SNAFU: Hunters

Outbreak V. E. Battaglia

Rook was going to be sick.

He had always been susceptible to motion sickness. Reading in the car made his head spin, storm and wrack violently. Boats jellied his legs and turned his skin to sagging seaweed. Hell, even standing too fast could sometimes throw his head through a foggy loop. His stomach achieved acrobatic proficiency in those moments, all back flips and hand springs and harsh landings.

Now, as he sat tight in his seat with the constant whir of helicopter blades pounding above his head and harsh wind coming in at odd angles from the open hatch to his side, Rook remembered why exactly it was that he had opted out of joining the Air Force. He could barely breathe without a wave of nausea sweeping over him. He tried looking out at the city, tried to focus and found that it was a strange still-frame, a city floating on clouded air. High rises climbed endlessly, their windows blistering bright against the dread darkness of a dangerous night, lights flickering on and off and no inhabitants in sight. Fog had crept down through hollows and alleys, drifting towards street level in poisonous wisps that blanketed roads and dissolved short, squalid, razor-edged buildings into acidic vapor.

Acid. Dissolving. Melting. Decaying.

His stomach pushed up at his throat violently. He choked it back down. Bad idea to look out the window. He stared up at the ceiling with bulging, glassy eyes and started thinking through terms he had learned in training, reciting them to himself in no particular order. Revenant: angry revenge ghost, destroy remains. Imp: small servant of witches, dragon’s breath injected into the heart. EMP: electromagnetic pulse, disrupts poltergeists. It was the only trick that helped, albeit very slightly, when he felt sick or nervous.

“Looking a little green there, Rook.” Mouth’s voice chirped through Rook’s headset.

“First drop. Definition of green.” That one was Cypher. “Looking a little sick too.”

“You vomit, then you vomit outside my rig, Rook. I’m not cleaning that shit up.” Chopper. Definitely Chopper, that one.

“Clean?” Mouth chuckled, slapped Deacon on the arm and gave him a scrunched what the hell? look. “Clean what, Chop? My ass has been sticking to the same cum stains since ‘99.”

“Keep it up. I’ll leave your ass out here, Mouth.”

“Yeah, you promise?”

Deacon shook his head. “God help us.”

“Quiet.” And that one was the Boss. Sergeant Klinkhammer, but no one called him that. His name was Boss. And his word was law. When he said to be quiet, the he-lo took it down a notch. First rule of Shadow Team: Boss is God. Second rule: Do as God commands. Third: See Two. “Cypher. Access the south-side apartment’s computers. I want schematics and a guest list with running count.”

Cypher instantly went to work, pulling a laptop from her pack. Her fingers moved rapidly across the keys, the tapping silenced by heavy blades cutting the air. In seconds, she was done and had turned the screen towards everyone.

The screen scanned through a rapid-fire set of binaries and registry keys, then bisected into two windows. The top, a rotating graphic of a run-down apartment building with fire escapes running down its sides — a vertical slice of the building had been cut away like a piece of cake, showing a quick layout of the interior. The bottom window showed a running tally of guests currently registered to the apartments totaling 123.

“Alright, listen up and listen well because we’re ETA 4 minutes, max. Two weeks ago, during a routine scan of New York, Intel picked up on an anomalous energy spike.” Boss’ voice boomed over the headset. “PK and EM readings went off the scale for three hours without explanation. Then they stopped. Further scans throughout the day returned no results. In response, we bumped our alert status from blue to yellow and activated SAR Protocol 1. Leak was sent in the following day with instructions to maintain station for a month, investigate grounds and tenants and check in daily with Intel. Two days ago he missed his scheduled check-in time. Scans showed him still within the building and his vitals were steady. Continuous PK-EM sweeps of the building were ordered. Twelve hours later, he fell off the grid entirely. When he reappeared—” Boss looked to Cypher and she reached around the screen, tapped it. “—this signature surfaced, originating in or near his apartment.”

A small, dark mass appeared in the vertical slice on the 6^th floor of the building, pulsing like a beating heart and radiating angry, jagged waves of red in all directions.

“This signature has continued since his reappearance. He has still not checked in. The job is simple. Standard SR&R. We are to evaluate current SAR status while inside, but our primary objective is to rendezvous with Leak in his 6^th-floor apartment and get him out of there.”

