"So, um...did you see anyone else?" Jenkins asked.
They'd been walking through the broken glass tunnel for about ten minutes so far. Jack was silently hoping that there was nothing out here on the surface, because...well, besides the obvious reason that he didn't want to face down any more of these fucking horrors, the idea that they could survive in dead space was even more terrifying.
"No, I didn't see anyone else. I mean, I haven't checked every single hiding space, but I didn't come across anyone else from the team," he replied.
"I saw someone from Mars City when I was searching the Nuke Plant. Guy named...shit, I can't even remember his fucking name. He was just this guy who went on patrol with me once. Kinda weird, fidgety. He had bug eyes, you know? And now he's dead. Probably everyone who was here and everyone who came up before us is dead."
"We don't know that," Jack said firmly, although he had to agree with the kid. Phobos Base was so bloody and shredded that it seemed like it'd be a miracle if anyone survived at all. "What I've been thinking about," he said, trying to change the subject, "is what these creatures are. I'm having a difficult time fitting it all together."
"What do you mean, fitting it all together? It's just...crazy. This whole thing is crazy."
"Of course it's crazy, but obviously some sequence of events led up to it. They came from somewhere. They're here for something. I mean, as crazy as it all is, it's also kind of...specific. Everyone who was killed...why were they killed? How? Whatever it was, it happened really fast. So that must mean..."
Jack trailed off as he saw something up ahead.
"Must mean what?" Jenkins asked.
"What is that?" Jack replied.
"What?"
Jenkins joined him in looking. There was some kind of light up ahead, way down the tunnel. It seemed to be drifting around. It was a bright yellow light that seemed to flicker, almost like flames. For a moment, he had an image of an Imp, holding a fireball and waving it around. But that didn't seem right. This was something different. But what? How the hell was there a fire in an environment without an atmosphere?
Abruptly, his radio cracked to life.
"...zzt...help me!...omebody help...zzt..."
At that same moment, a blue-suited figure stumbled into one of the pools of light cast by the few remaining work-lights in the tunnel.
Jack cursed and started running. Another survivor! Obviously a local. Judging by the suit, probably an engineer of some kind.
"I'm coming! Keep running!" Jack said.
The man lifted his head at this. He tried to say something but it was lost to the strange interference that seemed to blanket the whole moon. The man started running towards them again, but he was still a good ways off, maybe three hundred feet down the tunnel. The two men picked up the pace, pushing themselves. Jack tried to keep an eye out for whatever threat the man was running from. All he could see was that strange yellow glow.
Only…
It was making a beeline straight for the man now, and there were more of them. And they were coming directly for the engineer as well.
They kept running towards each other. Jack had his pistol out and ready, his mind furiously trying to come up with an answer as to what in the fuck these things were. They were too slow-moving to be projectiles of some kind, at least he thought so. The engineer was close now, maybe ten meters away, but the lead projectile was now zeroing in on him. It rushed forward, abruptly cutting the distance between them down to nothing.
Jack caught sight of something right before the strange glow disappeared into the engineer, but he couldn't believe his eyes.
There was no way he'd saw what he thought he saw.
It was impossible.
Suddenly, the engineer stopped dead in his tracks. He started screaming. Jack and Jenkins came to a halt about five meters from the guy, who was grabbing his helmet now, screaming over the radio link, his voice coming in broken by static, making it even creepier. Abruptly, he stopped. His hands slowly dropped to his sides, his head slowly raised.
Behind the visor, Jack now saw a strange, flickering glow.
"What the fu...what happened?" Jenkins murmured.
"Just wait," Jack replied.
He had a flicker of an idea, but he didn't want to accept it, didn't want to examine it at all. The engineer was staring at them.
"Are you okay?" Jack made himself ask, although he already knew the answer.
The engineer let out a low groan that was becoming intimately familiar.
"Is he a fuck-a fucking zombie!?" Jenkins cried.
The engineer reached down and grasped the handle of a pistol he had holstered on his thigh. He pulled it out and aimed at them.
"Drop it! Now!" Jack snapped, desperately wanting to believe that this wasn't happening. The barrel of his own pistol had sagged slightly but now it snapped back up.
