SNAFU: Hunters

The room stilled, silent but for the sounds of the living hellhole before him. Boss noticed the walls were covered, once more, in scribbles and scrawls – ones that matched those in the hall and the stairwell. He had a sinking feeling that he had made a mistake and overlooked something.

“Boss,” Cypher said and he immediately recognized the apprehension in her voice. “I’ve got signatures. A lot of them. And they’re coming right for us.”

Boss approached the hole, shined a light down and what he saw shook him, knocked the words from his tongue.

Reavers.

There must have been a hundred of them.

And they were scrambling up the walls of the Sink Hole.

* * *

A shrieking blast of anger shot out from the Sink Hole, shaking the building to its very foundation. The force was so strong that Rook lost his balance and fell on his ass, then sat there mouth agape. Frozen. Terrified.

Mouth had braced himself against a wall. “What the fuck was that?”

The writing on the walls glowed fiery red and Boss fired his rifle down the hole, backing out of the room and screaming, “Fall back! We’ve got Reavers incoming. Fall back to the rooftop and shoot anything that moves!”

“Guess we know where all the people went,” Mouth said, grabbing Rook and hauling him back.

Rook caught a glimpse of a corrupted claw reaching over the hole as he was helped to his feet then the door slammed shut.

Boss led the charge back through the human wasteland. Rook’s eyes were locked onto the man’s back, no longer checking around carefully. He had seen enough. He just wanted out, wanted to go home. He needed to leave and fast.

Lights bounced in every direction. The walls cracked and shook as they raced through the apartment, all too aware of the savage screams of hell beasts beating at the door behind them. When they reached the hall, they heard the wood splinter.

Rook was halfway down the hall when he finally turned around and the first of the Reavers showed themselves, rushing out of room 613, their skin scarred, meat peeling off their bones in slabs. They were rabid, ravenous, and coming fast.

Mouth stopped, dropped to a knee and let loose with his AR-15, sending a burst of 5.56 mm ammunition into the first black-eyed psycho that came his way. Then the second. Then the third.

“Mouth, Chopper,” Boss called out, firing at his own set of takers as they ran from the doorway in stuttered bursts.

Cypher ran up, slapped Mouth’s shoulder and started firing, her MP5 rattling off rounds savagely.

Mouth fell back from the gunfire. “Chop. We need evac ASAP, we’re knee deep in shit creek here.”

All the while, Rook hadn’t fired a single round. He stood back, watching this unfold through the buzzing static that had invaded his vision, his muscles, his brain. From the moment the shooting had started, he felt like he was watching a movie in slow motion. And as the bloodlust-frenzied creatures closed in on them, part of him had expected to be suddenly sitting on his couch at home, waking up from some immersive dream state.

Fast running people, former people, rushing straight at him. Straight at his screen. Claws, teeth, bone showing. Bad horror movie. Bad movie. That’s all it was.

And then one screamed, shrieked right through him and he knew it was no dream. It was coming straight for him. He shouldered his AR and squeezed off a round into its shoulder. It ran through as if nothing had happened. Rook squeezed off another and another as he fell back, and before he knew it they were in the central lobby and bodies had hit the floor. How many he didn’t know. He felt no relief, no sense of calm, but for once, he didn’t need to think. He only needed to act.

That was when he noticed it.

“Boss,” he screamed against the rattle of gunfire. “The walls!”

Boss turned; a frown there and gone. “Shit. Move, people, move!”

The graffiti-covered walls glowed a searing red and cracks had begun to run out from the sprawling text forming small charred, fleshy, pulsing circles. More Sink Holes. All around them.

And now the enemies were pouring in. Not only Reavers but other monstrosities. Ghouls, Ghasts, Arachmonae. They were clawing their way out from the Depths, skittering out of their holes like so many swarming insects – some taking to the floor, others to the walls – and they had the team trapped in the central lobby, so close to the stairwell, to escape.

“Hold them back,” Boss commanded, swapping a mag.

“We don’t have the munitions to keep this up!” Cypher pulled her Colt M1911 and squeezed off a few shots into a leaping Arachmonae’s parasitic underbelly. It fell at her feet, its many legs chittering wildly, only to have a few more rounds pumped into its elongated humanoid skull.

Mouth was stalking down a group of rushing Reavers, lighting them up with his remaining bursts of 5.56 ammo. One of them broke through his fire and took a swipe at his leg before it bought it. Mouth clutched at the leg, yelling something unintelligible as he retreated, letting rounds go one-handed.