Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  There was some shuffling about inside the tank while the two engineers muttered to each other about something or other before, with a satisfying clunking sound, the hatch started to open, revealing the engineers to be sitting on the ground with their hands in the air.

  For a few moments there I thought that I still had the drop, smiling like an absolute fool with zero situational awareness, before finally spotting why they’d given up the tank.

  Initially I didn’t know what it was, the bricks being of various sizes and having been stacked in what looked like some kind of floor safe, but then I noticed the little flashing red light.

  In a panic, I managed to roll backwards off the tank, landing flat on my arse, and scramble up into a semi-run that was more of a controlled fall for about three seconds when, with a deafening burst of fire and metal that knocked me onto my face, the tank exploded.

  pyroSam has been slain (World).

  GILF-Man has been slain (World).

  “How…” I groaned as I slowly lifted myself out of the dirt, “the shit?”

  Thinking back on it, I should’ve seen the Metois having some kind of self-destruct protocol to defend their more dangerous assets.

  Come on though, blowing up an entire tank just to stop someone from getting in? That seems a tad excessive.

  Didn’t fuss me too much though, getting the tank would’ve been a nice bonus, sure, but as I turned to face the circle of flattened trees and roaring fire I couldn’t help but think that I’d done my part pretty damn well.

  Plus, during my little attack I’d become privy to some sensitive information, which would undoubtedly help us in the long run.

  We’d done it, we’d thrown a spanner in the works for the Metois and got them to their knees. I was sure we’d be able to start getting in some solid punches from there on out, provided that that second tank the engineers had mentioned was sticking around their base.

  “Job well done.” I sighed with a small, satisfied smile, “Job well done.”

  Chapter Eight

  Special Trait Point used to purchase the True Survivalist perk.

  So, bet you think you’re top shit now, huh? You’re the one with the ability to spot poisonous berries from a mile away, and you’re the one with the ability to survive in even the harshest of cold and hot climates, but you know what you’re not? You’re not attractive. Not even a little.

  Night had truly come, but I wasn’t in the least bit worried about the Muties.

  I’d covered my sector to the best of my ability, and even gone as far as to quickly scout a little further and make sure there wasn’t another group coming before turning back around and heading toward Home Base.

  The best part? I’d gotten at least two dozen notifications of recently killed people, which I read as Pete and Miles doing their job, and doing them damn well.

  Have to say though, I was pretty freaking chuffed with myself, especially considering the fact that I hadn’t gotten all whingy when none of the scalps were available for, well, scalping following the explosion.

  Although I will add that I had some concerns about me returning home. These were mostly due to the fact that the implied idea was to hang around until daybreak, but I swiftly disregarded those negative thoughts as being ridiculous on account of the fact that the fire from the explosion had rendered pretty much all of the cover in the area useless.

  “Hey, guys?” I called out at a volume that I immediately regretted as I got close to the final few trees before I was within the Home Base perimeter.

  I didn’t get a response, though I wasn’t exceptionally worried about that, convincing myself that I was just out of range, or had successfully quietened down enough that I wasn’t audible to anyone but myself.

  Then I broke the tree line.

  My jaw refused to come from where it had dropped as I looked out over the gory mess that used to be my front lawn. There was blood absolutely everywhere, covering the dirt, the grass, and the dozen or so bodies that had been absolutely eviscerated, and I mean eviscerated.

  They hadn’t been shot, or even trampled, they’d been ripped apart, bitten, and, if the few patches of burning grass were any indication, torched.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d have assumed that they’d been attacked by some kind of dragon.

  “Guys?” I asked the bloodied corpses as I walked around them, doing my very best not to panic and start shooting the random falling branches or crackling fires, “Guys!?”

  I think I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer, but at the same time I had to try, even when I saw that the door to the cabin was slightly ajar and covered in blood.

  Something rustled inside the house once I got within spitting distance, to which I immediately dropped down behind my shield and took aim at the door.

