“So there’s no other option?” Michelle asked. “We make a stand or die?”
“Looks that way,” Daniel answered.
“Great,” Michelle said bitterly. “Anybody got a plan as to how we do that?”
“We could lock down the upper levels. Buy ourselves some time to think,” Darren suggested.
“Are you insane?” Michelle appeared on the edge of exploding in his direction.
“No, wait.” Warren gave her a stern glance. “He may be onto something. Kyle, can you control the lockdown? Choose which doors to seal?”
“Yeah, sure. You want to lead them down a path, keep them from spreading out and using their numbers against us? I can do that, but remember, we don’t know how the lone rat got in. There’s no guarantee we won’t be facing them from two or more places regardless.”
“If we’re going to make a stand, doing it gives us more of a chance than not trying it.” Warren pointed at the layout of the base on the scanner screen. “Try to force them through here.”
Kyle spun around in his chair and went to work laying his preparations.
“Daniel.” Warren laid a hand on the hulking man’s shoulder. “Go round up everyone you can who knows how to use a weapon in close quarters. Michelle, Jenkins, go break out the flamethrowers.” Warren placed a finger on the screen. “We’ll meet them here in the main corridor, two doors in from the main ones. They shouldn’t have time to break in any more than that before we’re in place.”
“What about everyone else?” Darren asked.
“Arm them and send them back to the mess hall until we see how this goes on the upper levels. If it goes well, the rats may cut their losses and bug out.”
“I doubt that,” Kyle said, looking over his shoulder at Warren as he worked.
“Me too, but if they do, it’ll be our window to make a run for it. If not, taking us out is going to cost them. They’ll have to pay heavily for every foot they make it inside.”
Five
By the time Warren reached the spot on the upper level where the group had opted to make their stand, the others were waiting. Daniel and Jenkins wore the flamethrower units, which would be the group’s core defense. Michelle and Brent, being better marksmen, carried assault rifles; it would be primarily up to them to hold off the burning dead. Mike and a young woman named Brook stood behind them, armed with scattershot shotguns to deal with whatever rats made it through the flames and to cover the group’s retreat, if it came to that.
Warren had arrived late because he’d stopped to place several charges on the corridor walls farther down in order to slow the enemy if they were forced to bug out faster than they planned. Already, the demons were pounding away at the last inner door.
“Looks like you made it here in the nick of time, boss,” Michelle said, smiling.
Warren returned her smile and readied the bulky, eight-shot grenade launcher in his hands, taking aim as the door fell inward and an angry demon met them with a half-surprised screech.
“Light ‘em up!” Warren yelled and pulled the trigger of his weapon. The grenade caught the monster in the chest, knocking it backwards in a mass of blood and bone.
The defenders rose up from their makeshift cover as rats came pouring towards them. Twin jets of flame streaked into the passageway, frying the lead rats as they ran headlong into the blazing streams. The rodents began to realize they were not gaining ground and withdrew as the dead came staggering in.
Daniel and Jenkins fell back, and Warren, tossing aside his launcher in favor of an AK-47, joined Michelle and Jenkins as they opened up on full auto, spraying the dead in the confined space. Warren and Jenkins quickly switched to placing their rounds for more effect as Michelle kept up the onslaught, pushing the corpses back as best she could. Despite their efforts, the dead gained ground.
Mike stepped up and fired around Michelle as she paused to reload. Brook stayed in the rear, and she was the one to notice the rats using the dead for cover. “They’re coming back!” she screamed, unable to fire with her friends in front of her.
Pressing themselves against the walls, Warren and Brent reloaded, then resumed firing as Jenkins and Daniel took the center, smothering the floor of the corridor in flame. More rats squealed, dying as they were cooked alive, but the dead paid no attention to the fires swirling about their waists; they continued to press forward. The base’s defenders were ever so slowly being forced to retreat.
Then Daniel’s flamethrower ran dry. “Incoming!” he shouted and ran behind the others as the rats made a renewed push forward. Jenkins cranked up his flame and engulfed the whole corridor in a sea of fire.
“Fall back!” Warren ordered.
Kyle, who was watching the battle from the control room, sealed a door behind them as they retreated deeper into the complex. When the door slammed shut, the defenders paused to regroup. Benji came running up to them with a new flamethrower in his hands. Daniel grabbed it and began to strap it onto his back.
“Thank you,” Warren told Benji. “Now get the hell out of here!”
Benji turned and fled as the pounding on the door started.
“Grenade again?” Daniel asked.
“Can’t,” Warren replied. “Not enough cover this time.”
“What about the demon?” someone shrieked.
“We’re going to have to shoot the fucker!”
The monsters bashed through the door, and it flew inward, slamming Brent into the wall and cutting his body nearly in half. Blood and intestines spilled from the long gash across his stomach.
The demon sprang at them like a force of nature. Michelle and Warren blasted it, and spent round casings clattered to the floor around them. It howled in pain but kept moving straight into the heart of the group, clawing away most of Jenkins’s face. His finger tightened on the trigger of his flamethrower, hosing Daniel and Mike. Daniel’s flamethrower exploded, and Jenkins’s erupted soon after.
Michelle and Brook managed to evade the blasts, ducking away around a corner. They got to their feet as the demon came around the bend, stumbling, its whole body ablaze.
Brook watched in horror as Michelle stepped up to it and stuck the barrel of her rifle against its face. She pulled the trigger, and its head splattered from a point-blank, three-round burst. “That’s for Warren,” she whispered as its body toppled over with a thud. Michelle stared at the burning thing with tears welling up in her eyes until Brook yanked her backwards by her shoulder, screaming for her to come on.
Kyle’s voice boomed over the intercom. “Run! Get to the lower levels! I’m locking down the top completely—run!”
Brook dragged Michelle into a lift and didn’t let go until its doors sealed behind them. Michelle slumped to the floor, shaking with sobs. Brook kneeled beside her and took her in her arms.
The lift didn’t stop until it reached the bottom level. Darren met them and helped Michelle to her feet. “Kyle’s on his way here, sealing the last of the doors manually behind him.”
Michelle took a deep breath, steadying herself. “How long?” she asked.
“Kyle said he didn’t know. If they work their way to a lift and come down its shaft, less than an hour, tops.” Darren reached out and put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry about Warren.”
She slapped his hand off her. “We don’t have time for this. I’m the only one left who has real training in fighting the rats. I’ve got to do something to try and stop them.” She marched off towards the mess hall with Brook and Darren reluctantly following her. “These people need to know what’s coming,” she said without looking back.