Beat the Devil, page 10
part #2 of Cryptid Force Six Series
He stepped aside, allowing Maze, Wade and Luna through. Which they all did with no real issues.
It was as Benny was shimmying through that the first of the shrieks echoed from down the tunnel.
“Shit,” Benny muttered, pulling himself through the hole.
Ellen gave Cujo a hard nudge. “Go ahead. I’ll hold ’em off.”
Cujo respected her spirit, but…
“No. You go through and have Luna hand me down her M32.”
Ellen turned to him, eyes wide. “I’m not leaving you alone in here.”
“Yes,” he said, “you are. Have Luna hand down her M32.”
She shuffled a bit, obviously on the verge of simply ignoring his command and standing with him, but in the end, huffed out a disgruntled breath and wriggled through the elongated hole in the rock.
From down the tunnel, a few more shrieks sounded. Much louder than the last. Cujo’s heart stuttered. He glanced over his shoulder at the opening, but no one was holding out Luna’s M32.
Maybe Ellen forgot. Very possible under the circumstances.
He lifted his AC-900.
He had one more mag after this one. Then it would all be up to his knife and sidearm.
If this was how he was going to go, he preferred it over dying in a bed a few years from now; old, fat, and forgotten. And so, he stood in front of the hole, ready to take down as many devils as he could before they took him down when something shoved against his right shoulder.
Cujo blinked, glanced over his shoulder and relief frothed like the sweet cream of a cappuccino. He took the M32, pride filling him, and faced the tunnel. Before long, his world was filled with shrieks and howls. So much so, he found the mere simplicity of thought vacant. As empty as an ancient tomb robbed of its corpse and riches. Nothing but the moans of old ghosts.
They scrambled toward him by the dozens, mouths wide and howling.
Cujo’s gaze narrowed. His finger found the trigger of Luna’s M32. A slow breath whispered out of him, though he struggled to calm his rampaging heart.
Easy, he thought. Easy now…
The horde was about sixty feet. Fifty. Fort—
Cujo lifted the gun a bit and squeezed the trigger. One of the red grenades shot out of the barrel and crashed into the tunnel’s ceiling. The explosion threw dust and shards of rock at him, but he held fast. Before long, it all cleared enough for him to note not all were trapped behind the cave in.
He glowered at the few that made it through. They weren’t coming at him as fast now. Indeed, they appeared reasonably wary, crawling along the floor, heads lowered. As the ringing in Cujo’s ears subsided, he heard them growling. Thick, guttural sounds which reminded him of a pride of hungry lionesses.
There was, maybe, a dozen in all. A single grenade might take care of them. Then again, it might not. He aimed, not directly at the center creature, but just in front of it and fired.
The gush of rock and dust obliterated everything from sight.
And so, Cujo waited.
He couldn’t leave now. Not until he knew they were either trapped or dead.
The dust cleared and…
Cujo lowered the gun, stifling vomit. The blast didn’t kill them all and those that remained dragged themselves over the broken rock, some with their guts trailing behind them. A couple of others were missing arms or a leg, and still, they kept coming. Whatever hatred or hunger driving them did not stop with agony. Oddly, it appeared to drive them even more.
He swung the M32 around to his back and brought his AC-900 up.
They chuffed and spat, howled and gurgled, closing in at twenty feet or so.
Cujo wasted no more time and took out the remaining few in a couple bats of an eye. Blood splattered the stone walls and pooled on the floor. All of it white through the night visor.
The air reeked of cordite, still thick with dust and the dead remained dead. Cujo sent Luna’s M32 back through the opening and wriggled his way through as well.
He stumbled into a night that was cool, fresh on the skin and in the lungs, and erupting with loud shrieks.
THIRTEEN
Maze tackled Cujo to the ground before something large swept through the air, nearly shearing off his head.
It shrieked, leathery wings flapping away from them.