  “If anyone’s in there that ain’t s’posed to be in there I swear I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out all over your cock sucking friends!”

  Ah, even in times of panic I never quite lost my award winning personality and people skills.

  “Zo?” Paul called back, “Zo? Is that you?”

  I relaxed slightly, but remained combat ready as I continued to slowly shuffle toward the cabin, “Yeah, it’s me…” I replied warily, “Are you alright?”

  There was a few seconds’ delay before I heard Paul let out a heavy sigh, followed by him coming to the doorway and peeking out, revealing that he, much like the rest of the area, was covered in blood, “I’m fine but… You’re gonna wanna come in.”

  A cold shiver ran down my spine as I put my shield on my back and rose to full height, “What’s goin’ o-where’s Chad?”

  “Just… just come in, alright?” Paul replied with what sounded more like general anxiety than sadness, “Shit got real. Fast.”

  “Is Chad alright?” I asked hopefully as I stepped into the cabin, discovering that it too was filled with blood, as well as more than a few Metois body parts.

  “He’s fin-well, he’s alive.” Paul quickly corrected before returning the door to its slightly ajar state, “That much I know for sure. Girls too, he managed to order them to go find Pete while I hid in the crawlspace before… it came and took him away.”

  Unsurprisingly, the fact that ‘he’s alive’ wasn’t intrinsic with him being fine filled me with some dread, though my curiosity over what had happened to cause the sanguineous chaos had taken the forefront with the knowledge that Chad was, at the very least, alive somewhere.

  “Okay, so, what happened? Did you guys do all that out there?”

  Paul started shaking his head wildly, “Oh, no, no, no. No, that wasn’t us, that was…” he said before looking around fearfully as if waiting to be silenced by whatever had attacked everyone, “the Beast.”

  “The Beast?” I scoffed, “What the shit is a ‘Beast’? Dino? Some kinda hybrid Mutie?”

  Again, Paul shook his head, “It was a… a… It was a rabbit…”

  “A Rabid?” I asked, genuinely confused by the suggestion that a Rabid could somehow cause that much damage, “Why didn’t you guys just put it down?”

  “No, a rabbit. Like a… a fuckin’…” Paul stammered, the thought of the creature clearly triggering some kind of PTSD, “a little fuckin’ bunny, with a-a-a fluffy tail, and fuckin’ floppy ears, a-a-and shit.”

  Confused? Yeah, so was I, and more than a little pissed if I’m being completely honest.

  There I was, standing in what was supposed to be my little locked down cabin, surrounded by blood and viscera, with a clan member telling me that Bugs fucking Bunny had come along, torched and murdered at least a full squad of Metois soldiers, before shanghaiing one of my closest friends.

  Man, Thren’s a fucking weird place.

  FRAGGED 7

  Chapter One

  We ignored the siren as we slammed our way through the woods after Pete, shields on our backs and guns at the ready for whatever shit might come our way.

  The intelligent thing to do would’ve been to accept that
Chad had met his gruesome fate and would eventually return to us as a freshie, but after I’d checked the logs and found no sign that he’d been killed there was no excuse.

  “How much further?” I asked, my eyes shooting from side-to-side while I kept my short rifle aimed at the ground to prevent any panicked friendly fire.

  “There’s no answer for that,” Pete replied with obvious irritation, “we’re following a trail, and we’re hoping the trail stops with Chad. That’s all I can give you.”

  I couldn’t blame Pete for being annoyed, he was having a hard enough time as it was trying to keep track of the seemingly random blood splattering without the added pressure of having to answer what must’ve come across as asinine questions, but I was concerned.

  “Anyone have a visual on Muties?” Paul asked from the back of the pack.

  “If someone sees Muties, they’re gonna say they see Muties.” Miles growled, “Keep up would you? You’re gonna get us both killed.”

  “I’m doin’ my best, alright? Shit’s hard.”