Rook noticed that everyone had taken huddled positions by the he-lo doors, weapons strapped and slung. He followed suit, awkwardly bumping into Cypher, who stared at him with disgust. Had he just heard Boss say rescue was priority?

“We go in quiet. That means weapons slung, people. I don’t want engagement before we find our man unless absolutely necessary.”

“ETA twenty seconds, Boss,” Chopper cut in. “Sorry for interrupting, Boss.”

“Do not touch down on the roof, Chop. We’ll drop in. Stay local and stay in the air. We don’t know what’s down there and we’re not taking chances. This shit goes sour and we may need evac ASAP. When I call for dust off, be ready.”

“Boss,” Rook said tentatively. “Sir, I’m confused. Shouldn’t our priority on a Search, Recon and Rescue be to assess and contain threats in accordance with Supernatural Antagonist Response protocols?”

All eyes set upon him, pinning him in place like a butterfly on display. He could feel the needles in his skin.

“That’s what we were taught, Boss,” he added meekly.

“Rook, what I say is priority in every mission. Period. That’s what you should have been taught and you’d better learn it quick or we’ll all pay the price. We are one body. I am the mind. This is not a democracy.”

“We’re in place, Boss,” Chopper said and, with no more than a nod from Boss, the doors on both sides of the he-lo were sliding open, rappel lines thrown over the edge on either side, clamps attached then Shadow Team was gliding down the ropes towards the rooftop in perfect unison, with Rook trailing a few steps behind.

Rook landed on his feet with a heavy thud. The shock went straight into his knees. It stung. He unclipped from the wild rappel as it snaked through the choppy air.

“Squeeze harder next time or you’ll break your leg,” Cypher said as she passed him without looking up from her arm-mounted computer. “Entry that way.” She pointed to a rusted doorway sticking up from the roof like a festering sore, her MP5 tight to her back.

“We have touchdown, Chop,” Mouth said into his earpiece. Then, “Oh, fuck off already, just get back here when we call you,” and the he-lo stuttered away in stop motion. Mouth smoothly ejected his mag, checked it and slapped it back in, pulled the charging handle of his short barrel AR-15 and a round chambered with a clean mechanical clank. “I know I’m pretty, but you might want to stop staring at me, Rook.”

“Right, sorry, sir,” Rook said and checked his AR in turn.

“Mouth,” he corrected, and clicked his selector from safe to deadly.

“Right. Sorry.”

Mouth walked away, a pistol-grip Mossberg pump shotgun on his back.

Rook tested his tactical flashlight, flicked it on then off, then slapped at his foregrip. It jiggled slightly. He pulled a knife from his belt and tightened the screw.

“On me,” Boss commanded and the crew scrabbled around him, boots scraping on the rocky rooftop.

“Deacon, give us some protection.”

“Boss.” Deacon nodded and let his weapon fall to the side. Then he locked his hands together and they all bowed their heads in prayer.

The night was eerily silent, filled with nothing but the soft sounds of their uneven breathing and Deacon’s rumbling, arcane verse. Not even the passive swishing of cars on the street could penetrate the fog that separated Shadow Team from the world. It was like the city had become nothing more than a tomb, a new age Roanoke Colony, an abandoned sprawl of hidden sarcophagi with decrepit mummies awaiting discovery within. Rook shivered at the thought. It had made him uncomfortable, this long settled silence. That and what Boss had said.

They were trained. They were strong. They were armed to the teeth. What more protection did they need?

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,” Deacon said.

All eyes opened.

“Let’s move.” All eyes fell on Boss. He flashed a determined finger at the rusted door and the team made huddled moves towards it and stacked around the frame, first he and Mouth, then Deacon and Cypher just behind. Rook lagged a moment before stacking behind Deacon.

Boss thought it over a moment; he didn’t want Rook at the back. Not a good idea.

“Rook, move up.” Deacon let him pass. The kid’s eyes were wide, he was breathing heavy and he looked like the mouse that saw the hawk. “You stay with Deacon. Watch his back. He’ll watch yours.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Deacon patted Rook on the shoulder. “And you watch Boss too, Rook. We watch our front and our back in this crew.”

Boss wasn’t sure that this one would last, but he did know Rook would be fine with Deacon. He had no doubt about that.