The engineer popped off a shot and nearly winged him. That was enough for Jack. He fired twice, putting two rounds through the zombie's faceplate. The monster let out a gurgling roar as it fell slowly to the surface of the tramway, flash-frozen blood spraying from its shattered visor. As he was processing this, something caught his eye.
There were three more floating fireballs still in the tunnel with them.
And they were getting closer now.
This time, as they crossed the threshold, coming into the light thrown by one of the working strips overhead, there was no mistaking what he saw.
They were skulls. Human skulls.
Flying, flaming skulls.
Jack felt his sanity and control slip a notch suddenly and he found himself thinking wildly, as he took aim, sure, why the fuck not?! We've got goddamned zombies and fire-throwing imp demons and fucking shaved gorillas with mouths the size of Texas...WHY NOT THROW SOME FUCKING ON FIRE FLYING SKULLS INTO THE MIX!?
The other half of his brain, the one that was cold, rational, and calculating, and had spent the last ten years fighting for its life as a Marine, was ensuring that his aim was dead on. Jack began popping off shots, putting four rounds into the damned thing. And oh, to make matters even better, they had horns, and teeth like razor blades.
As he punched the fifth shot into the bony bastard, it suddenly burst in a spray of flames and bleached white bone fragments. How could they be on fire?! They were outside, in dead space! There was no atmosphere!
Jenkins was picking up the slack, finally. He added his own gunfire to the mix. In the end, they each ended up emptying a whole magazine taking the remainder of the flying skulls down. As the rain of bone matter finished (slowed by the low gravity), Jack ejected his magazine and slapped a fresh one in. He was still trying to process everything, but his brain reminded him that he had limited oxygen and this wasn't exactly the best environment to be standing around in.
"What the fuck was that!?" Jenkins demanded finally.
"I don't know, but we have to keep moving," Jack replied. "Come on, we need to get inside."
"I-but-I mean-what-"
"Jenkins! We have to get inside, we don't have enough oxygen to waste out here."
That seemed to get him moving at least. With a heavy sigh, the fellow Marine finally nodded tightly and the two men resumed their journey through the tunnel.
"Jenkins," Jack said after a moment of rumination, "we can't let those things get near us. You saw what happened. One of those skulls dove into that guy and he became a zombie. That must be how it happens."
"How is that even possible?" Jenkins replied, his voice quiet, barely above a murmur.
"I don't know, all we know is that it is possible. Just another threat to watch out for. We have to treat this like any other combat situation. Stay sharp, stay focused, and watch out for threats at all times. We do that, we'll find the others and get the hell out of here. We've got a shitload of intel to dump on Kelly when we get back to Mars."
"Yeah..."
A few minutes later, they were cycling through an auxiliary airlock next to the main tram entrance, no doubt meant for maintenance personnel. Both men remained silent as the airlock finished filling with atmosphere. There were a few seconds of silence, then a loud clang that always made Jack jump now whenever he had to hear it as the inner doors slid open. As he stared out into a blood-drenched lobby bathed in flickering light, Jack was amazed at how happy he was just to be back inside. He opened his air vents so that he'd stop using his internal supply and had to make himself ignore the reek of blood and death.
"Come on," he muttered, stepping carefully through the door, sweeping his half of the room with his shotgun while Jenkins took the other half. It was clear, they were alone. For now. As he took in the finer details of the entrance lobby, finding it not all that dissimilar from the one to the Nuke Plant, he thought to himself: so, this is the Toxin Refinery. Although he knew this wasn't the refinery itself. That was deeper in.
"Which way?" Jenkins asked.
Jack considered it, but even as he surveyed the three ways to go, his decision was apparently made for him: there was just one way to go. One of the doors in the room led to a security station, (where he managed to grab a few shotgun shells and reload), and the main door that led to the refinery was locked down. A double check of it confirmed that they'd need a color-coded keycard in order to get through.
A blue keycard.
That just left one way to go, the maintenance/storage section.
With a sigh, he took point, favoring his shotgun now for what he imagined would be close quarters. If he ran into a nasty down there, he'd need to be able to kill it in a hurry. The security armor was supposed to be good stuff, but he didn't feel like testing it anymore than he already had. At least this time he didn't have to go down any stairs. He and Jenkins moved down a short passageway and into an antechamber that led to several other areas.