  I’d quickly come to regret my decision to put Miles on Paul babysitting duty, but I wasn’t exactly laden with options when it came down to it.

  Last time I’d left two people alone at base I’d come back to complete and utter chaos, so I wasn’t about to repeat my mistake and, as much as I didn’t enjoy the general vibe of bitchiness and the arguing, I’d accepted that I was in the same boat as them.

  We’d left relative safety in search of Chad with the knowledge that even when we found him we’d have the potential to get stuck out there.

  “Hold!” Pete hissed as he ground to a halt, giving me barely enough room to stop without bumping into him, “Take a knee.”

  I followed his order and started scanning our immediate vicinity, “Hostiles?”

  “Shh…” Pete whispered with his finger to his lips, “I think I can hear breathing…”

  “It’s not any of us?”

  Pete quickly shook his head, “Unless someone here has hooked up a second mic, no. Give me a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute.” Miles snapped, “If we stick around here we’re as good as dead.”

  “Feel free to head back to base if that’s what you wanna do.” Pete replied dismissively, “If you don’t wanna be here, we don’t-”

  “Belay that,” I interjected crossly, “you don’t give the orders around here, alright? I appreciate the help, but no one’s goin’ anywhere until we find Chad.”

  Pete didn’t seem to care too much about me reasserting my authority, he was far too focused on turning his head slowly in search of the source of the breathing.

  “Got him.”

  With that, we were off again, except instead of maintaining a manageable pace and looking where we were going, we sprinted.

  “Not far.” Pete said as much to himself as to any of us.

  I half-expected us to run right into a horde of Muties and meet a quick death, but I was wrong.

  Suddenly we were in a small clearing where Chad, in almost the dead centre of the grassy patch, laid bleeding out.

  “He’s unconscious,” Pete announced as we approached the body while continuing to scan the area, “Miles, you got the gear?”

  Miles didn’t say anything, opting to instead run over and start working on getting Chad back up to a conscious level of health.

  “How long do you need?” I asked, looking out for the dreaded rabbit that Paul had warned us about.

  “Longer if you rush me.” Miles replied coolly while he wrapped Chad’s wounds, “I’m gonna need to test everyone’s blood for compatibility.”

  “Can you do that?” Pete asked.

  “Do you really want to have a dig a-”

  “I’m talking about the perk,” Pete interrupted, “you’re practically a freshie, which means…”

  Miles didn’t respond for a few moments, then let out a somewhat defeated sigh, “Alright, because I have neither the experience nor the equipment, Pete is now the medic.”

  I know that that doesn’t seem like much, but Miles had been so eager to slip into the medic role for our little rescue mission, and handing the torch over to Pete was… well, let’s just say it made me slightly more confident that they were working through their issues.

  After some awkward shuffling of gear and supplies, Pete went to work on getting Chad back to some level of consciousness.

  “Any sign of what could’ve done this to him?” I asked the group while scanning our immediate vicinity.

  “Nothing yet,” Paul muttered, “I’m telling you, it was a rabbit.”

  “And you’re sure the Mad Hatter didn’t have any part to play?” Pete mocked, “I’m sorry dude, but there is no way in Hell some fluffy little rabbit did this.”

  I shot Chad’s body a look, but couldn’t force my eyes to stay on him any longer than a moment before turning my attention back toward the trees, “How do you mean?”

  “Well, for starters he’s all the way out here,” Pete started as he came over to me, “and for another we’re looking at a whole mess of injuries.”

  GeriatricSuperHero drew a blood sample from you.

  Are you giving blood? Do you really think that that’s the best idea for you given your… circumstances? Junkie.

  “What kind of injuries?” Miles asked without taking his eyes off the forest as Pete walked over to him.

  “You name it, lacerations, broken bones, some kind of feline AIDS-ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!” Pete announced happily, “Come on, I need you to crouch down next to him.”

