Each glowing, undead orb tracked the advancing crew. Dempsey romped headlong with Revy, her Wave Gun slung across her back with Cutlasses ready. Dempsey shouldered through the building's thin double doors, bringing his USAS up as Revy opened fire.
Their numbers were significantly fewer up close.
Dempsey walked six rounds through seven targets as Revy took a right, talking nine millimeters through rotten skulls, their wavering gait stumbling and falling. By the time Nikolai and Dutch reached the doors, all undead were gone from the front desk.
"Clear!" Dempsey shouted, traversing his shotgun's muzzle through the space. Richtofen, Benny, Rock, and Takeo shuffled in moments after.
"There should be a map of the place in that desk," Dutch stated, motioning his RPK in the general direction.
Richtofen moved with a purpose, shuffling behind the desk and over dead bodies to extract the document. As he did so, the crew filled defensive spots.
The room had a basic layout, with chairs lining the front wall with room for ten people. Its front desk had a single chair and smashed monitor; the chair toppled and broken. Two hallways on either end led to corridors, and stairs leading to the second floor were placed behind the desk.
Its once vaguely cream-colored paint had stains of crimson, guts spattered about like graffiti, and walls crackled and littered with bulletholes.
"Found it!"
Richtofen extracted a three-by-three-foot laminated plant layout with three sheets per location. It is divided into the Electrical Yard, First, and Second floors. Richtofen laid it across the desk after some hasty swatting of debris, Dutch looming over his shoulder.
"Compared to zhis shithole, these don't look bad!"
"The company's owned by Americans. 'Course it doesn't."
Dutch shouldered the German aside, leaning over the diagrams. It depicted a cyclic first floor with a front office, machinery room, instrument observation room, tool room, and a side office. Only the machinery room had access outdoors save for two emergency exits branching off the main lobby passageways, and the one left from the entrance led to the electrical yard.
Its second floor consisted of an admin room with six desks and a company office leading to a board room occupying half the floor space.
"We're here," Dutch identified the main lobby, " So we'll move through the west hallway and through the exit here." He perked up, directing that free hand rightward. "Just that way."
Sunlight through the windows dimly illuminated a blood-painted hallway with viscera settling within pools of crimson. An opened carcass with mauled strings of flesh lying across a partially open door also obstructed the floor. A truck nestled in the doorway somehow twisted sideways, its maligned metal frame wedged with no room.
"Uh, okay, new way. That door leads to a machinery room. We'll go through there."
Dutch leered back to the diagram.
"From there, we go by the relays under the tower where the master switch is. If the power's that important-"
"Jah! It is. The power is always zhe first shtep in our plans. From there, I can utilize zhe storms and our devices, and just maybe I can extract us from zhis mess."
Dutch blinked at Richtofen.
Dempsey sighed.
"Any day now, Doc."
"Right."
Edward bundled the maps and packed them into Dempsey's assault bag. Revy peeled off the stairs and waited behind Dempsey, everyone else coming off their stations and waiting.
"Okay," Richtofen whispered, "Go."
Dempsey skulked down the hall, taking the first corner and kneeling. His shotgun barked twice as Revy moved behind him. She stopped at the machinery room's door, both Beretta's held to her chest as Nikolai angled behind her.
Tank fired again.
Revy kicked through the handle, its lock snapping and door swinging in with a bang. Nikolai slipped in, Vityaz burping lead. Revy entered to see multiple flaming, rotting wolves interrupted from devouring several corpses. Some instantly turned, snapping and barking while three others charged.
Nikolai's first bursts ripped through two dogs, and Revy's cutlasses joined the fray. She plugged one with six rounds, their festering bodied rousing at once and charging. Nikolai raised a cry, spraying his subgun as Richtofen entered.
A loud, braying whump flattened her near-deaf ears as Richtofen disintegrated his first dog. Some wormed as they shot them, and others exploded in hot, rancid air, nearly making Revy choke.
One bound over a pump and leaped directly at Revy. She plugged it twice in the head, its body exploding and washing her in embers and burning flesh. Scorching ash berated her skin as the remains of a spine punched her gut. Revy doubled into Dutch as he entered the door.
Nikolai and Richtofen cut through the remaining dogs with ease.
Dutch and Revy sprawled in the hallway, a surprised Benny and Rock wedged between them and Dempsey. Mid-reload, Dempsey glanced at them.
"Fuckin' dogs burn like hell! Get up! There's fleshbags behind us!"
Dutch one-armed the groveling, groaning Revy through the door. Benny and Rock followed, with Dempsey tossing a frag and entering immediately after.
"Shit! Fuck!"
