SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

RP said he’d wear its skull for a hard hat. Well, he had the choice of dozens, because the heads that once belonged to living, breathing human beings were now bobbing and weaving on thick tubular arms, and in those warped faces the eyes bulged and glared, and again without too much thought, I knew that the monstrous creature could see through them all at once. The heads swivelled on those tubes like crab eyes, simultaneously fixing all four of us under baleful stares. It weighed and judged us, and made its own target acquisition. A barbed tentacle shot from the mass, the tip formed of something like hardened chitin, and it cut through RP’s chest armour like it wasn’t there. He barely had time to croak out his agony, before the tentacle spasmed and he flew off his feet, suspended in the air a moment before he was slammed against the ceiling, then the floor, his body was a sack of broken bones. The monster wasn’t done with him though. The spear tip must have parted down the middle, because it scissored open, and the upper half of RP landed wetly at my feet while his legs flew over the mass, where other snatching claws tore them into bony fragments.

“Fuck me…” What else could I say?

Now our team was halved. And with RP that was stating the obvious.

Brainpan screamed. But give him his due, he funnelled his horror into rage and he fired, unloading on the vicious tentacle weapon and ripping it to fragments. But it was hardly respite, because half a dozen more tentacles writhed overhead, and the creature had picked the next man to die.

Me.

Lance-tipped, one of those writhing tentacles exploded towards me. I threw myself down, and the tip struck the wall instead of my body. It jammed in the plaster, before the creature yanked free, but by then I was scrambling for my life. The lance scythed overhead by inches and again I just threw myself bodily away. I went down flat on my face. A second lance-tentacle snapped into the floor inches from my eyes, and gritty concrete peppered me. I scrabbled sideways, finally got my M4 up, and fired off an arc of rounds. Whether I hit anything of importance or not I’ll never know, because by then I was back on my knees, then my feet, and then hauling arse away from the next sweeping tentacle.

Something snagged my collar.

I hollered, battering furiously backwards with an elbow.

“Watch it! You nearly broke my fucking face!” It was Hooky, and he had a hold of me, propelling me towards the door we’d so recently entered by.

“Sarge, where’s Brainpan?” My words were a breathless wheeze.

Hooky thumbed backwards.

I looked, but my vision was filled with grit and tears and I could make nothing distinct out of the writhing mass now filling the vestibule area.

The harsh detonation of a grenade hinted at where our pal was. But it was followed seconds later by the ripping and tearing of flesh, Brainpan moaning as each chunk of him was torn away.

“Should have held on to that grenade, Brainpan,” I said as I slammed my shoulders to the wall alongside the doorjamb.

“Hold that door, Muppet.” Hooky was braced against the other doorjamb. His carbine flashed.

I fired too, but the mag fell empty after a short burst of rounds. I grabbed at a full mag even as I dropped the empty one, rammed in the fresh ammo. Before I could hit the arming bolt my M4 was snatched upward. A hand — human-like — but on the end of an insectile arm with too many joints, wrenched my gun up and away. Another one grasped my throat, even as a third punched me in the groin. Only my armour saved me, but I still experienced the dull ache in my nuts from the impact. A lance speared for my face. I ducked out of instinct, my chin mushing into the jellied flesh encircling my throat, and the lance-tip careened off my helmet and sank into the doorjamb with a crack louder than a gunshot.

I fought to get free of the hand choking me. But I went down, and now the insectile arms rose up and the hands transformed into wicked hooking talons. They raked down on me, not to rip me apart but to ensnare my clothing and drag me towards the pulpy mass now rearing over me. Hooky swung in like a barbarian warrior, his M4 empty, but still a club. He batted at the arms dragging me, breaking fragile limbs that at once reformed, growing needles that hardened into giant thorns. Something akin to a giant thresher arm ripped sideways through the air and hit Hooky in the chest. He flew out of my vision, and if I’d to be totally honest, out of my immediate concern. I tore away from the grasping limbs, and fell out of the door.

How many minutes had passed since I’d gone inside?

It’d be under three, but it had felt like an eternity.