The Roaring Read online

  “Nothing living is bulletproof,” Grayson replied. “If it’s alive, it bleeds and dies. Things are as simple as that.”

  “Sir, I …” Fritz started. The tracker’s words were cut off by the sound of a distant roar. The noise was utterly inhuman and sent a chill that ran along Grayson’s spine.

  “What was that?” one of his men blurted out with no regard to concealing their presence in the clearing.

  Fritz’s eyes had gone wide in horror as he stared, open-mouthed, at something behind where Grayson stood. Grayson turned around slowly and saw what had left Fritz in such a state. The things were everywhere. They had to have been there all along, as nothing as big as they were could have possibly crept up so silently on him and his men. The creatures all stood between seven and ten feet tall. Not a single one of them had a head. Instead, each had a burning yellow eye near the top of its upper torso. The hair that covered portions of their bodies was a matted brown and blended in with the jungle they were emerging from. Their arms were overly long for their bodies like those of an ape’s. Their hands were made up of a thumb and three clawed fingers. The claws of the creatures gleamed in the sunlight and looked razor sharp. They moved slowly but with determined purpose towards the campsite. Grayson realized with a start that he and his men were completely surrounded by the monsters. The stomach of one of the creatures opened up to reveal a concealed mouth in the middle of his body. Jagged teeth lined the mouth. Grayson blinked, wondering if he was having a nightmare while he was awake. One after another, the other creatures opened the mouths in the centers of their bodies and roared. The noise was overwhelming. Grayson fought the natural urge to cover his eyes against the intensity of it. Whatever the creatures were, they were definitely not friendly.

  “Light ’em up!” Grayson shouted at the top of his lungs as he raised his AK-47 and hosed the closest of the creatures to his position with a stream of automatic fire. His men followed suit, each picking their own targets. A cacophony of gunfire filled the clearing and echoed amid the trees surrounding it. Grayson’s barrage of rounds slammed into the monster he aimed for. The monsters staggered from their impact, but Grayson could see the bullets sparking away from the layer of scales that covered the thing’s body beneath its hair. What the hell? Grayson wondered but kept the trigger of his rifle held tight continuing to pour rounds into the monster until the weapon clicked empty.

  Fritz had snapped into action at the same time that he had. The barrel of the tracker’s AK blazed at one of the monsters that was advancing on him. Fritz’s fire wasn’t any more effective than Grayson’s. It didn’t even slow the monster’s approach. To his credit, he kept firing right up until one of the monster’s arms rose above its head and came slashing downward at him. The monster’s claws ripped into him with such force that they tore bone as well as flesh, cutting three long openings in his body. Blood exploded from Fritz’s mangled body as the monster yanked its claws free from the depths of Fritz’s shoulder and chest they had torn into. Just like that, Fritz was dead and Grayson found himself facing two of the monsters alone.

  His men were doing all that they could to drive the monsters back from the clearing and failing. The amount of firepower they poured into the creatures was staggering, but not a single bullet succeeded in drawing blood from the monsters. Their armored scales were just too dense and hardened. Screams rang out as several of the men fell prey to the reaching hands of the monsters. One of the monsters grabbed a soldier and lifted the man above its head. With a quick tug, it yanked the man apart along his middle, tearing him in two. A shower of gore and spilling intestinal strands rained over the monster. It flung the two halves of the dead man aside and set its sights on another soldier not far from where it lumbered through the campsite.

  A solider that had emptied the magazine of his rifle with no effect on the monster he targeted threw the weapon into the trees and drew his sidearm. The soldier aimed his shots carefully at the monster’s single eye atop near the top of its torso. The monster raised its arms to protect itself, bringing it to a halt. Bullets sparked off the scales of its arms as the soldier desperately tried to get in a killing shot. For its part, the monster simply waited patiently for the soldier’s gun to click empty before it lowered its arms and started moving again. The soldier popped the spent mag from his weapon, trying frantically to ram a fresh one home. Before he could, the monster was on him. The claws of its right hand plunged into his guts. The soldier gave a cry that quickly became a sickening gargling noise as his blood filled his throat and sprayed from his open mouth.

