Third “part” of SG, in draft stage. Haven’t reviewed feedback for this yet. This one is meant to show the scale of the disaster. There was an idea I decided to cut, where the MC would realise some civilians were killed by bullets as foreshadowing. I like the imagery in this one, and I think the action sequence near the end is pretty neat. The squad leader is primary exposition tool during the first parts of the story.
City of the Damned
I look out through the small and dirty window on the stairwell out onto the street. I don’t see any humans or monsters anymore. The corpses of various species cover the street after the massacre that has occurred. I don’t know how safe it is. In the building opposite me an inhumanely tall skeleton wrapped in strips of muscle with what looks like rocket launchers on its shoulder passes along a window. It’s definitely not safe out there. But I need to check on the civilians.
I inch the door open ever so slowly and slide out, but I hear a growl from somewhere above and the blood in my veins freezes. In hindsight, I should be surprised I heard anything over the wails of sirens and alarms and the distant gunfire.
I didn’t see what it was, but I bolted back for the door. According to the radio system, the other marines should be arriving right now.
I somehow hear a loud thud from outside, followed by a “Oh, fuck!” and then a cacophony of gunfire. When the insanely loud noise fades, I peek outside. A mountain of muscle with goat legs has been brought down and its head reduced to mush. It is laying in front of two large black APCs with six wheels each. They look like they belong to regular military.
“Hey, get in!”
A big man with a gun is waving for me to get in. He doesn’t look like the other marines.
His outfit is all black and looks like it’s a combination of armour, utility suit and machine. The bottom half of his face is obscured with a dark piece of metal and plastic and he has another augmentation in the form of a red mechanised eye. His hair is short and white. He is the leader of a squad and is mechanically augmented for fast and strong thinking.
All other marines are equipped just like me. A relief to find someone who may give me directions on what to do.
Three other marines walk back into the vehicles and I follow the one that gestured towards me. In each vehicle sits a driver, a co-pilot and eight marines in the back including me and the other guy.
“Marine Masterson, I am the leader of squad 2-3-1. I cannot officially mobilise you, since you are not combat ready. You are missing a chip that everyone else present has. We are able to communicate without using words and it is considered standard issue. However, we can’t treat you as a civilian either. I will have to… reinterpret the rules slightly and tell you to just shoot at what we are shooting and follow orders as usual.”
“As for the current situation, we have absolute-zero clue as to what is going on. Higher command vanished, lower command had to slap something together quickly. We are evacuating and protecting the civilians we can, but we have no plan of battle. These two squads have been tasked with establishing contact with higher command on Mars or actually go there if that proves impossible. We are heading to the offworld management facility where we will attempt to establish radio contact or leave by rocket. Nobody can obtain official orders from them.”
The APCs attempt to weave through the wreckage and bodies. It takes twelve minutes just to get through one street. Once we get outside of the city, things should be easier. The facility is less than one hundred kilometres of highway away. Should take us less than two hours. The leader must have noticed my distress about the civilians.
“If you want to check on them… be my guest. But look outside.”
In the doorways, windows and rooftops and alleyways are flashes of red, pink and yellow flesh and bone. Blood almost literally covers the city and its new inhabitants. Red, green, black and blue.
“In the US alone, we are estimating dozens of millions of casualties. If this happened all around the world, we are looking at at least two billion. But we don’t know. Somebody has to figure out what to do and what is happening. And that’s what we are doing now. If we won’t, nobody will.”
I am not convinced, but I get the point.
A pileup has occurred at the beginning of the highway. We had to cut across the strangely pale brownish grass to avoid the mass of cars, which seems to stretch forever. The rest of the way goes without surprises.
The sky is bright red like on a beautiful sunset. Except it’s midday.
We are heading north-east of the city. The facility was built upon the small flatland around LA. Otherwise, it’s surrounded by mountains.
The facility…
The facility is a huge slab of glass and metal, and next to it towers a behemoth of a rocket. Ceramic tiles protect it from heat during travel in an atmosphere. A white and black spire.
The two APCs pull up next to the entrance. Glass doors welcome workers, engineers, scientists, mathematicians and businessmen with the same coldness. We are all equal in the face of death. The marines from the other squad will stay outside to cover the outside. The other ten including me head for the doors. They slide open silently.
The hall is spacious and the ceiling is tall. It reaches the highest elevation of the building. The edges of consecutive levels are stacked on top of each other and we can see them individually. A wide reception desk spans the length of the back wall. A marine walks up to a man in a blue shirt slumped across the desk and checks on him; he’s dead. A portable radio is laying on the desk. Dead as well.
The leader gestures for us to follow him into the technical wing. I am walking right between the “operational” marines. I am not trusted to perform any task reliably, like a stunted child. But I don’t hold grief towards them.
The entire building is so, so quiet and the corridor seems to be going on forever.
The leader sees a plaque on a metal door on our right. “Offworld communications” it exclaims proudly. He reaches for the knob, hesitates, then knocks, crouches and pushes it open as another marine raises his gun over him.
No threat. The room is completely dark, though.
The leader turns on the flashlight on his gun and a cone of cold and blue light illuminates towers of servers in the cramped room. Five marines enter one by one, the last one gestures for me to stay outside. Five of us stay outside.
