"What was that?" Lee blurted, a hint of terror in his voice.
He did not get an answer. Harbinger snapped his tommy gun into position and squeezed off a long controlled burst into a patch of black water. The.45 slugs tore into the muck and geysered upwards. The surface exploded under the impacts as something sprang upward through the mist.
I got a brief glimpse of the first creature before it was torn to pieces in the storm of hot lead and silver, orange fluids spraying into the surrounding foliage. It was about the size of a man, only hunched and misshapen. Insectile in its joints and extra limbs, the creature seemed all unnatural angles and claws, with two sets of interlocked jaws, and dozens of red eyes set into a blunted skull of a face. It ruptured open as the bullets pierced its carapace, almost as if its internal contents had been under great pressure. The torn thing thrashed about, falling backwards into the muck, finally lying still.
It was only because of my hearing protection, and its electronic amplification of sound, that I was able to hear Julie talking to herself. She sounded terrified and shaken. Julie Shackleford did not scare easily.
"Not them. Not again."
"What was that thing?" Holly shouted. None of the experienced Hunters answered. I lifted my cheek from my stock, looking over at the others. Milo blinked slowly, as if in disbelief. Sam stared silently into the distance. Julie had begun to shake uncontrollably. Harbinger changed magazines, looking down at his weapon instead of us. In the background more screams and random gunfire erupted from Bravo. Finally Harbinger pulled the bolt back, regarded it solemnly, and finally answered us.
"It's the things from the Christmas party."
"God help us," Milo said.
"This time we're armed, though," Sam answered. "It was hand-to-hand then, now we got guns."
"So do they," Harbinger replied sadly. "So do they."
"Incoming!" Julie shouted as she fired into the swamp. Orange-and-red shapes appeared from the murk or came charging out of the fog. Once again I heard the whistling noise, only this time it was closer, much closer. Something impacted the mud inches from my face, spraying my goggles. It appeared to be a long bone spine, dripping in dense orange fluid. I aimed at the source, a hunched insectoid demon thing, and stroked the trigger, blasting a slug through its thorax. More spines flew into our position, thudding into our cover like a volley of medieval arrows. The creature I shot stumbled, righted itself, hunkered down, pointed its crest in our direction, and launched another spine, cracking it deep through the bark of the tree I was hiding behind. I hit the creature with two more rapid shots, bursting some sort of internal fluid sack, and sent it back into the mud.
Spines landed all around me, each one impacting like a spear. The demons bobbed and crawled through the trees, closing the distance for their primitive weapons. They appeared to have no concept of fear, charging straight into our position, bodies exploding and breaking, limbs tearing off and being left behind, alien eyes pushing onward.
"Milo! Light 'em!" Harbinger ordered. Milo dropped his rifle onto its sling and scooped up the flamethrower. He fired a ten-second burst through the swamp, igniting the creatures, engulfing them in flames, sending them crackling back into the water. Some of the creatures reappeared, still burning, the water not being able to extinguish the lethal chemical mixture. They thrashed about, launching spines randomly until they expired.
Then it was still. There were no more moving orange shapes, only exploded and burned husks, charred and opened like over microwaved hot dogs. In the distance horns sounded as the demons regrouped, preparing to attack again.
"Everybody okay?" Harbinger shouted. One by one we shouted back in the affirmative. Somehow our team had gotten through the skirmish uninjured. Judging by the cries coming from Bravo's position, they had not been as lucky.
"They ain't so tough," Sam bellowed angrily as he shoved more massive shells into his.45-70.
"Sorry, Cowboy. Those were just scouts," Harbinger answered. "They were just probing us."
"How do you know?" I asked. "You don't even know what these things are."
"I can just tell. The ones we fought in '95 were just workers or drones. Mindless things with just claws and teeth. These things are the soldiers. They're gonna come again. That was just a test."
Explosions rocked from the direction of Alpha team as their position was attacked. We waited in anxious silence as the battle raged on without us. Sure enough, after a few minutes of fighting, Charlie team was attacked in turn. A stray bullet pulped a tree branch above my head. Other bullets whipped around us, sounding like angry bees.
"Watch your field of fire, you derelicts!" Sam shouted uselessly.
"MHI! I'm coming in," Franks shouted as he splashed toward us. He pushed his way to Harbinger's position and squatted in the mud.
"How's it going?" our leader asked.
"Two dead. Two wounded. One critical," the stoic man answered. He did not bother to ask about us. "We need to push out. Head for extraction."
"Negative. They can breathe under water. We could walk right into an ambush. If they get in close, those spear chuckers are gonna own us," Harbinger stated flatly. "We need to hold here."
"They are feeling us out for a rush."
"You saw how fast they move. We can't ditch them through the swamp, and with no cover, they're gonna tear us up."
"We have to fire and maneuver," Franks insisted.
"Listen, we're not fighting people. This ain't the army," Harbinger insisted. "We move out and we're dead."
"We're moving with or without you," Franks said. "Two minutes. We'll send up flares." The federal agent swiveled and moved away. "You can stay if you want."
Harbinger watched him go. "Shit."
