Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

Curiosity tugged at X, but he dare not move. He squeezed the rifle stock and the case of cells, afraid that his trembling hands might lose the precious cargo.

The creature dropped onto all fours and skittered to the open doorway. Each flash of lightning outside gave X a fleeting glimpse.

He clicked off his night vision with a bump of his chin and waited for the next strike. A second later, he gasped. Leathery, wrinkled skin the color of eggshells tightened as the creature stretched long limbs laced with ropy lean muscle. Its sinewy body was covered in long scars and bore several glistening abrasions.

Darkness enveloped the room again. When the next strike of lightning lit up the warehouse, the creature was arching its back.

Not a person, not an animal… a monster.

Spiked vertebrae protruded like bony fins from its back. They stopped at its thin neck, where they bottlenecked into scabrous flesh that crested a misshapen head. Thick bristles formed a sort of Mohawk, like the ridge of a feral hog’s back, rising over the top of its skull.

X had to consciously slow his shallow, rapid breathing, which had begun to cloud his visor.

Keep it together, X. You have to keep it—

A piercing whine snapped him from his thoughts. He whirled and aimed his rifle at the shelves where the other creature had disappeared. The room was pitch black now. He clicked on his night vision, then clicked it back off when lightning flooded the warehouse through the open door.

Another screech followed, and he spun back to face the monster under the nests. It jerked its head toward him as if sensing his movement. But instead of seeing eyes or a nose, X saw only a wide gash of lips stretching from one side of its face to the other. The lips parted, widening to form a black hole rimmed with gleaming needle-pointed teeth.

“Holy Mother of God,” X whispered.

He had seen enough. Cradling the case under one arm, he raised the rifle with the other and bumped his NVG back on. He would need the optics when he got back outside— if he got back outside.

That thought prompted a surge of energy. Squeezing the trigger, he charged down the stairs toward the exit. His aim was erratic, and most of the shots pinged off the metal wall behind the monster. Only one of the rounds found a target. The result was an impossibly loud screech of agony. It grew into a whine that seemed to cut right through him, and he had to resist the pointless urge to cup his hands over his helmet.

The other beast, which he still couldn’t see, answered with a shriek of its own. The screeching morphed into what sounded almost like the emergency alarm before a dive. X slowed and searched the aisles of shelves to his right for the first monster but saw nothing.

Don’t stop. Keep moving…

He pushed forward, through the open door and into the alleyway. The metal case clanked against his armor as he ran.

The high-pitched calls of other monsters he couldn’t see joined the chorus. Together, they sounded so like an emergency siren, he had to wonder whether he was dreaming.

He glanced over his shoulder to see two silhouettes skulking in the doorway. One of them burst through the shadows, dropped to all fours, and galloped after him.

Move, X. MOVE!

He had no doubt that these things would tear him apart if they caught up with him. He had to get to the crate and deploy it back to the Hive .

He checked his HUD. The beacon was too far away. These things moved fast —he would never make it. That left him with only one option: abandon the crate and get the cells back to the Hive on his own. But before he could activate his booster and ride his balloon back to the ship, he needed to find an opening in the clouds. The storm had weakened, but sporadic flashes still lit up the skyline. He pulled his gaze from the sky to glance over his shoulder. Both creatures were trailing him now, and they were gaining. The ganglier of the two broke out in front, using its hind legs to spring forward in great bounds.

X almost dropped the case when he tore around the corner of a tumbledown building. He focused on his breathing and keeping his footing in the darkness. When he was halfway down the next street, he turned to fire, hoping the rounds might at least deter the beasts.

The lead creature leaped through the air. X did his best to steady his aim and squeezed off a burst. The bullets lanced through the humanoid torso, and one clipped the top of its skull. It crashed to the asphalt, shrieking and pawing at multiple wounds that gushed scarlet. The other thing jumped onto a building and clambered up the stone-clad wall. Pulling itself through a broken window, it vanished inside.

The shots had bought X a few precious moments. He clutched the case under his right arm and fumbled for a new magazine, but his hand came up empty. He must have dropped them during his escape from the warehouse.

Muttering a curse, he tossed the now useless assault rifle to the ground and pulled the blaster from his hip holster. He glanced skyward to examine the storm. The optics turned the sky into a swirling sea of green, sparkling with emerald flashes of lightning. He couldn’t deploy here. He had to keep running.

A flurry of screeches followed him as he rounded the corner of another building. The gunshots may have bought him time, but it must have attracted more of the monsters.

He caught a flicker of movement across the end of the street. It looked like a tarp or sheet—something very much out of place in the scrap heap of metal, concrete, and glass. The material was wrapped around a light pole and blowing in the wind.

Nausea sank into his gut.

It wasn’t a tarp. It was a seven-cell parachute.

“Aaron,” he choked.

He sprinted to the lamppost and slumped to his knees, forcing himself to look at his best friend’s broken body.

Aaron was lying on his back, his arms and legs telescoped by the fall. Only tiny shards of the mirror-plated visor remained in his helmet. One of his eyes was open, but the other was gone, mashed along with the right side of his face.

A whining shriek sounded in the distance. A second and a third quickly followed. X set the crate and his blaster on the ground and grabbed Aaron’s hand. He squeezed it before placing it neatly next to his broken body. X didn’t whisper any goodbyes or say any last words to his dead friend. He just closed Aaron’s remaining eyelid and stood up to stare at the storm. It was weakening, the flashes much less frequent now. Meanwhile, the electronic-sounding whines grew closer.

X was out of time.

Two of the creatures emerged at the other end of the street. They paced back and forth, as if unsure where he was. But when he reached for the cells and the blaster, their faceless heads shot in his direction. He stood his ground for a moment, studying the monstrosities.

A high-pitched screech broke from a window in the building behind him. His eyes darted upward at two more of the beasts, skidding down the surface. They perched on the curb, swaying their heads to study him.

X didn’t hesitate. He raised the blaster, trained the muzzle on one of the creatures, and pulled the trigger.

Crack!

An eyeless face disintegrated in a cloud of bone and flesh. The second shot blew a leg off the other beast.

By the time he turned, the other two were darting up the street toward him. They had already narrowed the gap by half. Three others had joined the chase, their otherworldly wails growing louder as they raced to catch up.

Heart thudding like a trip-hammer, he shoved the blaster into its holster and cradled the case of cells against his chest with his other arm. Then he reached over his shoulder and pressed a button on his booster. A balloon shot upward out of the canister, and helium rushed inside with a loud whoosh.