Bora moved a few feet up the aisle, searching for a clean shot of the distracted hostile. He caught a glimpse of the man’s head locked in the creature’s mouth. The huge mouth jerked up and down, pounding the man into the seat. On the third jerk, the gunman’s head came off like the cork from a champagne bottle.
Bora saw a clear shot where the bulbous body rested over the back of two rows.
He fired.
Vital chunks of the creature’s body tore away. He released the trigger, and was correcting his weapon’s recoil, ready to fire again, when the next creature appeared in his peripheral vision through the doorway.
It ignored Bora. It sensed closer prey.
The gunman knocked flying by the doors pulled himself to his knees.
Bora held his fire, watching the kneeling gunman race to swing his weapon on target. Every second stretched into slow motion as Bora’s senses worked overtime to assimilate the unfolding events.
The gunman kneeling in the aisle had no chance.
The creature slammed into his chest before his Mark 2 came even halfway up. He tumbled backwards down the aisle with the creature coiled around him. The struggling mass halted in the aisle just three meters up from Bora. Resisting the urge to fire into the pair, Bora focused on the creature attacking the gunman on the seats. Its killing frenzy made it vulnerable. It would take a few seconds for the struggle at his feet to run its gruesome course.
Take this one out, and there’s only two left. Bora squeezed his trigger and sent another cluster of bullets pounding into the creature’s vulnerable abdomen. White fluid gushed over the red velvet seats. The creature slumped over the decapitated gunman, its tent of tentacles collapsing from the rapid loss of bodily fluid.
At the same time, the second gunman on the seats fired into the struggling mess in the aisle.
One left.
Bora spun on the ball of his right foot, panning his weapon sight across the doorway.
The last intact gunman did likewise, standing on the seats further up the aisle to Bora’s right, aiming into the corridor and waiting for the last creature to emerge.
He didn’t have to wait long.
The creature burst through the doorway and for a moment filled both sets of weapon sights.
The gunman opened fire. Bora didn’t.
Hovering his finger over the trigger, Bora watched the creature turn and charge up over the seats towards the weapon fire. Its movements looked as fluid as a massive octopus crawling over a coral reef.
The gunman saw he couldn’t stop the creature in time.
He jumped into the next row of seats. He’d seen what happened to the last guy caught on the seats. Nimbly negotiating the head rests, he half-jumped, half-ran down the rows.
The vibrations must have pinpointed his location.
A tentacle snapped forward. Swinging up between his thighs, the barbed limb shredded the man’s groin. The gunman pitched forwards as his lower body jerked backwards mid-flight. His stomach smashed straight down into the back of a seat, knocking out his breath. He rolled forward over the seat, clutching the strips of flesh between his legs.
‘Shoot it! SHOOT IT!’ he screamed, lying sideways over two seats, hands between his legs.
Bora watched and waited, ignoring the man’s pleas, unwilling to risk attracting the creature with ineffectual gunfire.
Sidestepping between rows, he paralleled the creature path.
Seeing that Bora wasn’t firing, the gunman lurched up from the seats -
- and straight into the descending creature.
The creature’s head smashed onto the man’s stomach, pinning him back onto the seat.
His screams were short and sharp, impossibly louder each time, as though he couldn’t quite believe what was happening and every new injury was a surprise despite everything that had come before. The creature looked like it was trying to burrow right through the man. As it reached its killing frenzy, spurred by the man’s frantic struggling and thumping fists, its tentacles started tearing entire seats right off the floor, throwing up a snowstorm of red fabric and yellow padding that partially obscured the grisly assault from Bora.
Bora slipped in a fresh ammunition clip. Two seats flew through the air and tumbled into the aisle on his left. He saw a clean shot and took it.
As he fired, the creature’s abdomen dropped between two rows of seats and into an area widened by its own destruction. Bullets stuttered harmlessness into the seats further back.
That’s torn it.
