The Roaring

by Eric S. Brown

  “God help me!” Pete yelled as he realized the second blow had ruptured the copter’s fuel tank. With as many bullets as there were flying about the clearing, it was only a matter of time until one hit the copter and ignited the leaking fuel. Pete leaped out of the pilot’s seat, making for the copter’s side door. The monster was waiting on him there. It had tossed aside what remained of the tree limb and its claws clutched the interior sides of the doorway. The thing’s mouth was open in a hungry snarl and strands of slick saliva dangled from the bottom of its sideways lips.

  Pete had set his pistol down in his attempt to fire up the copter’s engine. He looked about frantically for something to use as a weapon against the monster. Scared out of his mind, he snatched a flare gun from the copter’s emergency cache across from the side door and readied the weapon. He brought it up in his trembling hands, aiming for the creature’s open mouth as he fired. The flare wedged itself in the monster’s mouth. The beast staggered backward with fire from the flare cooking its lips and spraying outward from between them as the flare shifted about inside its jaws. The heat from the flare made contact with the leaking fuel from the copter’s ruptured tank. Pete, the monster, and the copter were consumed in an explosion that lit up the clearing.

  ****

  Heather crouched amid the trees and brush of the jungle, watching the battle in the clearing unfold. Only blind luck had saved her from an encounter with one of the creatures. The things were so silent and so perfectly camouflaged she could have walked straight into one without realizing it was there. Thankfully, the creatures had already been on the move by the time she was approaching her position for the attack on the colonel and his men. As soon as she saw the monsters, she had taken cover, and since their attention was focused on those in the clearing, she avoided conflict with any of them. The monsters moving on the enemy mercs was both good and bad. It was good because regardless of whether the monsters won or lost the battle, the colonel and his men would suffer greatly from it and make any of them that survived that much easier to deal with it. It was bad because the likelihood of the copters and even the VTOL being damaged to the point of being inoperable was high. One of the copters had already been lost and the battle was still young. The blast of it going up was impossible to miss. It lit up the clearing as the copter had blossomed into a gigantic fireball once the fuel and ordnance detonated. The fire from the explosion was spreading across the clearing due to the intensity of the flames’ heat despite the jungle’s dampness. The question now was whether to wait and see how things played out between the colonel’s unit and the monsters or join the battle in the hope of protecting the VTOL.

  Switching on her helmet’s comm. she broke radio silence. “Roger, Flagston, come in. Over.”

  Seconds ticked by painfully slow as Heather waited on the men to respond. She hoped it was just the interference from the device Nicholson had left hidden in the jungle that was keeping them from answering. Half a minute later, she tried again. Her only answer was cold, empty static that crackled over her helmet’s comm. She doubled-checked her rifle, making sure it was ready and looked back into the clearing. The colonel’s men were losing the battle for the most part. Their weapons were proving just as ineffective against the monsters as her squad’s had. The only exception was the heavy Browning they had set up in a makeshift emplacement near the VTOL. Its .50 caliber rounds were too much for even the armored scales of the monsters to withstand. Fire from the Browning had already taken out several of the monsters and the heavy machine gun continued to blaze, cutting into any of the things that came into its line of fire. The monsters were making an attempt to flank the weapon and come at it from its sides. If they succeeded, things were surely over for the colonel’s unit.

  Heather got to her feet. It was unlikely that any of the colonel’s men would spot her amid the chaos of the battle that they were engaged in. They had their hands full at the moment. She knew where the others of her squad were supposed to have taken up their own position in preparation for the attack they had planned. All she needed to do was backtrack through the jungle along the clearing’s edge and she should be able to make it to them unmolested. She figured all the monsters in the area had emerged from the jungle at the same time and were part of the battle in the clearing. Still, she moved with caution as she set out towards the position Roger was supposed to have taken up at the clearing’s edge. She would have preferred to check on Flagston and Nicholson, as the two of them were together, but the plan had called from them to be the farthest away from where she was. They were on its opposite side where they had planned to take out one of the two copters as a diversion. The destruction of the copter closest to the tree line didn’t appear to be their work but rather that of the monsters and bad luck on the part of whoever had been guarding the bird.

