The Roaring

by Eric S. Brown

  “If it is Wallace and Glen and they need our help …” Roger started.

  Heather shook her head. “It’s not them. Can’t be.”

  “So we wait then,” Walker said.

  “We wait,” Heather confirmed.

  They didn’t have to wait long. The gunfire died away quickly. As soon as it had fallen silent, Heather gave the signal for them to move out. She stayed on point, allowing Walker to share it with her. The others crept along behind them at a distance.

  A man in combat gear came bursting from the trees ahead of them. He appeared to be running for his life. Heather was barely able to slap the barrel of Walker’s rifle down in time to save the man’s life. The three-round burst Walker had fired ripped up the ground instead of the man’s chest.

  “Hold your fire!” Heather ordered the others as the man came rushing towards them. As he noticed their presence, his eyes went wide. He skidded to a halt, jerking his arms up over his head in a gesture of surrender.

  “Don’t shoot!” the man cried out. “I’m human!”

  “Get on the ground,” Heather barked at him. “Hands behind your head.”

  The man complied though he kept looking over his shoulder at the trees behind him.

  “They were after me,” he said frantically, real fear thick in his voice as he spoke. “They could come out of those trees at any moment. None of us have time for this!”

  “If anything else comes out of those trees,” Roger growled, “it’s dead.”

  The big man leveled his automatic shotgun at the trees behind where the man kept his position on his knees with his hands clasped behind his head.

  “You don’t understand,” the man urged them. “Those things … bullets just bounce off them.”

  Heather shot Walker a questioning look. He looked as lost as she was and gave a shrug. Something had obviously scared the man in front of them out of his mind. The question was what.

  “The others are all dead,” the man shrieked at them. “All of them. I’m the only one who got out alive.”

  “Easy, man,” Nicholson told the man. “What’s your name and who are you working for?”

  “Lieutenant Grayson,” the man blurted out. “I’m with Colonel Lee’s unit. We were sent into the jungle to find you and take the device you’re carrying.”

  Nicholson glanced down at the container he held. “You’re after this?” he said, hefting it so the man could get a better view of the container.

  The man nodded frantically. “Yes! We were supposed to take you by surprise and get that device.”

  “That doesn’t sound too friendly of you.” Roger scowled at the man though he kept his weapon aimed at the trees.

  “Look! We need to get out of here!” Lieutenant Grayson begged. “If you really haven’t encountered those monsters yet, you have no idea what you’re about to be up against. I understand that you think you can handle them, but you can’t. We couldn’t.”

  “I don’t think he’s talking about our cannibal friends, ma’am,” Flagston said.

  “I am telling you there are monsters out here, real ones, and they’re after me, frag it,” Lieutenant Grayson wailed. “I’m not messing with you.”

  “You think he’s telling the truth?” Walker asked.

  “I have no idea,” Heather replied. “I don’t think we can afford to gamble that he’s not though.”

  Something in the trees behind Lieutenant Grayson roared its fury. The cry was utterly inhuman. It didn’t sound like any kind of animal that Heather had ever heard before either.

  “That’s one of them!” Lieutenant Grayson said, leaping to his feet even though he hadn’t been told that he could get up. “We’ve got to get out of here! Now!”

  Lieutenant Grayson ran at them, trying to drive his way through their ranks. Walker brought him to a stop, stepping close enough to the lieutenant as he tried to run pass to body check him with the flat of his rifle. The move sent the lieutenant tumbling over onto his butt. He tried to get up again, but Walker struck a second time. The butt of Walker’s rifle smashed into the lieutenant’s forehead, knocking him unconscious.

  “Holy frag,” Walker said. “What the hell has him so scared? This guy is out of his mind.”