  Another soldier, either too brave or stupid for his own good, had discarded his apparently useless rifle and went at one of the monsters with his machete. With a two-handed swing that had all his strength behind it, the machete’s blade struck the monster’s arm as it made a grab for him. The blade of the machete snapped as it met armored scales. The soldier gawked in horror at what had happened in the brief fraction of a second before the monster backhanded him and his head was ripped from his shoulders by the force of the blow. The soldier’s head rolled across the ground as his body collapsed, blood spraying from the mangled remnants of his neck.

  Grayson rammed a fresh magazine into his AK-47 as he backpedaled away from the monster that was almost within reach of him. “Fall back!” Grayson yelled at the surviving members of his unit as the monster he was engaged in suddenly lunged forward. Its claws swept through the air at him but caught the flat of his rifle which he brought up to protect himself instead of his flesh. The thing’s claws bent the rifle as it was knocked from his hands. Grayson grunted, feeling the vibrations of the impact in his arms. He stumbled backward as the creature took another swing at him. Claws slashed through where his throat had been a fraction of a second before. Grayson’s fingers closed on the butt of his holstered pistol as he yanked it free from his hip. He didn’t dare stop to take a shot at the monster though. Grayson knew he had to get out of its reach before its claws did make contact with. The other monster coming his way was closing fast too.

  A member of his unit was screaming. The man lay on the ground not far away. One of his legs had been severed from his body right below the man’s hip. Blood gushed from the wound, soaking the grass and seeping into the jungle’s soil. How the man was even conscious was a mystery to Grayson, but somehow the soldier was still fighting to stay alive. The soldier’s AK-47 chattered as he fired it point-blank into the Mapinguari, if that was indeed what the beast was towered over him. The monster’s chest almost looked to be on fire from the amount of bullets sparking off of it. If they bothered the monster at all, it didn’t show it. The mouth on its stomach was closed against the barrage of fire. It reached down to sink its claws into the soldier’s eye sockets. The soldier’s screams rose in pitch and then fell suddenly silent.

  “Fall back!” Grayson shouted again. “We’ve got to get through these things and out of this clearing!”

  Three of his men, Lucas, Zahn, and Hailey, met him as he ran towards the edge of the clearing. Some of the others left alive were engaged too intensely by the monsters to be able to make a run for it. Grayson didn’t care. They were expendable. He wasn’t in his view of things.

  “We need more firepower, sir!” Zahn shouted at him. “Our guns aren’t doing crap to these things!”

  “Tell me about it!” Grayson roared.

  Grayson and the three soldiers who had joined up with him made it to the edge of the clearing. There was only one beast left between them and making it out of the circle of death behind them. Lucas and Hailey both poured fire into the monster blocking their path, their rifles chattering. Grayson could see it wouldn’t be enough. He was carrying a grenade but had been hesitant to use it. He used it now. Pulling the grenade’s pin, Grayson charged directly at the monster. It opened the mouth where its stomach should be in a roar that nearly blew out his eardrums. Aiming carefully, Grayson hurled the grenade into the monster’s open stomach maw. Its roar was cut short as the grenade entered its mouth
and the roar became more of a choking noise. The grenade detonated inside the monster, blowing it apart in a shower of gore that splashed over Grayson, covering him in blood and guts. The path had been cleared though and that was all that mattered.

  Lucas led the way as Grayson and the other two soldiers with him followed. They had escaped the clearing where the unit had been surrounded and ran for their lives into the depths of the jungle. Gunfire and the cries of dying men could still be heard behind them.

  ****

  Colonel Lee used his time aboard the VTOL to explore the crates in its rear section. There was an impressive array of weapons stashed on the plane. This Heather woman truly believed in coming prepared for anything that her squad might run into. He and his unit had brought only their personal weapons and some extra ammo. In truth, it was all that needed for an in-and-out gig like this one. Colonel Lee spotted a case that was slightly larger than those around it and opened it. He whistled in appreciation at its contents. Inside the crate was a disassembled M2 Browning. That was some serious firepower to be lugging around.