“Jesus, Pops,” Maze said, “stop acting so old.” She helped him to his feet. “They’ve been doing their shrieking shit since we got out but didn’t do anything until you got out here.” In the night vision she winked. “They must really want to kill you.”
He huffed out a chuckle. “Yeah.” Then he pressed the throat mic. “Reece? You copy?”
“Yep.”
“You still got that drone out and about?”
“Yes. Already doing a sweep of the area at one hundred feet. Thermal imaging is…bad.”
Cujo frowned, keeping an eye out for any movement in the brush around them. “Bad? What do you—”
“There are a lot, Cujo,” Reece said. “Too many for you. Hundreds. And it now looks like they’re surrounding you.”
“Oh, man,” Benny said, pacing. “We’re so fucked.”
“Shut up,” Wade spouted. A rarity for the guy. He stepped toward Cujo. “What the hell are we gonna do? I only brought four mags with me. It was only supposed to be one, maybe three creatures. How are we gonna kill them all?”
Cujo opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don’t know.” It was the truth. Like Wade and the others, he hadn’t really expected more than a handful of devils.
The shrieking grew so loud it became maddening. He couldn’t think. That noise, it drove away all thought, leaving fear in its insidious wake. He fought it, of course. What the hell else was he supposed to do? But gradually it wore on him. He needed to figure out a way to get out of this. A way to…
“Reece,” he said. “Does Kirby have anything in that room of his that would help alleviate our situation?”
When Reece didn’t respond, he couldn’t stop himself from shouting. “Do. You. Copy?”
“I’m asking him,” Reece said in a snipped tone. “Stand by.”
Benny chuckled, shook his head and continued pacing. “We’re so fucked.”
The Pine Barrens was a tirade of shrieks and howls. An echoing chaos with no point of origin.
“Get each other’s backs,” Cujo said. “Back to back. Shoot anything that moves.”
They did as they were told, pressing together. They created a rough circle, guns pointed at the darkness.
The shrieking grew to such a volume, Cujo wasn’t sure he could wrangle his sanity much longer before—
The woods fell into a deep and sudden well of silence.
The change jarred, not only Cujo, but his team. They moved a bit away from formation. Cujo frowned. The quiet was welcomed, but there should be other noises. Crickets and frogs. Instead, the Pine Barrens held its secrets. As it had for decades.
Like so many years before, it seemed to hold its breath.
Now…the monsters were exposed. Their secret unveiled. And they weren’t too happy about it either.
But the silence, somehow that was even worse than all the shrieking. Like the calm before the storm, there held an almost electric pause in time. A clinging grasp of what might be coming.
Or, perhaps, they retreated to their underground world to tend to their mother. Maybe, rather than eliminating the Cryptid Force, they collectively chose to heal their mother. Could be they were digging new tunnels and caverns at this very moment. Build a new cavernous home where they could be alone again.
But, what about all those eggs? Would they move them or let them hatch on their own and leave the creatures to live or die as nature intended?
As tightly knit as the devils appeared, Cujo doubted they’d leave their offspring behind. If nothing else, they would definitely…
He barely registered the flapping sounds before a huge blur cut a swath across his night vison. Cujo stumbled back, raised his gun, and stood gaping. The creature tore into Benny with an unfathomable quickness.
Without thought, running on pure rage, Cujo plowed into the monster. He shoved it off the longest running soldier to follow him, or, dare he consider it, his best friend. Brother. The creature cried out, writhed on the ground a bit before positioning itself at Cujo.
Its eyes glimmered like a doe stuck in the headlights of a truck. It seemed to slowly coil in on itself, wings spreading to impressive length on either side. Its upper muzzle peeled back, revealing long, shiny teeth. Drool hung from its lower jaw in translucent strings. A thick growl rumbled in its throat.
Cujo grunted and cracked his neck. He aimed the AC-900 at the devil. “Alright, bastard. Let’s dance.”