Revy wriggled in Dutch's grasp, breaking free and slamming into an AC unit. She collapsed, rubbing her face and chest vigorously. The Lagoon crew knelt as Richtofen watched, swapping the Ray Gun's batteries.
"Oh, you let one of zhe Hellhounds blow its load on you, eh? Don't do zhat. It so hurts~"
He broke into a laugh, with Nikolai saying something similar in response. Takeo knelt by Revy as she swatted her red skin, offering his canteen of water. Dutch gave the man a look, but he ignored it.
"Drink, dab water over the burns, and it will heal soon."
Revy's skin, in some places, had blistered but was already sealing and healing. Plenty of locations were bright red. Grumbling incoherently, she took the canteen and twisted it open, taking a gulp then washed some over her face.
"Thanks, guy."
She palmed the canteen back to Takeo, who wordlessly reattached the cap and placed it in his duty belt.
Dempsey finished swapping magazines as he sauntered over. "We goin' now?!"
A loose-skinned undead smashed into the room, howling deafeningly with his comrades. Benny and Dempsey opened up, breaking the walking corpses into several pieces with overlapping buckshot. Benny realized something as Dempsey groped for another magazine, holding his shotgun limply.
"Guys, I'm out!"
Richtofen chortled, waving his Ray Gun to the room's backend. An AR-like chalk drawing shimmered over dirty brick.
"Would you look at that, schwine-boy? Get yourself a new gun."
Benny glanced between the Marine Magnum and the wall. He opted for the latter, placing it by a heap of unrecognizable meat and moving for the firearm. Placing his hand over the chalk outline, it materialized a yellow and black painted AR-style carbine with an Aimpoint M5000 optic within its carry handle. A 14.5-inch model, Colt 723 Carbine, like they used in a conflict Benny had only recently heard of.
Desert Storm.
A US-issue webbing rig materialized itself over his safari fit, and knowledge of the weapon system, its kinks, and its use inscribed itself in his brain. The blonde knelt, his brain thumping for several seconds, groaning in pain.
"Hah! He hurts!"
"Hey! Fucking morons!" Dempsey shouted, racking the USAS' charging handle as another undead stumbled through the door, "Out-fucking-side!" Dempsey pulled the shotgun up, blasting the undead skull into mottled reds and greys.
"Yeah, yeah, hold your fucking panties, Tank!"
Nikolai shambled to the back doors and planted his ragged boot through its lock. The roughshod door swung outward, and the muted electrical yard came into view. Stacks of generators and coils lay on either side, with about twenty meters of space in the center. The path led to a massive electrical tower, about ten stories tall, with a shack off its right side. Between them and that, though, lay dozens of undead milling about.
"Fucking zombies! Of course!"
Nikolai and Richtofen rushed out, firing simultaneously and braining undead. It took several seconds for their yellow eyes to snap to - and then they rushed. Nikolai swept his Vityaz left to right, threading nine mils through skulls and collar bones, flipping and tripping the undead until his magazine ran empty. Richtofen moved right, his green rays distorting the molecules within the undead torsos by melting and erupting their bodies into a toxic mist. Peeling through the door came Takeo next, his G28 punching rounds through rotten eyeholes and skinless foreheads.
Revy and Dutch came hot with Benny; his gait steadfast and confident. Benny came behind Nikolai as he fumbled his reload, shouldering the 723 and ripping a five-round burst through one's torso and skull, twisting it to the side. He traversed targets, clamping his teeth and ripping seven rounds through the next one. Dutch flanked him, with Revy shooting up the center with Takeo. Revy pulled Richtofen's right, blasting undead who clambered across the fence or crawled across the ground. Their six-man wedge flushed the alley with ease, Rock stumbling behind them, Dempsey pushing through another magazine as zombies cluttered behind them.
Dutch's RPK snapped dry, and he dropped it across his flak jacket. In a singular motion, he drew his 628 Revolver and plugged a .357 bullet into an undead cranium, its body shambling from the enclosed area the main power switch stood. Its skull split in two, rapidly deteriorating brains scrambling in opposite directions. He traversed and laid four more rounds before the revolver snapped empty.
"Out!"
Dutch tossed the revolver as Takeo moved beside him, plugging 7.62x51 rounds into a trio of undead who'd shambled from the same spot.
"I have you," He said, swiveling his marksman rifle to something climbing the tower. He fired once, its figure twisting and falling into the pathway. It had mottled brown skin and a misshapen head with no eyes. A massive maw of pointed teeth accompanied its claws, and Takeo reared his head in disgust.
"Filthy nova crawlers! Ensure to be alert!"
