Johnny tasted blood. He tasted it in the air. He tasted the blood and the death. The taste of war. It was going on about him, but he did not hear the shots of lasguns, nor the crack of grenades or the horrible buzzing of the…things. Johnny had been in the regiment for years, but never had he come across an enemy like this. So merciless. So unfeeling. So…alien.
He barely felt someone shake his shoulder, and barely heard the muffled shouts. He could make out the face of a bald man. Johnny slipped back into the horror of reality. He looked into the face of the Sarge.
"Get up, Johnny." he urged.
"No Sarge, I can't," moaned Johnny, "I won't!"
"Come on Johnny, we need you!"
Johnny looked to the other men. There was what remained of the regiment. Frankie, Pavious and Johnny's best friend, Marcus, all firing rounds a few metres in front of him.
"I can't," wheezed Johnny, "I can't do it, Sarge!"
"Come on Johnny, pull yourself together! Remember that waitress at the bar back home?"
Johnny pried into his memory. "The one with a face like a pig?"
"That's the one! Hold on to that thought Johnny, and you'll be alright!"
Johnny did. He held on to it for dear life. It cleared his mind of the fear and horror. He was ready.
"Okay Sarge!"
Johnny got up off the ground and trudged through the mud to the barricade. He grabbed his lasgun and ran to were Marcus was firing.
"Did you enjoy your nap, Johnny Boy?" he shouted over the crack of guns. Johnny smiled. Nothing could dampen Marcus's spirits.
The Sarge joined the ranks, blasting away with his bolt pistol and shouting encouraging orders. "That's it, boys! We'll hold them back! Shoot those little buggers!"
Johnny looked through the choking smoke, trying to properly see what he was actually shooting, but the fumes were too thick. He stuck to blasting away his lasgun.
And there it was.
That deep, droning sound of the things. It comes from every direction, scratching on the back of your mind and gnawing on your fears, shrouding you in despair. It heralds the presence of those aliens. It heralds death.
Frankie, the demo man, lit a charge and threw it.
"BRACE!" he bellowed.
Everyone ducked as it flew over their heads, into the smoke and ignited. Johnny looked just in time to see the light illuminating his enemy. He recognised them instantly.
"Rippers!" he shrieked, "There are Rippers in there!"
Pavious cursed. "Those little fraggers!" He blasted away at his lasgun.
"Good call, Johnny," called the Sarge, and then said to the squad at large, "Alright men, we know how to deal with these things. Aim down low—"
"—for the killing blow!" cried the men in unison.
The battle waged on. The blasts of guns were becoming more rapid and desperate, and that horrible droning was increasing in pitch. The squad's strength started to wither. They were being pushed too hard.
The endless swarm of Rippers were pushing forward, and they were now visible. Johnny reckoned them to giant worms with blenders for mouths.
The Rippers were gaining the upper hand. They leaped and scampered and bounded, only to be shot down, but they were slowly getting closer. Pavious, who had been shooting like a crazed gunman, had run out of ammunition.
"Reloading!" he shouted over the drone as he reached for the lasround. Frankie saw a Ripper leaping towards Pavious. It was fast. Frankie shouted a warning,
"Pavious! Ripper!" he hurriedly cried.
Pavious moved like a snake, bringing his lasgun barrel to face the Ripper that was now horribly close. But as quick as Pavious was, he was not quick enough. The Ripper opened its maw to reveal hundreds of needle-like teeth before it latched on his neck. In seconds it was ripping into his jugular, with specks of blood spurting in all directions. Pavious's soul crushing screams was abruptly cut off as the alien bored into his abdomen.
"PAVIOUS!" cried Frankie. He turned his lasgun to the blood crazed Ripper and opened fire, desperately trying to kill it. It let out a little screech and fell to the ground. Frankie kept shooting its dead body until his ammo run dry. He rushed to Pavious lying on the ground and dropped to his knees.
"Pavious! Pavious, speak to me!" he begged. But his comrade was already dead. He had drowned in his own blood.
Frankie silently cried. He held Pavious's head close to his.
"Wake up buddy, come on, you can't leave me!" he choked.