  “Daniel, Jenkins! Get in here!” he called to two of the three guards posted at the VTOL’s ramp. The two soldiers rushed up the ramp at this command and saw why he had shouted for them.

  “Is that …?” Daniel started to ask.

  “It is.” Colonel Lee smiled. “It’s an M2 Browning with a full crate of ammo to go with it.”

  Daniel and Jenkins looked like kids on Christmas morning that had gotten a gift even cooler than what they had asked for.

  “I want this assembled and set up just outside this entranceway,” Colonel Lee ordered. “It’s here so we might as well make use of it. Every edge we have over the squad Braxton sent here is a bit more that will ensure none of us have to die out here in order to get the job done.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jenkins barked, grinning ear to ear, as he helped Daniel carry the machine gun and its ammo out of the plane.

  Colonel Lee stood just inside the plane watching the two of them set up the weapon while Reed continued to keep watch. He was glad to see Reed’s level of devotion to the task he had been assigned; however, he wasn’t his only protection. There were nineteen other soldiers beyond the three posted at the entrance to the VTOL who were guarding the perimeter of the clearing and the unit’s two copters and that didn’t include the two pilots who were sticking near their respective birds. The added protection of the M2 outside the VTOL perhaps wasn’t needed, but it was better to have it than not. He had set the VTOL’s comm. to the channel his men in the field were using. Well aware of the interference generated by the device they were after, Colonel Lee hadn’t expected to hear from Grayson and those he had dispatched into the jungle. The sound of a voice ringing out over the channel he had left open in the VTOL’s cockpit startled him. He turned and raced in that direction.

  As Colonel Lee reached the control panel for the VTOL’s comm., he heard Grayson desperately trying to contact him. Colonel Lee plopped into the comm. station’s seat and put on its headphones.

  “This is the colonel. I read you, over,” he answered.

  “Colonel!” Grayson’s tone was panicked. “We’ve taken heavy casualties, sir, and are on our way back to the evac zone.”

  “Heavy casualties?” Colonel Lee repeated the words, mulling them over. “You’ve located and engaged the Braxton squad then?”

  “Sir!” Grayson answered. “We …”

  Grayson seemed reluctant to tell him what was going on out there.

  “Spit it out, man,” Colonel Lee ordered. “Have you engaged the Braxton squad or not?”

  “No, sir,” Grayson told him. “We’ve encountered something else out here. I don’t know …”

  “Cannibals?” Colonel Lee pressed.

  “We have found signs of a local cannibal tribe that apparently engaged the squad the Braxton Corp sent, but we haven’t encountered them yet directly ourselves. What we ran into is much worse.”

  “Damn it, Grayson, just tell me what’s going on!” Colonel Lee bellowed, slamming a fist into the console in front of him.

  “I think they’re called Mapinguari, sir,” Grayson said. “That’s what Fritz called them before they tore him apart.”

  “What in the holy hell is a Mapinguari?” Colonel Lee snarled over the comm.

  “They’re monsters, sir,” Grayson exclaimed. “I mean real life, freaking monsters!”

  Colonel Lee rocked back in his seat at the comm. console not sure how to take what Grayson was telling him. The two of them had worked together for a long time. Other than his personal guards, Alan and Boulder, Grayson was the only person in the unit that he trusted to any real extent. Grayson was a professional and a rational man who wasn’t prone to exaggerating things or making excuses for his failures. What he was saying now though was insane. Surely the man knew that such a claim would earn him a bullet in his brainpan if he was making the crap he was saying up.

  “You’re telling me that you and your group were attacked by monsters,” Colonel Lee said, making a sincere effort to keep his voice calm as he spoke.

  “I wouldn’t believe what I am saying in your place either, sir, but it’s the truth,” Grayson assured him. “There were dozens of the things. They surrounded us in a clearing where the Braxton squad set up camp before moving deeper into the jungle. We never had a chance, sir. Those things … they’re bulletproof, sir. Our shots just bounced off them. Lucas, Zahn, Hailey, and myself are the only ones left. Everyone else is dead.”