Bora realized his mistake instantly. He had just become the greatest source of vibrations in the cinema. The creature reared up from between the rows and came straight at him.
He couldn’t run left or right. The space between the rows to his left was blocked by tumbling seats; right led to the solid cinema wall. Bora had already witnessed two men attempt to race the creatures over the seats. The result was terminally undesirable.
He dropped to the floor and looked under the seats. A steel frame braced every forth seat to the floor. Something that used to be a man lay under the seats further up the incline. Most importantly, however, there was enough room to crawl.
Bora took off crawling. He scrambled down the incline as the first tentacle tore into the seats over his head.
Crawling as fast as possible, he still moved slower than the creature. His senses told him the creature covered the seats above him like a net. The message came loud and clear through the steel framework. Tearing fabric and buckling plastic armrests sounded just inches from his head.
The creature’s mouth appeared between the rows above him. He scrambled further down the incline. His vibrations sent the creature crazy.
Suddenly the seats covering his legs tore away.
Scissoring his legs, he flipped onto his back, using the sudden extra space to turn over. He grabbed the framework under the seats and yanked with all his strength, sliding his body down the incline just as the creature’s head smashed down where his legs had been.
Only four more rows separated him from the front of the cinema. He stood no chance out there. He’d never get time to rise from the floor.
It’s now or never.
He grabbed the steel frame with both hands. Tensing his stomach, he lifted his legs and pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees on his lower back, turning a horizontal cartwheel under the seats.
Now he faced the opposite direction.
He yanked himself up the incline, reversing his earlier move, passing directly underneath the creature’s head. He could only survive a few seconds directly under the creature. Already it began wrenching up the seats around his hips.
But he found his goal.
The two rows above Bora’s head supported the wasp-like abdomen. Now his body lay under the creature’s head, and his head lay under the creature’s body.
They had both found their goals.
Bora pressed the barrel of his P190 against the creature’s abdomen, pulled the trigger and prayed.
#
Coleman shone his flashlight around the north stairwell. He was searching for signs of Fifth Unit.
The stairwell lights were out.
King opened the door a crack and leant into the doorframe to watch for approaching hostiles, human or other. Vanessa’s tablet screen illuminated her face as she worked. Forest stood on the landing where the handrail met the wall. His CMAR-17 rested on the handrail, covering the stairwell doors below.
Coleman quietly descended two landings. He moved slowly, absorbing every detail of the skirmish that had unfolded here.
The stairwells were the Special Forces’ primary entry points. They were also, thanks to Gould, the creatures’ primary release point. Within the first few minutes of the operation, the Special Forces were coming down the stairwells. The creatures were racing up. The fleeing evacuees were in between.
Coleman’s light paused several times on the wall. The chipped-out impressions from assault rifle fire were telling.
Fifth U
nit stopped to fire on the creatures here. And again here.
With evacuees crowding the steps, firing opportunities had been minimal. Fifth Unit had encountered the creatures halfway down the stairwell. Gunfire cratered the walls at that point. Casualties also began there. Six civilian bodies sprawled over the steps. Two Marines lay among the civilians. They had been the Marines up front, unable to fire in the bedlam of streaming evacuees, and then overwhelmed in those first five or six seconds by the creatures. Coleman squatted to retrieve their ammunition. Neither had the communications pack.
At this exact point, right where Coleman knelt, Fifth Unit changed tactics.
Coleman could almost hear Sergeant Stevens bellowing for a tactical withdrawal up the stairs. Erin Stevens was a fine Marine. He was very adaptable.
After Stevens’ changed tactics, the confined space had worked in Fifth Unit’s favor. Any civilians reaching the stairwell had already passed Stevens and were now fleeing up the stairs behind him. The creatures couldn’t climb the stairwell more than two abreast.
