Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

course, heading for the other group, giving Summers and the others some much needed space. That relief didn’t last long, however, as it proceeded to immediately tear through them. Summers watched in abject horror as the trigger-happy private was crushed under a giant fist. The man had essentially traded his life for Summers’, even if he didn’t know it. Then more gunfire erupted, a lot of it. The creature charged at its unseen attackers, and Summers realized that it might have been them who’d gotten turned around. Shit.

“What happens if that machine we saw stops?” Summers asked the limping soldier beside Nowak. He saw “Logan” on the man’s nametag. Apparently, he was a corporal as well.

“What?” Logan managed to get out between breaths.

“That hunk of shit you put in the bunker—that’s what’s doing this, right?” Summers persisted.

“Yes?”

“That way!” Summers indicated, following in the monster’s wake.

“Are you nuts?” Cortez asked.

“We were the only one’s going after the 63rd, and that gunfire’s from the base. If they start a fight there and destroy that machine thing, we could be stranded in wherever the fuck this place is.”

He ran, the girl still slung over his shoulder. Whether the others saw the logic in his reasoning or not, they followed.

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What they saw was a slaughter. Somehow, more of the pale creatures had found their way toward the base. The shambling mound was in the process of dismantling Fireteam Beta, in the most sickeningly literal sense Summers could imagine, and it didn’t look like it was slowing down.

The two soldiers at Nowak’s side rushed for the base.

“Wait!” Nowak cried after them. They ignored his shouting and kept pushing forward.

“Goddamn morons. Cover them!” Nowak shouted, firing into a group of the smaller creatures as they converged on the two men. Summers saw Cortez and Adams pushing up, firing into the crowd as the fleeing soldiers were torn apart. The shambling mound turned its attention on the soldiers inside the bunker, many now running for their lives. There had to be thirty, maybe forty of them still left.

Summers recognized the faces of the dead in front of them, people he’d eaten with, killed time with. He didn’t like them, but they were still his people. The shambling mound ducked into the cave that became the bunker, close behind the retreating soldiers.

As it moved beside the strange machine—the only thing tethering them to their old world—Summers raised his gun and fired—into the machine.

Pieces of metal bent inward as Summers’ shots hit their mark, and everything seemed to stop. A moment of deafening silence, as if the world itself had to take a second to process what had just happened. Then, as if it were making up for lost time, reality exploded in front of them. Pieces of the shambling mound unceremoniously dropped to the floor, lifeless. They looked as though random chunks of it had just been carved out, or more likely, had ended up on the other side. There was no bunker anymore. Just a cave.

 Summers let the barrel of the gun drop. A few of the pale creatures were screaming in agony, as parts of them looked to be similarly missing. The others were firing into the now stunned crowd of monsters. But even over the sound of gunfire, he could still hear Cortez’s voice.

“Summers, you fucking asshole!”

Chapter 3: The Asshole

Summers looked out to what used to be his way home. It was filled with the dead, some his own, some from the strange creatures of whatever this world was. He leaned down, picking up a rifle from one of the dead soldiers. He checked the magazine: still full. Summers tossed the unspent magazine into the duffel bag at his side.

“Find anything special?” Nowak called out to Summers.

“More of the same. Couple MREs,” Summers called back. He saw Nowak turn away. The 63rd had managed to set up a rudimentary camp, and though it looked like they were initially settling in for the long haul, whatever was left over in there after the attack was either destroyed or useless day-to-day bureaucratic bullshit. They desperately needed some supplies.

They’d settled on scavenging the battlefield for anything they could use: food, weapons, clothes that weren’t too messed up. It didn’t sit right with him, though, stealing from the dead like this. But with God knew how long they’d have to last out here, they quickly decided they’d need it more than their fallen comrades would. They needed medical supplies desperately. Nowak was doing what he could for Logan. They’d tied off his leg as best they could manage, but without somewhere to treat him, it was likely he wouldn’t make it. He was hoping they’d at least find some pain killers to make it a little more comfortable.

That wasn’t to say there wasn’t a screaming match for the stunt he’d pulled, closing their only way home. But after the tensions had died down, they’d more or less agreed that it was the right call to make. Whether that attitude would persist past the first week of hoofing it through what looked to be an endless forest, they’d find out.

“Guys!” Adams shouted. He was standing under a small canopy, next to the young girl Summers had picked up, having been relegated to babysitting. They were doing their best to keep her away from the— in some cases—literal piles of bodies that littered the camp. The poor kid hadn’t said a word after what happened. Then Logan dropped out, given that he’d probably saved her life in the fight earlier, and he’d assumed they were close.

Summers jogged over to the private’s side. “What? What did you find?”

Adams pointed down at the girl. “Fucking look at her!”

Summers eyed Adams, then glanced down at the kid. She . . . was a kid. Long hair, probably on the shorter side for her age,