Blood, Guts, and a 20mm

Note: Just something I did for fun while sitting at my fire station. I tried to keep it under 2,500, but ended up at a little over 2,600.

6:00 a.m.

          “Holy shit, Deuce. Could your home be any hotter? The sun isn’t even out yet, and I’m sitting here in crotch soup.” Hagan said harshly, staring out at the bare landscape in front of the Hollow. “No sign of ‘em yet, by the way.” His hard eyes kept scanning the flat nothingness that made up much of west Texas.

          A large dark-skinned man sitting on the ground with his back against an old oil drum laughed. “Sorry, sir, but there’s not that many choices when it comes to these old installations out here. Better than being in town, cause it’s just a bunch of dead motherfuckers in there now.”

          Sgt. Hagan could hear the steady, click click click¸ of Deuce loading more magazines with what was left of the ammunition. “You don’t have to remind me. We tried, so fuck ‘em.” Deuce grunted as he shoved more rounds into the magazine. Hagan wasn’t sure if it was in agreement, or simply acknowledgement. It really didn’t matter which.

          Walking down the steel catwalk that crept along the top of the wall, Hagan looked at the morning’s progress. Battista was busy hauling out the medium sized stockpile of weapons and ammo along with a group of tired-eyed men that Hagan still had not learned the names of. Eberhard sat planted on a crate of high explosive rounds in the middle of a shallow mortar pit, his attention appeared to be occupied by piece of limp paper held in one of his massive and tattooed hands. Hagan continued around the catwalk, having to resist the urge to bark orders at a few of the stragglers they had picked up from the nearby town of Allison. As long as they kept their feet moving, that was good enough for today.

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7:00 a.m.

          Danika delicately moved the Simmons 30x60mm spotting scope with the tip of a finger, following the horizon that stared back at her position on top of the worn cement casement that was position directly over the entrance into the Cold War era military installation that had long since been abandoned before their arrival. Brown, almost black, hair partially covered her field of view, but she didn't even bother moving it at this point, having been there for nearly two hours already.

          She jumped slightly as the handheld radio crackled at her side. “Status,” the voice commanded. It was the cold voice of Sgt. Hagan.

          “Nothing yet, sir,” she said a second after she held the call button down. It had taken her awhile to get the hang of not speaking immediately, and letting the radio key up fully so that the whole message could go through. No reply ever came back through the speaker at her. She could handle that.

          A moment later, the all too familiar clip clop of Ryan’s cowboy boots sounded from behind her back. “What the fuck you want, cowboy?” Danika asked without taking her eye out of the scope’s sight. She smiled now, always liking the chance to poke fun at Ryan’s stereotypical Texan look.

          “Well howdy, partner,” Ryan answered with his best John Wayne impersonation. Danika giggled at the stupid voice. Ryan started to fiddle with one of the bungee cords that held down a blue plastic tarp. “This bad boy ready yet?” he asked, as he kept playing with the overly tight cord.

          “Hey! Not yet you shit kicker!” Danika said as she spun around from the spotting scope, slapping Ryan’s rough hands away from the tie downs. “You know what Hagan said about that gun. It’s for him, and no one else.” Her eyes aimed like daggers at the man.

          Ryan backed up a few steps with his hands in the air. “I surrender, I surrender,” he said mockingly. “Just wanted to take a peak is all. Is it ready to rock?”

          “Fuck yeah it is. We have a few thousand rounds left for it,” she said, leaning against the tarp and picking at a small hole that exposed bare metal underneath. “But, what the hell can you do? We’re stuck here in paradise.” She turned her back on Ryan, looking out over the Hollow. Their little group erected the outer wall over the period of a week. Two city buses made up one big section of the wall, and most of the other parts were just rocks, boulders, scrap metal, fence posts, and whatever else they had hauled here from a few scavenging trips out to Allison. The wall surrounded a massive steel blast door that was set into the side of the small mountain they were huddled up next to. A concrete tunnel jutted about ten feet out from the door, and on top of the tunnel sat a large casement that was probably added on later judging by the differences in construction and material.

         “And what did we decide the Hollow was used for before we got here anyway?” The cowboy asked.

          She was back at her spotting scope, a single blue eye, searching the horizon. “Hagan thinks military intelligence. I say it was used for zombie creation, or brainwashing motherfuckers.”

          A laugh escaped Ryan at the suggestion. “You know,” he said, waving his hand in front of the scope, “that sounds just about as dumb as Deuce calling this fucking hill, a mountain. I don’t think there’s a single fucking mountain in this fucking state.” He had made sure that everyone knew that he was from New Mexico, and not Texas. “See anything?” He held his middle finger up in front of the lens.

