Chapter 9 The Assault
They were coming, the creatures, the demons, the vampires were coming up from the chasm and they were hungry for blood. Jason, Nick, and Eric ran into the temple to prepare for the assault that was to come. Jason and Nick began to shut the doors leading into the entrance hall of the temple while Eric kept look out behind them for more creatures or Salim and Dar, who had retreated into the temple themselves moments before.
"Put your shoulder into it! Hurry!" Jason stressed as he and Nick had trouble closing the heavy doors.
Nick took a look behind him, neither him nor Eric seeing Salim or Dar.
"I don't see the Iraqis." Nick said.
For the first time since Jason set foot in Iraq, he couldn't care less about the Iraqis, not when they were about to get swarmed by dozens, possibly hundreds or thousands of vampires.
"If they've got any sense, they'll stay back. Shit's about to get real in here!" Jason said.
Jason and Nick were about to close the door until a voice on the other side shouted for them to wait. They all went cold from shock when they heard that voice as it sounded familiar, it sounded like…
"Rachel!?" Nick exclaimed as he looked through the door.
"Rachel?" Eric said, looking back at hearing his wife's name.
Rachel ran towards and slipped through the entrance hall doors, completely out of breath. Much to everyone's confusion, Rachel was covered in blood, but that didn't matter, they were all relieved to see her alive.
"You're alive?" Nick said, barley believing it.
"Have any doubt, marine?" Rachel said, before being hugged by Nick, who she hugged back.
Meanwhile, as they did, Jason shut the doors and slipped in and thick beam of wood into the slots to keep them shut and Eric was watching them, with a cold look on his face.
"Where's Eric?" Rachel asked.
Before anyone could answer, Eric came over and hugged his wife, which Nick glared at seeing.
"I held on as long as I could, but… The rope… It snapped. I-I didn't cut it, I wouldn't." Eric tried to explain, hoping Rachel didn't that's what happened.
"I know, you didn't cut it. I did." Rachel revealed.
"You cut it?" Eric gasped, not having thought of that possibility before.
"It was climbing protocol. We both could have died; I couldn't risk that." Rachel explained.
Eric and Rachel hugged again and even gave each other a quick kiss, which further frustrated Nick, who cleared his throat.
"We good?" Nick said.
Eric looked over at Nick and his temper flared.
"It's him, isn't it?" Eric said, pulling away from the hug. "I understand you're not the brightest Nick, but even you must know what I'm talking about."
Eric than looked back at Rachel.
"You've been fucking him, haven't you?" Eric accused.
Not even waiting for Rachel to confirm or deny it, Eric walked over to Nick and punched him in the face. Eric tried to throw another punch, but Nick blocked it with his arm and counter punched Eric. Nick turned Eric around, pinning him against the entrance hall doors.
"That's the best you got?" Nick mocked.
Before more punches could be thrown, Rachel grabbed Nick and pulled him away and got in between them.
"Stop it!" Rachel demanded, pushing them back as they tried again to rush as each other.
Despite Rachel trying to hide it earlier, Eric knew she was hiding that she had been cheating on him, but he just didn't know who. Eric figured out that it was Nick from when he tried to smoke earlier, but couldn't find his lighter and remembering that Rachel had one earlier, originally thinking she had started smoking at some point.
"I know it's him, Rach. I know!" Eric said.
"You better step off before I start swinging. Colonel or no Colonel." Nick threatened.
"Don't Nick." Rachel said.
Rachel turned towards Eric, figuring that it was best to come clean.
"I tried waiting, Eric. I really did." Rachel said.
"Until?" Eric questioned.
"Until I had to move one. I'm sorry." Rachel apologized.
"Always loyal." Eric said ironically.
"You held on. I didn't." Rachel said, voice full of guilt and regret.
Jason came forward in an attempt to get everyone back on track and get Rachel up to speed on everything that's happened so far.
"It's good to see you, Rachel. I thought we'd lost you." Jason said.
"Who else made it through?" Rachel asked, hoping to hear that the four of them weren't the only ones still alive.
"It ain't good. Merwin's gone. Those things… they got Joey… Clarice." Jason began to say.
The look on Rachel's face changed at the mention of Clarice and Jason noticed.
"What is it?" Jason asked.
"Clarice was infected, those things, I don't know how, they got inside her. I tried to bring her back up here so that we could help her, but she didn't want to take the risk and I had no choice but to leave her behind." Rachel explained.
"Fuck! No! Clarice… I brought her here." Eric said regretfully.
"You telling me, Clarice is still out there?" Jason asked Rachel, surprised to hear Clarice hadn't died earlier when she got grabbed and that she was still alive.
"That's not Clarice anymore." Rachel stated despite wanting to deny it. "She was changing into one of those things. I saw it."
"I believe it. Same thing happened to Joey." Jason said.
Suddenly, from behind the entrance hall doors came the screeching of the vampires, who began to bang on the doors, trying to break their way inside. Jason, Nick, and Eric immediately raised their guns, but Rachel didn't.
