Moore is next to the side door of the vehicle. She has been watching Macready, shielding the sun with one hand. The Major has suddenly turned, fleeing from the helicopter.
The man only runs a few meters, when something breaks through the glass of the cockpit. Monstrous tentacular appendages pop outside and flex laterally, developing bones, tendons and muscles. Within seconds they take the form of monstrous paws, asymmetrical and misshapen.
The structure trembles, with a lament of torn and bent sheet-metal. It deforms, while the two impossible limbs open the cockpit like a tuna can. Something protrudes between them. Ironside feels his legs wobble as he watches a creature that seems to come straight from hell. A horrible and gigantic merging of two heads that are vaguely reminiscent of those of tyrannosaurs. The gaping and deformed jaws drip mucus from the numerous sharp and curved teeth lines. The monstrosity is strongly asymmetric and the two heads appear melted on a diagonal axis, sharing one eye.
The infernal being throws a primal roar that reaches Moore and Ironside despite the distance, by vibrating their bodies.
The creature then jumps ungracefully out of the aircraft, falling heavily to the ground.
Macready turns to take a quick glimpse of the hideous monster, while rushing desperately toward the armored vehicle which is at about fifty meters away. The creature hesitates for a moment. Distorted forelegs sprout out, while the torso pumps organic matter in them, strengthening their structure. The back of the monster, where the limbs of the soldiers who were in the helicopter still flap frantically, throws out new appendices, which grow in a few moments, forming grotesque caricatures of animal limbs.
The creature takes its first tentative steps, then gets more confident, picking up speed as it starts hunting Macready.
“My God, open fire!”, Moore shouts.
Ironside doesn’t need any extra encouragement: framing the creature in the circular scope and opening fire is one action.
The being is ungainly and moves erratically, although quickly. The shots miss it by good measure.
“Damn, I may hit him!”, Ironside shouts.
Macready seems to have heard, and crouches slightly, trying not to lose speed. Behind him erupts a cacophony of barking, combined with heavy thuds on the ground.
Getting closer.
A second burst of Ironside hits the creature on one of its two heads and opens large holes in the flesh and in the underlying bone structure. However, this fails to slow it down. Instead, the blows have the effect to upset it even further.
“Go away! Run away!”, Macready shouts, aware of the imminent end.
Ironside and Moore don’t listen to him. The man keeps shooting at the creature, with the only result to open momentary gashes in his flesh and further unleash his rage.
Come on…
I can do it…
Moore suddenly starts running, moving rapidly toward Macready.
For a moment Ironside thinks that the woman is crazy, unsure why she runs to her death in that way.
“No! Run!”, Macready screams, seeing the woman rushing towards him awkwardly, clutching something bulky to her chest. The creature is coming at a gallop, a little more than a dozen meters behind him.
The woman goes on and runs another few meters. Then she leaves the object that she brought with her on the ground, immediately turning to flee back to the armored vehicle.
Only then, looking at what Moore has laid on the ground, Ironside understands her plan.
One of the plastic canisters with incendiary mixture.
Moore isn’t physically trained and, despite the adrenaline, she feels fatigue and her limbs become heavy. The short rush, with a one-gallon full can in her lap, has put her to the test.
Macready joins her, grabbing her by her right hand and yanking on.
Behind them other thuds of the creature make the terrain tremble, accompanied by shots fired from Ironside.
The abomination has almost reached the incendiary canister, when machine-gun fire centers the articulation of one of the legs. The sound of shattered bones is loud, and the monstrosity stumbles, crumbling to the ground. While keeping firing, Ironside lowers his aim, directing another burst onto the explosive, which detonates with a loud roar.
The creature swoops down in a devastating fire barrier that completely surrounds it. The surrogate of napalm sticks like a gel on its body, burning violently.
A hellish roar echoes in the desert, as the monster burns.
This is not enough to stop the creature. Its broken leg recovers soon part of its functionality, and the burning monster takes on a ramshackle march towards the armored vehicle, now at less than twenty meters.
Macready and Moore reach the vehicle. With some agility despite her bandaged left hand, she gets inside and quickly hands to the soldier two incendiary canisters taken from the interior. Macready grabs them on the fly, moving to the front of the vehicle to throw them to the abomination that keeps approaching. From the chest of the flaming creature emerge new tentacular appendages, which detach from the main mass and fall writhing to the ground. The newly formed creatures then develop crude insect limbs, with which they begin to move snaking on the ground, heading for the vehicle with the three survivors.
Ironside fires a barrage at the main body, hitting one of its big forelimbs. This one breaks, collapsing the entire creature to the ground. The mass of screaming flesh stirs in the flames for some long moments, then it stands still, keeping burning.
The two yellow plastic containers launched by Macready fall a few meters in front of the vehicle, but the soldier is already back in the car, attempting to start it.
After a few moments that seem eternal, the armored vehicle has a start and begins to move backward.
Creatures like giant centipedes move zigzagging on the ground, getting near the two canisters.
Almost sensing the danger, the monstrosities stop their run, then move sideways.
Suddenly the machine gun jams.
“Shoot the cans!”, Macready shouts, stopping the vehicle.
“The machine-gun is jammed. I think it has overheated,” Ironside answers from outside.
“Holy Christ,” Macready curses between his clenched teeth.
Ironside looks at the movements of the creatures. They have stopped their run a few meters from the cans with the incendiary mixture.
Those that appear as horrific centipedes, but as big as a large boa, approach each other. A pattern of protoplasmic offshoots protrudes from the surface of each of them, intertwining to form new tissue.
The creatures begins a rapid melting process.
“Something’s happening!”, Ironside exclaims. “They have stopped a few steps from the cans. I think they’re turning into something else.”
Macready mutters an obscenity, then he shoulders his assault rifle and checks the magazine, leaving the vehicle.
“Where are you going?”, Moore shouts after him.
“It’s a personal matter”, his answer. The Major takes another canister and walks toward the mass of transforming flesh.
The being takes on the appearance of a shapeless lump. Macready looks while readying himself to shoot.
As the marine approaches, the ungainly plasma slowly forms the shape of a squatting human silhouette.
A figure with its head down, bowed on itself to the ground.
What the hell…
The creature rises slowly. Macready is a dozen meters and he can now make out more details.
The monstrosity evolves quickly. Its shapeless mass takes new details. New muscles, blood vessels and bones are formed. A strange feeling sneaks into the soldier, as he sees a face modeling right before his eyes. Fingers sprout like mushrooms out of rough shaped hands. A sense of hypnotic stupor and family warmth makes its way into him.