  As if in answer to Walker’s question, a monster emerged from the trees. There was no other word to describe it. The thing towered almost ten feet tall and was covered in hair that blended completely into the jungle around it. Heather could see a layer of scales beneath the thing’s hair that passed for its skin. The monster had no head. Instead, its upper torso was a thick mass of muscle with a single glowing eye near its top. In the center of the thing’s torso was an open mouth filled with jagged, pointed teeth that looked as sharp as razor blades as they gleamed in the sunlight. The monster’s arms were overly long and ended in three-fingered hands. Upon each of its hands were a set of deadly looking claws. Heather didn’t have a clue what the thing was, but she knew she wanted it dead. Roger opened up on the monster before she could even get out the order to do so.

  Roger’s automatic shotgun boomed in rapid succession as he emptied its magazine into the monster that emerged from the trees. Heather heard each blast thud into the monster. It moved up its arms to cover its singular eye as the heavy shells rocked its body. The monster stood its ground until Roger’s barrage was over and the fury of the big man’s weapon was spent. As Roger’s automatic shotgun clicked empty, the monster lowered its thick arms and resumed its slow advance.

  “Frag me,” Roger muttered, stunned that his shots hadn’t done so much as scratch the monster.

  “Kill that thing!” Heather ordered, swinging up her M-16. The rest of the squad, except Nicholson who was stuck carrying the container with the device in it, opened fire on the monster. Heather’s rifle chattered alongside Walker’s and Flagston’s blazing P-90. Close to a hundred rounds pummeled the monster, sparking away from its body. It had closed its eye and mouth against their fire and just stood there letting them do as they would. Heather lowered the smoking barrel of her M-16, ejecting its now emptied magazine as Walker did the same. Flagston’s P-90 clicked empty a brief moment later. As they reloaded, the monster lunged forward with unexpected speed. It came straight at Walker and herself as they were the closest to it. One of its clawed hands lashed out at Walker. Walker threw himself away from the creature’s swinging claws as they slashed through the air where he had been standing. He thudded onto the ground at the monster’s feet, still trying to shove a fresh magazine into his weapon.

  Heather managed to get her rifle reloaded and resumed firing at the monster. Her shots ricocheted off its side and right shoulder. The monster ignored them, its attention focused entirely on Walker. Raising one of its large, clawed feet, the monster brought the foot down at Walker who barely rolled out from beneath it in time. The foot slammed into the ground next to him as he struggled to haul himself up.

  “Walker!” Heather shouted in warning, too late, as the monster thrust the claws of its left hand into him. Walker gave a grunt as the thing’s claws pierced him, entering through his back before their tips burst outward from the front of his chest in a spray of bright red. The monster yanked its left hand free from Walker as it backhanded him with his right. The blow sent Walker flying several yards. His flailing body smashed into the trunk of a tree and then bounced onto the ground. A pool of red grew, spreading outward from his twitching body.

  “Get out of there!” Nicholson shouted at her. Heather realized how close she still was to the monster and retreated as fast as she could away from it.

  Roger had reloaded his shotgun and tore into the monster with an onslaught of automatic fire as he attempted to maneuver by it to where Walker lay. The monster wasn’t having it though. It moved to put itself between the big man and Walker. The shotgun’s heavy slugs smacked against the monster’s scales, their impact driving it back even if they weren’t doing any real damage to the thing. Roger used the precious seconds they bought him to reach Walker and knelt o
ver him. A quick glance at the extent the thing’s claws had ravaged Walker told him that the squad’s second-in-command was dead. He rose quickly to his feet, already instinctively in the process of reloading his shotgun as he did so.