With that settled, Boss tested the door knob. Locked.

Mouth looked to Boss; placed a hand on his Mossberg.

Boss shook his head in answer to the silent query. “Cypher, you’re up.”

She pulled a small drill from her vest, attached a drill bit and stripped the lock. The door popped open slightly, fragments of metal falling from the holes where tumblers once rested. She fell back in line.

Boss pushed the door softly and glanced through the opening. He shook his head and opened the door fully, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Its metal hinges squealed their complaints and the red flakes of rust and decay that had set in was soon lost in the gloom of the night.

They moved into the darkened stairwell together, Mouth and Cypher shadowing close behind him, and Deacon covering the rear. Rook was lost somewhere in between. Boss popped his flashlight on and looked over the railing. Stairs spiraled jaggedly down the corrupt walls of the building and into the fast-approaching darkness below. He could see no living thing on the stairs, but that didn’t mean he believed the façade. He had been here before, a few too many times in fact. He knew the difference between still air and dead air. That kind of quiet that was too quiet. Too quiet because something had made it too quiet.

This was dead air. And the whole damned city seemed to be filled with it.

“PK-EM is strong here, but no heat signatures, Boss,” Cypher said, hovering her arm over the stairwell as if reading his mind.

“You trust that?” Mouth blurted.

Boss raised a fist. Talking ceased. Then he signaled to move forward.

They spread out along the stairwell, moving down step by step, flashlights bouncing on wall and stair alike. As Boss spiraled downwards, he watched the dingy walls for any bad signs. He didn’t see any recognizable writing amongst the symbol-laden scrawl — well, nothing more than the standard, illegible, black spray-paint graffiti that should be expected of a shithole New York apartment — or any signs of struggle. No blood. No scratches. No charred marks. No holes that seemed to have tunneled themselves open out of nowhere and lead on and on and on. Just the usual grit, grime and decay of a needle-supported residency.

Floor after floor, they continued down towards a growing question mark, and on every landing Boss looked to Cypher who checked her computer.

“We just went down five floors and you’re telling me you haven’t picked up a single signature?” Mouth whispered hoarsely.

“Not one,” she said icily.

“And that doesn’t strike you as fucked up?”

“Not one? Not even like a cat or something?” Rook chimed in, the kid’s voice wavering.

“Nope.” Cypher gripped her MP5.

Boss could see the nerves setting back in on the kid. Normal. But he needed Rook to have his head in the game, not in the clouds. That’s the tough part of the job. Stopping the what if to focus on the what is.

What is kept you alert. What if could get you killed.

“Cut the chatter. Now. We’re moving.”

When they reached the 6^th floor, Boss took to the doorframe and signaled to stack up once more, realizing now, for the first time, as he turned and looked back up the stairs just how dark it had become on their descent. He watched his team slowly materialize like ink blots out of the solid black that had swallowed them. All except one.

“Where is Deacon?”

Rook looked back over his shoulder. “I–I don’t know, Boss.”

“What do you mean you don’t know, Rook?” Mouth growled. “Everyone watches the man to his front and back. Always.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Quiet,” Boss said. He listened closely. The stairwell seemed to rumble gleefully at him. The air felt heavy, different. Almost leaden. His head was buzzing, and the gentle hum behind his eyes that shook his teeth told him he was being watched. “What’s that sound?”

“No signatures still, but PK-EM is off the charts, Boss.” Cypher said. “Could be auditory distortion as a result of the waves.”

“Could that also be blocking heat signatures?”

“It’s possible. The radiation is definitely strong enough. It’s unbelievable, Boss. There’s only one thing strong enough to produce this.”

“A Sink Hole.” The words fell heavy from his mouth.

“Seriously? Oh, that’s good. We got a party on our hands and he lost D. Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mouth said with a mocking chuckle.

Rook winced, but the kid had the good sense to stay silent.

Boss placed his foot on the first step and watched closely, expecting a Rorschach test named Deacon to spill from the black, backing down the stairs with his AA12 Automatic Shotgun poised and ready.

Waiting for it.

Hoping for it.

Come on, Deek.

Nothing but the steady thrumming that bounced through the stairwell. And it sounded louder. Hungrier. No more time to wait.