Facing the oncoming creatures, two Marines had stood shoulder-to-shoulder, firing full-auto down the stairs. They had fired their weapon dry, then spun and dashed past the next two Marines waiting on the landing above. While that second team fired, the first team reloaded. Working in pairs, the Marines had leapfrogged each others’ position from landing to landing, maintaining a continuous stream of fire onto the climbing creatures.
It proved a good tactic.
Erin Stevens turned the situation around.
Coleman’s moved his light over the handrail. The yellow paint was scratched where the creatures groped for purchase up the stairwell into the heavy fire. Coleman imagined two creatures charging headlong up the stairs into Fifth Unit’s constant automatic fire, the creatures dropping, more creatures scrambling into their place, weapons firing dry, swapping position and starting again.
With all the vibrations in the stairwell, the creatures must have gone berserk.
Coleman counted six dead creatures collapsed on the stairs. They had been shredded by the sustained, close quarters gunfire.
He shone his light upwards.
Stevens had been surprised on the landing one level up.
This early in the conflict, he couldn’t have known the hostiles terrorized every level. The roar of continuous gunfire made their headset radios useless. They couldn’t have heard the reports from every other unit similarly engaged around the Complex. He couldn’t have known that at any second any stairwell door could burst open with more creatures.
That’s what had happened.
Two Marines had been surprised on the landing from the side.
The Marine on the left, still firing fully automatic, had swung his weapon from the threat on the steps and upwards towards the door. His fire path stitched clearly up the wall towards the emerging hostiles. But the new threat was already too close. The creature’s momentum crushed both men against the opposite wall.
Coleman shone his flashlight over the two bodies. He recognized one of the Marines. Private Troy Parker, ‘Parks’ to his friends. Another good person killed by the terrorists. Coleman was coming to see the creatures as just another weapon in the terrorists’ cowardly arsenal.
Although the two dead Marines showed that Fifth Unit had never been fully in control of the situation, far less civilian carnage littered this part of the stairwell because of their presence. Neither dead Marine had the communications pack.
‘No sign of the radio,’ reported Coleman, reaching the others. ‘It must have been carried by someone who made it out. It must be with Stevens somewhere.’
That was good news. Everything in the stairwell had been destroyed. Two exits from the stairwell joined the habitation level. One opened into the dormitories; the other opened onto the pedestrian loop.
King nodded towards the slightly ajar door. ‘It’s all clear.’
Forest listened at the door leading back to the dorms. ‘Same this side.’
‘Go,’ said Coleman, waiting while the others slipped quietly from the stairwell.
He followed them into the dormitories. The dormitories looked like a single floor of a classy hotel. This was the first place in the Complex where Coleman had seen carpet. The carpet here was a dark peach color. Beige doors with silver door numbers lined the corridors. The doors had swipe card access. Paintings hung between the doors, illuminated by the square skylights dotting the ceiling. Leafy Alexander palms in glazed white pots decorated every corner.
Coleman scanned the carpet outside the stairwell. Bloody boot prints in the carpet headed east.
‘This way,’ he said, following the wall.
He Coleman rounded two corners before locating where Fifth Unit had switched back towards the pool room. The boot prints showed they had stopped running while Stevens spoke to Coleman on the radio.
They were right here when I talked to Stevens.
Coleman followed their trail to the next corner. Fifth Unit were running again at this stage. They had almost reached the edge of the dormitories. The carpet had switched back to the smooth, off-white enamel floors like everywhere else in the Complex. He stopped at the end of the corridor, peering around the corner.
This is it. This is where they were ambushed.
Dried blood covered the floor. Coleman signaled King to scout ahead. As King moved down the corridor, Coleman examined the ambush scene.
At least six terrorists had waited in the corridor, some crouched, others standing. They opened fire when Fifth Unit rounded the corner. No bullet marks patterned the walls behind the terrorists’ position. Fifth Unit hadn’t gotten off a single shot. The first Marine around the corner, probably Erin Stevens, died instantly. As had the next man. The third Marine’s body had spun wildly from the bullet impact and sprayed blood across the walls like a flicked paint brush. He’d hit the wall and slid down, leaving a wide smear. Three stains showed where their bodies settled.