  Nicholson had set the container with the device on the ground and shrugged his pack from his shoulders, desperately trying to dig the squad MGL out of it. Heather saw that he wasn’t going to be able to do it in time to save Roger. She screamed a battle cry as she charged at the monster, trying to get its attention, hosing it with fire from her M-16 as she ran. The monster turned in her direction, ready to engage her, but Heather skidded to a halt just short of its reach and started backpedaling as fast as she could. Heather nearly lost her balance from the abrupt change in her movement but managed to stay on her feet long enough to keep out of its reach. She heard the thunking noise of the MGL being fired and knew she had bought Nicholson the time he had needed. The grenade hit the monster’s side and detonated there. The monster staggered as the ensuring explosion ripped at its thickly armored form. Heather jerked up her arms, trying to protect herself from the blast. She felt small bits of shrapnel from the grenade enter her flesh. Nicholson wasn’t waiting on her to get completely clear. The grenade was the only the thing that had hurt the monster so far, and he didn’t intend to give it a chance to recover before hitting it again. The MGL thunked a second time. The grenade hit the monster squarely in its chest between its eye and mouth. The explosion rocked the monster. It opened its mouth then in a roar of pain. The explosion had set the hair that grew out of its scale ablaze. Burning, it staggered a couple steps backward and then collapsed.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain in her arms, Heather rolled to her feet and ran as fast as she could toward the rest of the squad which had already fallen back. Roger swept in by her side as she ran.

  Nicholson put a third grenade into the monster’s smoking body where it thrashed about on the ground. The blast finished the creature tossing bits of its body and innards skyward in an explosion of gore.

  “What in the devil was that thing?” Nicholson asked, lowering the MGL.

  “You got me,” Flagston replied. “I just hope it was the only one of its kind that’s out there.”

  “Our new friend lying over there said there was a lot more,” Heather said. “I think it’s best to assume he wasn’t just spewing garbage at this point.”

  Roger grabbed up the lieutenant, slinging him over his shoulder as Heather shouted, “We don’t need to be waiting here if there are more of those … whatever the frag that thing is … on the way.”

  “What about Walker?” Roger grunted beneath Grayson’s weight.

  “We’ll have to leave him for now,” Heather barked. It pained Heather to make the call, but Walker was dead, and being slowed down by dragging his corpse along with them was too big a risk to take. They were already stuck with the lieutenant as a prisoner to deal with.

  Heather led Roger and the others in a direction that kept them headed towards the clearing where the VTOL was waiting but also put them out of the direct path of approach the monsters might be coming from if indeed more were on their way.

  ****

  Colonel Lee had called Alan and Boulder into the VTOL to update them on the status of the group Lieutenant Grayson had taken into the jungle. The two of them had stared at him with disbelief as he shared what Grayson had reported.

  “Monsters?” Alan shook his head. “For real?”

  “We have to assume that Grayson was telling the truth,” Colonel Lee said. “It’s not like him to just make crap up to cover a failure on his part.”

  “But bulletproof monsters?” Boulder grumbled. “That’s crazy.”

  “Grayson claims his unit was ambushed by the things,” Colonel Lee went on. “He claims that the creatures massacred his men. He and the three that are still alive are in route back here now.”

  “Just how bulletproof are these things, I wonder?” Alan mused. “It would be nice to know more about what we’re up against.”

  “Agreed, but Grayson hasn’t reported in again since his first frantic call, and I haven’t been able to establish contact with him either,” Colonel Lee said.

  “It’s a good thing we discovered that Browning,” Alan said, smiling. “I doubt there’s anything living on Earth that could stand up to the sort of firepower if can dish out. If Grayson’s telling the truth and the monsters decide to come at us, it’ll come in rather handy.”

  “Reposition the Browning so that its line of fire covers as much of the tree line around this clearing as possible,” Colonel Lee ordered. “Beyond that, I don’t think there is anything else we can do but stay alert and wait. Heather’s squad is likely on its way here unless they’ve run into the monsters too. We need to be ready for an assault from either.”

  “I think we are,” Alan said. “The men are spread out and we’ll get the Browning repositioned as quickly as possible.”

  “How about those surprises you were setting up?” Colonel Lee asked.

  “All taken care of.” Alan’s grin grew even larger. “Anything that tries to sneak up on us is going to have a very bad day.”

  “Excellent.” Colonel Lee allowed himself a smile to match Alan’s. “Be about it then. I’ll let you know if any further word comes in from Grayson and his unit.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alan and Boulder chorused together and then headed out of the plane.