  “Why?” Miles replied, clearly concerned about contracting the previously mentioned cat AIDS, “Can’t you jus-”

  “It’s ‘cause I’m lazy,” Pete interjected as he pulled out a blood bag, “now come on, he needs blood ASAFP.”

  “Hey, guys..?” Paul trailed off as Miles uneasily walked backwards toward Chad, “Is there any chance that this could all be done on the move?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a gurney up your arse,” Pete replied with a little chuckle at his own joke, “how come?”

  “It’s just… I think we might have a problem.”

  I knew that voice, that sort of tone that meant he was so freaked out that he couldn’t actually force the words out properly, which meant we weren’t going to get any clarification from him.

  So, with no small amount of difficulty, I turned my head away from my sector and looked out into Paul’s, instantly spotting what it was that had him so panicked.

  “We have to move. Now.” I ordered as I stared down the three sets of glowing green eyes in the distance.

  “I can’t,” Pete said flatly, “we move Chad and all this was for nothing.”

  I wanted to bark about how we were all as good as dead if we didn’t move, but Pete was right, and the last thing I needed to do was show that I ditched people at the first sign of trouble.

  “Alright, get to work, quickly.” I finally replied, my eyes still locked on the unmoving predators of the night, “Paul, relax, and whatever you do, don’t shoot.”

  “Why?” Miles hissed from behind me, “It’s not like not shooting them is going to make them any less likely to come and nom on us.”

  “They’re not moving,” I bit back, “which is something they only do if they’ve surrounded us, and I don’t see any other sets of green, do you?”

  Miles didn’t reply for a few moments as he undoubtedly looked around, before letting out a slightly annoyed huff, “Then what are they doing? They could attack us any time, why bother waiting?”

  “I don’t know, but what I do know is that I don’t want to give them a reason to come over here. So, shut your mouth, and keep working on getting Chad mobile.”

  The whole thing was making me uncomfortable, it was so… unnatural.

  Muties attacked players, end of story.

  And then I heard Pete gasp, a sound which I never thought in a million years I would hear.

  “Um, Paul, buddy?” Pete whispered wit
h more confusion than fear, “That rabbit of yours, little white thing, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Paul replied while continuing to watch the Muties with me.

  “Fluffy tail, pink nose?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And it’s fair to assume that this thing, what with how it’s mauled Chad here, is pretty freakin’ dangerous?”

  “Oh yeah,” Paul let out with a little chuckled, “you should’ve seen what it did to those Metois dudes. How come?”

  Now, normally I’m sure I would’ve picked up on the fact that there was a reason Pete was talking about the rabbit, it wasn’t like I had some kind of brain damage that prevented me from picking up on obvious hints after all.

  That being said, it wasn’t until Paul had actually said the words ‘How come?’ that I’d realised what Pete was saying with a cold shiver up my spine.

  Pete didn’t say anything else, instead letting me turn around and see it for myself, which I honestly can’t say was any better.

  There it was, sitting maybe ten feet away from us, covered in blood, and twitching its little pink nose.

  “Well… that can’t be good.”

  Chapter Two

  None of us said anything for a time, Paul too busy keeping his eyes on the Muties, me too busy panicking about whether or not we were all about to die after falling into a rabbit’s trap.

  “Are we sure that it’s the one?” I asked, making no effort to hide the slight trembling in my voice.

  “Unless there’s some other blood-soaked rabbit getting around Thren,” Pete replied as he held the full blood bag in the air while staying on his knees, allowing the thick red liquid to slide down the rubber tube, through the needle, and into the uncomfortably pale Chad, “then yeah, I think it’s fair to assume that that’s the rabbit.”

  We were all frozen in place, waiting for whatever happened next as the small beast’s cold, dead eyes stared up at us.

  It was like a fluffy, miniature shark, which is nowhere near as cute as it sounds.

  “What’s it doing?” Miles whispered out through the corner of his mouth.