"Now what?" Jenkins muttered.
Jack sighed. "We should probably split up. We'll cover more ground that way. We need to find that keycard and it isn't in the security checkpoint."
"What if it's within the refinery itself?" Jenkins replied.
"Then we'll have to find another way in. Look, you take the storage area, I'll take maintenance. We meet back here in ten minutes regardless, got it?" he replied.
Jenkins looked nervous, but to his credit, he seemed to swallow his fear and nodded. "Got it."
"Good luck."
"You too."
Jack hated to go off by himself, and he hated how afraid he was even more. Fear was something he'd had to conquer a long time ago and he thought he'd done a pretty good job, but goddamn was this place fucking scary.
Gathering his courage, Jack set off down the corridor that would take him into the maintenance sector. He didn't like the way the lights were dim or the fact that he could hear the occasional growl from a zombie lurking somewhere nearby. He kept his movements tight and controlled, making nice, slow progress down one corridor and up another, pausing to check any rooms he came across. Most of it was just a lot of the same.
Abandoned work rooms.
Derelict maintenance bays.
Bloodied bathrooms and break rooms.
He popped zombie heads whenever he came across them, dropping the bastards like flies as quick as he could. He didn't like the way they seemed to be a little bit faster now than when he'd first encountered them back in the Hangar. He also didn't like the way that more of them seemed to be holding onto tools of some kind, and clearly intending to use them as weapons. Hammers or big, solid wrenches.
Not that they got close enough to do so.
As he came to the end of the maintenance area, his instincts started to get tripped. Nothing had actually changed, and yet…
Something was wrong.
However, he made himself keep going, and it was for the better. For as he came to the final room, a long, reverse J shaped room that started out narrow but widened into a larger, open bay at the end, he saw something distinctly blue in the bay area. It was resting on a workbench. Jack started towards it, but hesitated. Something was definitely wrong here. It was too...easy. Why was it there? He moved up to the edge of the wall to his right, which, about halfway down the room, ended abruptly. He waited, listened, heard nothing.
Jack peered around the corner.
Nothing. Just more wall, some lockers, a few tables, a couple workbenches.
But the bad feeling didn't abate. Sighing, he made himself step forward. They needed that keycard. He walked up to the table, reached out to grab it, hesitated, looked around again, and then reached out and grabbed it.
As soon as he did, the lights shut off.
His heart leaping into his throat, he heard the distinct sound of a door whirring open behind him and he spun around, shotgun raised. A thin light was revealed and he realized his mistake. Along the wall behind him had been a blank spot, what he assumed was just dead space. But it was left intentionally vacant because that spot was in fact a door that led to a closet. A very well-concealed door. Damn!
Two Imps were inside and they cut loose with loud, serpent-like hisses as they marched out of the closet and wound up to pitch those fireballs of theirs. Jack's body was already responding to this new threat. He aimed and popped off a shot, and it was a good one. Put a fist-sized hole clean through the chest of the lead Imp. It flew backwards, right into its buddy, which threw off the evil thing's aim. The fireball that it threw sailed over Jack's head, lighting up the area briefly. While it was readjusting, Jack readjusted his own aim and fired again.
The blast tore away a portion of its skull in a plume of dark red gore and it fell to the floor as well. Breathing heavily, trembling slightly from the adrenaline high, he waited to see if anything else nasty was waiting for him. Nothing was. Carefully, he made his way back through the maintenance maze. When he got back to the agreed meeting point, Jenkins wasn't back yet. While he waited, Jack checked over his ammo supply.
He'd mostly used his pistol to put down zombies once he realized the quarters weren't quite as close as he'd thought, and he remembered just how low his shotgun shell supply was. As it was, he was sitting at just a pair of shells left in the gun. He'd also expended another full magazine for his pistol. He still had four left, but it was enough to make him worry. With all the wrecked guns and spent shell casings around, he was beginning to suspect that most of the ammo had been used up in the war that had engulfed Phobos Base.