  Creeping through the trees, Heather moved at the fastest pace she could. It was slow going though, as she didn’t want to accidentally draw any unwanted attention from the clearing or any of the monsters that might have held back from the attack on the colonel’s unit. Something moved in the jungle ahead of her. Heather came to a stop, aiming her rifle in the direction of the movement, and stood completely still with her finger on the weapon’s trigger.

  “Don’t shoot! Friendly coming in!” Roger’s deep voice called out before he stepped into view.

  “Thank God.” Heather breathed a sigh of relief, lowering her rifle. “I thought you were one of those things.”

  “I think they’re all over there” Roger cocked his head towards the clearing. “Looks like the colonel’s unit is getting hit pretty hard.”

  “Why didn’t you answer your comm.?” Heather asked.

  Roger pointed at the side of his helmet. It was damaged and its comm. along with it.

  “I ran into one of those things as they were making their move on the clearing. It got in a swipe at me that knocked me out for a bit. When I came around, it was gone. I guess it thought I was dead and that it could come back for me later if it got hungry after the battle was over,” Roger answered.

  “You okay?” Heather asked.

  “One hell of a headache but yeah, I’m fine,” Roger assured her.

  “Any sign of Flagston and Nicholson? They didn’t respond either when I broke radio silence,” Heather told him.

  Roger shook his head. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from them since we all split up.”

  “Finding them has to be our priority then,” Heather said firmly. “I know Flagston can handle himself but Nicholson …” She left her sentence unfinished.

  “Flagston will watch out for him. That’s why you sent them together in the first place. Besides, Nicholson had the MGL. If they ran into those things like I did, at least they were carrying something that could hurt those mothers,” Roger pointed out.

  “Even so …” Heather shrugged. “Let’s get moving. I want them located before the battle over there is finished. If those things win, we’re going to need a new plan for how to get past them to the VTOL, assuming it’s still intact.”

  ****

  Flagston was deeply regretting leaving the MGL behind with Nicholson’s corpse. There just hadn’t been any way to retrieve the weapon. The monster that had killed Nicholson had wanted his blood on its claws too, and he knew very well how ineffective the P-90 he carried was against the creature. His only option had been to make a run for it. He plunged through the jungle at a breakneck pace. It was a stupid thing to do, but all he could think of was getting away from the monster before he suffered the same fate that Nicholson had. The creature had just appeared seemingly out of nowhere and hit them without warning. Nicholson had never stood a chance against the thing. From the raging sound of gunfire and the booming of the Browning behind him, the monsters were making a real go at taking the clearing from the colonel and his men. Flagston wasn’t sure which side he should be rooting for in that conflict. Maybe they would get lucky and they would both wipe out the other. He doubted it though.

&nbs
p; He had one grenade he could use if he had to. Flagston carried it in one hand at the ready and his P-90 clutched in the other as he ran. His pace slowed as he got himself together and realized that he had no idea where in the devil he was running to. During the beginning of his mad flight through the jungle, he had thought he had heard someone trying to raise him over his helmet’s comm. He had figured it was just his nerves as Heather had ordered complete radio silence for the attack on the clearing. Given the circumstances though, it was time to break it regardless of the consequences that might follow later. Flagston tapped his comm. activating it.

  “Anyone alive out there? Over,” Flagston called over the squad’s private channel.

  “Flagston? Is that you?” Heather’s voice answered him within the space of a heartbeat.

  “It’s me, boss,” Flagston answered. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice.”

  “Roger that. Is Nicholson with you?” Heather asked.

