Continued from
this.
The defending of Equinox was successful, but as it turns out, that was only the beginning. Alpha team congragulated us on our sure victory. They were pretty nice guys after all.
I soon found out that White-hair was the general of Alpha team. After Bravo team won, I went over to his house to have a cold glass of Jack Daniels. After a few minutes of in-depth discussing about the ways of fighting and surviving, I heard one interesting news in particular.
Their own team, dispatched in January, 2008, went into the cold mountains of Xomborg, and was never seen or heard of again. I pitied the general's loss of this elite crack-down team. After saying good-bye to dear General Lee, I went back to Bravo base to make a proposal.
I'd rather say that their reactions were pretty positive. "Team goes into the Xomborg mountains and never seen from again?" Lieutenant Anderson said. "Sounds like fun." In truth, Bravo team was about as laid-back as the fictional crew in Cowboy Bebop. They couldn't give a damn about everything and anything around them, and yet, is really good at their jobs. Only the sniffling cowards decided to hang back and "guard" Bravo base.
The next day, we joined forces with Alpha team, and boarded the plane and took flight to the mountains.
At about 6:30 am in the morning, we arrived near the bases of the mountains. It was cold, and it was snowing. That much you could expect from high-altitude mountains. Colonel Anderson was never at loss for words: "Man, it's cold as bitter-sweet feck out here. Why couldn't it have been in Las Vegas?" the team looked at him. He shrugged "Sure, people may be hard to find in Las Vegas, but at least it'd be warmer than this."
That night, we set up a campfire, and gathered around it and discussed our next plan. A few of the soldiers wanted to rush into the secret labaratory that could be located in the mountains by way of a mineshaft. General Lee laughed and waved his hand about. Pure folly, he'd said. They went on discussing something else, as well, but I wasn't paying attention. I counted and re-counted our numbers. One person wasn't present.
After apparently having tired out the topic of finding their missing elite team again, we pitched tents, ate one last hearty meal before turning in. Soon, almost everyone was fast asleep, with one person still awake. Something gnawed at me, and it wasn't hunger. Instinct told me that something was terribly wrong, long before we'd even set out through the mountains.
I didn't sleep well that night. Dreams twirled around in my mind, giving me images here and there. First was the flash of blue, then the flash of something shiny and metallic. And lastly, but something that was possibly the most disturbing, the sound of the--
"LIEUTENANT NINJA!" I started awake, wincing in the glare of the morning sun. And stared right into the face of General Lee. "It's time to go. Much time to be made up." And I quickly got on my uniform and went outside to meet the team preparing themselves as well.
Still, someone was missing. "Sergeant Cornell isn't here." I noted. General Lee nodded. "Yes, it's been quite some time since he was missing." then he gestured "Come on, no time must be wasted, we must climb that mountain peak over there." Lee pointed to the lowest peak in the East. Then he marched off to interview the rest of the soldiers. I stared after him, puzzled. Cornell wasn't expendable. I looked around and saw some faint footsteps leading towards the peak, though the soldiers hadn't made that way quite yet. I followed the trail with my eyes, until to my consternation, the footprints met with a confusion of faint impressions upon the snow. Some sign of a scuffle must have broke out, and some traces of blood was seen here and there, and the one particular part of that area covered with snow seemed to be dark with something. Perhaps a pint of--
"MOVE OUT SOLDIERS!" General Lee cried, and the answering roar of approval from the throng of soldiers jolted me out of my reverie. I quickly got in line, and on we marched, towards the peak and up the hill.
When we arrived, a deathly silence hung in the air. The entrance to the mine shaft was seen, but it was a long way down to the ground. There was just something off about it all. The area around and near the entrance had a eerie feeling. We took out our parachutes, and floated down to the ground far below us.
With subdued noises, we tiptoed through the snow, closer to the entrance. In unison, we all peeked inside. Nothing stirred or seemed to live in there. Private Haversack, being the impulsive one, raised a gun to fire into for test. General Lee gestured sharply. Haversack put down the gun, much to my inner relief. All around us, the snow fell quietly down around us, their presence known only by the crunching of our boots.
With my AK-74 resting securely in my hands, I slowly inched forward, cautious to everything that occurred in the mines. It wasn't technically a mine. It was just a mine straight down to the end of the entrance, where it eventually opened up in a wide space, that was occupied by patrolling soldiers guarding the labaratory far below. My best guess would be that something would be waiting for us down there.
All at once, I could hear a soft moaning. Not like the muffled sounds of moaning during sex in a tent. More like a very unrestrained moaning. Some snuffling sounds could be heard, as if the unseen creature was smelling for us. I pointed my gun in the general direction of the sounds. Something shiny could be seen in the dark. Not the gleaming of teeth and fangs, though. It was...something else.
I scratched my nose with my free hand in deep thought. I'd seen something like this before. Not too long before the victory in Equinox, I'd been invited overseas to Rome, Italy to engage in a secondary weapon fight, consisting of only knives and--
My thoughts were cut off at that point, because Private Haversack let out a bloodcurdling scream. Some of a blue-and-red blur could be seen rocketing out of the mouth of the cave with something shiny in it's hands. A loud buzzing sound was clearly heard as Haversack was chopped cleanly in half by a chainsaw.
Private Haversack was unlucky to have died first--as we all fired at the creature--he was the closest to the cave and thus was the first person to be chopped to bits. The thing went down under a hail of Steyr Augs and AKs. When we were all certain that it was dead, I went closer to take a look at the face. It was human, obviously, but no longer living. I recognized the face as one of the missing CORPs that was assigned to guard the lab some years before General Lee's team went in the mountains as well. I wondered idly if Sergeant Cornell had met the same fate.
"My guess is..." Anderson said, as we all looked at the blood-red swiss cheese corpse, "...that's a zombie." As evidenced by the bite marks on Haversack before being sawed to bits.
Suddenly, several low moaning sounds from multiple sources emanated from the mine shaft. And rapidly growing louder as 'they' drew nearer. General Lee gave orders to find cover and a good position, and to ready our weapons for quite a lot of targets.
//+- YET TO BE EXPANDED -+\\