Just as he was deciding to go in and check on Jenkins, the kid returned.
"Hey," he said, looking glum. "No keycard."
Jack grinned and helped up the blue card.
"Oh...well shit," Jenkins said, returning the grin.
Jack laughed. "Come on, let's go see if there's anyone else alive in this shit heap."
They hurried back to the main room and Jack swiped the keycard, then pocketed it, just in case. The doors made a pleasant chiming sound and slid open, revealing an entry bay. Immediately, Jack didn't like the refinery. In the entry bay alone, he spied a good half-dozen of the gray forty gallon drums, and some of them were leaking glowing, green toxic waste. The smell was acidic and awful. He quickly cleared the area and moved on to the next door, opening it up and stepping through. Once Jenkins was inside, he closed it behind him.
It didn't get much better in here.
Now they were in a broad corridor, the place littered with barrels and dead bodies. Jack was pleased to see that there were Imps and a few of the big bastards among them. Score a few for his side. Just as he and Jenkins began making progress down the passageway, they heard a shotgun blast, and it wasn't all that far away. Then, another, and a third, and the popping sounds of a pistol being fired off rapidly.
Both men started running.
They sprinted the length of the corridor, dodging corpses and barrels, until they hit the other side and slapped the open button. This time, the door opened to reveal a much broader room, some kind of central processing chamber. The walls were lined with large silver cylinders and a huge piece of machinery dominated the center of the room. Whoever was firing away like there was no tomorrow was on the other side of that machinery and several Imps and zombies were making their way around either side of the bulky piece of equipment.
"Take them down!" Jack called, drawing a bead.
The first shot was good and slammed into the back of a zombie's head, spraying his brains all over the other zombies and Imps. Several of them stopped and turned around. And some of them were holding guns.
And they began using them.
Jack and Jenkins quickly began putting them down, strafing to avoid the return fire. Between the slow-moving fireballs of the Imps and the lousy aim of the zombies, they managed to put down four Imps and half a dozen zombies, capping them with headshots. As soon as the last zombie fell, the pair hurried around the central piece of machinery and found a pair of fellow Marines! He even recognized one of them.
Jennifer was still alive.
And she was kicking ass, too. She was the one with the shotgun. As they came around into view, she was just blowing the head off of an Imp. And right behind her, coming towards her like a fucking express train, was one of the shaved gorillas that his brain had labeled as a Demon. He screamed a warning and opened fire, popping the skull of a zombie that had been drawing a bead on her. Without hesitation, Jennifer spun around, racked the shotgun, and opened fire directly into the thing's big fat fucking mouth.
The back of its head exploded in a spray of blood, brain matter, and bone fragments.
The next few moments passed without words as the four Marines were forced to speak only in gunshots. There were a good two dozen zombies, Imps, and Demons coming in on them from a trio of different entrances into the area. When the gunfire cut off, an almost painful silence fell over the group. They all spent several seconds waiting, breathing heavily, listening and watching for any more enemies to come in.
But they were alone.
Jennifer was the first to speak. "Jack! You made it!"
"Barely," he replied, grinning. Then he started laughing. Surviving hardcore battles sometimes did that to you. He thought it was your brain suddenly being happy that you had, in fact, survived something that very well could have killed you.
"We fucking made it!" Jenkins roared.
"Yeah, fantastic," the other Marine, who he recognized as Peterson, their combat technician, muttered miserably. "We made it...for now."
His somber statement seemed to douse their good cheer and Jack was more than a little upset at that. After all they'd been through so far, it seemed right to celebrate. But his more practical side knew that they didn't have the time.
"What are you doing here?" Jennifer asked as she approached.
"Let's search for ammo while I give you the bad news and the worse news," Jack replied.
Jennifer sighed, then nodded in agreement.
While they searched the corpses they'd produced, he told her about taking Stanmore into the base, finding and fighting the creatures, finding Jenkins, and Stanmore's death. Once he'd sobered the group with that bad news, Jennifer relayed her own tale.