         Danika held back laughter that nearly succeeded in escaping. “Oh, just some blurry piece of shit, but I’m pretty sure I know what it is.” She had a grin on her face now as her foot whipped out from under here, making contact with the shin of the man.

         “God damn it, what’d you do that for you-“

         The radio cackled. “Ryan get the fuck down from there you idiot!” It was Sgt. Hagan. Danika stood there frozen, hoping that was all he had to say. Ryan just smiled at her with a big stupid grin as if proud he had gotten them yelled at. “Ryan, I can see you, you stupid jackass! Get down!”

         “Oh, he sounds angry this time,” Ryan said sarcastically. “ I’ll be seeing you, Dani.” He started to walk down the steps that lead from the top of the casement to the cement roof below. A waving middle finger shot up just as his head vanished below the top of the structure. Danika only laughed.

         She liked the man, nothing more than a friend, but he was one of the few that she had found comfort in in the last few weeks they had found themselves together. Growing up in a run down neighborhood outside of Los Angeles will make some people appreciate the moment when they meet someone as down to earth as this cowboy was.

         Keying up, Hagan’s voice from the handheld came across once more, “Status?”

         “Checking,” she replied.

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7:45 a.m.

         Sgt. Hagan stood at the head of a makeshift table that had been set up using two doors from homes in Allison and some empty ammo crates. Eberhard and Deuce were to Hagan’s left, Battista was on the right. None of them had any idea of why Hagan had called them there. The three of them traded glances between each other, while Sgt Hagan was there without saying a word, looking downward with an obvious scowl, cleaning under his nails with a Spyderco Military pocketknife. Scars and tattoos littered the skin of his forearms, he was a man with a diverse background.

         “Danika saw something,” Hagan began, his head not looking up from his nails, “and we should all know what that means. Vandals know we’re here, and they’re coming.” His voice was as calm as ever. The knife’s blade slid under each nail with the precision of a surgeon.

         “To the wall?” Eberhard asked, running a finger over the hammer on the STI branded 1911 pistol holstered at his side.

         Hagan closed the blade carefully slid it back to home into his pocket. Feeling around different pockets with his hands, he finally reached into a pocket on the inside of the black leather vest he was wearing. Carefully inspecting the Rocky Patel cigar, he said, “Get every motherfucker we got on that wall, now.”

         “Hooah!” yelled Eberhard and Deuce in unison, both retired soldiers of the Marine Corps. Deuce simply turned and walked away, checking the chamber on his Glock once again that morning.

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8:10 a.m.

         Everyone in the Hollow stood around Sgt Hagan’s position on top of the casement, waiting on him to do something, anything. Rifles were slung over almost every shoulder; a few hands were wrapped around machine guns. A dull roar, one that hadn’t been there earlier, crawled its way up and over the wall into every ear. The Vandals had arrived in force.

         “Well, today’s the day,” Hagan shouted. “We all knew it would come down to this, and the motherfuckers have finally caught up. These cocksuckers don’t seem to know what defeat means, but neither do I.” A few cheers rose from the small group of twenty-seven that stood below Hagan, and to Hagan’s surprise, no one had puked their guts up either. “For all we know, guys and gals, we’re all that left for hundreds of miles. These motherfuckers out there,” he said, pointing at the oncoming horde, “are here to kill us and eat our brains for all I fucking know. But, what I do know is that we can have one hell of a time until they do eat our brains.”

         Deuce couldn’t help but chuckle. “Boy, I wonder if this is what the guys at the Alamo heard!” he shouted. A few meager laughs escaped from the sick faces of a few.

         “Could be” Hagan continued, a smile on his own face, his eyes wild. “The Vandals still have not attempted to make contact with us since they came to Earth four months ago. In my opinion, they are just another warrior species. They like killing, and they don’t give a fuck about dying. But, what they don’t know is, I stopped giving a fuck about dying when I came here to the Hollow. Before I die, I’m making sure I send all the rounds I can at those motherfuckers. I’ll smile when I see their bodies explode in a flash of red mist. Defending our race, now that’s a good death.”

         Cheers, applauds, and whistles rang out from the small group that stood below the casement. One man however turned and lurched as vomit hit the dirt around his feet.

         “To the wall!” Hagan screamed, waving his arms outwards in a shooing motion.

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8:30 a.m.

         Danika peered down the sights of an old SKS rifle that she had taken in Allison, Ryan sat next to her with a much newer Troy AR15. “Ever seen one of these things up close?” she asked without looking over.

