Chapter 30

"Get down!" Rebecca yelled as a giant vine tried to crush most of Bravo Team. "It's coming by for another pass."

"Try aiming for the vines, maybe we can tear them off if we put enough rounds into them," Forest said as he tried hitting the main body of the big plant only to cause minor damage that seemed to heal up as soon as it struck.

"Try and get the vines to stay in one place for long enough for me to put a grenade into each one as they come by," Captain Marini instructed as he pumped his MGL to rotate the cylinder to an incendiary grenade.

"Working on it!" Forest said as he dove out of the way of one of the vines that was trying to kill him. "But they don't want to stay still."

"Burning it!" Captain Marini said as he fired an incendiary at the main body of the carnivorous plant. "Let's see how you like fire."

The plant seemed to scream, the sound not anything like Bravo Team had ever heard before, it echoed through their skulls and made them cover their ears to prevent the sound from being worse.

"What the hell was that?!" Marini yelled out as he shouldered the MGL and fired another grenade into the giant plant, this time a high explosive one that tore chunks off of the main body of the plant.

Forest, the next one to recover from the noise, shouldered his SR-25 and started filling the hole that had appeared in the giant plant with rounds as fast as he could pull the trigger, the open wound not being able to regenerate while he filled it with 7.62 NATO rounds.

"Keep firing," Captain Marini ordered as he fired four more grenades before ducking back behind a pillar to reload. "Don't let it heal up!"

"Copy that!" Forest said while Richard began firing his Benelli M3 into the plant's open wound as well.

"Kenneth is down!" Rebecca said as she dragged the big pointman behind cover while killing the few zombies that tried to find the source of all the noise. "I think the noise rattled his brain a bit! He's stable, but I'm keeping him out of the fight!"

"Copy that!" Captain Marini yelled back as he stepped back out from cover while Forest ducked back down to reload his SR-25 again. "Fire in the Hole!" he yelled as he fired all six grenades in rapid succession, the incendiaries combined with the HE rounds causing the chunks of plant matter to catch on fire as they blew off of the plant. And finally, with one last ear-pounding shriek, the plant creature collapsed, seeming to be dead.

"Keep shooting," Marini said as he checked his load of grenades and frowned, finding that there were only around nine left. "I don't want to use any more grenades when we might need them in the future."

"I've got a frag," Richard said as he pulled the grenade out, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the remaining plant matter. "Frag out!"

"I think it's dead," Forest said as he stood up from his crouched position, pulling the magazine from his SR-25 and checking how many rounds were left before shoving it back into the receiver. "Can we leave now, boss? I'm tired of having to kill giant monsters."

"We can leave when we get the rest of Bravo back together and have a ride out," Marini patted the sniper on the shoulder. "Let's go check on Kenneth."

"He's awake, but I'm fairly sure that his eardrums are busted," Rebecca said with a sigh. "He's bleeding out of his ears even with the ear protection that he had on, and has to read my lips to fully understand me."

"So he's going to have to hold onto the back of one of our vests," Marini said with a heavy sigh. "Alright, we're going back into the mansion, and we're getting our team and getting off of this godforsaken mountain. Even if we have to walk the entire way to do it."

"I don't remember there being an elevator here before," I commented as we entered the main room. "You remember seeing anything like that, Ed?"

"Negative," Edward shook his head. "I'd have remembered an elevator. Someone must have taken it up here."

"Well, let's check it out," Jill stepped forward with Chris right behind her while Barry brought up the rear. "Might be something important."

Then, the group of five began to hear heavy footsteps from around the corner.

"What the hell is that?" Chris asked as an eight-foot-tall monstrosity stepped around the corner.

"Yet another impossible thing we're going to have to kill," I said as I saw the red eyes glow as it glared at the five of us. "Edward, can I have my 10mm, I'm not sure that my Sig will do much to that thing."

"Yep," Edward passed me the handgun over while still staring at the creature. "You've only got the mag that's in there though, we've pretty much used the rest of it."

"Well that's great," I snarked as the creature started charging. "Guys, we should probably kill this thing now before something else comes along."

Barry just stepped forward and shot the creature with his Remington 870, causing it to stagger back at first before it braced itself while pushing the massive clawed hand out in front of it to block any more incoming shots.

"Just pour on the fire!" Chris yelled as he emptied his SMG's magazine into the giant. "It can't take the combined firepower!"

Raising my Sig, I carefully aimed for what looked like an exposed organ on the right side of the creature, my 9mm rounds impacting it and causing the creature to roar as it turned its focus onto me.

Running at me, the creature tried to swipe at me with the clawed hand but I dove out of the way, feeling my side begin to radiate pain as I hit the ground with my injured side. Ignoring the sharp spikes that felt like they were digging into my side, I staggered up and ran away from the creature, dodging claws as the rest of the STARS team shot the giant.