"It was a nightmare," she muttered. "Jenkins and Peterson and I were left behind in the Nuke Plant to check it out for survivors, while Blackmore took the rest on ahead to the Toxin Refinery to do the same. Then they were supposed to wait for us and we'd all head on together to Command Control. But then we were attacked by these fucking things..." she said, looking around at the field of corpses. "Things went nuts, I lost track of everyone. I don't know where you went," she said, looking at Jenkins.
"I, uh, beat a retreat. I ended up in that downstairs storage area," he replied.
"I see. Well, I finally managed to find Peterson after awhile of playing hide and seek and we ended up deciding to head on to the refinery. We haven't found anyone yet, alive or dead. Although I like our chances a lot more now that you guys are here."
"Me too," Jack replied. It felt fantastic to have more Marines on his side. They could get shit done a lot faster.
"About the pilot..." Peterson said, and they all looked at him. He seemed to hesitate under their combined gaze, looking as if he regretted calling attention to himself. "We should be fine. I know that Sergeant Blackmore can pilot," he finished.
"Perfect," Jack said. "We should..." he hesitated, something occurred to him, and then he looked over at Peterson again.
"What?" he asked nervously.
"Technically, you have the highest rank here. We're all Privates, you're a PFC."
He shook his head immediately. "No. I know the truth, you and Taylor are actual warriors, me and Jenkins are just...well, they didn't send us here for good reasons."
"Speak for yourself...oh nevermind, you're right," Jenkins muttered.
Jack considered it, looking at Jennifer. Peterson was right. Although they had so far proven themselves as capable fighters, neither were someone who should be making decisions. Jennifer, on the other hand, used to be the same rank as him, and he could tell she was very competent. But she was shaking her head.
"After the reason I got sent here...let's just say I'm not in any mood to be making any kind of command decisions. You figure it out," she replied.
He nodded, figuring she had a point. If he'd gotten most of his squad killed, he'd have pretty much the same reaction. "All right, first off, have either of you heard anything on the radio?"
"No, we've heard shit-all," Jennifer replied.
"Great..." Jack muttered.
"I was thinking about that, actually," Peterson said. "If we could get over to the security center at the other side of the building, I might be able to patch into the local network and boost the signal. It's a long shot and I doubt we'd get anyone from Mars, but Command Control might not be so unreasonable," he explained.
"It's worth a shot," Jack replied. "Let's get going, and keep an eye out for any survivors and supplies."
They all responded affirmatively and the quartet of them set off. Jack had to admit, he felt good. Having a squad of Marines at his back, even just three others, boosted his confidence and morale. He had a squad, a plan, and more ammo. Speaking off, he began reloading his shotgun. He'd burned through a pair of magazines and the rest of his slug shells during the battle. In the ensuing aftermath, he'd managed to piece together enough shells for a full shotgun and, after splitting up the magazines, he'd replaced the two he'd expended. It was nice, but...it felt like a zero sum game. He still didn't have a lot of ammo to throw around.
And it seemed like the hostile forces seemed to have a lot of nasties to throw his way.
They made their way out of the central room and down one of the larger corridors that should take them out to the other side. Jack took point again, shotgun in hand.
"I was thinking about naming the creatures," he said.
"That's a good idea," Jennifer replied.
"Why, you writing a book?" Peterson muttered.
"No, it's a good idea to agree on clear labels for them so we can call them out in a snap if we have to," Jack replied.
"Oh."
"Zombies are obvious. The red things that throw fire, I think we should call them Imps. Any objections?" he asked. There were none. "Perfect. The big shaved gorillas, I think of as...well, Demons. 'Cause of the horns." No objections there, either. "And then the flying skulls-"
"Whoa, wait, what?" Jennifer asked.
"You haven't run into those?" Jenkins replied.
She shook her head, so did Peterson. "No."
"They're flying skulls with horns and they're on fire. Do not let them get close to you under any circumstances, they are instant kill enemies," Jack replied.
"How?" Peterson asked.
"It's going to sound crazy but, we saw one of them dive into another survivor, a local engineer, and he turned into a zombie immediately."
"Jesus," Jennifer whispered. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"I'll make sure to keep an eye out. What were you thinking about calling them?"
"I..." he hesitated as a name popped into his head. "Lost Souls," he murmured.
"Wow," Jennifer replied. "That's...pretty good, actually."
