Primal

by D. J. Molles

  A rattling of incoming projectiles across metal grew to a sudden crescendo, terminated by someone crying out.

  Shit, Lee thought. Gunner’s down.

  Not a second later, he heard the turret cease firing and Brinly shouted, “Gunner’s down!”

  The incoming fire intensified, the MATV still edging closer and closer to the main structure of the refinery—now at about fifty yards.

  Something nipped one of the Marines that was on the outer edge of their scrum of bodies. He swore and then shouted, “I’m fine! Keep moving!”

  Lee just kept running, and trying to control his breathing. His entire world was the sound of bullets pinging off metal, and the tan ass-end of the truck filling his vision.

  The MATV suddenly lurched to a stop, and Lee and Abe slammed into the back of it, and the Marines mushed into them like a six car pileup on the interstate.

  The backend of the MATV’s troop carrier cracked open. The Marine on the inside stuck his face in the gap and shouted. “We’re sitting under a big-ass pipe! You got a little bit of cover, and then open ground for fifteen yards to the side of the main building, you copy?”

  Lee looked at the Marine. “Can you see an entrance and is it open or does it look barricaded?”

  The Marine nodded and knife-handed at an angle to the right. “Double steel doors to the right-hand side of the main building. Looks like the main entrance. They’re closed. Don’t know if they’re barricaded.”

  Brinly shouldered up to the door. “We need to get Lee and Abe into that building. Bunder, when we run for the door, I want you to edge out from the cover of that pipe overhead and let your gunner chew the fuck out of the windows. The rest of us, cover high and to the sides. When we’re set, Bunder, you’re gonna use the MATV to ram those double doors open.”

  Bunder—the Marine in the door—nodded with a hasty “Aye, sir.”

  Brinly turned to Lee and Abe. “Y’all got grenades?”

  Lee had already taken stock of his stolen rig and he shook his head.

  Brinly turned back to Bunder and held out a hand. “Grenades. All the grenades you got.”

  Bunder turned to the other Marines in the box with him. “You heard the major! All the ‘nades you got!”

  A stream of little baseball-sized metal balls came flowing out of the back of the MATV, passed hand-over-hand from Bunder to Brinly, and then to Lee and Abe.

  Brinly gave Lee a knowing nod. “There ain’t nobody in that building that needs to live. Frag and clear everything.”

  Lee stuffed his pockets and any other spare space that could hold a grenade. “Roger that.”

  “On you, boys,” Brinly said.

  “Cover!” Lee called out. “Moving!”

  Abe peeled the corner, Lee right behind him.

  The grenades in his pockets slammed around, pummeling his thighs as he sprinted with only enough distance between him and Abe for their feet not to trip each other up.

  The MATV lurched forward, and whoever had taken the turret opened up again.

  The cover of the giant pipe that ran overhead disappeared in an instant.

  Lee ran through open space. Not even breathing. He had twenty more yards to go to the front doors. He bore down, pushing every ounce of himself through his legs, slamming pavement.

  The windows above them sparkled like camera flashes in an arena.

  The ground around them burst in a dozen places.

  Something snapped through Lee’s flesh, high in his right trapezius, and then, immediately after, a blow to his midsection that nearly stopped him in his tracks.

  Ten yards.

  Make it there.

  Do it because Tex can’t.

  He pressed forward again, trying to recover his momentum, hoping he wasn’t about to feel the pain of a gut wound.

  Ahead of him, dust and spall erupted off of Abe’s chest and his body twisted, mid-run…

  Then they slammed into the concrete wall of the main structure.

  Lee gasped for air, as Marines hit the wall to his left, stacking up.

  You’re there.

  Good.

  Kill them all.

  “Abe! You alright?” Lee shouted.

  Abe put his back to the wall, coughed hard, and smacked his chest, like he was trying to clear it of stubborn phlegm. “Good!”

  Only then did Lee look down at his own midsection.

