by Various
We ignored it, moving slowly but not as quietly now; we knew we weren’t sneaking up on anyone. Whoever was waiting at the end of the march was now aware we were coming.
We reached drier ground, the swamp disappearing. The way was just as hard, with all the bracken and shrubs that grew where the dirt was more solid. Vines hung down from the canopy. Insects buzzed all around. Ahead, a clearing formed. From it, a narrow path led into the drooping rainforest that spread out toward the center of the island.
“How far now?” I asked.
“Are we there yet?” called the thing that had attacked us. “Are we there yet, Mummy? Hahahahaha.”
“Fuck off,” I growled.
We moved on, rifles to our shoulders in case the thing took another shot at us.
Marissa looked at her GPS. “One more k to the resort,” she said. “Eyes open, stay frosty.”
Half-an-hour later, she called another halt. “Two-hundred meters to go, people. Spread out, and watch your six. That scaly fucker is likely still eyeballing us.”
“If he’s watching,” Wild Bill said, flipping the bird, “he can watch this.”
“Move out,” said Marissa. “Eyes wide.”
We moved out, through the jungle and into hell.
INTERIM
Dornasian sat in the small control room, surrounded by monitor screens, watching the assault team’s confrontation with Caiman.
“Assemble everyone,” he said to a woman standing a few steps behind him, her hair shorn and her eyes completely white. Another thought occurred. A distraction. “Also…send out Behemoth as an added surprise.”
“As you say, my Lord.” His prize female turned on her heel and exited the chamber.
One by one, the screens went dark as the facility shut down. Just before the last one blinked out, Dornasian stared at it and squinted. His heavy brow lowered, then he smiled wickedly.
EIGHT
The jungle was hell. Clouds of swarming, biting bugs followed us all the way, even with industrial-grade DEET applied to every exposed surface. The plants and trees loomed over us, casting dark pockets all around where anything could be waiting to rip our hearts out. Put simply, it was a bad time.
When we finally reached the clearing, it was bittersweet. The threat seemed less, due to us being able to see more than two feet in any direction, but the sense of danger didn’t dissipate. Neither did the bugs. I felt like one, big, swollen lump.
The clearing we found wasn’t the same as the view we’d seen from the phone pic. The bodies were gone, and the buildings were destroyed, piles of lumber scattered amongst the bloodstained sand. We moved apart, still at the edge of the secondary jungle, so nothing could take us out in one hit.
“Right,” said Marissa over the coms system. “Jameson, Torres, and Stoner, you move forward to the nearest pile of rubble. The rest of us will provide cover.”
I didn’t see the point of sneaking, really. Reptile Boy had us pegged all the way, and I’m sure if anything waited in the resort it knew we were coming. Still, orders are orders, and Marissa was the boss of our little playgroup.
The three of us crept forward, not close to each other, and moving at different times to avoid full exposure. I held my assault rifle forward, ready to fire. Halfway to the pile of wood and stone that used to be a hut, a weird thrumming filled the air, then I saw movement from above.
“Incoming!” I yelled, running to the pile. I threw myself behind some splintered logs. Jameson and Torres did the same.
I looked up, saw someone floating in mid-air, spiraling down toward the center of the clearing with arms outstretched. She, it was definitely a she, was wearing some fancy costume, all black with glowing red lines around her ribs and down each leg and arm.
Another goddamn ego-maniac chimeric. Great.
I aimed, ready to fill her full of bullets if she so much as spat at us. As she neared the ground, loose leaves and palm fronds stirred in a whirlwind, swirling into the air. She touched down, facing us, and I glanced back to see if Marissa and the other two were visible. Nothing. That made them our aces in the hole.
“Greetings, gents,” the weirdo said. Her voice was high-pitched, almost like wind whistling through trees. “Welcome to my home. I’ve come to say hi. And so have they.” She gestured behind her, toward the other side of the clearing. I looked, looked again. A horde of animals surged from the treeline. Lizards, snakes, a few crocodiles. All led by that damn reptile chimeric from earlier.