Boss stepped back from the darkness and pressed himself to the wall once more. Then he signaled for them to stack on the doorway.

It was time to move.

The team slid through the door effortlessly, fanning out, flashlights flicking every which way, casting their disfigured shadows over the walls and doors like prowling hunchbacked creatures.

The hallway was long and untended, dirt and painted scribbles similar to those in the stairwell leading like breadcrumbs to a central lobby where the desiccated bodies of wilted plants draped over a stained and torn sitting area.

Rook watched as Boss flashed a light down each corridor then signaled empty. Cypher shook her head — no signatures. Then Boss pointed down a hallway and they were moving in.

A Sink Hole. Rook couldn’t believe it — no, he didn’t want to believe it. First field drop and he might have to deal with a Sink Hole. His anxiety welled up again.

It could have been anything else. Why that? Why couldn’t it be something simple? Ghouls would be fine or goblins; yeah, goblins would be perfect! Doppelgangers, vampires, a poltergeist or two. Anything but a goddamned Sink Hole.

Rook stayed close behind Boss, checking his front and his back constantly. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. One brief lapse may have already cost someone their life. He hoped that one time he would look back and see Deacon rushing down the hallway to catch up. It didn’t happen.

Cypher was behind him, Mouth following her. As they moved down the hall, the sound from the stairwell swelled in volume, pumping its thick tones through the halls into the very heart of the building. Only now it had changed. This was no longer the inarticulate clearing of a throat but a deep growl that streaked discordant high-pitched squeals throughout its roaring bass. The screeching was fast and long, then short and slow and all the while it was pained, bleeding agony in the air that shot through Rook in electrified spears and brought them straight to room 613 — Leak’s room.

The door was covered in scratch marks, embedded with fingernails and painted with streaks of blood. Black muck oozed from the door frame with every agonized pulse that emanated from within.

“Ectoplasm,” Cypher said. “Someone is angry.”

Boss signaled and they formed an arc around the door, all arms shouldered and ready. Boss tried the knob. Locked. Mouth stepped forward, pulled his Mossberg 590 and waited for the signal.

Rook dug his weapon into his shoulder, heart racing as he started rifling through his training.

Ghouls: flesh eating hell beast. Cut out the heart.

Cypher sat machine still.

Poltergeist: nasty ghost-human attachment. Exorcism.

Boss was trained on the door, his eyes locked and ready.

Revenant: already went over that one. Shit.

Mouth aimed at the lock.

Sink Hole—

Mouth fired.

The lock splintered into shrapnel and Boss booted the door, leading the charge into the dark room. He wanted this procedure to go by the numbers, even envisioned it all. He kicks in the door, the team files in behind, splits off into the adjacent rooms in a flurry of feet and reflex, all uneven gallops and sudden squeaking stops as corners were checked and rooms called “clear” until they found whatever had taken Leak — whatever ghost or goblin or ghoul — and they would blast it straight back to whatever hellhole it had clawed its way out of and Leak would be fine and they would pull out. That was the plan. It was a good plan. Solid. Perfect.

Except they had already lost Deacon. And there were 123 residents unaccounted for in this apartment complex. And there seemed to be a Sink Hole somewhere nearby, which meant someone had to open it. And that someone would be dangerous, yes, but not nearly as dangerous as the Sink Hole.

So, as the splinters floated in mid-air and he shined his light into the apartment, Boss was in no way surprised to find that his plan had gone all to hell.

The living room was a crimson massacre delivered in flashes of white light. Blood soaked the walls in angry splashes beside deep, hateful scratches that were adorned with hunks of fatty flesh. Chunks of bone and sinew were strewn about the hallway like a child’s toys. The kitchen sink was filled with red and bubbled with putrid black sewage. The room smelled of shit and vomit and putrefaction.

Someone gagged behind him. Boss knew that was Rook.

“What the fuck?” Mouth stepped forward, accidentally crushed a bone and hopped back. “Shit. Sorry, guy.”

“Boss.” Cypher. And for the first time since he had known her, she sounded nervous.

“We’re finding Leak then Deacon and we’re out of here.” Boss shouldered his weapon. “No one goes off alone. In ninety seconds, we’re out the door either way.” He pointed to the lone hallway in the apartment. “Move.”