The Sarge stopped firing and looked to Frankie with solemn eyes.
"He's dead. Frankie," he said, "You can't bring him back. Come on back here and help us!"
Frankie ignored him and looked afar to the tide of teeth and claw. His eyes were blackened with strained tears. And then they turned a deep red; the colour of vengeance. He lay Pavious's head on the ground and got up. He started to climb on top of the barricade. Johnny noticed him.
"Frankie, what are you doing?" he called. Frankie did not reply, his glare dead set on the Rippers. He drew his combat knife and cried with a voice that shook the gods themselves,
"You little devils! I'm going to hell, AND YOU'RE COMING WITH ME!"
He jumped down from the barricade and blindly sprinted towards the Rippers. Several of them noticed him and closed in for the kill. Frankie flayed his blade about like a madman, slicing a few the creatures in half. But the confidence was short lived as the swarm, as a whole entity, closed in around him.
Marcus, the Sarge and Johnny tried to shoot them down, but it was no use.
Johnny could not bear to witness another man die, and he looked away as the horrifying cries echoed in his mind.
In a few seconds the Rippers had reduced Frankie to a pile of blood stained rags. They then returned their attention to the last survivors.
"Get ready, they're coming back." said Marcus. The squad readied their weapons.
Johnny was silent. The Sarge was waiting for the inevitable question.
Then… Johnny asked "We're going to die, aren't we Sarge?"
The Sarge growled and slapped Johnny with the back of his hand.
"No Johnny," he bellowed, "We are NOT going to die! We are going to get through this! Just hang in there!"
"But they took Pavious, Sarge," Johnny whimpered, "and Frankie to!"
But the Sarge was not talking anymore. He was hell bent on killing those things. Marcus put his hand on Johnny shoulder.
"It's okay buddy, the Sarge is right, we will get through this."
Johnny looked into Marcus's eyes. They were deadly serious. Johnny had never, ever seen Marcus this serious. He nodded, and went back to keeping the Rippers at bay. But…
…something had changed about them. They weren't moving. They sat there, sharply turning their head in every direction, as if they were spooked, paying no attention to the humans. Their buzzing had died down to a quiet humming. The squad stopped firing, perplexed. Something was seriously wrong.
Suddenly, all at once the Rippers went ballistic. They wriggled and lashed and screeched in agony. The swarm broke up, scrambling to get out of the immediate area, leaping over each other in haste. Some were even cowering under rocks.
And they were gone.
The Sarge looked in disbelief. He carefully took off his helmet and dropped it into the mud. He sat down. Johnny squatted and looked into the Sarge's face. It was smiling.
"We…we did it, Johnny.' His smile turned into a grin, "We did it! We got through it! We're alive!"
Marcus was in disbelief.
"But they just, just…ran away." He quietly said, "It doesn't make sense!"
The Sarge was now literally jumping for joy.
"Who cares, Marcus? Who here actually gives a damn? We're ALIVE!"
Marcus looked to Johnny. He was looking out to the battlefield. Marcus walked up to him.
"Johnny, they're gone."
"Shhh!"
"Johnny, there's nothing there!"
"Listen!" hissed Johnny.
Marcus stopped talking. He listened to the world around him. There was the usual ambience of far-off bombs and gunfire. Nothing strange. Nothing to spook Johnny like this.
Except…
Except for the faintest of noises. It was a deep, far, far off noise. Like a slow throbbing heartbeat, or a booming drum.
Doom, doom, doom.
It rose from a half-heard noise to a distant sound.
Doom, doom, doom.
Johnny looked at Marcus and pointed towards the smoke. Now the Sarge was listening as well. His smile was gone.
Doom, doom, doom.
It was now as clear as day. It formed into a recognisable sound. It sounded like…
"Footsteps?" whispered Marcus.
'It's getting closer." Johnny breathed.
The giant footsteps seemed to be only a hundred metres away, but you could not see it through the smoke. Johnny got up and walked over to the pile of charges. He strapped a couple of them together with medical bandages.
'What are you doing, Johnny?" asked Marcus.
"Going to see what it is." he replied.