“Yee-hah!” he yelled. “Here we come, boys. Here comes the fun!”
I aimed, fired a three-round burst at Reptile Boy, but he jinked to the side and I hit the leading crocodile. Its head exploded, and it was instantly over-run by the wave of scaly things behind it. I heard weapons open up beside and behind me. I knew the others were shooting as fast as they could, but there were so many damn reptiles. Too many to take out.
Waves of snakes slithered across the grass, slower than the hundreds of lizards and much creepier. I emptied my magazine, replaced it with another, and chambered a round, fired again, then felt my hair rise as blasts of raw electricity slammed over us from behind. The air seemed alive with current. I watched arcs of raw power hit the waves of reptiles, frying them in place, as more ran in behind, only to suffer the same fate.
I stopped firing, looked around. Marissa stood at the edge of the jungle, hands forward, her eyes glowing phosphorescent-blue. From her hands, electricity reached out and destroyed hundreds, maybe thousands, of the animals streaming from the other side of the clearing. They died, burnt extra crispy.
Eventually, the wave slowed, then stopped. Reptile Boy had disappeared at the first arc of lightning, and the woman in black stood alone in the clearing, eyes on Marissa and a slight smile on her face.
“Impressive, Blackout,” she said. “How much more can you harness?”
“Enough to get the job done, Flightpath,” said Marissa.
Blackout? Who the hell is Blackout?
“We’ll see,” said the woman, obviously Flightpath. She gestured towards Marissa and a pile of rubble flew from the ground.
Electricity surged from Marissa’s outstretched hands, blowing the pieces of rubble into smaller pieces of rubble, basically gravel, scattering it before it could get halfway across the distance between them. She turned and threw more lightning, but the bolts were scattered by some shielding between the two women.
“I’m not that easy,” said Flightpath.
Marissa laughed at her. “That’s not what your graduation class says, bitch.”
A black shape leaped from the tree line straight at Flightpath. Katana had snuck around to the side. At the same moment, Bill rose up, a massive pistol in each hand, and fired. Each shot hit Flightpath in the chest, knocking her backward into Katana’s attack.
Ken slashed at her, both hands now blades. One glanced off her shoulder. The other took her head. Blood geysered from Flightpath’s neck as her body slumped to the ground.
“You gotta hit the flesh, Bill,” Ken said as he stepped over the body. He kicked her head into the jungle. “You know the suits are usually armored, man.”
“Brother, I was just distractin’ her for yah.” Bill slid his pistols into their holsters. “Now, which way, ‘Riss?”
“Straight ahead. Same way the lizard thing ran when I fried his nasty little buddies.”
“Uh-huh,” said Bill. “Lead on.” He turned to look at me. “So, new guy. You’re starting to find out what we can do, yah? What can ya’ll do?”
“I just kick fucking ass, cowboy. Let’s get on with this shit before we have to fight another freak.”
“Watch it, boy. We’re all chimerics.”
“Present company excepted.” I winked at him, feeling ballsy despite this whole fucked-up situation.
Marissa turned to me. “Just be careful what you say, Stoner. We have long memories.” She looked at the others, all of us gathered around Flightpath’s headless
body. “Let’s move, ladies.”
NINE
We followed the trail where the swarm had come from. Nothing else attacked, and there was no sign of Reptile Boy, who’d bugged out when the electricity had started flying. The jungle around us was quiet as a tomb—cliché but appropriate. Not a damn thing moved. Even the bugs seemed to stay away. Maybe they were worried about our human bug-zapper.
After an hour of struggling through the undergrowth, we entered another clearing. A massive rock faced us, covered in vines and clinging shrubs. That wasn’t what caught our eyes, though.
The cave entrance grabbed our attention. It was standard for a cave, I guess. Dark, draped in hanging vines, and potentially filled with something we didn’t want to meet. What made this one different was the banner hanging over the top.
Welcome to the Jungle.
“I guess there goes the element of surprise,” Katana scoffed.