  The plate carrier was torn up. One of the magazines sat in splinters, the internal spring and some bent-up rounds spilling out like odd mechanical guts. He stuffed his hand under the armor and felt his belly. It was wet with sweat, but there were no holes in it.

  He ripped the destroyed magazine out and threw it off to the side.

  The MATV’s turret spat a steady stream at the windows over their heads. The Marines around them had rifles high and low, covering their stack.

  Lee looked at the windshield of the MATV, and nodded to a driver he couldn’t see. The engine roared. The big tan truck jumped, the front end rearing up like an enraged bull.

  “Standby!” Lee yelled to the others in the stack.

  The MATV struck the double doors with an enormous crash that Lee felt through his entire skeletal structure. The doors simply disappeared, somewhere into the building. Cinderblock wall went in with them.

  “Ready!” Abe called out. He had his rifle slung to his chest, and now held a grenade in his right hand, his left hand clutching the ring-pull.

  The MATV rumbled, shifting gears into reverse. From inside the breached structure, Lee heard the crackle of rifle fire and the ping of it striking the front end of the truck.

  Lee let his rifle hang and snatched out a grenade.

  Kill them all.

  The MATV cleared the breach.

  Lee and Abe, eyes locked on each other’s movements and unconsciously synchronizing themselves, yanked the pins, and then chucked the grenades through the breach.

  “Frag out!” they shouted, then turned away from the hole in the wall and shielded their unhelmeted heads with their arms.

  The building shook at their backs, the explosions jarring the air in their chests. A gout of dust and smoke came spewing out of the breach, and a clatter of debris tumbled after it.

  Kill them…

  Lee felt a hard hand on his shoulder, and one of the Marines shouted, “Move!”

  Lee scooped his rifle up and shouldered it as he spun and faced the breach. His movements carried the unconscious surety of the infinitely practiced.

  Abe hit the entry first.

  Lee hesitated a half step to let him go, then let his feet slip right in behind Abe, the muzzle of his rifle following as close behind Abe’s head as possible. The two of them flowed seamlessly through.

  Abe broke left.

  Lee pivoted his shoulder off of Abe’s, breaking right.

  Smoke.

  High explosives.

  Shapes moving.

  Three shattering reports, directly behind Lee, shaking the room, and Lee didn’t flinch, didn’t look around.

  Kill…

  Dead ahead, a man appeared through the smoke, stumbling upright. Lee didn’t wait to identify the threat. They were inside this building. They were all a threat. He thumbed the safety off and squeezed the trigger a microsecond after, three rapid blasts that sent the shape of a man reeling off into the wall.

  More movement. To the left.

  Lee breathed out through pursed lips, snapping to the left with both eyes open, even as the brass casings from his first three rounds were still falling. His eyes met his target’s, and through the thinning smoke, saw the terror in them, and then the reticle of his optic fell into place on that man’s hairline, and Lee squeezed out four rounds. Two of them splashed his brains out the back of his head.

  All of it in the span of time it took Lee to go one step in, and one step over.

  His feet stopped, knowing his position subconsciously. His rifle kept tracking left, until his eyes saw the backs of two Marines, plunging directly in
to the room. He whipped the rifle back around. Assessed his first target.

  The eyes were still moving, Lee thought.

  He put a round between them.

  Then back to the second target. He couldn’t see the eyes, but the man lay spread eagle, and did not move. One of the passing Marines gave the body a security round, and Lee figured that was enough.

  Only then did he dip the muzzle of his rifle and look back to the left side of the room…

  He heard movement, to his right—behind his back.

  He spun, bringing his rifle back up.

  The body hit him hard.

  He caught no sight of who it was, or where the hell he’d come from, but he saw the man’s teeth bared in effort and savagery, and his eyes, wild with fear and the desire to kill Lee. Almost manic.

  He slammed into Lee, and at the same time, grabbed a hold of the muzzle of Lee’s rifle, just as Lee snapped the safety off and fired a round that smashed harmlessly into the concrete floor.