"Earl? What do you wanna do?" Sam asked.
"We ain't got much choice. Without them, we get flanked and we're dead. We have to stick together." He changed the tone of his voice so that we could all hear. "Okay, team. When we see the flares, we move back the way we came. Lay down fire on anything that looks suspicious." He tried to rally us. "We can do this. We are the best. We've beaten these orange bastards before. I'm on point, then Skippy and Ed. We have the best senses. If we fire on a position, follow suit, it means we saw something." He switched magazines. "I'm loading tracers. I'll mark it, you kill it. Everybody get ready."
Flares rose into the rain-drenched sky. A cold weight shifted in my gut. The swamp before us was vast with shadowed hiding places.
"Move out!" Harbinger ordered.
We set out toward safety, moving as fast as possible in the unforgiving terrain. Mud sucked at us, clung to us, increased our weight and tried to drag us down. The muscles in my calves burned at the exertion of double-timing it through the syrupy surface. To our sides and slightly behind us, the Feds moved through the trees. Even with their impressive physicality and despite their intense training, they could move no faster. The rain increased in intensity, hammering us, bouncing from the water below until it seemed as if it was raining from two directions.
It was still bone-numbingly cold, but we were all overheated and labored with the exertion of trying to move quickly through the muck. I did not take the time to brush the mammoth mosquitoes from my face. They were not the only things after our blood.
We crossed through the steaming carcasses of the destroyed demons. A closer look showed that the internal workings of the creatures were totally different than anything from this world. Their insides appeared to be a complicated series of bags and tubes, all orange, yellow or bright red. I stepped quickly over one creature, its two mouths open in a final death snarl, rows of jagged teeth and extra tongues hanging out haphazardly, a dozen dead eyes open and collecting rain.
I could feel a dark presence in the air. Not just the alien, skin-crawling sensation inherent in the haunted swamp, but rather an oppressive heaviness that seemed to further burden us. I recognized it.
The Cursed One was watching us.
His physical body was not here, of that I was certain, for surely I would have known it. But, rather, he watched us from afar. Somehow his presence was here amongst us, watching the trap which he had set encircling his enemies. Son of a bitch was enjoying this.
The evil signature of the accursed ancient artifact was on this endeavor. I did not know what the demon things were, but I knew that they had been ripped from their home world and brought here through its power. The artifact was the key.
We had made it less than three hundred yards before we made contact again.
Harbinger moved quickly, faster than the rest of us, somehow able to find traction where none of those following could. He froze in place, snapped his archaic subgun to his shoulder and fired a burst of tracers into the water below a fallen tree, splashing up gouts of water. Before the rest of us could react, he had aimed at another spot and fired more bright streaks into it.
The line of Hunters erupted. I lifted Abomination, aiming at the first spot. The hidden demon leapt upwards, intersecting with my buckshot, tearing its body asunder and taking its life. Other creatures rose beside and behind it, and I struck them down as well, Abomination merely a flawless extension of my killing will.
Then all hell broke loose.
Orange shapes tore through the pounding rain, scurrying at us from every direction. Insectoid horrors were coming out of the gnarled tree branches, erupting from the mud, launching their deadly missiles at us, trying to close the distance to use their claws and dripping teeth. Our advance stopped, the federal agents bearing down around us into the streaming horde of orange and red. The scene was utter chaos.
I emptied my shotgun, learning quickly to aim for the point where the creatures' heads intersected with their hardened bodies. It was a weak point, and beneath was some sort of fluid bag that would burst like a water balloon, putting the demons down hard. I dropped the spent magazine and instantly slammed a new one home. A spine whistled through the air, missing my face by inches. A Fed stumbled in the muck beside me, firing his FN into a charging monster. The.223 bullets punctured the body, but did not drop the creature.
"Aim for the neck!" I shouted as I chambered another round. He aimed higher and the creature exploded in a shower of gore. The body splashed into the water only a dozen feet away.
"Thanks!" the nameless man shouted. He raised his gun to engage another target, but stopped, looking down curiously at the alien spine embedded through the armor of his chest. "Shit!" he shouted before another spine nailed him squarely in the face, killing him instantly.
I caught the falling body and knelt behind him. It would be a lie to say that I did so to help, but rather it was an instinctive need to find cover as more spines sailed toward us. The limp form fell against me, heavy with sodden murk and spilling blood. I found the demon hunched down, launching spines at us. I aimed over the dead agent's shoulder and fired at the creature until it was dead. More creatures took its place, swarming over the fresh carcass and charging toward me. I fired my grenade, striking a tree and tearing three of the creatures asunder in the blast of hot shrapnel.
More spines struck the agent's twitching body. Abomination clicked dry. I dropped it onto its sling and grabbed the Fed's unfamiliar bullpup carbine. I raised it one-handed and sprayed the rest of the magazine in the direction of the creatures, the empty cases flying out the front of the weapon. When it was empty, I dropped it, sprang to my feet, and ran, searching desperately for cover, reloading my shotgun as I went.