Torres and Jameson, the two goons I loved to hate, moved toward the entrance, assault rifles at the ready.
“Looks clear,” called Jameson. He stepped into the entrance, then exploded.
“Fuck!” yelled Torres, diving to the side. “That hurt!”
Body parts splattered everywhere. Normally, that would be the end of the matter for the deceased, but these parts kept moving when they landed, the flesh squirming like caterpillars, while the blood pooled and ran sideways into gloppy puddles toward Torres.
I was too busy watching in horror to worry about what had killed Jameson in the first place, at least for the second it took me to realize there was movement inside the cave.
Torres had gotten clear of the entrance, frantically dragging Jameson’s torso with him as he moved further away. An arm scrabbled at the ground, following two legs that kicked and dragged themselves in the same direction.
Pretty damn surreal. I didn’t know what the hell to think about that.
Then the mess that used to be Jameson flowed into a pile around the torso, seemed to melt into itself, then shifted towards Torres, who stepped into it with a relieved look on his face. What the actual fuck?
Despite that stunner of a moment, my gaze was pulled back to the cave-mouth at a massive figure emerging. Human, yes, but buck naked. At least eight feet tall, all chiseled muscle, with a big fucking gun held casually over one shoulder.
“Go home, little people, or suffer my wrath,” it said in a voice loud enough to shake the nearby trees.
“Get out of our way, Behemoth,” called Marissa. “We don’t have the time for this.”
“Make time, little lady,” the giant said.
I glanced at Torres and Jameson, both now a single pulsing column of flesh about ten yards to the right of the cave. As I watched, the column split into two fleshy piles, and suddenly, Torres and Jameson were there, both none the worse for wear. They were even dressed as before, and still armed.
“You gotta do better than that,” Torres said to Behemoth. He raised his rifle and fired three-round bursts at its head.
As though a switch had been tripped, everyone opened up, sending dozens of rounds into the massive thing before it could say another word. Of course, I joined in the fun. Blood spurted from the gigantic torso, and Behemoth threw back its head and roared as more and more projectiles hit, shredding chunks of flesh.
The creature raised one giant arm, shielding its face, and roared again, surging out of the cave, tree-trunk legs pounding the ground and gun firing back. Trees exploded around us, but it obviously couldn’t hit the side of a barn while running and shooting at the same time.
A whump indicated the launch of a 40mm grenade from beside me, followed a split-second later by an explosion that took Behemoth’s right arm off at the elbow, staggering his run. His weapon flew off into the jungle. The hail of bullets didn’t let up, but Behemoth kept struggling.
My good luck held; he came straight for me.
I tried to sidestep, but he was too fast, sweeping his intact left arm out and catching me hard with an open hand. I flew twenty feet before slamming into the undergrowth. No tree directly in my path, at least.
I shook my head and saw stars. When my vision cleared a little, I realized that the light was coming from Marissa’s power, shooting through the gap between herself and Behemoth. It formed a ball-like web of lightning, and the giant was caught in the middle, struggling to break free.
The deep boom, boom, boom of Wild Bill’s revolvers crashed through the higher pitch of the assault rifles. The combined effect of all the bullets was tearing the giant apart. Another grenade flew, and Behemoth’s chest exploded. The giant slumped in the lightning net, and stopped struggling. It was over.
The gunfire slowed but Marissa used her powers to contain Behemoth’s body until two final rounds from Bill’s handguns took the top of his head off, splattering brains over the rocks behind.
Finally, Marissa dropped her arms and the lightning disappeared. Behemoth’s corpse fell to the ground. Blood and flesh lay all around him, and there was so much of his body missing from the assault he didn’t appear human anymore.
Bill walked up and fired four more shots into the thing’s head, then spat on the remains. He turned and walked away, reloading his weapons. “Goddamn pesky bastard,” he mumbled loud enough for everyone to hear.
We regrouped in the clearing, reloading weapons with fresh magazines and stashing the empties in our packs.
“Move in, people,” said Marissa. “Stoner, you’ve got point. Torres and Jameson, watch our six.”
