Soul Hunt

My Name Is Marine

Sergent Kelly paced like a caged animal. All around him soldiers and administrive staff rushed here and there, every now and then shots could be heard from near the entrance to the area they were holed up in. The room was full of computers and staff were working feverishly at them, mainly trying to acess security cameras and keep contact with the few survivors, marines and civilians alike.

Around the walls of the room, soldiers were stationed at intervals. Each man was pressed to his part of the wall with a sound enhancer feeding into their headsets, Kelly was taking no chances. Among the distressing transmitions comming in from the varius squads that obviusly wouldnt survive had numerus times been the haunting cry of *THEIR COMING THROUGH THE WALLS*

Sergent Kelly was a man who listened to his men. Yes, listen, but not help, he thought bitterly as he threw himself into a chair in front of the terminal he had been pacing in front of. Jesus, 40 years as a military man and then when the big boom happens all he could do was sit and listen to his men die, or undie, come to think of it.

A cool female voice coming from the terminal indicated that there was somebody on the other side of the connection hed managed to establish with the terminal outside of Marine HQ. A moment later, the screen of his own terminal cleared and he found himself looking into the nervous faces of the bravo team.

"Bravo squad, glad to see you alive"

Kelly tried hard to inject calmness into his voice.

"Report"

A heavy set marine shuffled forward, much to the discomfort of his comrads, it was clear that they liked having him at the back.

"Sir, the base apears to be full of strange creatures Sir, we have as yet found no survivors that have not tried to harm or injure us, it is our belife that they are suffering from either some sort of gas or viral infection."

In other words they had been atacked by their friends, varius monsters and wanted to go home.

"Very good bravo team, your asingment now is to make your way to connections and send a distress signal out to the rest of the fleet. Whoever attacked this base, we cant fight them, your our only hope for survival, do you hear me?"

Kelly felt deep down for the ragged chorus that came back to him.

"Yes sir!"

"Good, and before you leave there may be another man, a corporal, meeting up with you at some point, please try not to shoot him."

"Yes sir!"

"Now move out!"

The screen went blank and Kelly put fis face in his hand. It was going to be a long night.

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The marine moved forwards, the shotgun he now possesed trained steadily in front of him. There was no other word for it, he wasnt stalking, or walking or running for that matter. He was moving. He had decided soon after returning to the maintenece tunnel that he was dreaming, that would of course explain everything. It would mean that this wasn't happening.

It had been a nightmare.

Shockwaves emenating from some unseen source had juddered the floor hard enough at times to send the marine stumbling, and on top of that, the noise was deafening. Screams and frezyd yells kept somehow tuning into the marines headset and were echoed by unseen beings all around him, human and otherwise.

The lights flickered constantly and more than once the marine had spotted or heard civilians being mauled, aparently by other civilians. He himself had been shot at by former comrads, although looking at their current condidtion he had decided that they wernt the same people any more. It made it so much easier to think like that.

And then there had been the monsters, or perhaps they were demons, he didnt care. All he knew was that hidius grey humanoids had at some point joined the comunal effort to rend him limb from limb like their other victums.

A gutteral hissing sound cut in on his thoughts and yet another of the grey monsters dropped from the ceiling. The marine had a second to dodge beofore a ball of smokey yellow flame singed the air where his torso had been.

The marine rolled upright then ran straight towards the thing, which hadnt been expecting this. For a moment, the bulky grey creature actualy moved back from the pale slender one, who then blew its head off.

The marine shook his head disdainfuly, he had thought these things were smart. Aproaching the lift he opened it by crouching at one side and waving his helmet in front of the motion sencor. The doors slid open and a dead marine staggered out snarling, a quick shotgun blast caused the rotting mans flesh to melt of off his skeleton.

The marine steeped over the rotting mass and into the elevator. Pressing the button that would take him back up to Mars City, he leaned againsed the lovley thick walls of the elevator and slowly exhaled.

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Betruger sat at a high tech laptop in his quarters. Data flashed across the screen like something from the matrix, and the doctors eyes were an almost constant blur as he seached for a weakness in the data stream.