Rook couldn’t think of a single term to calm his nerves. There was no definition or explanation or measure of focus that could possibly push the images that were flashing in front of him from his mind. From the moment the door flew open and they had crossed the threshold, he knew these moments would be forever imprinted on the forefront of his memory.

He was living a nightmare and he knew it. There was no way to escape, not until they had seen their mission through. And that’s exactly what he wanted to do. See this through, get the hell out of here and never look back.

Rook fell in line behind Boss, his head now on a permanent swivel. He could feel uneven sprinkles of fluid dripping on him as he stepped carefully through the ruined apartment. He didn’t need to flash his light to the ceiling to know that stalactites of wet flesh were dangling above him, didn’t even want to, but the sight of this apartment served not only as a shock but as a warning. Something could be hiding up there in the darkness. So, he flashed the light upwards and discovered how bad it truly was.

They reached the first door. Boss kicked it in.

There were bodies — more accurately, pieces of bodies — in every possible position. Some were twisted and contorted in spider-like mockery of the human form. Others were dangling from chains that sunk deep into their skin, stretched out and posed like bleeding, disfigured marionettes, strung up and splayed out with parts from other broken bodies shoved into their abused and ruined orifices. Rook glanced in only briefly; just long enough to be sure it was safe.

“One hell of an orgy,” Mouth said, moving past the door. “Are we sure Leak is alive?”

“Yes,” Cypher said. “And that’s more troubling to me than if he were dead.”

Boss threw a grave look over his shoulder, and Rook didn’t need to ask why. A Sink Hole didn’t just open. Someone had to open it. And if that was the case, and all of these dead weren’t Leak… Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

The next door led to the bathroom. That one, Boss didn’t have to kick in — it was held ajar by another shredded corpse.

Then they had reached it, the last door on the left. The spectral sounds coming from behind it blasted straight through Rook’s chest.

All weapons were raised, trained on the door and, for the first time, Rook felt like he was part of the team.

He wished desperately that he wasn’t.

Boss kicked the door in…

Inside, a squat shirtless man with a sharp Neanderthal face hovered over a gaping hole in the floor, circling it erratically with a wild-eyed smile. His gnarled hands were bunched like claws, and he was entirely oblivious to the fact that anyone else was there. Boss signaled for the others to hold position and stepped into the doorway. The hole seemed to be growing out of the floor, pulsing its impossible flesh with a respiratory rhythm, blowing putrid air and tortured sounds at him with every powerful contraction.

It was a fresh, fully formed Sink Hole.

“Leak,” Boss said, taking one step over the threshold of the room.

The man stopped suddenly with his back to him, as if hearing a human voice for the first time. His body twitched and jerked rapidly, and he turned. Eyes blackened like burnt out coals, mouth dripping salivary red, he snarled then let out a horrid screech that shook the room.

This was Leak, or what was left of him. What he had become. A Reaver. A man possessed by demon sickness. And there was only one way to deal with him.

Boss put a bullet into the man’s brain, the hollow-point round blowing the back of Leak’s head onto the wall in a crimson fireworks display and sending his body tumbling down the moaning hole.

The room stilled, silent but for the sounds of the living hellhole before him. Boss noticed the walls were covered, once more, in scribbles and scrawls — ones that matched those in the hall and the stairwell. He had a sinking feeling that he had made a mistake and overlooked something.

“Boss,” Cypher said and he immediately recognized the apprehension in her voice. “I’ve got signatures. A lot of them. And they’re coming right for us.”

Boss approached the hole, shined a light down and what he saw shook him, knocked the words from his tongue.

Reavers.

There must have been a hundred of them.

And they were scrambling up the walls of the Sink Hole.

A shrieking blast of anger shot out from the Sink Hole, shaking the building to its very foundation. The force was so strong that Rook lost his balance and fell on his ass, then sat there mouth agape. Frozen. Terrified.

Mouth had braced himself against a wall. “What the fuck was that?”

The writing on the walls glowed fiery red and Boss fired his rifle down the hole, backing out of the room and screaming, “Fall back! We’ve got Reavers incoming. Fall back to the rooftop and shoot anything that moves!”

“Guess we know where all the people went,” Mouth said, grabbing Rook and hauling him back.

Rook caught a glimpse of a corrupted claw reaching over the hole as he was helped to his feet then the door slammed shut.