Johnny estimated the distance of the sound, took a run, jump, step and launched the charge into the air, arcing overhead into the smoke.
"Sarge," called Marcus, "Brace!"
The Sarge did so as the explosives ignited with great force, ripping a massive hole in the smoke with a 'vboosh' sound.
But that was not the only sound. A loud screech pierced the air from within the rolling fumes.
The whole squad looked through the blinding light to see it; the huge, heaving hulk of glistening flesh and chitin.
"Oh gods," managed Marcus, "what is that?"
"Carnifex." said the Sarge in a monotone voice.
"Emperor help us." muttered Johnny.
The bright light faded just as Johnny noticed the enraged expression of the monster. The footsteps were now heard again, except now they were loudly thumping, increasing in speed and were very, very angry.
DOOM DOOM DOOM
"It's charging!" the Sarge bellowed, "Shoot the damn thing down!"
Johnny and Marcus picked up their lasguns and opened fire. The loud footsteps were getting closer.
The smoke parted to reveal the oncoming body of the nastiest and most deadly of all the alien Tyranids. The size of ten men and with the hunger of a hundred Rippers, the Carnifex was the living, breathing embodiment of death. And it was mad.
The bright blue bolts of lasfire bounced off its shiny black carapace, causing it no harm but pushing it further into rage.
It was obvious to the men that the lasguns did nothing, and the Carnifex was only 20 metres away. They needed to move. Now.
The squad legged it in what small time they had to get away, the Sarge running to the right, and Johnny and Marcus to the left.
Only seconds after they moved the Carnifex literally crushed the barricade underfoot, the monster's hulking mass smashing into the the ground with bits of mud and dirt flying into the air. The Carnifex quickly heaved its massive self out of the ground and snapped its gaping maw at the Sarge.
"Die, damn you!" the Sarge roared as he fired rounds into the creature's hide.
With one swift, fluid strike, the Carnifex bought its scythe-like talons around. In a spray of gore, the Sarge's limp body fell to the ground.
And so did it's other half.
"Sarge!" cried Johnny. He started to desperately fire his lasgun at the beast. The Carnifex swung its barbed tail around and knocked Johnny off the ground. Marcus pulled out his combat knife and rushed under the creature's body and sliced at its abdomen.
The Carnifex could not reach under itself. It tried to move and slash at him, but Marcus was too agile, staying safe from the grasping talons.
The Carnifex stopped trying to expose Marcus, and gave out a little shudder. Beneath the Carnifex, Marcus saw tiny folds of flesh contracting to reveal… several barbed flesh hooks fired from the monster's carapace like tiny harpoons and impaled the soldier.
The flesh hooks detached from the limp body and zipped back into their crevices in the Carnifex'es abdomen.
The Carnifex, fuelled with blood lust, turned its bulbous head to Johnny…
It only had a second to see the charge fly towards its face before it impacted and ignited.
Johnny was knocked off his feet, landing heavily in the ground with a thud. Even though his bones ached, he leaned up to see the flesh burnt of the Carnifex'es face and the blast sending a shockwave through its skull, severing its spinal cord. The great hulk of flesh and chitin collapsed on the ground, letting out a small whine before deathly silence.
Johnny stared at the heap of flesh for a while. Then he glanced at the Sarge, Johnny's mentor and father figure for the last three horrible years of the war, and Marcus, Johnny's best friend, who always shared his rations with you and told you dirty jokes to cheer you up.
Johnny felt he should feel sorrow, or mourning, or at least sad. But he was too exhausted to feel any of that.
Johnny looked down at his body. He had forgotten how much he had pushed himself, how much his skin was bruised, how much his bones ached, and how much sleep he missed. War could do that to you.
What Johnny needed, he thought, was rest. So he lay himself down on the cold ground, and let tiredness overcome him.
There were no more things to kill. There were no more sergeants to give you commands, or comrades to call friends. To Johnny, there was no more war. And he no longer tasted blood.
Johnny felt his body go weak. He saw the darkness cloud his vision and his mind. Finally he could rest. Finally, he was at peace.
He smiled as the horrors of life drained from him, and he knew no more.