It pounced forward before Cujo could fire a single shot and beamed into him. They both crashed to the ground.
Roaring, Cujo shoved the rifle into the beast’s side and unleashed hell. The creature yowled, scrambling off him. It kicked up dirt while it flopped around like a dying bass on a muddy riverbank.
Blood splattered over Cujo’s night visor. “Fuck,” he muttered and tried cleaning it off, which only resulted in smearing it.
He quickly tapped the button on the side of the helmet. The night visor slipped up, leaving him gaping in nearly complete darkness. He heard the devil flopping around and yowling but couldn’t see it.
There was only one thing he could do…
With a press of another button on his helmet, the forehead lamp and the chest light winked on, illuminating a fifteen by twenty-foot area. The devil continued to flop around. Blood still flew through the warm summer night air. But he was struck by both wonder and horror at seeing the creature without the effects of night vision. No more color or detail obscurity. No. He was seeing the devil in all its hideous glory.
The matted fur covering the beast was black. Its legs were like that of a goat, though much thicker and muscular. Sharp hooves cut at the air as it rolled and flopped around. Its arms, almost human like, lashed out, long claws grasping at nothing. A long, black tail lashed the ground. Its glowing red eyes lolled in their sockets whilst its misshapen goat-like head whipped back and forth. The big difference from a goat was the mouth. Actually, that was the major difference. Where a goat’s mouth is relatively small, the devil’s was quite long and broader than a typical goat. Because it needed all that space for extra teeth.
Its horns were black and twisted from its skull to lethal points.
A shiver passed through him.
He knew they were ugly but seeing one without the filter of night vison put a whole new meaning on ugly.
And utterly terrifying.
The way the devil flopped around made Cujo think of the time he accidently ran over a cat. The way the poor thing bounced and flopped around all over the road was far too similar to the dying devil now. He needed to back away just to keep from getting smacked by the damn thing.
Finally, he put two rounds in its head just to end its suffering.
Good or bad, or whatever. He would not allow someone or something to suffer long. Just not his way.
The devil fell still, and he turned to find Benny, bathed in light and bleeding from the right shoulder. He hissed, spinning away from Cujo.
“Dude,” Benny said. “I still got night vision goin’.”
Cujo turned to the left. “Sorry.”
“Whatever, man. Reece never answered.”
Cujo sighed and tried the throat mic. “Reece? You copy?”
“Yes. Working on something. Stand by.”
“If we stand by anymore, we’ll be hamburger,” Benny said. “We can’t take ’em all on, man.”
Cujo nodded. He pressed his throat mic. “Everyone report to me.”
“Why do you have your lights on?” Maze asked, breaking through the brush.
He spun around. She yelped, covered her eyes, and ran into a tree.
“Shit,” he said, turning his shoulder lights off.
“The hell, Pops? Goddamn.”
Cujo, trying to keep from looking at her due to the helmet lamp, said, “I, uh…there’s blood on my night visor.”
“Fantastic,” Maze said, rubbing her eyes. “Congratulations.” She growled. “Look, I know you’re old as dirt and they probably didn’t have night vision back then, but goddamn it.”
“Sorry,” he said, not really sure what else to say. He hadn’t forgotten what light shined on a person wearing night vision goggles would do, just too caught up in the situation it slipped his mind.
And he shouldn’t have slipped.
Because, once you started slipping…that slope got greasier and greasier until one day you didn’t even know who you were anymore. That, above all else, was what scared Cujo the most. Losing his mind. Falling into dementia, never to escape.
Our cruelest enemies are ourselves.
Maze waved his apology away.
The others entered the clearing where he stood and he made sure not to look directly at them.
“Why are your lights on?” Benny asked.
Cujo sighed, gesturing for them all to come closer. “Huddle in.”
All around them and not far, sticks snapped, brush rustled, and devils growled.
The team did as they were told.
Cujo drew in a breath and blew it out slowly. But nothing would calm him now. Not with what they were being pinned against. Not with the situation as a whole.
