Chapter 4

Our path was well lit with dropped chemlights, and the flashlights mounted to the bottom of the team’s rifles. The cave floor looked natural, but well worn, either these things had been living here for a long time, or they weren’t the first occupants. Honestly I had expected this to be a mine or something, but the further we got the more it became obvious this was a natural cavern. Woe be to the assholes that tried to set up a guided tour though.

The death stench had abated somewhat after we had left the room me and Miles were being held in, but it was still there. Along with something else, there was an odd quality to the air, like it was too heavy or something. We moved in silence, though I didn’t see the point, they obviously didn’t care about light discipline, we would be a giant beacon to anything down here that had eyes. Which made me think, ‘Fuck, what if they don’t have eyes?’ For some reason I found that creepier than the them being dead thing.

The Beretta felt awkward in my hand, I’d fired a handgun maybe twice my entire career, and that mostly expending brass on an officer’s range. I would have much prefered one of the rifles, but I figured my chances of that were between zero and go fuck yourself, so I didn’t ask. Still it was better than being totally unarmed, and I was grateful for the gesture. The winding underground route made it impossible to know how far we were traveling, but it felt like miles, stopping every few minutes or so to clear side passages, and listen for the slap of feet didn’t make it any better, a raised fist from Miles in front of me indicated we were stopping again.

This time Cap did not pause for a moment and move one, but instead took a knee, with the rest of us following suit. I strained my ears trying to hear what had caused the display of caution, nerves formed a slight lump in a throat, and my palms grew sweaty even in the cave’s cool air. With that spike of adrenaline came a sharp focus, the world around me became clearer. Each breath of my companions, each slight shift of movement sounded like a scream for attention. Time slowed in a predictable way, long training and experience had switched my fight or flight response way over to fight, and now my body, if not my mind, itched for it.

Then I saw one. It’s skin pale yellow in the glow of chemlights, long greasy black hair hanging down, obscuring its face. Pieces of it’s flesh were missing, it’s rib cage beginning to poke through it’s skin in places. Its former sex long since obscured by rot, it stood motionless for what felt like an eternity before it jutted it’s face out revealing a face with white eyes, a missing nose and ears, and sharp fang like teeth. From a throat so torn apart it had no business making noise it issued a screech that rattled me to my soul.

“Fuck.” Miles calmly expressed the only word that could have summed up my feelings.

“Contact front!” Cap barked, barely seconds before the sharp retort of his rifle sounded, and the screeching creature dropped to the floor.

Cap continued to fire, Doc’s weapon opened up as he through lead down range as well, a stream of the things coming around a corner up ahead. Miles pushed passed me as a call of, “Contact rear!” came from Sarge.

The cavern exploded into a deafening rap tap tap of gun fire, accentuated by muzzle flashes, and short ordered commands. I pulled back the slide of my Beretta racking a round, and leveled the weapon down the hall. My first shot went wide, though my target still took a round to the head from either Cap or Doc. I’m pretty sure my next two dropped my targets before my companions were forced to use their own precious ammo. Like most fire fights it only lasted a few minutes, and by the end of it my ears were ringing, and my breathing was heavy. The smell of death was overwhelmed by the sharp acrid smell of burnt carbon.

“Ammo report.” Cap barked.

“Red on rifle, green on nine.” Answered Doc.

“Yellow rifle, green on nine.” Sarge chimed in.

“Red. The kids got my nine.”

“Yellow on nine.” I did a mental count, figured I had seven left in this mag, and two more full ones in my pocket.

“Alright, check’em. Hopefully we got the fucker and we can wrap this up.” The four team members moved from their positions, fanning out amongst the...deader bodies, checking them, I shuffled over to Miles.

“What are you looking for?”

“Pack leader. It’ll be less shriveled, more life like skin then the rest.” He shined his flashlight on the nearest wight corpse, seemed unsatisfied and moved on, “If you want details, they’ll have to wait till we’re out of the shit kid.”

“Rog.” I answered simply, and resigned to watching the side tunnels as the team went about their inspections.

“Ah fuck, Cap.” Sarge cursed, as she knelt down taking a closer look at one of the bodies.

“What is it?”

“All these fuckers are marked.” She responded, and spit to the side, pushing the corpse aside with disgust.

“Shit. Alright folks, lock it up, we’re getting out of here double quick.”

I opened my mouth to ask, but was shot down by a look from Miles.

“When we’re clear kid. Let’s move yeah?”

I nodded and followed Miles and the rest as we picked up our pace, following the dimming chemlights that the team must have dropped on their way in. Something had them spooked, considering how calm they were in the fighting, and with all this shit in general, I’m not afraid to say that their nervousness scared the piss out of me.