"You armed?" Jason asked.
Rachel shook her head and so Jason handed her his sidearm, telling her to make sure every shot counts.
"Alright, fall back to the main temple." Jason commanded.
Jason stayed behind as the others made their way to the main temple before following after them himself and closing the doors when he entered. The generator was sparking with small explosions and the lights were flickering, threatening to turn off and leave them all in complete darkness at the total mercy of the vampires.
"We can't lose the generator. We're blind without it!" Rachel said frantically.
Jason was having trouble closing the temple doors and called for help.
"I need help! We can't let any of those things through!" Jason said.
Nick went over to help Jason close the doors; as he did, he noticed a few vampires were already in the entrance hall and rushing for the main temple doors.
"They're inside already!" Nick informed.
"We can't let anymore in. I don't care what their invite says!" Jason said.
Jason and Nick closed the doors and slid in the wooden beam just in time as the vampires started to bang on the door. Jason and Nick braced themselves against the doors in hopes of holding the vampires back for at least a little longer.
"Hold the gate. I'll get the generator running." Rachel said.
"There's… nobody… home!" Jason shouted at the vampires, struggling keep himself braced against the door.
Eric went to help Jason and Nick hold the door while Rachel ran for the tent. She looked at the computer in a briefcase that was connected to the cameras and saw more vampires coming from other passages to attack them.
"Fuck, that's all we need." Rachel said.
Suddenly, Rachel saw on the screen one of the vampires run past the camera, which was immediately followed by an explosion, which caused them to lose connection with the camera.
"Is this place mined?" Rachel shouted over to the others.
"It's not mined enough!" Jason shouted back.
Rachel closed the briefcase and brought it with her. As she began to run for the generator, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She looked and saw it was the charred corpse of the vampire Eric had examined earlier. Even dead, the vampire was still a completely horrifying sight to behold and Rachel couldn't help but think of Clarice back on the other side of the chasm. Rachel wondered if she had turned or not already and if she could still be saved either way. If she did turn, Rachel wondered if Clarice still looked like herself or had turned into exactly what these vampires looked like, whatever it was, Rachel shuddered at the thought of turning, not wanting it to happen to her or anyone left in the squad.
"Ugh! Get it together Rach. Focus on the here and now!" Rachel thought, bringing herself back to reality and focus on keeping the generator running.
As Rachel ran for the generator, back at the doors, Jason, Nick, and Eric were struggling to keep the doors closed. Each time the vampires pounded at the doors, they were nearly knocked away onto the ground.
"Fuck! These things really have a hard-on for getting in here!" Jason stated.
Nick looked at the lights as they continued to flicker and ran to help Rachel if she needed it.
"We need that generator running, now! Or we're all screwed!" Nick said as he ran towards Rachel.
Eric grabbed his UV wand to use it against the vampires if they got in, but a bang on the door made his lose his grip and it feel to the floor. Eric quickly bent down to grab it, hoping it hadn't been damaged from the fall. For the brief moment that Eric wasn't helping hold the door, Jason felt that the doors were about to burst open from the vampires constantly ramming it.
"These fuckers want in. It's not gonna hold!" Jason shouted.
Eric tried to brace himself back against the door, but as soon as he did, the vampires rammed the doors, snapped the wooden beam and partially opened the doors, sending Jason and Eric reeling back.
"This is our house! Our rules!" Jason shouted at the vampires as he began shooting at them to keep them from slipping through.
Eric turned on his UV wand and shone it at the vampires, causing them to back away from the door. Jason stopped shooting, giving Eric the opportunity to reclose the doors and attempting to hold the vampires back. Jason held onto the other side of the door so Eric didn't have to hold it all himself.
"Is that all you pussies got?" Jason mocked the vampires as he and Eric held the doors closed.
Eric was however having trouble keeping his side of the doors closed.
"I can't… I can't hold it any longer!" Eric shouted.
From the other side, one of the vampires rammed Eric's side of the door and managed to get into the temple. Jason quickly closed the door and Eric pushed what little of the wooden beam there was left into the slots to keep the door closed as Jason attempted to shoot at the vampire.
"It's inside! Its fucking inside!" Jason shouted to warn Rachel and Nick.
None of Jason's shots hit the vampire as it disappeared from sight and into the shadows.
"Slippery fucker. The fuck did it go?" Jason said, trying to spot where the vampire went.
Not seeing where the vampire was, Jason turned back towards the door, which Eric was still trying to hold shut.
"Oh shit!" Eric breathed, not knowing how much longer they or the door could keep the vampires from swarming into the temple.
Jason began shooting at the vampires through the holes they had pounded in the door's frame, being careful not to hit Eric, but of course his bullets didn't do much but just make the vampires angrier.
"They're coming through! Fucking things are worse than sewer rats!" Jason stressed.
Meanwhile, down with the generator, Rachel pulled the cord, hoping the generator would start back up. However, it seemed to do nothing and the lights just continued to gradually fade.