"Thanks."
Up ahead, something growled. It was very deep and menacing. Jack aimed to the right as a big, dark pink thing walked out of a side passageway. Wanting to get the Demon dead before it got closer, he aimed and pumped out a round.
He missed, except that he didn't miss. The shell instead connected with one of those big gray barrels of toxic crap he'd seen all over the place. It made a spectacular explosion that turned the Demon into free-flying hamburger meat.
"Holy shit!" Jenkins cried. "That was fucking awesome!"
"Well, that's interesting," Jack muttered, blinking several times, trying to get the afterimage cleared from his retina. "Goddamn, those things are a weapon all their own. Come on, steer clear of them and let's go."
They made their way to the end of the corridor and, a few minutes later, emerged in another lobby. Jack switched to his pistol as he spied a trio of zombies. No sense in wasting shotgun shells on freaking zombies. He punched a hole through the forehead of one of them, while Jenkins and Jennifer took down the others. As they finished clearing the immediate area and scavenging for ammo, Jack tossed a glance at Peterson.
The guy wasn't looking so good.
After he'd secured the security station and brought the combat tech in to get to work, he stood guard by the open doorway, keeping an eye on Jennifer and Jenkins as they searched for ammo, then started talking with Peterson.
"So, Peterson, what'd you do to get sent up here?" he asked.
The combat tech remained silent for a moment. "It's something I'd rather not talk about," he replied finally.
"I need to know if you're on the level, Peterson. We're in a dangerous situation and you're the only one I don't have a good read on. I need to know if you're gonna flip out on us, 'cause the only way we're getting out of this alive is if we all pull together."
"I know, I know," he muttered. He sighed heavily and kept working. "I got some people killed. I was down in Australia, fighting against the private contractors down there, joint US-Australia operation. We had these automated drone guns set up that were the only things holding them back from overrunning our outpost. They went down, some damage done to a power line out in the field. I was the nearest tech. We got out there and it was fucking hell, man. Mortars, rocket launchers, drones flying overhead with goddamned guns mounted on them...we got out there and before I could start the repairs, some guys broke through our line, came right at me, wiped out my defense. I panicked. I ran. I didn't stop running until I found a bombed out bunker and I hid. They managed to get another tech out there, fixed it, kept the base from getting overrun, but because of my delay, we lost a lot of people. So yeah, I just fucking panicked, I lost my head. I couldn't hold it together anymore after that, but the Corps is the only life I know.
"So I got shipped up here."
"I see," Jack murmured. "You think you can keep it together? You've done pretty well so far."
"Yeah, I think so," he replied.
Jack was prepared to ask more questions, but suddenly the radio crackled to life. "I think I've got something," Peterson said.
There was a faint voice coming through a haze of static.
"Can you clean it up anymore?" Jack asked.
"Hold on," Peterson murmured, going back to the controls. The other two came into the security room, Jennifer still standing watch by the door. Abruptly, the signal resolved.
"-nyone hear me? Over." He recognized the voice. It was Corporal McGee.
"Corporal, this is Private Ward. I hear you. Over."
"Ward? Christ, I thought you were dead. Where are you? What's your situation? Over."
"I'm near the north tram station of the Toxin Refinery. I've got Jenkins, Taylor, and Peterson with me. Over," he replied.
"Goddamn, that's good news. Listen, I'm injured, holed up in a supply closet in Command Control. Last I knew, Blackmore and the others were still alive and fighting. We've been trying to get into the control room but this place is fucking packed with the creatures. I'm not sure where the others are now and I can't raise anyone else on the radio. I need you four to get here and help me find the others so we can finish our mission. Over."
"So we're still going for the objective? Over." Jack asked.
"Yes. We need to find if there are any survivors on this place and discern the nature of this, this...infestation, and see what kind of threat there is of it spreading to Deimos or Mars or even farther than that. And we need to restore communications so that we can call back to Mars and warn them what the fuck is going on up here. Over."
"I'm with you, McGee. We're headed your way right now. Over."
"Affirmative, I'll be waiting. And it's damn good to hear from you. Out."
He looked at the others. "Well, you heard the woman. Let's get moving."