Chapter 31: Big, Fat and Ugly

Robles

It was a hulking monster of assorted body parts and organs. It looked as if the entire thing was stitched together from various parts of various people and animals, with a massive, disemboweled body, short stubby legs, and thick arms, each holding an enormous meat cleaver.

"Any ideas?" Leo asked.

"Yes." Paccone loaded a Jackhammer rocket launcher. "We kill it."

Mann took one look at the creature and nearly lost his nerve. "Kill THAT thing! Are you crazy?"

"No, I'm a Marine!" Paccone yelled, aiming the Jackhammer at the abomination. "Now do something useful and grab some extra rockets!"

Paccone launched his first missile at the creature. It shot through the air and slammed into its chest. The thing staggered backwards momentarily in a cloud of its own blood and gore, chest blown out by the blast, but it was till very much alive.

"Tough bastard." Paccone muttered as he launched another rocket.

The second rocket shot in and found its mark, piercing the abomination's skull and blowing its head to bits like a melon. The body staggered a bit and then fell over, crushing several cars as it did. Though the body twitched a little, there was no doubt that the thing was dead.

"See? That wasn't so tough."

"Sir, can we get out of here now?" Leo asked.

"Why should we? We took care of that thing."

"Was it the only one?"

Paccone paused and thought for a while. "Lets load up and get the hell out of here."

Radio Station

"They're on the way back." Said Kumi as she listened in on the radio.

"Heh," Sam said, "any idea on when Leo and the others get here?"

"In about five minutes."

"Uhhhh guys?" Collette whimpered, "There's something wrong with the other guy…."

"What?" said Kumi, still occupied with the radio.

"It's that other guy. He's not moving." Collette pointed to the injured civilian.

"Fuck!" Kumi yelled, and rushed over to the injured man. "How long?"

"I don't know!"

Kumi looked over the man for several seconds, and realized he was already dead. She shook her head and stood up. There was nothing she could do for him now. Suddenly, she heard gunfire coming from within the station. Kumi picked up her rifle and yelled, "Siler!"

"Already on it!" Siler ran for the door.

Kumi ran to the door, stopped, and turned over to Sam. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Go on Kumi, you're needed elsewhere." Sam sighed.

"Anything goes wrong, give us a call, 'kay Sam?"

Sam waved the comment off in annoyance, "What are you, my mother? I'll be fine."

Omega

"I suppose we're going to have to hold this place." Tarin muttered, looking around at the destroyed Karla shook her head as she saw a flash of Riley getting ripped apart by the undead mob. "I don't want to needlessly risk anymore lives. There may be more of those things hidden around here."

"Course of action?" asked Williams.

"This facility is now deemed compromised, which means that I as commanding officer have the authority to destroy the facility to prevent it from falling into enemy hands." Karla said grimly.

Williams and Tarin both nodded, understanding what she meant.

"Tarin, Williams. Go topside and grab the HAVOK tac-nuke from Hung's Warthog. Meet me back here, and we'll plant it in the lowest level of the facility."

"You humans and your scorched earth policy." Holy snorted, "Such a crude way of dealing with your own equipment and technology."

"Yeah, well it works, and that's all that matters." Karla retorted. "Once we set the nuke, we arm it, get out, and head to Robles."

"Robles?" Williams asked curiously.

"I looked through the file, and found that these guys tested their virus by releasing controlled bursts in the wild. Some of t hem were scattered, but most are centered in one spot, Robles."

Robles

Though the gunfire was almost constant several minutes before, the noise started dying down, from long continuous blasts to short bursts, and finally to the occasional burp of fire. That meant only one of two things, either the defenders were successfully eliminating the zombies, or worse, the opposite was happening and the number of defenders was dwindling. Unfortunately, Sam couldn't tell which.

"Uhh… uhh… Sam?" she heard Collette whimper.

"What is it?"

Collette pointed to the body of the dead civilian. "I thought you and Kumi said he was dead…"

"He was…"