Nikolai cursed - Richtofen laughed.
The crew sluiced into the cage, Nikolai kicking open the cage with Revy angling inside. Her Beretta's chattered twice into the skull of a mangled zombie wedged in the fence work. "Clear!" She shouted, mobilizing to a large, forties-era electrical switch. Dempsey pulled up on their rear, shoving Rock into the cage as a motley crew of undead poured through the machinery room.
"Little help?!"
Revy shouldered by the stumbling Rock, holstering her Cutlasses and swinging out the Wave Gun. After pressing it forward, she tapped the trigger once, its purple lightning bolt piercing the torso of one infected with unseen energy wafting through each carcass. They slowed, stopped, and began to levitate as their bodies swelled. In seconds they exploded, showering the path with inflated, fetid guts and grime. Revy laughed - this time not in range of the carrion shower - and glared gleefully at the wave gun.
"Fuck, this thing is awesome!"
Dempsey chuckled, pulling a 10-round magazine from his bandoleer, "Fuckin' A right!"
Richtofen nodded, "Okay, Nikolai, watch our rear, an-"
"What's everyone's mag count?" Dempsey interrupted, patting his pouches. "I got three left in the shotty, with a partial in the pouch. Two handgun mags each and a ka-bar."
"Nine," said Benny.
"Two," Grumbled Nikolai.
"Six," Announced Takeo.
"Seven of these disk things, and one extra for each'a my Cutlasses." Said Revy.
Dutch pat his pouches, "One drum left for the RPK. Revolver's out."
Richtofen sighed, glancing until he found yet another chalk outline. It looked like an enormous hand cannon type. He thumbed to the wall gun. "There, dark man; should be something gut."
Angling to Richtofen, Dutch nodded briskly, then maneuvered to the weapon. He'd dealt with Nazi's before - professionally and personally - he'd have to bet his survival on this one. Despite being an armband-wearing shithead, this Doctor Richtofen handled himself well in a fight and acted as the group's de facto leader, save for the American's assertive tendencies. Placing his hand on the outline, a hefty autocannon appeared in his hand with a western-style belt of magazines appearing around his waist.
The AMP Automag chambered in .44 AMP with an 8-inch hunting barrel, sporterized rubber grips, and nickel finish shone beautifully in his hands. Revy and Dempsey whistled simultaneously.
"Aw, hell," Dutch rumbled, sliding his finger down the barrel, "Now this is a beaut'."
"Jah, jah, vhatever," Richtofen shouldered his way to the switch, a thick glove gripping its hanging shaft, "Let's get this party started!"
When he snapped it through the activation rung, at first, nothing happened. A deafening silence swept through the facility, like the entire pandemonium of Roanapur dissolved.
Yet, there they stood.
Dempsey sighed, spinning to Richtofen. "Okay, Eddy, what the fuck?"
The doctor opened his mouth to speak as a piercing, electrical shrieking blotted their hearing. Each person winced, the storm spooling into a crescendo of lightning strikes and vortexes. An immense network of heat lightning raced through the sky, striking the generators and the tower, some striking back into the storm.
"Wow!" Roared Richtofen, "This is highly unusual!"
"You can say that again!" Replied Dempsey.
The swirling maelstrom centered over a far-off path patch, striking with a thundering, seismic clap that blew dust across the electrical yard. When the dust cleared and the crew shook their heads of fog, something loomed in the dust.
"What the-"
Dempsey cut himself off as a dozen feet of flesh stood before them. Something with three heads, shoulders as broad as a truck, tree trunk legs, and multiple swaying, tentacle-like appendages roared at the crew. Yellow, knotted flesh covered its body, and a nasty odor washed across the yard. The Lagoon Company stumbled back, each set of eyes - even Revy's narrow, hard ones - bewilderingly gazed upon the abomination.
"I'm way too fucking drunk!" Nikolai shouted, "Or that really is a monster!"
"I see it too!" Dempsey glanced to Richtofen, who appeared just as bewildered, "Doc, what the fuck is that?!"
"I..." Edward's voice trembled, tapping his Ray Gun, "Haven't a single goddamn clue..."
Benny dropped his shoulders, his voice and body defeated. "Seen enough hentai to know where this is going..."
The American's drone caught disgusted looks from Rock and Takeo, but only for a moment as a duet of lightning bolts struck before the stationary beast. Nova crawlers materialized from the lightning, snarling and yapping their unintelligible bark.
Dozens of strikes landed in seconds, the crew shellshocked by the sheer number of crawlers spawning before their eyes.