  The man drove into Lee, crushing him back against the wall.

  Lee grunted and growled with animal effort. He tried to extricate his hands, but the man pinning him was a flurry of movements—batting his wrists every time he started to move, and pummeling his face with rapid strikes…

  Lee bore it for a moment.

  Thinking, You’re not the one that gets to end me.

  Lee released his grip on his rifle—it was uselessly pinned against his side now anyways—and brought his arms up to cover his face from the blows, each impact jarring his brain.

  Then he twisted hard. Slammed one elbow into the side of the man’s face, and bought himself a fraction of a second.

  He grabbed the man’s shoulders, clinching him, but unable to see anything past the stars in his eyes, simply operating on pure instinct, fueled by hate, sparked by the thought that this man didn’t get to be the one to stop him.

  Lee rammed his knee into the man’s groin.

  The air came out of him in a wheeze.

  The body folded.

  Lee drove him back with a yell that didn’t sound like him at all.

  The man toppled in front of Lee, and Lee went down on top of him, and his hands were there, and his rifle was there, but his hands were closer, and the man’s face was there, right in front of Lee, his eyes scrunched in shock and debilitating pain, and Lee hated those eyes, and he wanted to crush them…

  He rammed his thumbs into the corners of the man’s eyes.

  Felt warmth. Felt wetness.

  The man screamed and gnashed his teeth.

  It wasn’t enough to simply gouge a man’s eyes out—Lee knew that. He wasn’t trying to blind the man. He was trying to kill him.

  So he circled his thumbs. He coiled them around the slippery cord of the man’s optic nerve, and then he pulled them out, taking bits of brain with them, and sending the man into convulsions from which he would never recover.

  Lee dropped the pieces of flesh.

  He staggered to his feet, his breathing ragged.

  He swiped his palms off on his pant legs and brought his rifle up again, checking the magazine and action to ensure that his tussle hadn’t caused a misfeed. His hands felt clumsy as he did this. He frowned, having to focus hard to get the movements right.

  You’re good.

  Keep moving.

  He brought his eyes up. Brought himself back into the present.

  Around him, chaos swirled. Marines still poured through the room, checking nooks and crannies. Abe stood directly to Lee’s side, looking like he’d been heading to Lee’s aid.

  They stared at each other.

  They traded a nod.

  “You good?”

  “I’m good.”

  Back to business.

  The two of them moved while the Marines called out to each other. They moved instinctively towards an industrial metal staircase that appeared to lead to a second floor, and a catwalk that accessed several large pieces of equipment.

  Lee covered high as they approached the stairs, checking the catwalk and the equipment. Abe focused on the door.

  Lee took the stairs first, shouting over his shoulder, “Going up!”

  The call was echoed around the room, and the Marines began to fall in behind Abe.

  Lee had to turn as he ascended the stairs, going up sideways. The catwalk was clear. No bodies hiding around the equipment.

  He reached the top. An industrial door with a narrow, reinforced window on the handle-side. Lee moved to the hinge-side of the door, taking a quick look through the window as he did. Beyond looked like a walkway, lined by windows. No hostiles.

  Abe took the latch side of the door, positioning himself close, but with enough room to let the door swing. He held his rifle in his right hand, a grenade in his left, the pin already pulled. Not exactly what they taught you in training, but sometimes you have to make things up as you go.

  Abe nodded.

  Lee ripped the door open.

  Abe stepped to the side, clearing a good portion of the left side of the walkway beyond, then tossed the grenade to the right.

  BOOM!

  And then they were moving again.

  Abe going right this time.

  Lee going left.

  The walkway was empty. What looked like a hundred yards of steel-grated flooring, heading to separate wings of the refinery on either end.

  Marines came through the door. There were more of them than before. Perhaps the ones from the carrier box of the MATV.

  Brinly came through last.

  Lee’s eyes caught movement, dead ahead through the bank of windows right across from him.

  He leapt forward, looking down towards the ground.