         “Saw a few up close, right before I blew ‘em up over in Lubbock. Ugly motherfuckers. Like a big bug I guess.”

         Lowering the rifle, Danika picked up a crinkled water bottle and took a drink. “And why do you think they are waiting?” she asked, wiping her mouth off on her shirt sleeve.

         Ryan dropped his rifle now. “I think it’s sorta like Hagan said. They’re a warrior race. They like a fair fight… at least fairest they can get since we never even had near their numbers.” He stared outwards toward the horde as it slowly churned. “Right now they’re just waiting for us… they’ll charge soon.”

         “Well why the fuck don’t they have guns?” Danika asked heatedly. “We have guns… and we can’t even get off our planet without blowing up half the time it seems like.” Aware of her increasingly bad attitude, she tried to take a few deep breaths. Staring at your own unstoppable death can do that to some people she figured.

         “Upset are we?” Ryan chuckled as if unaware of their circumstances. “And I don’t know. I don’t know shit about ‘em. Maybe they like to slice and dice,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Sort of romantic, isn’t it? In an old fashioned macabre sort of way.”

         Reaching over, Danika flicked his ear, causing him to recoil slightly. “Not funny, shit kicker.”

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8:50 a.m.

         “Fire!” screamed Hagan from the top of the casement.

         Fireballs erupted from across the top of the wall in unison as fingers were pressed against triggers. It was impossible for anyone to tell what they were hitting as the horde advanced closer and closer. You simply aimed into the group, and fired.

         Deuce screamed murder from the back of his German made MG42 as it tore through the Mauser ammo at 1,200 rounds per minute. The M120 mortar barked every several seconds as Eberhard and one other man sent the rounds up and over the wall. Bloop.

Ripping the blue tarp away from the top of the casement, Hagan jumped into the seat on the Vulcan M167 and worked the controls until the 20mm six barrel Gatling gun pointed directly at the oncoming aliens.

BRAAAAP BRAAAAAAAP.

         The short bursts pumped out round after round and sent them hurtling downrange, traveling through body after body, and vaporizing anything hit by the heavy rounds.

Body after body fell into the dust in front of the Hollow as the brass tumbled to the ground. Hundreds, and then thousands of casings littered the top of the wall. A mask of black and green fluids caked the ground as the aliens closed the distance.

300 yards and closing.
200 yards and closing.
100 yards and closing.

Danika’s SKS barked over and over as she pulled on the trigger. “This is about to get real fucking shitty!” she screamed, not knowing if Ryan heard her over the torrent of gunfire. She could barely hear herself anymore without any ear plugs.

BRAAAAAP BRAAAAAAAAAAAAP BRAAP

         Vandals collided with the bottom of the wall and bodies began to stack up immediately, allowing others to climb up and over on top of those underfoot. Wicked blades were pulled from what seemed to be thin air. Lightning quick, hair splitting sharp, they stormed through the shooters on top of the wall as blood sprayed from the top of the defenses. Bullets tore through the unfamiliar bodies, but there were so many of them it didn’t even make a dent. Where one fell, two more seemed to take its place. A tidal wave of red, wet bodies cascaded down from the wall into the Hollow.

         Danika saw the aliens for what they were now. They resembled big, pissed off beetles. Multiple limbs extended from a torso that appeared to be slick, and almost a blood red color. They moved quicker than any human across the dirt on four legs. Pincers extended outwards from the sides of their heads, allowing them to pull things into their nasty looking mouths.

         Human bodies were eviscerated all across the area within a matter of seconds. Danika watched as the cowboy, her friend, sent a massive booted heel crashing into the face of one of the aliens, sending it flying backward. A swarm of Vandals enveloped him a moment later. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.

         Turning to her right, she lined up her sights on another body, and fired at it. The blade was so sharp, she hardly even felt it as it cut through the middle of her stomach. It was a few seconds later than the pain really set in. Vandals swarmed in on top of her.

         Hagan’s eyes were wild; the power at his fingertips was unbelievable. Better than anything else he had ever experienced. “Won’t take long now! Die you motherfuckers!”

         The six barrels of the Vulcan came to a screeching halt as they shown red hot in the shade of the mountain. The horde surged through the small clearing the middle of the Hollow, pure hate and unreasoning pain rushed at Hagan. He reached down on his right thy and depressed the button set into the side of the holster, allowing the 1911 pistol to slide up and away. Hagan still wore a grin of sorts as he placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. CLICK.

         “Motherfu-“