The scene before Coleman was almost what he’d expected. All the signs of the ambush were present bar one.
There were no bodies.
Three long blood smears stretched down the corridor. The terrorists had dragged the bodies away.
Coleman knelt and picked up a small piece of body armor.
Strange.
Their body armor looked torn apart. Coleman had never seen anything like it. No personal defense weapon, not even the P190 at point-blank range, could do that.
He moved to where the terrorists had waited in firing squad mode. Bullet shells were scattered everywhere. Squatting, he examined one of the shells. The terrorists were using cased ammunition, meaning the bullets were encased in a shell that was ejected from their rifles after firing. It was an outdated ammunition type. It didn’t fit with the terrorists’ profile.
So far, Cairns had outfitted his men in perfect preparation for the operation. Why would he have done any different with something as fundamental as their ammunition type? What tactical reason was there for using outdated cased ammunition?
As King returned, Coleman slipped the shell into his pocket.
King knelt beside him. ‘They dragged the bodies into the recreation reserve.’
Coleman nodded towards the reserve. ‘Let’s find out why.’
#
Cairns bellowed into his radio.
‘Bora, answer me!’
Cairns waited on the engineering level, coordinating the search for the templates through the ventilation shafts.
Eight minutes earlier, with the ventilation shafts still smoldering, he’d forklifted twelve men into the ceiling. He needed the templates retrieved before irreversible heat damage occurred, even if that meant sending men on their hands and knees searching through the hot shafts.
There had already been one heat-related casualty. A gunman searching the shafts had panicked for fresh air.
Cairns heard him yelling through the ceiling vent. ‘I can’t breathe! Get me out - I can’t breathe!’
The
vent collapsed under the man’s frantic pounding. He tumbled headlong from the ceiling, windmilling his arms on the way down….
Thud, broken neck.
Cairns ignored the body and waited. He got his fresh air, at least.
As more shafts were checked, a tiny doubt formed in Cairns’s mind.
‘They’re not up here,’ reported the last gunman, appearing through the ceiling hatch over the forklift. He looked shiny with sweat. He clambered down with parts of his fatigues smoking. ‘The templates aren’t up there. Just that one body we found.’
They had found only one dead Marine. Cremated alive.
As Cairns’s frustration peaked, Bora came over the radio. Bora had taken a team to secure Cairns’s route to the surface with the valuable templates.
‘I’ve got them. I’ve got them in visual,’ reported Bora. ‘Sharp’s with them. They’re crossing the communal lounge towards us.’
Suddenly the hot shafts above Cairns seemed irrelevant. The Marines had somehow escaped up to the habitation level. Bora was up there already. He had them in sight. He had a larger force. Don’t let me down, Bora.
Then the firefight broke out. Cairns heard the distant shooting. Bora issued orders over the radio. Cairns allowed himself a small smile. It sounded like a one-sided battle. All the weapon noise came from P190s, not CMAR-17s. The Special Forces were hardly returning fire.
Abruptly, a span of silence came. The silence stretched. Cairns demanded an update, but Bora didn’t hear or wasn’t replying.
The next message had Bora demanding an escape route from the cinema! An escape route from the cinema? The cinema was right across the other side of the level.
What had gone wrong? From Bora’s last radio message, Cairns understood they had the Special Forces pinned-down, outgunned and outnumbered. Bora had all the advantages.
Something had happened. Something had changed the tide of the skirmish.
Cairns knew exactly what that something must have been.
Gould’s creatures.
The cinema had no second exit, and Cairns heard a distant firefight break out. This firefight sounded very different to the last. It sounded like men fighting desperately for their lives, not springing an ambush. The desperation was clear to every sweat-soaked gunman standing around the forklift. Cairns ignored their alarmed glances.
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