So we scavenged what we could from the transport, pretty much just a few mags that were left in storage. Then our captain gave us the order that would really start this ball rolling.
"Alright, we need to accomplish two things. Third platoon, I'll go with you will gain access to the main radio. First platoon, you will take the chaplain and move to the escape pods and hold them for our escape. We'll stick together until the last possible moment, then split."
I knew we had multiple objectives, but I was really starting to get a bad feeling about separating from anyone else carrying a gun. So we continued on through this waking nightmare; flank security and tactical movement were the orders of the day. I was kinda freaked out, what with the bodies being either gone or mutilated, but I didn't really have a clue what was happening. So we were moving down a hall, and all of a sudden, the things were everywhere. They were our buddies, the ones we thought were dead. But at the same time, they weren't our buddies. They were walking......weird, just shuffling their feet. And their eyes, they didn't blink. They had this vacant expression, like they weren't even thinking. Then they fired. And let me tell you, fire is contagious. Everybody was rockin' and rollin' and lead was flyin' everywhere. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, it's kinda a blur. Like I said, there was a lot of fire, and we tried to break contact, but the damn things were everywhere. I was shooting and shooting and running and.....that-that's really all I remember. And then I was alone. And low on ammo. Shit.
So I'm moving in random directions, not a clue where to go, and it just appears right in front of me, one of the zombies or whatever the hell they are. If I wasn't scared shitless, I would've been laughing. The thing was standing there, pulling the trigger, completely out of ammo. So I shot it. Three times in the chest. Then three more times. The damn thing wouldn't die! Then I shot it in the head, once. Dropped like a puppet with it's strings cut. Head shots kill'em! I can't believe nobody discovered this before. Now that I knew how to kill'em, this wasn't so hard. While I was standing there, contemplating my new piece if knowledge, about a billion of'em appeared in front of me, guns blazing. I jumped back around the corner and used it for cover. Not that it mattered, the damn things couldn't hit the broad side of the barn, and as long as I stayed in cover, they couldn't touch me. So I, drunk on a feeling of power, just stood there, search, acquire, squeeze, repeat. 10, 15, 20 kills. I caught something out of the corner of my eye and ducked. A big'ol ball of flaming something streaking through where my head had been. That was a new one. Not that I was really surprised, what with already fighting zombies and all. At that point, I peeked around the corner. About a dozen zombies, and something else. It was shaped like a human, but had brown, leathery skin, fangs, claws, and spikes sticking out at random intervals. And it looked SMART.
I reevaluated my options. I didn't have a clue how to kill it, so for now I decided to skirt the issue. Pull the pin, release the spoon, throw the grenade, wait five seconds.
BOOM.
Yeah, the hall was kinda messy. Whatever the thing was, it had both it's legs ripped off and was almost dead. But what it did was the damnest thing. It spit some crap into it's hand, like snot or somethin', but the stuff ignited on contact with the air, like WP. Of course I wasn't about to have another fireball come flyin' my way. I shot the imp right between the eyes. Oh yeah, I decided to call'em imps. We already had zombies, so I figured it kinda fit with my little hell up here. But those damn zombies don't die that easily. They were torn in half, had holes in their torso, were missing limbs, but the damn things were still clawin' around on the ground. So I picked-up a pistol from one of them that WAS dead, and proceeded to administer a 10mm high-velocity frontal lobotomy.
Now, I've read some of the reports of similar incidents, and at least one, the jarh-marine, uhh...Tagger or somethin' said he initially had trouble shooting comrades. My solution was that I never really bothered to identify who was shooting at me. Civy, UAC, soldier, marine, man, woman, child; they were hostile. End line. It ate at me later that a lot of the things I shot used to be my buddies, but I kinda shut it out during the combat.
So anyway, I was pickin' through the bodies, hoping to find something useful, but pretty much everything had been destroyed by the grenade. I stuck the pistol in one of my empty ammo pouches, along with a couple of mags for it I found. I was just beginning my random wandering, when I heard footsteps. Not shuffling, footsteps. I was almost giddy with the prospect of finding someone alive in this god-forsaken place.