  Colonel Lee hoped that Heather and her squad had managed to steer clear of the supposed monsters lurking the jungle. He would much rather deal with her and her men than be forced to comb the jungle for their corpses in search of the device. There was no doubt they would haul it straight to him if they were still alive and trying to escape the jungle themselves. They had no reason to believe that this clearing had been occupied by his men or that his men had joined them out here in the jungle. They would walk right into the trap he and his men had prepared for them. Colonel Lee spent a moment watching Alan barking orders at the men repositioning the Browning and then turned to head for the VTOL’s comm. station. It was time to let his employer know what was going on out here and haggle up what his unit was being paid.

  ****

  Heather and the others came to a stop just short of the clearing where Wallace and Glen were supposed to be waiting on them onboard the Hopper. Roger put Lieutenant Grayson down, propping him against the trunk of a tree. The lieutenant was groaning and on the verge of coming around. Heather had a lot more questions for him when he did. She wasn’t about to go charging into the clearing blind not when she knew there was an enemy force occupying it.

  “Roger, Nicholson,” she barked. “Watch the trees. Flagston, why don’t you help our new friend back into consciousness?”

  “On it,” Flagston replied and approached Lieutenant Grayson.

  Flagston reached to take hold of the lieutenant’s hand and deftly broke one of the man’s fingers. He slapped his other hand over the LT’s mouth to muffle the following cry of pain as Grayson snapped awake.

  “Keep it quiet or that’s just the beginning of what I will do to you,” Flagston whispered to Grayson.

  Grayson nodded his understanding. Flagston removed his hand from Grayson’s mouth but continued to hover close to him as Heather walked over to join them.

  “Okay, Lieutenant,” Heather said, “I think it’s time the two of us had a very serious talk about what’s waiting for my squad in that clearing up ahead. I want the numbers of what we’re up against in there and anything else you might know that might keep us all, yourself included, alive when we move in on it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Grayson answered weakly, clutching his finger Flagston had just broken to his chest.

  “You can start talking anytime now,” Heather growled impatiently.

  “Colonel Lee brought our entire unit. My group was dispatched to try to intercept you while you were still in route back to the clearing.” Grayson paused and Heather could tell it was from more than the
physical pain he was in as he continued. “Everyone in under my command was killed by those monsters.”

  “What does that leave Lee with?” Heather asked.

  “Over a dozen men and his two personal guards,” Grayson answered. “Trust me that they’ll be ready for anything you try. They’ve had time to prepare.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Heather grunted. “What about our people aboard the Hopper?”

  “The Hopper?” Grayson looked confused.

  “The VTOL,” Heather explained.

  “Oh,” Grayson nodded. “We only found one person aboard it, a guy named Glen. The colonel shot him in the head.”

  “That means Wallace made it out,” Nicholson said.

  “You’re sure the pilot was the only person you found?” Heather aimed the barrel of her rifle at Grayson, her expression dark and deadly serious.

  “Yeah,” Grayson almost shouted. “He was the only one.”

  “If Wallace made it out, where the heck is she?” Flagston gave a concerned glance at Heather.

  Grayson must have thought he was the one being asked the question because he jerked around at Flagston. “How would I know that? I was out here watching my men being torn to shreds trying to find you guys.”

  “Shut up,” Flagston growled, nudging Grayson with his P-90. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Wallace is the best, ma’am,” Nicholson said to Heather. “If she got out …”

  “Don’t assume anything,” Heather stopped him. “You saw that thing. There’s no guarantee that Wallace is still alive … not with those monsters lurking about out here.”

  “If she’s alive, she’ll find us,” Roger’s deep voice boomed.

  “In the meantime, we’ve got other problems to deal with.” Heather gestured at Flagston. “I want you to recon that clearing A.S.A.P. Just watch your arse while you’re doing it, got it? Who knows what those bastards have waiting on us.”

  “Will do,” Flagston agreed and then darted away into the jungle.