Guarding the door.
From some invisible threat.
“I am a murderer!”
The air is getting dense, it’s going to materialise any second now. Come, show yourself!
No, there isn’t. There’s nothing.
Get your shit together.
The marines’ footsteps are loud and slow. After a few minutes, voices are heard from inside. The marines soon walk out with a pair of men in lab coats. One is young, the other is older.
“We found survivors. The communications systems are destroyed beyond repair. Someone physically blew them up. These gentlemen will control the launch of our spacecraft. We’re heading for Mars, prepare yourself, marine.” says the leader to me.
Back into formation. Five marines at the front, four at the back, me and the scientists in the middle. We’re heading back through the oppressive corridor back towards the hall. I can see the blaze of light coming from outside has dimmed out into something reminiscent of brick. It’s far brighter and the huge space feels like the jaws of a sleeping monster…
We hear a noise coming from the hall. It’s coming from the radio.
Screeching, unpleasant, our ears are getting grated. The radio is playing something.
God is dead!
And no one cares!
If there is a hell
I’ll see you there!
So we follow the rest of the marines as we head back towards the hall, back into the red glow. Not sure which is worse. We step in the open area, but the front row stops and suddenly raises their guns onto a dark shape skiddering out of view somewhere on a balcony above us… The marines open fire without warning onto something I can’t even see. The scientists shout in surprise and jump to hide behind the reception desk. I don’t know what to do, so I jump behind them and raise my gun over the obstacle to protect them.
The marines disperse and a quick fireball hits where they were standing to disappear on the polished floor and set fire to some spots. They are firing over me and I can’t see the monsters, since the balconies are obstructing my view. During pauses in the crackles of gunfire I can hear some inhuman screeching coming from above us. More fireballs come raining down. A humanoid body falls onto the floor with a loud thud from somewhere above. The marines start moving towards the other end of the hall and the leader shouts: “Follow us! We’re moving up!” So I start walking ahead of the crouching scientists aiming sideways in an awkward manner.
God, this hall is long. At least we’re out of sight and the other marines are covering us. A marine gets hit and is set ablaze, he drops his gun and starts flailing about and somehow screaming over the gunfire.
… dozens of those monsters are covering the walls, like some freak bugs.
When we reach the doors, two marines split off from the squad and take off with the scientists behind a door somewhere to the side. The leader ducks behind the desk with me and needs to scream for me to hear him.
“Get ready to run with us, you will know when!” Then starts shooting again.
For a few more seconds we continue the combat and then I lose track of what’s happening.
I get pushed back, but stay on my feet. A further wave of dust and shrapnel knocks me back.
Ears… ringing!
The blurry green spots start disappearing into another corridor, I wasn’t ready for this, but I use the remaining strength to accelerate those damn legs, which really don’t want to move. Catching up will be a challenge. Failure will result in getting torn to bits.
Corridor, left right, stairs, up, right, left, I just barely keep them in my sight. The hallways of the damned blur together like an evil, evil maze.
Right or left? Where’d they go? I don’t see them!
“OVER HERE!”
The voice comes from the left. I see them once I round the corner, they’re waiting for me in a transport elevator. Its silver welcoming wings, promising safety so ardently. One of them tosses something towards me and I catch it in mid-air.
A grenade!
I turn around to throw it away, but the intertia makes me trip over and crash inside into the elevator. Oh God damn, where is that grenade?!
The explosion shakes the elevator and a cloud of black blood appears from behind the corner before the wings slowly close with a ding and I get up.
“You fucking idiot!” screams one of the marines and shoves me back onto the floor, rocking the elevator, but is met with immediate reaction from the leader, who immobilizes him.
“We’ll sort this out sometime else.” he says in a gruff voice and the marine gives way and I can barely make out his facial expression. He has been dominated by the alpha male of the pack and they just had some brief and intense mental dispute.
I could have totally wiped out my squad with this one mistake. We’re lucky to be alive.
We’re lucky to have survived the initial invasion, we are lucky to have survived the run, we are lucky to have survived being born…
The leader tells me to get up and prepare for when the doors open. I do as he says and take aim for whatever may be when the door opens.
Ding.
Nothing.
The tube that leads to the rocket is so welcoming…
The daylight is fading far, far earlier than it should. So little is seeping through the slit-like windows.
The hatch is so narrow we have to squeeze in one by one.
The seven of us.
We are going to Mars.
Under any other circumstances I’d been excited.
“We’ll be working in shifts. Two of us will be on a shift at once, the others will be in stasis. You will be required to trigger the self-diagnostic once every 6 hours and monitor the signs. Otherwise, the flight will be fully automated. Be on your guard for twelve hours, then wake the other marine on duty. There will be a clock keeping track of the shifts. Start by going to stasis now.”
Me and two other marines strip to our underwear and open the stasis chambers. Like gigantic bath tubs covered with a dome of glass. I get in and the leader puts his hand on the open dome.
“And hey, you almost made a mistake that cost us our lives, but what really failed here was our lack of communication. You should not have been put into this position in the first place. You were just… the vector. Have a good sleep.”
Like my brother was a vector for the evil that’s to come.
What?
My mind shuts off before I can analyse any more.
We’re going to Mars!
Jan. Summer 2019.