  “Give me a second to process what you’re telling me, Grayson,” Colonel Lee snapped.

  Colonel Lee had dealt with a lot of things in his career. He had faced superior forces and emerged victorious standing on blood-stained ground. He had massacred entire villages to cover up and protect the presence of his squad at his employer’s request. Colonel Lee thought he had seen and done everything that a soldier could run into and live through, but monsters… That was a new one. If Grayson was telling the truth, and he had no reason to doubt the lieutenant beyond the simple fact of how insane it sounded, then everything had just taken a hard swing in F.U.B.A.R. category. Other mercs, cannibals, even biological threats, those were things he knew how to deal with, but real-life monsters were a whole other matter altogether. There were no rules of engagement or strategies for dealing with something that wasn’t supposed to exist in the real world. He leaned back to the comm. console, putting his hands on top of it as he spoke.

  “I agree with your decision to return to the evac. zone. We can deal with things further from there,” Colonel Lee said.

  “We’re on our way,” Lieutenant Grayson replied and their transmission was terminated.

  Eight dead and real-life monsters roaming the jungle, Colonel Lee thought. No one had said anything about dealing with monsters. He made a mental note to hike up the pay his unit would be receiving when they returned stateside with the device.

  ****

  Heather plowed through the jungle, doubling timing it back the way she and her squad had come. Nicholson was close on her heels with Roger and Flagston behind him. Walker brought up the rear, keeping an eye out for any sign of pursuit by the cannibal tribesmen that had attacked them twice already. There hadn’t been any sign of the natives since their last engagement with them. Heather didn’t dare hope their troubles with them were over though. As long as the cannibals had numbers to throw at them, she figured they would keep doing just that. To them, it might even be a matter of honor or vengeance at this point. Who knew how the minds of human beings that were willing to eat other human beings worked?

  They had been on the move for a good while now and her best guess put them only about an hour out from the evac. zone where Wallace and Glen were waiting on them. She hadn’t bothered trying to radio them. They were carrying the device that was causing the EM interference in the area with them so getting a transmission to the VTOL seemed unlikely; besides, she had enough happening in here and now that took priority. She knew that e
ven if the tribesmen had happened upon the landing zone and moved in on the VTOL, the odds were the plane and those she had left to watch over it were fine. Poison darts and clubs were no match for the armored hull of the craft. She considered firing off a flare to let Wallace and Glen know they were coming but decided against doing so. The risk that it would give away their current location to the tribesmen was too great. There was no guarantee that Wallace and Glen would see the flare anyway. It was still a long ways out from being sundown again.

  Heather stopped, motioning for the others to the same as the sound of gunfire echoed through the trees. What in the devil, she wondered. She had given Wallace explicit orders not to try to come find them no matter what happened.

  Nicolson stepped up beside her. “That’s a lot of gunfire for one or two people,” he commented as if reading her thoughts. “And I seriously doubt anyone armed the natives since the last time we saw them.”

  The rest of the squad caught up to them. Walker was frowning.

  “What the hell?” he asked.

  “If that’s Wallace and Glen,” Roger boomed in his deep voice, “they must have brought a lot of backup with them.”

  “It can’t be them,” Heather snarled. “I ordered them to stay with the Hopper.”

  “Wallace isn’t exactly known for sticking to those kinds of orders, ma’am,” Roger answered.

  “And there is no way they got back up in down here so fast,” Walker said. “The Braxton Corp would never have approved it. This run was supposed to be a covert one, in and out fast, with no help to call on even if we needed it.”

  “He’s right,” Nicholson agreed. “Whoever is out there, it isn’t our guys.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” Walker asked. “Based on where it sounds like that gunfire is coming from, it’s not far from where he made camp on the way in here.”

  “We’ll hold position here until whatever is going on over there is finished and then head in to see what went down.”