Chapter 35
Jones stumbled and fell. He grunted in pain as he dragged himself against a nearby tree, sitting with his back against the large trunk. He looked down at the blood that stained his cammie pants, the dark liquid shining with reflected moonlight.
Liscomb had shot at him. Liscomb had fucking shot him!
"That's alright, motherfucker." Jones said to himself through gritted teeth as he opened the medical pouch on the side of his vest. "That's alright. When all this is said and done, I'm going to make sure you burn. Fucking asshole." The Gunnery Sergeant said as he dug through the pouch. Where was the tourniquet?
Jones had ordered additional medical supplies for his med pouch. It had been a pain in the ass to get everything in the pouch, and always felt like it was straining against the zippered closures, but it was better to have the extra stuff just in case.
Unfortunately, the commotion had shaken the contents enough that several items spilled from it as he rooted for a tourniquet.
"Dammit." He said, trying to see where things were landing. He paused his searched and reached into his cargo pocket, retrieving his headlamp. The light clicked on, flooding the area with white light. Jones made a mental note of where the items had landed, then, against his better judgment, he looked at his leg.
Several of the 5.56 rounds had torn through his upper and lower leg. Thankfully, none of them seemed to have hit any arteries. The adrenaline dump had all but numbed any pain. But now that he was looking at the injuries, he was starting to feel them. And they fucking hurt. A lot!
"Fucker!" Jones said, tears of pain and embarrassment welling in his eyes. "Liscomb, you fucking asshole. You'll be lucky if I don't kill you when-"
He paused when he heard the sound of engines. Jones went to stand, yelled out in pain as bolts of lightning shot up his left leg, and watched with wide, horrified eyes as the dropship lifted off.
They'd left him. They'd fucking left him behind!
"Motherfuckers!" He screamed. "You fucking cowards! What happened to no man left behind?"
Jones slumped against the tree, breathing heavy. His heaving breaths became hitched, and he started to sob.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this." He said through his sobs, more tears streaming down his face. "We were supposed to rescue people." A wash of anger ran through him. "It wasn't supposed to fucking be like this!" He yelled, tossing his rifle away in anger. This was supposed to have been his last rotation with this company. Once they'd returned to Gateway, he would have pinned Master Sergeant and probably filled a First Sergeant billet. Instead, they'd been sidelined for this shit!
"It's not fair." He said to no one and everyone at the same time. "It's not fair!" He yelled towards the sky filled with alien stars.
Something clicked in response. Close.
The hairs on the back of Jones' neck stood up, and he stopped moving. His breathing became more erratic as he heard more clicking, and the shuffling of something moving nearby. He clicked off his light with his right hand as his left reached out for his rifle. Where is it? He thought, becoming more panicked as he heard more movement. Where the hell did it land?!
He never found it.
The neomorph that had followed him into the forest ran down the large trunk before leaping forward, pouncing on him from above.
The other neomorphs paused and turned in the direction of his pained screams, staring in that direction for several seconds. When the screams stopped, they went back to feeding on the dead. The only sounds were the wet crunching and slurping of the creatures, set to the background noise of soft waves lapping against the pebbles from the beach.