Everyone formed up, and we entered the cave.
TEN
The cave system seemed more man-made than natural. My guess was someone had taken an existing tunnel and carved it higher and wider. The ceiling was consistently fifteen feet above us, and the smooth walls were likely twenty feet apart.
We didn’t need our night-vision goggles. The cave was lit by a glowing fungus that lined the walls. I could see footprints scuffed in the dirt that was scattered over the floor, as well as a cross-section of personal belongings. Looked like someone had herded a group of people through here recently. Phones, a wallet here and there, a shoe; even some stuffed toys that suggested entire families had come through.
Half a kilometer in, the cave opened up into a gigantic underground space big enough for one hell of a warehouse party. We’d found no sign of human life, and this area was the same, although there were hundreds of trails in the rubble that covered the floor. The walls moved, and looking closer I could see thousands of gigantic grubs shifting and slithering over them. Glowing grubs. I shuddered.
There was a large mound in the center of the natural auditorium. We moved toward it, keeping watch all around as we moved further out of the cover afforded by the narrower cave.
As we got close, I realized the raised area had once been a stalagmite the thickness of a city bus. It had been cut down, leaving a stump maybe fifteen feet high. A throne-like seat had been carved in what remained. The area around the throne looked odd. As we got closer, I could see why. Dozens of skeletons littered the area, scattered and torn and tangled together. Strips of flesh still clung to some, and blood streaked them all, pooled around the edges of the mess. Fresh.
“Looks like we got here too late,” said Bill.
“No sign of the scum who did this,” said Ken. “And it looks like all the people taken from the resort are dead.”
“Let’s have a quick look around, then we’re outta here,” said Marissa. “I’ll contact White and arrange our extraction.
#
There was nothing left to find in the cavern. No survivors, no-one to save. It sucked. I got out of the army for that exact reason.
An hour later we were climbing aboard a Navy Pave Hawk chopper to go home.
AFTERMATH
“Well, Mister Stoner. You’ve seen what we do. It’s time for you to make a decision. Now that you know what sort of freaks are out there, do you stay and help? Or do you hide your eyes an
d pretend it doesn’t exist?” Mr. White leaned back, steepling his fingers without taking his eyes off me.
Wanley had made me another perfect coffee, and I’d been shown all the cutting-edge equipment I’d have access to if I decided to stay. I felt like Bruce Wayne, with all his wonderful toys. The avenger in black. The bane of all rogue chimerics.
“I’m in,” I said. “But I want a damn Bat Copter.”
Mr. White laughed. “I’ll see what I can arrange. As a norm, you’ll need a certain edge when it comes to fighting chimerics. I have a few friends that may be able to help.”
Bring It On, Hero
J.M. Martin
From about three miles out, my telescopic vision revealed a military chopper and an ops team. I zoomed closer until I saw a familiar face. Marissa Gullan. Codename: Blackout. I stopped in mid-air, a few hundred feet above the ocean. I saw Wild Bill and Katana getting into the copter, and a few more I didn’t recognize. Marissa by herself was not one to be trifled with, so if I was going to approach them, I’d need to be real careful. I was no longer TCA’s poster boy, after all. Some folks took that as open season.
“Did you know Wild Bill was with the Varangians?” I said.
A voice crackled in my ear. I’d heard a rumor.
“I’m confirming it.”
Huh, the voice responded, more tinny and garbled than it had been earlier. Well—
“You there?” I hyper-focused inwardly, shut off my telescopic vision and probed through the spectrum with my hearing.
—actively recruiting…not a good—
Lost him again. “You’re breaking up on me,” I said.
The reply’s electromagnetic warble buffeted my inner ear and caused me to shake my head a little.
I peered again at the chopper. It had lifted and was veering northwest, slightly in my direction. I remained still in case they had advanced detection systems on board. They turned north, leaving the island, back toward the US. That told me either Dornasian had fled, or White’s super-powered ‘A-Team’ had managed to take out this world’s best impersonation of the Antichrist since Adolf.
