Fate weaver’s convergence

 

We moved downstairs, Rawlins and Marcum falling in behind Lucas and I. Team two was ready to depart, set for us to follow behind to the next house. The LT’s squad came up behind us almost as soon as Rawlins trailing foot left the porch, taking the next point of cover as quickly as they could manage. The rotting smell grew stronger the further we explored. 

 

House two.

 

“Clear.”

 

House three.

 

“Clear.”

 

House four.

 

“Clear.”

 

The petrol station. 

 

We chose to go through the rear entrance, the station having a larger structure at its rear that was possibly a mechanics shop or a storehouse. With so little cover through the front, facing the rest of the town, we opted against such a weak leverage point. 

 

“Up, Sarge.”

 

Rawlins whispered, basing the barrel of his shotgun against the knob of the locked door. I turned to the rest of the squad, gesturing to keep their eyes open and reaffirming the stack order to Lucas and Marcum.

 

“Alright, three, two, one–”

 

Rawlins fired on my mark, the crack of the shotgun echoing and kicking out dust from the door. He kicked it open, immediately slinking back and to Marcum’s shoulder as I moved through the entrance. The smell of sulfur and rotting flesh flooded my senses, flies buzzing past as I kept my rifle level and cleared my sectors. I did my best not to drop composure, swallowing what little vomit tried to fill my mouth.

 

Fuck me– found the source, I think.

 

The rest of my team followed behind me, clearing the room. It was a mechanics shop, a small beam of light from the outside world peeking through the rolling door entrance. The car lifts were empty, but that wasn't the alarming factor. We shone our lights across the room, in awe of the lumps of flesh and whole bodies in various states of decay or mutation. 

 

“Jesus fucking christ…”

 

Rawlins nearly collapsed, heaving what was once some energy drink and some expired chips he’d snacked on earlier.

 

Reports can wait, we need to clear the whole building first. 

 

I patted Rawlins on the shoulder with my offhand, motioning for him to get a hold of himself and taking position back in the stack. We lined up once more at the entrance to the front room of the station. 

 

Clear. Now, at least. 

 

The gas station was picked clean, not a drink, foodstuff, or trinket was present except for a few packs of cigarettes behind the counter. Lucas walked past the only thing of note in the room to reach them, a half-rotten, half-eaten corpse of a mutated human. There was a grime-covered revolver in its hand, and a good portion of its head was scattered on the linoleum floor behind it. 

 

Poor bastard did what he could before the mutations took him…

 

I turned around, looking back to the opposite side of the room his corpse would have faced. Five bullet holes were spread across the wall and shattered the glass door of one of the coolers. Blood was smeared against the wall, brown with age meaning this man was already here a while.

 

Some of those bodies in the shop are fresh… whoever he shot, whoever set the mutations… They’ve been returning. 

 

“Sarge”

 

Lucas handed me a pack of cigarettes in my off-hand. Pocketing them, Lucas took the rest while also giving a pack to Rawlins and Marcum each. 

 

“Let's go back into the shop, I think I saw something Sarge, something we should check out.”

 

Marcum spoke, in a low, barely audible tone. We all looked at each other, taking the hint that the building was nowhere near cleared just yet. I nodded, moving past them to take point once more. It was grating on the floor. A shine of the flashlights revealed a basement, drums of oil, machinery, and other random objects, as well as another corpse. Lucas grabbed the grating that covered the top of the steel stairs, heaving it to the side while his rifle clattered against the floor by its sling. 

 

“Lights on, be careful for anything flammable. I’m not too fond of burning the fuck alive down there.”

 

I muttered.

 

Moving to the basement, it was just as bad as the shop. Bodies were strung up with rope, chains, or lengths of unidentifiable viscera. I prodded one, the body plummeting to the floor with a sickening splat.

 

They were using that too…

 

We’d seen something like this plenty before. It was a food storage area. And a pen used for inducing mutations in anyone the Rift heads could capture. I looked along the barrels that lined the wall, shining my flashlight at them.

 

“Dear god–”

 

I vomited in place of Rawlins this time, the light bleeding from above as Rawlins or Marcum opened the garage door. The basement was flooded with light with exception to a storage room at the far end. 

 

It’s gore. It’s all just– just gore.

 

“Fuck me sideways–”

 

Lucas blurted, covering his own mouth and lowering his rifle as he choked down his own bile. 

 

“We’re– we’re not done here.”

 

I pointed to the far room.

 

“We’re checking, then when we get the fuck out, we set a grid coordinate for Dragon. See that?”

 

I pointed to a series of water drums on the opposite wall of the ones containing pure viscera. 

 

“That’s infected blood, the Rift heads; all they need to do is pour that into a river or a water treatment plant. Shit’s dense enough in mutagens that this whole route from Dijon all the way to Luxembourg. This whole fuckin region would be made a dead zone.”

 

I rubbed my throat mic, thinking to inform the LT overtly in case he wasn't listening in for some odd reason. 

 

“Elk-six, we found a fuckin seeding bed. There’s blood and bodies in here, going to check the last portion of the basement. Dead mutie upstairs, poor bastard managed to save himself before it took full root.”

 

“Copy Elk-seven, clear that shop, and get the hell out. We’ll drop the coordinates for Dragon to make a gun run, pop yellow smoke on it as we’re exfilling.”

 

I nodded to myself, trusting his words for all they meant. With this horror, they may as well have been a god-given promise. 

 

“Lucas, on me.”

 

I signaled, raising my rifle once more. The light revealed a bulkhead at the far end of the unchecked room, all other light sources being absorbed by some kind of fluid on the floor as I approached.

 

“God, is that–”

 

I was in awe, unable to tell if it was the dumped oil from the drums, or something worse.

 

That bulkhead, it's not rusted. Is it– recent?