  Below the windowed walkway, a single technical spun its tires, the driver just now stomping on the gas.

  In an instant, Lee saw the gunner, wheeling what looked like an M249 around in their direction—

  —and a white shirt, in the front passenger’s seat—

  —A flash of long, black hair—

  “Cover!” Lee shouted, spinning and grabbing Brinly as he did, because he was the closest man to Lee’s reach, and pushing him back away from the windows, and down.

  The windows shattered.

  The rattle of the M249 ripped the air.

  Lee and Brinly hit the deck, and all Lee could think was He’s getting away! Mateo is getting away!

  THIRTY-ONE

  ─▬▬▬─

  HELLFIRE

  Lee saw the rounds punching through the glass and the edges of the steel-grated floor.

  Lee dove off of Brinly, crabbing madly across the floor using one knee and one hand, angling around the incoming fire as the vehicle sending it retreated.

  “Don’t let that technical get away!” Lee screamed.

  He came up on one knee, leaning out from the catwalk, nothing to break his fall to the ground below—the glass completely obliterated. He shouldered his rifle, put the optic on the fleeing technical and started firing as fast as he could keep the reticle on target.

  A tire went out.

  The technical lurched, but kept going.

  He heard Brinly yelling something, but he couldn’t tell what the man said.

  Lee raised his point of aim, still firing.

  The gunner twitched and crumpled behind his M249.

  Lee didn’t stop. Wasn’t going to stop. Couldn’t stop.

  He’s getting away!

  Lee’s thoughts were almost in a panic.

  He was not a man that was prone to panic. But the thought of Mateo Ibarra getting away, when Lee was so close to him—had been so damn close—was too much.

  A groan eked out of Lee’s chest as he fired, as though he was straining physically to put the rounds on target, he wanted them to strike the man down so bad…

  A stream of orange tracer fire came, seemingly out of nowhere, and plowed into the front end of the technical. The front tires exploded in a shower of rubber and dust. The vehicle fishtailed, then
angled left, while the tracer fire tracked it, pounding the engine compartment to scrap metal.

  The technical struck a concrete pylon.

  Lee was already thrusting himself to his feet. “Cease fire!” he yelled at Brinly, his voice cracking, not giving a shit about his contradictory commands. “Cease fire! Tell them to stop shooting!”

  Before anyone could stop him, or ask him where the hell he was going and why the hell he didn’t want the Marines shooting at the technical anymore, Lee had already plunged through the door, and was flying down the staircase, his feet hitting each tread so fast Lee thought he might lose control and face plant.

  He’d already lost control.

  Don’t be dead! Lee willed. Don’t you fucking dare!

  He hit the bottom. Leapt over a dead body.

  He knew his rifle was almost empty. He dropped the magazine, not bothering to retain it—he was in too much of a rush—and he ripped a fresh magazine from his pouch and slammed it home.

  The breached double doors clattered against the ground as Lee pounded over them, skidding through the scree of concrete rubble outside. The MATV that had rammed the door had now backed up about twenty yards, in order to get a line of sight on the fleeing technical.

  The gunner’s M2 pointed that way, but didn’t fire.

  Lee charged around the corner of the main structure.

  He kept thinking, Cease fire! Don’t shoot him! Don’t kill him!

  But he was beyond words now. He was beyond the reach of any human touch. He had delved into savagery. He was primal.

  As he rounded the corner of the refinery’s main structure, the technical came into view. Smashed into a support pylon—one of the many that held up a superstructure of massive pipelines. The technical issued thick gouts of gray smoke from its crumpled engine compartment. The airbags had gone off. The gunner was slumped behind his weapon, chewed to pieces by incoming fire. All that Lee could see of the driver was a mess of gore on the windshield.

  But the passenger…

  The white shirt.

  The long black hair.

  Slumped over against the deflating air bag. Beginning to stir.

  Lee raised his rifle as he ran, but he didn’t slow, and he didn’t take the shot.

  His eyes went low—under the carriage of the ruined truck.