First Fight

The creatures mouth suddenly slammed shut, the scream shutting of with a metallic clang. James couldn't see the creatures eyes from this distance, but he got the the feeling that it was staring at him.

The two parties stayed still for a single second before they both simultaneously launched towards their objectives. Henry leaped towards the dead guard, James using his meagre strength to push himself towards the wall. He kept his eyes on the creature, which had started towards them at a dead sprint.

The creatures gait was ungainly, its right leg seemingly more powerful than the other, the imbalance slowing its sprint speed from Olympic level to regional. They had maybe fifteen seconds before it was on them.

James glanced behind him to Henry who was pulling at a holster by the soldiers side. It took him a second to realise why he wasn't grabbing for the rifle, seeing that the gun had no trigger.

"Shit," James breathed quietly as Henry stood up with a pistol in his hand. Henry sprang towards James, gun held trembling in his hands. The creature was maybe fifty meters away, its hands held outward with its talons splayed wide. A loud cracking sound exploded beside James as Henry shot the gun. Remarkably, James saw as the larger right leg of the creature shuddered and a small squirt of black liquid burst out of its thigh.

The shot only interrupted its movement for a moment before it continued its sprint, but it was noticeably slower as its momentum had been reduced.

Spurred on by the success of the first shot Henry's hand stopped shaking, his other coming up to help aim at the creature. A second shot went of, followed by a third, impacting on the other leg and its right shoulder. More spurts of blood came out of the creature, but it didn't stop, James was not even sure if it felt the pain from the bullets.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Three shots in quick succession that all impacted in the middle of the torso. The creatures momentum was fully stopped by the shots, but James could see a pure rage in its blood covered face. James could see that it wasn't going down easily, so he turned towards the rifle on the guards chest, moving towards it as he heard another shot ring out, followed by a metal shearing scream.

James ignored it and the pain in his leg as he reached the rifle. Luckily the guard didn't have any straps keeping the rifle attached to his body, so James was able to lift it easily. He reached for that ever present sensation in the back of his head. Focusing on it like before allowed him to get a feeling for the weapon in his hand. He could feel the bullet in the middle of the weapon, resting just above and in front of where his hand rested on the handle.

His other hand moved up under the barrel, resting on a metal grip. He focused on the bullet in the chamber, trying to remember the pushing feeling that came from Miss Kalieta's demonstration. Another shot rang out from behind him, this one followed by a scream too human to be the creatures. James span around, the pain from his leg not distracting him from the scene in front of him.

The creature was standing over a prone Henry who was cradling his left hand. The gun was laying under the creatures foot, who pressed down, crushing it. The creature let out another ear shattering scream as it leaned its face down towards Henry.

"Not fucking happening!" James screamed as he raised the rifle in his hand. The creature raised its metal infused eyes at James as he focused. His senses narrowed down to a snarling monstrosity and a small piece of metal in a tube. He took a quick breath in, and pushed.

There was no explosive sound as the bullet was launched from the barrel of the gun, but James felt it more viscerally than any sound. He felt as the bullet slightly scraped along the inside of the barrel, as it was released into the air and as it pressed into the head of the creature. He felt the bullet be slowed down by the metal plating under the creatures skin, so he pushed again. The plate crumpled, the bullet ricocheting off the inside of its head and turning its brain to mush.

The creature crumpled, its body going limp as its brain was destroyed. It landed heavily on Henry, who was still laying on the floor. James stumbled towards Henry, wincing in pain as he kneeled down next to him.

"Henry you good man?" James asked, panic slightly rising as he saw the state of Henry's hand.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," he panted, "help me push him off."

Heaving the body off Henry was harder than expected. The body seemed to weigh twice what a normal person of that size should be. James could feel what seemed like more metal plates just under the skin on most of the body. They eventually managed to get it off, leaving them both sitting on the floor, panting with exertion and pain.

"What the actual fuck was that?" Henry suddenly exclaimed. He was looking rapidly back and forth between his hand and the corpse in front of them. Looking at the hole in Henry's hand, James shifted towards the creature. He tore some of the cloth from the creatures robe like garments, and started wrapping up Henry's injury.

"I don't know, and I don't really want to wait here to ask the next one that comes through," James said as he tied off the bandage. "How's that?"

Henry tried flexing his fingers but let out a sharp hiss before there was any movement. "The hands definitely fucked."

James attempted to stand up, and o his surprised he actually managed pretty easily. The pain in his leg had significantly lessoned. 'Adrenaline is a hell of a drug,' he thought as he moved back towards the body of the guard. Searching around his body he found two magazines each for the pistol and the rifle. He undid the belts that they were attached to and tossed the one with the pistol ammunition to Henry. "Heads up!"

Henry snatched at the belt in the air, managing to catch it but letting out a short yelp of pain as it impacted his hand.

"My bad," James said a slight smile on his face.

"Fuck you dude," Henry said as he attempted to clip the belt around himself with his good hand. James clipped on his own belt, before trying to take of the Kevlar vest the guard was wearing. He couldn't be sure how effective it would be against the seemingly razor sharp teeth and claws of whatever these creatures around him were, but anything was better than a few rags.

"You want the vest?" he asked as he finished fishing around for anything else in the guards pockets.

"If you're offering," Henry replied as he finished clipping on the belt. James walked over to Henry and slowly and with exaggerated movements he handed the vest to Henry, who had an annoyed look on his face.

"You need help putting that on too?" James asked in a playfully mocking tone.

"Ha ha ha," Henry responded sarcastically as he snatched the vest and pulled it over his head. James smiled as he pulled on the jacket of the guard onto himself, grimacing slightly at the sharp smell of blood on the collar.

"You ready to go?" James asked. Henry looked up and nodded, immediately moving off in the opposite direction to where the creature had come from. "Hey wait up, my legs still not perfect dude."

They came to another T-Junction, both corridors seemingly the same and leading of to other branching paths.

"Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to choose the direction?" asked Henry.

"Sure," as James turned to face Henry, he got a glimpse of the wall in the right corridor connecting to where they had just come from. On it he thought he could see a marking carved into it, stretching from one corridor, around the corner and into the other. "Hey check this out."

James limped over to the corner, Henry following closely behind. As they got up to it, James could make out what it was. It was a crudely carved arrow pointing into the right corridor, with a VI carved next to it. "Roman numerals for 51," muttered James as he traced a finger through the shallow gouges.

"Maybe other survivors carved this into the wall after the fight back there, trying to point other survivors towards them," Henry said, looking into the corridor.

"We better hope that's the case," James said, "Let's go."