“Alright,” he said. “You all know we’re surrounded. There’s more of them than we have bullets.” He glanced at each of them in turn without shining the helmet lamp into their faces. “We might not make it out of this one.” He slouched a bit. “Honestly, we probably won’t make it out at all.”
No one said anything. Not even Benny.
Maze lowered her head.
Wade looked away.
Ellen appeared to tremble in the glow of his helmet lamp.
Luna nodded; expression neutral. Firm.
Knowing it would be your last battle was a jagged pill to swallow. Everyone took it differently. His team now was no exception.
Benny, shielding his eyes from Cujo’s light, said, “But Reece said she was—”
“I doubt it’ll be in time,” Cujo said. “They’re almost on top of us now.”
Benny frowned, opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.
Closing in, the snapping of sticks…the growling.
Cujo straightened, acting the fearless leader one last time. “It was an honor to fight alongside you all, even for such a short time.” He raised his rifle. “Now, let’s send as many of these fuckers as we can to Hell.”
They pressed together in a circle, back to back, weapons at the ready.
“Use your lights,’ Cujo said, turning his shoulder beams on.
“I see better with night vision,” Maze said.
“Well,” Cujo said and grunted, “these bastards splatter.”
And, although he expected her to, she didn’t argue further. Everyone switched from the night visors to their helmet lamps and shoulder lights without complaint. True, they would probably see better and be more efficient using night vision, but sometimes it was best to go old school. Best to see what you were really up against, rather than something through a green filter.
The brush around them rustled, trembling in the spotlights. A foul odor, like a maggot infested raccoon on the side of a gravel road in midsummer, polluted the air. Something made an almost stealthy chittering noise from the tree canopy.
“If this is really it, man,” Benny said, “I want y’all to know that I…I think Wade is cute.”
“What?” Wade blurted.
Benny huffed. “Just kidding, you ugly little bastard.”
Despite the insult, Wade laughed. Hell, they all chuckled a little. Not because it was really funny, but nerves. The stress of their pending doom. All the above.
Cujo, smile fading, glared at the rustling foliage and wondered if the devils would make the team’s death quick, or draw it out into some horrid form of torture?
The question still lingered in his mind when the creatures crashed through the brush and swarmed toward the team. Even as he squeezed the trigger of his rifle, it remained. Clawing deeper and deeper.
A roar burst out of him as he swept the AC-900 back and forth. The bullets partially sheared off heads, turning everything into pink mush in the lights. Blood misted the night air. The devils shrieked and yowled. That, they never stopped doing. The very sounds already began to burrow into Cujo’s nerves like the worms of disease.
Each of the team did their part.
Luna let loose several grenades, blowing dirt and body parts in every direction.
Benny kneeled, picking off the devils farthest away with his sniper rifle.
Ellen tore through dozens with her gun, all the while screaming obscenities at the creatures.
Wade seemed to take a liking to turning their heads into bloody swiss cheese.
And Maze…she circled the team, adding her firepower to each of the team for a moment before moving on. A double whammy, of sorts.
Faces of devils obliterated. Arms and legs were blown to raggedy red ribbons. Blood-drenched torsos split into holey pieces.
And still…still they came.
Where the dead fell, more poured over and replaced them. An endless wave of snapping teeth and shrieking.
Cujo roared and took down a creature which dared take flight at him. It struck the ground hard, the hollow bones of its wings crackling like cellophane.
He roared until his rifle made that fatal click, signaling the mag was empty. He ejected it, grabbed a fresh one and slid it home.
Last one.
Cujo barely lifted his gun when a large devil crashed into the team, knocking him off his feet. The pain he’d managed to ignore since the mother of devils flared up like a maddening inferno and refused to snuff out. He cried out, rolling onto his side while the pain bit into him.
As hard as it was, he struck the pain aside and gained his feet.
He froze, mouth gaping.