Julie was kneeling behind a log. I dived over the top and splashed face down in the mud next to her. I came up choking and spitting out the fetid taste. I rolled over and joined her. With each supersonic crack of her rifle, another demon went down. She hunched behind the log. "Reload!" she shouted as she searched for a fresh magazine. Spines impacted into our cover with wet thuds. I went over the top, spotted the demon hurling bits of itself toward us and swiftly killed it. More and more of them were pouring through the gray trees, a garish swarm of Mardi Gras color.
The tableau disappeared in a wall of brilliant flame as Milo ignited the swamp. "Clear out! Keep going!" he yelled at us as he put down a blanket of destruction. I knew that his portable weapon only had so much fuel, and demons were already closing from other directions, flashes of bright color betraying their positions all through the swamp.
Something shifted behind Milo. A single point opened in the rainy air, almost as if a giant hand had pulled back an invisible zipper. The sky on the other side was a dusty red, and flames licked the air when the alien atmosphere touched our own. A single demon dropped through the rift and splashed down. The opening snapped closed, leaving only pale sky. The creature raised a multi-jointed limb over its head.
"Milo!" Julie screamed as she fired at the creature. The bubble under its lower jaw exploded, sending it sprawling, but too late as its claws came down. Milo Anderson grimaced in pain as the sharpened bones pierced and shredded his arm. He went to his knees in a shower of crimson droplets.
Julie and I leapt to our feet, struggling forward. I grabbed Milo and hoisted him up. He kept the flames spraying into the swamp, beating back our foes. The intense heat washed over me and scalded my eyes. I could see flashes all across the terrain as other portals opened briefly and more creatures dropped into our world.
We were in a running battle against an endless foe, and there was only one possible outcome.
I pulled the bleeding and shaking Hunter across the water. The flamethrower sputtered and died. Julie was by my side, firing at the onrushing horde. She reached to her webbing, pulled a grenade and tossed it into the trees. The resulting blast shook me to my teeth. I made my way toward the rest of my team as fast as I could.
"Duck!" Harbinger shouted as I approached. I did so without thought, pushing Milo and myself down. He fired over our heads, cutting down the creature that had gated in beside us. The heavy husk fell on my back, a pointed, superheated, squishy weight. Pushing myself up, I kicked the segmented body aside.
Other types of demons were appearing now, smaller, swifter things, without any sort of distance weapon. They moved effortlessly across the terrain, faster than a human athlete could on dry ground. I watched as one leapt onto the back of a Fed, tearing at the man with its bone claws. Instantly, three other creatures were on him, pulling and biting. He disappeared in a shower of blood and limbs. A third kind of creature appeared, heavier, with plate-like bones covering its vulnerable joints. These beasts lumbered slowly through the swamp, pausing to spit balls of green material from their upper mouths. A ball impacted at the feet of another Fed, exploding in a shower of horrible acid. He dropped his weapon and clawed at his Kevlar-covered legs, screaming in pain as it burned through to his bones.
They were everywhere.
We struggled toward a patch of higher ground. It was only a clump of mud, but it was the most defensive position we had. Milo began to shake horribly, as if he were having a seizure. "Poison," he said through gritted teeth. "Drop me."
"No, you can make it!" I shouted.
"O-O-wen. D-d-drop me," he ordered. His beard was running red with the blood coming from his mouth and staining his teeth. The powerful poison was tearing him apart. I did as I was instructed. Milo fell against a tree, and slid to the ground, pulling up his rifle. "Tell Shawna I l-l-love her," he gasped.
Julie tried to turn back for him, holding out a hand, pleading for her friend. I grabbed her by the arm and continued toward the high ground. There was nothing that we could do. Milo raised his carbine one-handed and fired, keeping the monsters at bay so we could escape. His AR emptied, he tossed it aside, shakily drawing his 1911. We kept moving as the shots echoed behind us. Several fast-moving demons descended upon the red-bearded man, and the last I heard was a thunderous chain of explosions as he detonated the grenades on his vest.
"Bastards!" Julie screamed as she stroked a demon to the ground with the stock of her rifle. I put my boot on its carapace and forced it down, as she put a finishing shot into the struggling thing's throat. We were both sprayed with yellow bile.
I passed Albert Lee's dismembered body, killing the distracted monster that was tearing at his flesh with a single shot to its pulpy brainstem. I loaded a fresh grenade and launched it into the horde following us. It killed four of them and barely made a dent.
I saw Skippy disappear under a pile of the creatures. His brother Edward jumped in to save him, blades singing through the raindrops. I had never seen any living being move with such fluid grace and deadly speed. Claws and heads were severed away in a remarkable dance of destruction, spraying orange fluids high into the air. Edward screamed an unearthly battle cry as he hacked through the beasts, spinning, ducking, always swinging and killing. The severed limbs and twitching corpses began to pile up.
Finally a spine appeared in Edward's back, and then another in his thigh. The orc began to falter. I fired a magazine into the fray, killing a demon with each shot, but it was too little, too late. Edward kicked a monster off of Skippy's body, and stood over his brother protectively. Shouting at the onrushing creatures, he slashed at them until finally he was washed away in a tide of crimson bodies.