by S. A. Lusher
His heart racing, he turned and ran out of the cockpit. His foot caught on something and he tripped, sprawling out on the floor of the holding area, his suit banging on the metal deckplates. He looked up and spied the staccato flashes of gunfire. Out the back of the ship, through the chainlink, Allan could see an immense figure in black walking slowly towards the comms tower. Someone inside was firing. The figure was holding someone.
Allan rose to his feet and began sprinting. He bounded out the ship and down the ramp, then barreled across the wasteland towards the fence. The dark-armored figure held whoever it was holding high over its head, then threw it directly into the comms tower, towards the source of the gunfire. There was the sound of shattering glass.
“Don't fucking move!” Allan screamed as he shoved through the gate.
The figure stopped and turned to face him slowly. The gunfire fell away.
“Kill him!” That was Bell. “He fucking killed Corporal Mitchell!”
Allan stopped, momentarily frozen, as he finally caught full sight of the figure. The suited figure easily reached eight feet in height and its bulky frame seemed immense. It looked like it could bench press a warehouse.
The moment that seemed to stretch out to encompass more than a mere few seconds finally passed as gunfire erupted again. A spray of bullets smashed into the figure's broad chest and did nothing but richochet off, the dead bullets burying themselves in the ground and walls of the surrounding buildings. The dark-clad figure turned, walked over to the window it had thrown the body through and reached up. Gripping the ledge, it hauled itself easily and quickly up into the room at the base of the tower. Allan snapped out of his stupor once more.
Was he really more fucked up than he thought he was? Allan wondered how he could let himself keep getting frozen like this. One of his crew was already likely dead and now the rest of them were in serious danger. More gunfire and now screaming came from inside the comms tower. As Allan ran around to the entrance, he spied movement overhead: Carter. No time for him now. Allan moved towards the open door, up a few stairs, and then grunted as someone smashed into him. He fell back, flat on his ass.
“Get out of the way!” It was Lucy and she sounded blind with terror.
Allan heard a thick, wet snap and a muffled scream, then nothing. He scrambled to his feet and ran into the room, gun at ready. Bell was being held aloft by the armored figure. It suspended him, gripping him by the neck, with one arm, holding him up as easily as if he were weightless. Allan aimed for the head, specifically for the faceplate.
“Drop him!” he snapped, more out of habit than anything else.
The helmet turned towards him. Allan gaped as he realized that his plan to take this juggernaut down was utterly going to fail. When faced with someone wearing power armor, he either took him down with armor-piercers, which he didn't have, or, more generally, shot them through the glass visor set over their face.
This helmet had no such visor. In fact, as far as Allan could tell, there was no way for whoever was inside to see out.
The giant figure began walking towards him, dropping Bell with a heavy thud. Allan squeezed the trigger, flipping the switch to full auto almost without thinking about it. He aimed directly for the featureless, black helmet, his finger glued to the trigger. The rifle rattled as it spat a barrage of lead directly into the flat metal armor. Every single bullet pinged off, several of them ricocheting back into Allan's own armor.
His gun emptied of ammo and a loud, repetitive click, click, click filled the dead air of the ruined comms tower as the killer approached relentlessly. Allan couldn't stop staring up at that the immense figure, the featureless black helmet. It seemed to fill his vision. As it came within reaching distant, the figure's fist shot out and smashed directly into Allan's chestplate. He heard something crack as he was picked up and thrown back out of the room.
Allan grunted as he landed on his back a second time, the breath driven from his lungs. He stared up into the open doorway, which was filled with the immense frame of the killer. It continued its slow walk, as though it had all the time in the world, and bore down on Allan, reaching for him with a curious lethargy.
“Hey you fuck!”
A stream of bullets punched into the armored figure's back. Allan looked past it, up to the top of the comms tower, where Carter stood, firing down. He rolled out of the way, scrambling to get to his feet, but the killer seemed to have lost interest in him for the moment. It turned, walked over to the ladder attached to the side of the tower, ignoring the bullets the whole way there, and stared at it curiously for a moment.
Abruptly, it punched a hole into the solid metal of the tower. Reaching up, it punched another hole slightly higher than the first with its second hand. Tearing its first hand out, it punched a third hole, higher than the second, and proceeded to climb up the side of the tower in this manner. With trembling hands, Allan ejected his spent magazine, grabbed another and tried to replace it, missing twice before sliding the black rectangle home.
He aimed and fired once more, the fact that the armor appeared to be bulletproof not quite registering in his mind. He emptied another magazine and was in the process of reloading as the killer reached the top of the building and hauled itself up and over.
“Carter! Get out of there!” Allan called, hearing the shaky terror in his own voice and not knowing what to do about it.
Watching helplessly, Allan saw the killer briefly disappear from sight. There was the sound of a scuffle that was extremely short-lived and then, suddenly, Carter entered his field of vision. He was being held aloft on his side over the killer's head by two massive hands.
“Carter!” Allan heard himself scream.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a wretched, gut-wrenching tearing sound filled the air. Allan watched in unfiltered, pure horror, his stomach threatening to puke his last meal up, as Carter's torso came away from his legs. An incredibly spray of blood rained down onto the surrounding landscape. Allan could see the stringy, foamy strands of his muscles and intestines as the killer continued to pull both halves away.