"Fucking shoot them!" Revy screamed, raising her Cutlasses and snapping rounds into the materializing creatures. At once, the entire mob of beasts lurched forward. Many of the crawlers leaped - scaling the yard's fences, generators, floors, and superstructure dangling over it. The crew snapped into action, Dutch's hand cannon bellowing .44 AMP hollowpoints into the deformed crania of Nova beasties, breaking their skulls in disgusting yellow-green spatter. Some outright died, but others curled up and erupted into porous, yellow gas that whipped into the storm's wind.
They formed a rough line, crisscrossed between each other as the deafening gunfire outroared the storm. Richtofen targeted the three-headed creature as it lumbered forward, the Ray Gun's luminous green orbs bursting one of the skulls in two shots. It stopped, swayed back, and belched yellow fluid from one of its heads. The viscous liquid melted the concrete beneath its feet, the creature vaulting its toxic spew and bolting straight for them.
Lightning flashed across the yard, crawlers leaping and yelping in an incomprehensible maelstrom around the crew.
"Out!"
"Loading!"
"Fuck!"
Even Rock shuffled to the line, squeezing off his .38 Bodyguard until its empty cylinder snapped back at him. A crawler bowled into his stomach after shooting off the superstructure, tumbling them into the cage. Revy whipped around, squeezing a round into the thing's head. Two more leaped, one directly at Revy and one at Rock. She moved to shoot both - but one gun banged, and the other didn't.
She'd run out of bullets.
"Rock!"
Her shriek came about as the first crawler set upon his wriggling form with nasty teeth, pinning his legs and neck as its maw disemboweled steaming guts onto the pavement. A unanimous cackle erupted through the creatures.
They pounced at once.
As many as six descended on Rock's screaming form, tearing his flesh from bones and organs from veins. Rock's screaming figure yelped into silence as a crawler sunk its teeth into his throat, devouring it with messy slurps. Crawlers headbutted or tackled the crew. Benny went down next as Revy struggled to reload, his shoulder capsized in teeth as a second crawler latched on his back, sinking its claws through his throat and kidneys. Benny's screams died as a gurgle when a third tackled him before the crew, crushing his frontal lobe between its jaws.
Dutch snapped a .44 through one of three flying at him, with five more scampering across the ground. Nikolai's gun ran dry, winging only one. The first crawler slammed into Dutch's midsection, and as they wriggled across the concrete, two more scampered over his groin and left arm. Dutch tried swinging his AMP, only for another crawler to drop on his chest and rip through his ribcage like a rabid animal.
"Oh, fuck!"
Nikolai batted one that came for him but tripped over Dutch's still-consumed body and tumbled into the fence. Dempsey tried angling on him, but a crawler to his left bolted forward - Tank swiveled and answered with a round of buckshot. Something from the fence's other side punctured Nikolai's back, and he gasped, groping the fence as two more crawlers descended on his torso and gorged his insides.
The now two-headed creature made it to the cage.
As Richtofen fired recklessly, it lurched forward with an unknown speed, its tendril swinging into Richtofen's midsection and catapulting him into tower supports. His back audibly snapped, but before he cried out, a duet of crawlers snagged his shoulders, with a third seizing his spine, tearing into it with gnashing jaws. It came around as Takeo tripped over Dutch, dropping his rifle and drawing the Katana. He ducked in, surprisingly nimble, and slashed through a swinging tendril. It came off with bubbling yellow blood, and Takeo sunk his weapon into its torso to the hilt.
It snarled, one of the tendrils wrapping Takeo's torso and lifting him into its maw. Takeo screamed as the monster snapped its jaws around his torso, splitting the body in two as guts and blood sluiced through the opened carcass. Tank and Revy stood back to back, handguns drawn and firing a volley of nine mils and forty-fives into the storm. Almost simultaneously, their slides snapped back, and Dempsey's gut knotted.
"Fuck! Ain't no way!"
Dempsey drew his Ka-Bar, and Revy brought her fists. Both plunged forward, with Dempsey taking a bite to the thigh as he stabbed a crawler in the skull. Spinning, he elbowed the creature off and slashed through an infected throat. Revy opened with a straight kick, planting two zombies against three. As one leaped at her, she side-stepped it, punching a crawler under its jaw and snapping the teeth into itself. Something latched onto her back, biting deep through her trapezius. Revy shrieked, groping its thin neck and ripping it from her back. The gargantuan beast swept the crawlers aside with its tendrils, and as the two stood for that moment, it belched the bubbling yellow liquid across them.
Revy and Dempsey had no time to scream as their bones, blood, and body melted into unrecognizable gore.
Falling felt weird when you were dead.
