to creak menacingly. I pushed one of them with a sword aside, almost knocking him off the platform, and grabbed one of the ladder rungs, rushing up the ladder. I drowned out the gunfire and shrieks from below. All I knew was that humans followed me up, and that there were humans above me, their hands reaching out, trying to pull me up…