  “Nicholson’s dead, ma’am. One of those monsters got him as we were heading for the clearing.” Flagston did his best to keep the guilt he felt out of his voice as he responded. Nicholson had been his responsibility and he had failed to keep him alive. “I couldn’t save him. That thing … It just came out of nowhere.”

  “Flagston, Roger and I are headed towards your position. Stay put and wait on us to get there,” Heather ordered.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but I bugged out when Nicholson bought the farm.” Flagston looked around at his surroundings. “I don’t know exactly where I am now. I can still hear the battle going on in the clearing though.”

  He heard Heather’s sigh over the comm. “Copy that. Trace your way back. We’ll meet you on the side of the clearing where the copters are. Just look for the fire. One of them blew and set a large area ablaze there.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll meet you there,” Flagston said and ended the transmission.

  If not for the battle, he’d be lost and he knew it. Thankfully, something of its scale and noise level was nigh impossible to miss. Flagston returned his grenade to his belt so that he could move more easily and took off in the direction of the sound of raging gunfire. He kept his eyes peeled for any sign of the monsters lurking about as he ran. After what had happened to Nicholson, he knew the things could be anywhere, right on top of him, and he might not even know it.

  A tree limb rustled above him as he ran. He skidded to halt, opening fire into the tree with his P-90. Bullets ripped through the tree’s leaves and warm blood rained down over him. Half a second later, the torn body of a ten-foot-long snake fell from the tree to thud onto the jungle floor near him. Flagston jumped back away from it, firing again, before he realized what it was. His second blast of fire mangled the soft body of the snake, opening its guts up to the air and flinging bits of them everywhere.

  “Frag me,” Flagston muttered as he stared at the dead snake. Breathing easier, he wiped at the sweat dripping into his eyes from beneath the front of his helmet. “Hell of a thing …”

  Leaving the snake where it lay, Flagston started running again. Part of him felt bad for the snake on some level, but he wasn’t taking any chances on one of those monsters getting the jump on him. He felt worse about the ammo he had wasted killing the snake than its death. He only had one other magazine left for his P-90. After that, he would be down to his sidearm and the single grenade he carried.

  Flagston considered trying to locate Nicholson’s body on his way back. The monster that had killed the tech was surely gone by now and part of the battle in the clearing. There was no time to go randomly searching for Nicholson. He needed to get the clearing ASAP. Having the MGL when he arrived would have been nice though.

  ****

  Colonel Lee could see the battle taking place outside the VTOL. It was insane. Lieutenant Grayson’s monsters had proven to be very real. He clutched his Desert Eagle MK19, his knuckles white from the pressure of his grip on it. The supposedly bulletproof monsters died very easily if you hit them with enough firepower. He knew his pistol packed the necessary punch to kill one of the things outside if it got past his men. The pistol only held seven rounds, however, and he had only brought along one spare mag. for it. Fourteen bullets weren’t enough to stop all the monsters that invaded the clearing though, nor could he do it alone. The Browning his men had looted from the plane was proving to be more useful than he possibly hoped it would. The heavy machine cut the monsters to pieces with its .50 caliber blasts and so far, it was only the thing doing that. The small arms his men carried were next to useless against the monsters unless someone scored a lucky shot to one of the creatures’ singular eyes towards the top of the mass of its upper body. The monsters were very careful not to let them happen. They seemed keenly aware of their weak spots and did their best to protect them. When the monsters’ mouths were open, they could be hurt there as well but nowhere near on the level of round catching them in their eye. Colonel Lee knew that Alan would have already figured out the same things he had and he trusted the man, who had been his personal guard for years, to pass along the information to the others.

  The monsters were making an attempt to overrun the emplacement where the Browning was set up. Several of them were approaching it from both sides. Alan had reached the heavy weapon ahead of them though and rallied the troops manning it. The three of them were making a desperate stand against the monsters. Alan’s pistols barked in the rapid-fire succession that only an old west gunfighter could match, and the additional two men he had brought with him hosed the monsters with their AK-47s. Bullets sparked against scales as the monsters roared in anger.