Boss led the charge back through the human wasteland. Rook’s eyes were locked onto the man’s back, no longer checking around carefully. He had seen enough. He just wanted out, wanted to go home. He needed to leave and fast.

Lights bounced in every direction. The walls cracked and shook as they raced through the apartment, all too aware of the savage screams of hell beasts beating at the door behind them. When they reached the hall, they heard the wood splinter.

Rook was halfway down the hall when he finally turned around and the first of the Reavers showed themselves, rushing out of room 613, their skin scarred, meat peeling off their bones in slabs. They were rabid, ravenous, and coming fast.

Mouth stopped, dropped to a knee and let loose with his AR-15, sending a burst of 5.56 mm ammunition into the first black-eyed psycho that came his way. Then the second. Then the third.

“Mouth, Chopper,” Boss called out, firing at his own set of takers as they ran from the doorway in stuttered bursts.

Cypher ran up, slapped Mouth’s shoulder and started firing, her MP5 rattling off rounds savagely.

Mouth fell back from the gunfire. “Chop. We need evac ASAP, we’re knee deep in shit creek here.”

All the while, Rook hadn’t fired a single round. He stood back, watching this unfold through the buzzing static that had invaded his vision, his muscles, his brain. From the moment the shooting had started, he felt like he was watching a movie in slow motion. And as the bloodlust-frenzied creatures closed in on them, part of him had expected to be suddenly sitting on his couch at home, waking up from some immersive dream state.

Fast running people, former people, rushing straight at him. Straight at his screen. Claws, teeth, bone showing. Bad horror movie. Bad movie. That’s all it was.

And then one screamed, shrieked right through him and he knew it was no dream. It was coming straight for him. He shouldered his AR and squeezed off a round into its shoulder. It ran through as if nothing had happened. Rook squeezed off another and another as he fell back, and before he knew it they were in the central lobby and bodies had hit the floor. How many he didn’t know. He felt no relief, no sense of calm, but for once, he didn’t need to think. He only needed to act.

That was when he noticed it.

“Boss,” he screamed against the rattle of gunfire. “The walls!”

Boss turned; a frown there and gone. “Shit. Move, people, move!”

The graffiti-covered walls glowed a searing red and cracks had begun to run out from the sprawling text forming small charred, fleshy, pulsing circles. More Sink Holes. All around them.

And now the enemies were pouring in. Not only Reavers but other monstrosities. Ghouls, Ghasts, Arachmonae. They were clawing their way out from the Depths, skittering out of their holes like so many swarming insects — some taking to the floor, others to the walls — and they had the team trapped in the central lobby, so close to the stairwell, to escape.

“Hold them back,” Boss commanded, swapping a mag.

“We don’t have the munitions to keep this up!” Cypher pulled her Colt M1911 and squeezed off a few shots into a leaping Arachmonae’s parasitic underbelly. It fell at her feet, its many legs chittering wildly, only to have a few more rounds pumped into its elongated humanoid skull.

Mouth was stalking down a group of rushing Reavers, lighting them up with his remaining bursts of 5.56 ammo. One of them broke through his fire and took a swipe at his leg before it bought it. Mouth clutched at the leg, yelling something unintelligible as he retreated, letting rounds go one-handed.

Rook’s heart pounded. Bang. Bang. Bang. Louder than the sound of the gunfire around him. Bang. Bang. Bang. He turned his fire to the spot Mouth had vacated while the man stuffed his leg with a Quick Clot pad and tied off the wound. Bang. Bang. Bang.

It wasn’t until he heard the screaming that he realized the sound he was hearing was not his heart at all. It was the sound of an AA12 automatic tearing down the hallway, clearing the way for their escape.

“Move it!” Deacon called, blasting a hole into a decrepit Ghoul’s chest.

Rook felt a moment of relief at seeing the man, a brief moment of reprieve. He had thought his earlier lapse had gotten Deacon killed. It was freeing to know he wouldn’t have to live with that guilt. Even more freeing to know they now had a chance, a chance to escape, a chance to make it back home. Things had been looking bleak, but now, what if. . What if they could really make it?

He almost wanted to smile.

In that moment of relief, Rook had been distracted for a moment too long, had seen Deacon’s face change, twist and contort a moment too late, had heard the man call a warning but couldn’t make out the words in time.