"You worthless pile of shit!" Rachel said angrily, kicking the generator. "Why won't you just fucking work!?"
Nick grabbed Rachel's shoulder in an attempt to calm her down.
"That's not gonna work Rachel, that thing is fucked. God dammit." Nick said before shouted towards Jason and Eric. "The generator's not working!"
"Fucking shit." Jason hissed.
Jason looked at the door and saw that any second the vampires were going to break through and massacre them in the dark. It was now or never, they had to retreat somewhere that was safe enough to plan their next move.
"I think now's about the time we bug out." Jason suggested. "Any objections?"
Eric tore himself away from the door and he and Jason run to Rachel and Nick. Rachel turned the computer back on and began flipping through the cameras, trying to see if there was somewhere they could run to.
"They're breaking through the perimeter." Rachel said, seeing more and more vampires with every click.
"You got any bright ideas, now's the time!" Jason stressed.
"Come on, come on. There's gotta be something…" Rachel said before landing on the image of where Jason and Nick had found the two bodies earlier and there were no vampires. "Wait! Yes! Okay, we can make for the catacombs, we need to go down!"
"Down?" Nick questioned, thinking that idea was crazy. "In case you missed it, that ain't the way out!"
"It's either that or we die where we stand." Jason stated. "Everyone move to the east gate!"
Everyone began to run for the eastern passage on the side of the temple. As they did, the vampires finally broke through the temple doors and began to rush towards them, itching to tare them all apart.
"Go! Get to the gate!" Rachel shouted.
Jason and Nick began firing at the vampires to give Eric and Rachel time to get to the eastern passage. Rachel didn't run however, she remembered the machine gun she and Eric had found when they first descended into the temple earlier and got an idea. Rachel ran for the machine gun and began to load it, but had trouble pulling the loading device on the side to do so.
"This wasn't one of your better ideas, Rach." Rachel told herself, beginning to think this was a mistake.
Rachel however persisted in trying to load the machine gun. Jason and Nick were having trouble keep the dozens of vampires from descending down upon them and were about to get slaughtered. Just when it seemed the three were doomed, Rachel managed to finally load the machine gun.
"Yeah! Now we're talking." Rachel said eagerly.
Rachel swiveled the machine gun towards the vampires and began to blast them away. Jason flinched in startlement and looked back, having not expected Rachel to man and fire the machine gun. Rachel tore through the vampires with the machine gun, driving them back. However, the machine gun soon ran out of ammo. Her job done, Rachel was about to retreat to the eastern passage, but from the side, a vampire, the one that had managed to slip through the doors earlier lunged at her.
"Rachel!" Eric shouted, seeing this from the eastern passage.
As the vampire lunged at her, Rachel was able to kick it over her and pulled out her combat knife, not planning to go down to this thing without a fight. The vampire swiped at Rachel with it's claws, but she ducked and rolled under the vampire, trying to stab it in the face. The vampire caught Rachel's arm, but Rachel cleverly dropped her knife, catching it in her other hand and used it to stab the vampire in the neck. The vampire backed off, screeching in pain, than being shot by Jason. Eric rushed over from the eastern passage and shone his UV wand on the vampire, which immediately burst into flames.
Eric grabbed Rachel, pulling her back to her feet and they ran back towards the eastern passage. Jason ran for the eastern passage to, but stayed behind for a moment, shooting the vampires with some white phosphorus rounds, but they were still coming. One vampire landed near a lamp, knocking it over into some gasoline leaking from the generator. Electrical sparks flew from the lamp as it shattered, causing the gasoline to catch fire, the flames traveling towards the generator. The generator exploded, some vampires being caught in the blast and catching on fire. Seeing that there was no more need to linger any longer, Jason followed after the others, coming to the catacombs.
"Keep to the middle." Jason instructed to make sure no one ran into the charges he and Nick set up earlier.
Everyone stayed in the middle of the hall as they ran through. Nick looked back to see some vampires coming after them. One vampire set off one of the charges, which exploded and threw the vampires across the corridor and caused the other charges to explode. The explosions caused the corridor to partially cave in with debris. Nick and the others continued to run downwards before having to stop to catch their breaths. As they stopped, they listened and couldn't hear any vampires.
"Blast must have cut us off." Jason assumed, but didn't bother to leave anything to chance. "We should keep moving."
Everyone else agreed and continued to descend further, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the vampires and find somewhere they could formulate further plans to survive and get back to the surface. They eventually came into some sort of chamber that had another generator and more lights, which were on. Nick went in first to check it out. He thought it looked like it would be a safe place for the time being, that was until someone shouted something he didn't understand at him. Nick looked and saw it was Dar, the guy who had ambushed him and Jason earlier.
Nick raised his rifle, ready for a fight. Dar said something else in Arabic and before he could even begin to think what Dar was saying, from behind him came another voice.
"Hello again." Salim said, aiming his pistol at Nick.