Night of The Dead- Chapter 8: The Reception Party

Everyone of us were made to explain in detail the occurrences of that night to the higher authorities. Kheez was still in the room, expressing his piece. A day ago, Night Cat was seen by Crucist storming out of the debriefing room, furious. They couldn't handle us failing to complete our mission objectives. They couldn't handle us not being able to perform as well as they'd expected. But they were asking some other questions. Questions regarding that other party of Marines we encountered in Boston City.
" This sucks," Kheez motioned to me, on the other side of the hallway of the room he got out from. He gave a long sigh, and pulled out a cigar from his breast pocket. Cubancrafters. I could even remember the distinct smell of it lingering in my memories, back in my grandfather's old cottage by the woods. A fine 6 incher with a thick golden tag imprinting the brand. He then pulled out a black Zippo from his left shoulder pocket and snapped it open.
" These guys are definitely not happy with the way we worked."
" Now I know why Night Cat burst out of the room yesterday," Kheez mumbled with the cigar held in his mouth, and then dragged a long and heavy puff.
" So what did you tell them?"
" All of it. Everything they asked."
" You think they're suspecting us of something?"
Kheez played with the heavy smoke for a while, and his eyeballs rolled towards me. " For sure".
" I don't blame them. Those mercenaries did cause quite a havoc," I said.
The hallway was now dark. Only a few fluorescents were lit, causing a partitioned visibility along the corridor.

The thumping got louder. Night Cat was already closing in on us. His face looked awed somehow.
" Its huge, man! We need to start moving. There're at least 50 of them."
" What is huge? 50 of what?" Kheez was already nervously biting his cigar.
" I have no idea, but I bet they're the ones killing the people around here."
Kheez lit his Arclite up, but kept the flame at minimum. We were already unlocking the safety clips of our guns.
" Where are they coming from?" Crucist asked, already planning an escape route for the team.
" Everywhere. But I reckon we should get away from the huge thingy. He's coming from the southern end."
" Wow. So does he have a name, too?" Kheez let out a chuckle.
Night Cat gave Kheez a not-so-cynical look, and began digging into his lightpack behind him for another scope lens.
" Somehow I knew the flares we shot up are not all that good," Night Cat was already starting to whine.
From the fogged up distance, a constant tapping and crackling sound began escalating in volume. It sounded like long nails tapping against the tarmac; an enormous set of nails, this sound. All of us got our guns aiming at eye level towards that direction. It grew louder, the sound. I could already hear my own breath deepening, from the anticipation. We had no idea what anything looked like. All night Cat could picture were shadows moving around towards the garden, and nothing more.
The sound grew louder, as I adjusted my gun and await the arrival of the city's new hosts. Suddenly, the sound scattered. They're now coming from the other sides. The north, the east, the west. We're already being surrounded. I paced back from the team, taking aim at another road junction. Night Cat did the same, taking the east junction, and Crucist went for the last junction.
" I can't believe we're just gonna die like this!!!" Night Cat screamed out, and took his first shot. The roar of his gun ricochet pass the four buildings around us, and a copper shell bounced off the ground with smoke still coming out of it. Before the echo of the first shot subsided, another trigger was fired.
" They seem like lame and easy kills. But there's like a truck load of them."
I turned back to my junction, and was beginning to see the first few unveiling from behind the curtain of fog down the street. From the other side, Crucist was already firing away, letting out a stream of empty shells tapdancing on the ground. About a minute later, the group before me was already within my firing range. I switched into fire-at-will mode, and was taking down those things like they were dummies.
20 minutes passed. We were still firing at what seemed to be a never ending stream of monsters. We caught sight of them, alright. They weren't the ones that killed the people of Boston City. They were the people of Boston City. Lifeless zombies and mutated animals charged mindlessly toward us, one by one by one, and the queue did not seem to have an end at all. What was worse, was that the loud prominent thumping sound grew significantly louder now. We were getting worried. It was about time we planned for an escape route.
I turned to Crucist, and he was already looking for my eyes.
My ear piece crackled static, and Crucist spoke: " Guys. We're evacuating this garden. Start pushing the crowds further back so that we can get some room to group up at the top spike of the diamond."
Replies of confirmation repeated itself 3 times, including mine. We started boosting our firepower in hopes to clear a bigger area so it could buy more time to run for the top. Kheez's flamethrower was a rather short range firing weapon, so I had to back him up to get more clearance.
The thumping grew louder now. It was as if that monster was just beyond the end of the street. " We need to go now!" Crucist yelled out. With that, we started moving top. Kheez made the first move, while Night Cat and me helped keep the monsters behind him. Crucist placed his binoculars eye-level, trying to get a glimpse of what lied directly behind the fog just ahead of him. What he saw, awestruck him motionless.
" Crucist!" I called for him. I was already pouring my bullets in front of him, and my gun's Ammo Warning light illuminated. Night Cat and Kheez ran ahead to provide us cover, and their barrels were pointed at the stream of monsters from up top.
" Crucist! Come on, man! Lets go already!" Crucist suddenly regained consciousness and turned to face the rest of us. His feet began to work their way over to us, and when I was looking his direction, I saw what got Crucist petrified for a moment there. It was large, at least the height of a 3 storey building. It was..... I had no idea what words to put there, and thinking was not the thing I could afford at that time, so I turned and tailed Crucist toward Night Cat and Kheez.
" Its no use! We can't open a way from up here!" Night Cat said while he had his eye kept in scope. I looked for an alternative way to escape, but the crowd was already drawing in from all sides. At the bends of each junction, we couldn't even see the tarmac below the pursuiters. They were so cramped up it was simply impossible to have a path created without anything less than 10 minutes!
They were drawing near, and my gun clicked empty of ammunition. Shit! It'll take me at least 15 seconds to reload this gun, and we don't have that luxury. I pulled out my handgun and fired away, as I lowered myself and the gun to the ground to reload it with the other hand. It was as if we were already crippled.
As I was half way through my reloading, another gun clicked empty.
" Fuck!" I heard Crucist over the radio. This was it. 1 suppress-fire gun down was bad. Another Machine gun down, spelled death to us all. Inevitable death.
They clambered pass the curbs of the garden, and were already hot on our tails. We couldn't run any further up, as the crowd above were already unbreakable. We were already taking aim at animal type monsters jumping in at us, and Crucist was still reloading his gun.
From our completely broken spirit knowing for sure we'd die here, a loud explosion was heard all of a sudden. We all turned toward the sound and found it coming from the north street.
" What more do you have to show before you kill us?!" Kheez screamed out loud with his teeth firmly clenched, while trying to afford a few more kills....