In one, swift gesture, it threw each half down onto the ground below. Two wet thuds sounded. Allan gasped as the killer abruptly leaped from the top of the tower, landing in front of him with an impact that seemed to shake the nearby buildings. Allan stumbled away, fighting down nausea while also combating mind-numbing terror at the same time. The killer took two steps forward and shot its hand out out.
This time it didn't punch him. Instead, it gripped his throat and raised him effortlessly off the ground. Why didn't I run? Allan wondered as he dropped his gun and beat his fists against the thick, armored arm that was gripping him. Because it's not in me to run. The colder, more logical part of his brain answered.
He felt the pressure begin to increase as the grip was tightening. This...man?...in a suit of high-tech power armor would kill him, then hunt down Lucy and kill her, too. And then maybe it?...he?...would stick around and kill the next team that came in. And there was nothing they could do to stop it. There was something almost malignantly joyful in the way it was slowly crushing his neck, as opposed to simply finishing the job here and now.
As the edges of his vision began to gray out, his struggles becoming less desperate, Allan suddenly became aware of a sound. It was mechanical in nature and growing louder. An engine? Abruptly, something big and heavy smashed into both Allan and the killer. The huge, armored body was thrown forward several meters and Allan followed, rolling a few times. He coughed viciously and struggled to his hands and knees.
“Get up! Get in!” he recognized the voice.
“Lucy?” he asked, his voice raw. For a moment, he was incredibly glad that the armor around his neck wasn't made of simply metal, or it would have remained crushed whether or not it was being held. The softer material of the neck area gave once the pressure was relieved, allowing him to breath unobstructed once more.
Someone was helping him up. He kept his gaze on the kill
er, who was slowly getting up now. Allan got to his feet, groaning, resisting the urge to rub at his neck. He cast a quick glance at Lucy and saw that she had somehow not only managed to find an all-terrain, open-top jeep but also to drive it into the camp itself.
He froze when he saw someone else in the passenger's seat. Had someone else from the team survived? But he wasn't wearing any kind of armor and he didn't look familiar. Lucy gave him a hard shove to the jeep.
“Get in!” she snapped.
Allan coughed again as he stumbled towards the driver's seat. He slipped in behind the wheel and Lucy hopped in back. Allan turned his attention to the killer, who was standing up and now and facing towards them. He, Allan had come to think of the mystery titan as a he, was walking towards them now.
“What the fuck do we do now?” the man in the passenger's seat whispered.
“We run him down,” Allan said, throwing the jeep into gear.
“No! We should get the fuck out of here!” the man hissed. “Hitting him again probably won't put him down but it will do more damage to the jeep and then what!? You want to be trapped here with that son of a bitch!?”
“Who are you?” Allan asked, but it came to him.
The missing body. The last survivor of the outpost.
“He's stopped,” Lucy said from the back.
Allan's gaze snapped back to the killer, who was instead simply standing there, stock-still, almost looking like a statue.
“What the hell is he doing?” Allan whispered.
“Who cares?! Let's get out of here!” the newcomer snapped.
Before anyone could do anything, the killer turned and began stalking towards the front entrance to the facility. There was a new purpose in his stride. No longer were his movements slow, no longer did they carry the gleeful malice of a cat playing with a dying mouse. The man in black armor was moving with a purpose now.
“What's he doing?” Allan asked.
“Who fucking cares!?” the survivor groaned. “If we don't leave we're going to die!”
“Will you shut up!?” Allan snapped.
He began moving forward, following the killer, who seemed to have utterly lost interest in him. He was already beyond the front gate, moving towards the jump ship. Allan cursed briefly as he watched the immense man disappear into the back of the ship. A moment later, the jump ship rose up into the sky, reoriented itself and shot off.
“Fuck!” Allan shouted.
He smashed the pedal down, driving into the wastelands, following the jump ship that was already beginning to fade from view.
* * * * *
“So, you must be Johnson,” Allan said.
They'd been driving for nearly five minutes in silence. The jump ship had accelerated to its maximum speed, beyond their ability to see it and then beyond the jeep's ability to track it. But it had been heading in one direction with absolutely no deviations thus far, which was good enough for Allan. He was still driving in that direction.
“Yes, Richard Johnson,” the man said after a moment. He was the lone survivor from the relay. The spare technician who had been on staff. If Allan remembered correctly, he was the one who'd been exiled there for insubordination. He hadn't really looked at the man's first name though. An unexpected bubble of laughter took him, then.
“Wait...your name is Richard Johnson?” he asked.
Johnson sighed. “Yes.”
“I...but...Richard. Johnson?” Allan pressed.
“I don't get it,” Lucy said from the back.
Johnson sighed again, more explosively this time. For a moment, Allan felt almost drunk, his head swimming from all the lethargy, anxiety, excitement and terror he'd experienced in the past twenty four hours. He gripped the steering wheel, but found it hard to stop laughing.
“Dick is short for Richard...God knows why. And Johnson is another name for a man's dick. His name is basically Dick Dick,” Allan replied. He stopped laughing for a moment, then abruptly burst out laughing again.