If he had, Rook would have known a Reaver had ripped through a Sink Hole beside him. He would have stopped it from digging its claws into his soft abdomen. And he wouldn’t have been dragged screaming down into the Depths.

“Rook, watch out!” Boss called, spun and aimed true. Right at the head. Click. Dry. And he knew then that it was over. Rook had been torn into before Boss’s spent mag could even hit the floor. Nothing more could be done but to save his team.

“Cypher, Mouth, we are leaving now!” He ran up and hoisted Mouth’s arm over a shoulder, pulling his Beretta 92FS.

They galloped down the hallway together to the beat of Deacon’s AA12 pounding away, broke into the stairwell and shut the metal door. They bolted it shut just in time for the beasts on the other side to slam into it. It would hold for a short while.

“We should move fast. More of those things are going to open up in here, Boss, and we got no room to fight,” Deacon said. Blood and sweat oozed down his arms.

The walls were glowing all the way up the stairwell. The team rushed upwards while the hell spawn slammed the door below.

“Where the hell were you, Deacon?” Boss demanded.

“Reaver clocked me a few floors up, Boss. Got lucky. He wanted to use me to open a Hole. I woke up before he could do it. I came as soon as I could. No bites. Don’t worry.”

The downstairs door slammed open sending a shockwave through the stairwell. Boss knew they had maybe a minute before the Reavers caught up. Maybe less if the Arachmonae pushed through first and took to the walls. He turned and started to hoist Mouth up the steps. “We need to move fast.”

“No, Boss,” Mouth said and pushed himself from Boss’s shoulder. He leveled his Mossberg pump. “You guys move fast. I’ll hold them.”

Boss waited a moment. “Deek. Trade.”

Deacon handed over his AA12 and took the Mossberg. “Do God’s work, my friend.”

“God? You know that’s not my style.” Mouth pulled open his tactical vest. Boss could see a single grenade dangling within. “I’ve got a one-way ticket and I’m taking them straight to hell with me. Get out of here.”

“Move,” Boss ordered and they took flight up the steps.

Three floors up, they heard the pounding start and all the while, Boss watched the walls glow, hoping they wouldn’t open up another hole ahead of them.

When they reached the top, the pounding stopped.

Then a powerful blast rocked the building.

Boss, Deacon and Cypher burst out onto the rooftop. Boss turned on his heel, slammed the door then wedged his empty AR against the handle. Chopper had already touched down. Three bodies lay face down between the roof entrance and the chopper.

The Reavers crashed into the door as Boss loaded into the he-lo.

They took off in time to see the door give way, Reavers and hell spawn filling the rooftop almost instantly. And through the sickly fog that encased the surrounding city, a familiar red glow spilled out, breaking free.

Boss strapped into his seat and pulled on his headset. Deacon and Cypher were already settled. Cypher sat with her computer in her lap. She looked a little shaken, but okay. Deacon had his hands clasped together in prayer. Blood dripped from between his fingers.

“Cypher, we need to organize a strike team ASAP,” Boss said, thinking of Rook and Mouth — he wouldn’t let them die for nothing.

“Already on it, Boss. I’m reporting in now to HQ and requesting Emergency Response Forces.”

Boss nodded; he had no more to say.

“What the hell happened down there, Boss?” Chopper’s voice blared strangely over the radio. “We got reports of PK-EM readings popping up all over the city.”

“Leak betrayed us, Chop. He opened a Sink Hole down there. A whole network of them.”

“Shit. That would explain the Reavers on the roof. Came out of nowhere, Boss. Four of them. Took care of it though.”

Boss frowned. “Did you say four? I only saw three bodies, Chop.”

Chopper took a moment, spoke slowly, methodically. “Yeah. One got up close and personal. Took a bite out of me. I kicked him off the roof.”

Cypher’s head shot up. Deacon stopped his prayer. Boss struggled to unstrap himself as the helicopter lurched forward without warning, slamming him back into his seat. Cypher’s computer flew past his head like a missile as the he-lo’s emergency alarms blared.

The chopper had lost stability. They were going down.

Boss tried once more to free himself, fighting the erratic movements of the helo. And as he fumbled desperately with his straps, the cabin door flew open with a savage scream.