 

I eyed the door against my better intentions as I pressed forward, the door that led to some unseen room that should have taken the place of the storage tanks for fuel. As I got closer, the room became more clear as my light shone off of the metal surface. Unlit candles, human bones, ungodly masses of some unknown material, and an unintelligible language scrawled on the walls. At the base of the door, was the only discernible presence. Several bodies, all fresh, all slumped forward with slit throats. They were pale, but the streaks of blood stains on their shirts and jackets were still wet and fresh. 

 

We weren't fast enough…

 

One of the men looked close enough to the boy who came to us to be his father. Alongside him, two women, four children, and–

 

The old man from the sat call. 

 

“What– what the fuck--”

 

I exclaimed, almost unable to process what I was seeing. It was a fatal mistake, taking my eyes away as I tried to take a step forward. The fluid covering the floor was at least a foot deep at the entrance, the floor apparently sloping towards it. This wasn't the fatal point; it was what came after, thanks to me dropping my guard.

 

“One of us!”

 

A voice cried out, a stark naked man jumping at me from my left, tackling me from a shelf he hid on as I entered.

 

“Fuck– SPLASH”

 

We went flying into the pool of calf-deep liquid, rancid and tasting of iron and numerous other indescribable senses. The muffled, erratic screaming or ranting, as well as Lucas and Rawlins's panicked yelling, echoed throughout the basement. I managed to wrestle myself from underneath the man as he tried to drown me. Our limbs were intermingled, so they were probably trying to avoid shooting me.

 

“Of the blood, be reborn, the horde! Join the–”

 

“Fuckin bitch!”

 

Lucas was already on top of us, having managed to kick him off of me. I swung as hard as I could manage, stopping his ranting in its tracks as he stumbled away. 

 

“The sun! The sun must wake! His angel will show the light!”

 

He screamed.

 

Fuck, don’t tell me–

 

Lucas raised his rifle, shouldering it just as I clambered for my own, raising it from the pool without aiming. We both opened up as the cultist attempted to open the bulkhead. Gunfire rang out, deafening and echoing, the room coming to life as if the sun graced it with light from our muzzle flashes. An arm flew, cut away by our bullets; the head was split in half and had become misshapen and lumped from the cavitation, and his body was left bruised and bloody from the fresh wounds. He fell, convulsing and twitching against the bodies as random mutation tried and failed to take hold in his final moments. A low groan emanated through the door, dust falling from the ceiling as a low rumble and vibration made its way through the ground. 

 

“Fuck, is what I think it is on the other side of that?”

 

I shook my head, pushing at Lucas’s shoulder for him to leave.

 

“I don’t know, nor do I want to. Get the fuck out, now!”

 

I was sure to yell that point across, hoping everyone on the net was listening intently. Just as I did, the cultists and their monsters were sure to drive that point across for me.

 

“Aaaah! Ah-”

 

Gunfire and screams echoed over the guttural roar of a mutant, small arms fire in the distance. The line was temporarily overtaken by pained grunts and muffled breathing.

 

“Shit, Danovitch is dead!”

 

A panicked scream.

 

“Second squad, get the hell out of there! We’ve confirmed six muties, and an unknown number of combatants!”

 

The LT yelled over the radio. Incoherent yelling and communication from my squad followed, Rawlins waving at us to get out, quickly.

 

“Fuck!”

 

I stumbled out of the pool of gore. 

 

“Good god Aidan, your leg’s fucked up.”

 

I clung to Lucas’s shoulder, wrapping my fingers into his sleeve.

 

“Then help me get the hell up!”

 

I yelled, dropping my rifle to let it dangle by its sling.

 

“Two behind the wreck!”

 

Small arms fire.

 

ROaaaOooo!

 

The roar of a mutant echoed again as we climbed the stares into the open light. Marcum opened fire with her M4, the bullets bouncing just over the mutant's skull as it lept through the air at her. She was pinned just as she tried to pull her sidearm, the monster clasping its maw around her throat and proceeding to shake her as violently as it could manage before Rawlins opened fire.

 

“Shit! Marcie!”

 

He fired, racked the next shell, then fired again. Blood and flesh scattered from the neck of the monster, but its lack of survival instinct, and its ability to feel pain, pushed it forward as it turned its sights on the kid. 

 

“Shit– shit!”

 

Rawlins screamed, racking another shell, firing, then another. The fifth shot served its purpose, splitting the skull of the monster down the center, sending an eyeball dangling to the side as its body collapsed. A gunshot from a house just up the road cracked through the air, catching him in his plate carrier and sending him back.

 

“Euuughhh– Ah– ah– fuck, it didn't go through!”

 

“Lucas, I can make it, just fucking drag Rawlins!”

 

I pushed Lucas off of me, limping to the door as I fumbled with my rifle to drop its empty mag and replace it with another. 

 

“Sir, we need QRF, one KIA, one WIA, we’ve got a shooter directly opposite of us, can the saw light it up?”

 

“Copy Aidan–”

 

Muffled commands echoed in the distance, LT having cut his mic to yell. 

 

“Focus on that blue building there, drop that fucker! Aim for Leg height, that shits wood so they're about as covered as a bum with paper in the pissing rain!”

 

The saw barked over the sound of my squad's gunfire. Upon exiting through the rear of the building, I knelt at the exit, shakily raising my rifle to aim at an ally in line with ours. I looked down below me, realizing I was kneeling over Danovitch’s body.

 

“Two KIA, Danovitch and Marcum. Several civilian KIA as well, our missing civies!”

 

“Fuck! Third squad, we need medevac! Now! Open with those god damned fifties! You, get me Dragon on the line–”

 

More muffled commands. A quote reminiscent of the one I’d said on our departure.

 

“It’s a lovely fuckin war down here.”