  Colonel Lee hadn’t seen Boulder since Alan arrived at the Browning. He assumed the big man was dead or he would have been there too at Alan’s side. As much as the two of them were different in attitude and appearance, they were professionals who were aware of just how well they functioned as a pair.

  Two of the men guarding the entrance to the VTOL were dead. One had his skull crack open and brain matter splattered into the dirt by a blow from one of the monsters. The other had been gutted and long, purple, red-slicked strands of his intestine lay about his body like the coils of a twisted snake. The last of his three defenders was fighting for his life. His AK-47 had long been bled dry of ammo and the man had switched over to using a pump-action shotgun that he carried strapped to his back as a secondary weapon. The shotgun thundered as the man fired at one of the two monsters that were almost in reach of him, despite his retreat closer to the VTOL’s ramp. He was only mere feet from where Colonel Lee stood watching. The blast from his shotgun caught one of the monsters in its open mouth. Teeth shattered as the shotgun’s slug smashed into and through them. Putrid blood splashed outward from the monster’s mouth before it snapped its jaws closed. The injury staggered the monster but didn’t put it down for the count. Knowing he would have to join the battle in a matter of moments anyway when the man at the end of the ramp perished at the claws of the creatures, Colonel Lee finished the wounded monster with two quick but well-placed shots from his Desert Eagle. The first struck the monster near its closed eye and the second pierced the eyelid, protecting it in spray of blood. That shot alone was enough to send the monster back to whatever Hell it had crawled out of, regardless of its other wounds. It toppled to the ground and lay there unmoving, dark blood pooling about its corpse as several other monsters shambled towards the plane ramp. Colonel Lee cursed as he retreated into the plane.

  To his credit, the young merc guarding the ramp stood his ground; he had used the time Colonel Lee had bought for him to reload. Aiming at the fastest of the approaching monsters, the young merc fired a burst at its eye. The monster shifted its body so that his bullets didn’t hit their intended target before it gave a roar and lunged into reach of the young man. It knocked the AK-47 away from the young merc. Colonel Lee could hear the man screaming as he stabbed the button that closed the plane’s ramp. It rose to clang into place, sealing the monsters out of the plane. Within seconds, C
olonel Lee heard the monsters outside begin pounding on it. Their heavy blows rang out against as their fists clanged into its metal. Colonel Lee raced for the plane’s cockpit, his Desert Eagle clutched tightly in his hand.

  ****

  Danny swung the barrel of the Browning around to fire into the ranks of a cluster of monsters to the right of his position. The heavy machine gun rounds severed one of the monsters’ arms and hammered into and through the closed eyelid of the other. The monster struck in its eye gave a shriek of pain as it collapsed to the dirt and lay there, twitching in its death throes.

  Beside Danny, Alan kept up a steady pace of fire with his pistols. Alan concentrated his fire at the eyes of the monsters, but somehow, the hulking beasts always managed to block them from hitting their targets. He had watched as the men he had stationed outside the plane died one by one. Colonel Lee had retreated fully into the VTOL and closed its rear doorway, sealing himself up inside it. Alan was glad that Lee was safe at least for the time being. It freed him up to do what he needed to do. The battle in the clearing was dying down. Most of his fellow mercs were dead, and it was only a matter of time until the Browning was overrun, despite the number of monsters the heavy gun was dropping.

  One of the men with him defending the Browning cried out as a Mapinguari closed in on him and raked its claws over his chest. They sliced through the body armor he wore and his ribs alike. The man dropped his rifle, clutching at the wounds that had been cut across his chest as the Mapinguari grabbed him and lifted him from the ground. It shoved the man, head first, into the open maw of its stomach. The teeth there closed on him, biting off his head and part of his left shoulder. The monster chewed upon its mouthful of the man as it released what was left of his body to drop unto the ground at its feet.