That's what Dempsey felt.
Falling.
Falling through an endless pit of black with no light. Its swirling, stygian madness enveloped everything and swallowed you to silence. His final moments were pain, fright, and hot, fiery rage. He wanted another shot at those bastards who surrounded and ended him. Didn't he deserve it? From raiding the beaches of Okinawa to killing zombies in literal Shangri-La, what right did he have to die cornered by a bunch of freaks in an electrical yard?
For fuck's sake, he was on the moon!
I was on the moon.
Something raced past his vision, and though Dempsey possessed no body, he turned to look.
It was a light.
Bright and white.
Something - just barely visible - lay on the other side.
What was it?
A dingy bar?
Something...
Dempsey drifted closer, reaching with a mottled, blacked-out limb that shuttered into reality.
"ACCEPT YOUR FATE, BEGIN ANEW!"
Whether Dempsey had dreamed it or not, those violent memories jostled his brain like a fading nightmare. Blurry and sometimes vivid images of Roanpur's downtrodden, rotten state infested with undead punched him in the head like a wooden table.
Then Dempsey opened his eyes.
He had, in fact, faceplanted into a wooden table.
Shooting up from his chair, Dempsey ripped one of two Colt Model 1911A1's from its holster and aimed it around the room.
A bewildered Takeo stared from across him. Richtofen and Nikolai chortled something akin to laughter to his right, with Edward taunting a mug in Dempsey's direction. The bar around him looked rough - wooden construction with a stale stench melding alcohol and body odor. As he waved the gun left, a Chinese-American female with scanty clothes and tattoos offered a wolfish grin, her fingers delicately stroking two custom Berettas in shoulder holsters.
"Ha ha! Demp-shit has lost his fucking mind!" Nikolai belched, slamming his lone bottle of vodka against the table and shattering it. He gaped at the destroyed item, face suddenly screwing into anger. "Fuck, my fucking vodka!"
Richtofen's chuckle simmered as his eyes stretched to the woman. Dempsey lowered his handgun and stared into her eyes - perhaps a bit too intensely - as she stepped back from the table.
"What's wrong, faggot? Cat got your tongue?"
Dempsey dropped his aim, his spare hand wiping the sudden cold sweat from his brow. "What the fuck... No, I-" And then the woman stepped back. Her eyes lulled into her eye socket's recess, stumbling backward for a fraction of a moment. Then as Revy's eyes reversed forward, she opened her mouth and released a frightened, angry, and pained shriek, drawing the entire bar's eyes on her.
Revy fell to the ground, scampering madly away from the table and drawing her handguns.
"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK FUCK! DIE, FUCK!"
Dutch shot across the room, wrapping his arms around Revy's midsection as Benny and Rock shot up.
"Revy! Revy! What the fuck?!"
She wriggled in her arms, a wolfish grin replaced with that of a wounded animal trying to run or get free. Dempsey angled his glare to Richtofen, the only man not confused by this event. Takeo watched in melancholic silence while Nikolai mumbled incoherently - likely Russian. Slowly, Dempsey raised his gun to the German, face steeling as the Lagoon Crew tried settling their gunman.
"Doc. What the fuck was that?"
"Hmm?"
Dempsey placed the Colt to his temple, digging it into his skin.
"Don't fucking try me! The memories! Us dying! What the fuck was that?"
Richtofen searched the man's eyes with squinted ones, searching for several seconds. After some visual contemplation, his expression relaxed into an eerie grin.
"Oh, my poor Dempsey. We've been caught in zhe spider web of Sam! Her shpell has been cast, and ve shall suffer in eternity unless we break zhe cycle!"
Dempsey raised the .45, plugging a hole in the ceiling.
"English, motherfucker!" And he leveled the gun back at Richtofen's head. A small bead of sweat trickled off his forehead. Everyone glared at them now, even the semi-coherent Revy.
Richtofen held his grin.
"We've died here before, ja? Zhe element one-one-five has infested zhis place, and Sam has trapped us in zhis universe to live, die, unt repeat."
Dempsey felt his finger slowly close on the trigger, pressing it beyond the mush and into its wall. Just a few more pounds of pressure and he'd blow Richtofen's brains out.
Then a man stumbled into the door, ragged and bleeding and shouting.
"Help! There's fuckin'... Shit, fuckin' zombies out there!"
I have returned. Been sitting on this unedited piece for a few months; same deal with several other projects on hold in my little catalog. Even though it seems unlikely, I have those projects still in progress and new ones almost ready for presentation.
Read on, leave reviews, and feel free to shoot me any messages!
-MontyTheMemeMan