One error, one flaw was all he needed, Betruger had helped build these systems and if Kelly thought that erecting his own firwalls againsed him would keep him out the man was a fool.

A hollow wimper emitted from the large bed behind him, Betruger ignored it. He had just spotted what he was looking for.

No-one would have seen it unless they had put it there. Betruger had always suspected that he'd need a back door into his own system, and here it was.

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"Pssst, hey! up here! quick!"

The marine looked round sharply. A hatch in the ceiling had just slid open, a mtealic rattle followed as a small ladder was lowered enough for him to reach.

Gratefully he swarmed up the ladder, the stairs back up to mars city had come down and he had been dreading the prospect of trying to climb up instead.

"Aieeeee!"

The marine turned his head, which had been carefully poked through the hatch, and saw a man in an engineers outfit cowering nearby. With a yelp he ducked back down just in time to avoid a heavy swipe from a wrentch. There was a painfully loud clang and the marine heard boots scrambling closer.

"Knock it off, man! im friend!"

A wight face peered over the edge of the hatch and stared down at him. The man above him swallowed vivsibly then answeard in a trembling voice.

"Alright then, who, and what the hell are you?"

"Im a marine, im dead."

The man goggled at him from his vantage point.
"Shure"

The marine gave him a Look.There was amoments silence then the man moved out of sight.
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"Alright then, come on up."

The marine moved back up the ladder, being careful this time not to move too fast. He stood up and looked around him, the room was small, just a simple space and judging by the pipes set all along the walls, an entrance into the vental areas. The air was hot and stuffy.

In the corner of the room, crouched behind a heavy box of tools, was the man who had attacked him before. He was eyeing the marine suspiciusly and still clutching the large steel wrentch as if about to strike. The marine didnt blame him, he knew at the moment that he must look alot like the monsters currently roaming around the place, barring the couloring and general hidiusness of course.

He decided that he'd better put the engineer at ease before he got his brains knocked out.

"So whats your name, engineer?"

"Just call me maintenece engineer, I dont think I want you to know much about me, your dead and your creepy and for all I know, you could be one of those things"

The marine rolled his eyes, did the man think he was going to curse him if he knew his name or somethig?

"Alright, if thats the case, my name is marine, corporal marine."

For a moment both men smiled at the obvius character impersination, then Maintenece sat down heavily, Corporal did the same.

"I was working up here when it started" said Maintenece "There was a - a shockwave - it passed thorugh the entire building...people started to change."

"You have no idea" Corporal asured him "There are people down there eating each other"

The mans eyes grew wide. Corporal pressed on mercilessly, watching Maintenences reaction.

"There are some sort of creatures down there as well, it looks pretty much like they like eating people too"

"You for real?"

"I had to blow most of their brains out to survive"

Corporal paused before he went on, he was going to have to leave soon and he didnt want a hassle. He turned and looked Maintenence in the eye. Maintenece found himself entranced, the dead mans eyes were huge, saphire ovals that reminded him of some old pictures of what people used to think aliens looked like.

Meanwhile the dead mans body was translucent, and oddly enough apeared to be glowing. Maintenence shuffled uncomfortably, the fact that he found the pale flawlessness of the marines skin atractive made him feel awkward, and the dead mans slender build wasnt helping things.

"Im going to have to leave now"

Corporals strangly sexless voice brought him back to himself.

"Im not shure what im going to have to do to survive but I do know that I dont fancy running round this place alone. Fancy staying here waiting for something to sniff you out?"

Maintenece thought deeply.

"This place is pretty damaged, you may need me, right?"

"Yes, but do you want to be alone?"

"No"

"Know how to use a pistol?"

"I can learn, if we go through the vents" Maintenence gestured to an opening behind them "then we'l come out in some offices, im shure that from there we can get to wherever we want to go"

Corporal nodded and turned to the opening, wordlessly handing his pistol behind him to Maintenece, he knelt down and strained his ears passed the sound of hissing pipes. He manovered himself inside, and then turned to Maintenece, who had followed suit.

"Stay close"

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