“Okay, it is not that funny,” Johnson said.
“Why are you so immature?” Lucy asked.
“I think I might be losing my mind,” Allan replied with such a serious tone it caused the others to sit up a little straighter.
“What are you talking about?” Johnson asked.
“What's that?” Lucy cut in, pointing ahead.
Allan had seen it, but only now registered it. There was a pillar of black smoke on the horizon, growing steadily closer.
“Did he crash?” Lucy asked quietly.
“I think so. When he killed the pilot, he fucked up the cockpit pretty bad. I'm honestly surprised the ship took off at all...maybe he was killed in the crash,” Allan said. But even as the words left his mouth he didn't believe him.
“What is he?” Johnson whispered.
“Some psycho that grabbed hold of some power armor,” Allan replied.
“I've never seen power armor like that,” Lucy murmured.
“I haven't personally either, but military-grade armor could be like that. Strength-enhancers, bulletproof...that helmet rig, though, normally you see camera-lenses built in, in place of having a visor. I don't know how he can see.”
As they drove closer to the smoke, Allan slowed down. Before long, he could see that it was, indeed, a crash site. The jump ship was a ruined, crumpled heat of smoking, twisted metal. Allan brought the jeep to a full halt.
“Stay here,” he said.
No one argued. Allan threw open the driver's side door and stepped out. He reached for his rifle, but realized he'd left it behind. Not that it made any difference one way or the other. Why was he doing this again? Allan looked back into the jeep, wanting to do what the others had suggested and just hightailing it out of there.
But he couldn't. He'd lost his team, another damned team, to this bastard. And what did he have to run back to anyway? Allan slammed the door shut and began walking towards the crash site. He reached down and pulled out his pistol, more for comfort than for actual security. Nothing was moving in or around the wreckage, as far as he could see. The back ramp was closed and it didn't look like it was opening without a cutting torch.
Moving around the side of the ship, Allan approached the cockpit. The ship had crashed at an angle, so that the nose had buried itself partially in the ground. Allan hesitated as he caught full sight of the cockpit itself. The front window was broken out. He considered the situation for a moment, then holstered his pistol, approached the side of the vehicle and began climbing. Finding awkward hand and foot holds, he hauled himself up to the top of the ship. Moving carefully, he walked forward until he was atop the cockpit.
Allan got down on his hands and knees and peered cautiously into the broken window. He expected to have his head punched off or his neck crushed, but there was nothing inside the cockpit save for ruined instrumentation panels and dead screens. He took a moment to ready himself, then pulled himself headfirst into the cockpit. Working against gravity due to the extreme slant of the floor, he moved to the door at the back and opened it. Beyond the open doorway was the bay he'd ridden in with the others less than an hour ago.
It was empty.
Allan hauled himself back up out of the cockpit and stood on the nose, looking around. He could see nothing moving all around him, just the empty miles of wastelands, but, staring along the length of the direction the ship and the killer had been heading in, he thought he could see a small collection of distant structures.
Allan climbed back down and returned to the jeep.
“Well? Can we go now?” Johnson asked.
“Cool it, Dick,” Allan replied as he fired up the navigational database built into the dashboard of the jeep.
Johnson stared at him for a moment. “So are you Section Eight or what?” he asked.
“I'm fine,” Allan replied.
“Because, you don't really seem fine. I've served with nutjobs before. I was in the Marines for two years and SI for another two years after that, and-”
Silence settled over the jeep. Allan kept working the navigational database. After a moment, a soft chime filled the air.
“Okay, it looks like there's a vehicle repair center dead on course for wherever this fucking psycho was going. It's about five miles from here. The guy is obviously a fucking nutjob. We at least have to warn them and maybe evac,” Allan said as he fired up the engine and sped off.
“Why can't we just use the radio?” Johnson asked. Silence followed his question. Lucy sighed. “Oh...yeah.”
They drove on in silence.
Chapter 05
–Unstoppable–
Allan slowly brought the jeep to a halt as he approached the edge of the vehicle repair center. If the pillar of smoke rising silently into the air wasn't enough of a clue that something was seriously fucked, then the hole in the wall of the nearest building and the smear of blood on the ground certainly was. Allan listened for any signs that the slaughter that had occurred here might still be going on, but he could hear nothing.
“Jesus,” Johnson whispered.
“Come on, we need to see if there are any survivor,” Allan murmured, turning off the engine and stepping out of the jeep.
The others reluctantly followed. Two more doors opened and closed, the sounds falling flat in the still air of the desert. Allan pulled his pistol out again, wondering if he should even bother, but he found that his hands felt awkward if he wasn't holding some kind of weapon in them at this point. With Johnson and Lucy backing him up, he moved towards the small collections of structures. They were approaching from the back.
Allan approached the hole that had been made in the wall by what must have been brute force. He peered in, pistol out, ready to retreat at a moment's notice. The room beyond was empty. This building seemed to be a storage bay. Shelves and crates lined the walls, taking up most of the interior. A clear path had been forced through. Shelves were toppled over, crates broken over, their contents spilled across the floor.
