Colossus
Time travel was made possible twenty years ago. Strictly confidential military use, of course. Technically, time travel will be made possible in fifty years. It’s intriguing that whenever time travel is thought about everyone looks to the past. Currently, I’m on a mission to investigate an operation that ended up a failure and to find out why.
“Colonel Reed, I have good news to report sir,” Sergeant Bale, my second in command for the mission, reports.
“Spill it,” I say.
“I’ve found the squad, all of them sir,” he says.
“Wonderful,” Doctor Irving, our medic for the assignment, exclaims.
“Who’s present?” I ask to confirm the briefing information.
“Asai Inori, samurai of Godah, Red Calvin, Leonardo da Vinci, Bastiaan, prince of Sparta, and Otapi, Choctaw Indian, sir,” Bale says.
Shortly after the invention of time travel the military decided to enlist several warriors of different parts of history in order to better our own troops and, perhaps, to teach them something about future warfare, “Good, give them the orders from Command and let’s move out.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Doc, check all the men. Make sure they’re healthy.
“Yes sir,” he replies as he heads to our makeshift tent of the jungle’s thick foliage.
The men look operational; Inori’s armor (as well as everyone’s) has been upgraded after his arrival, but to his request we kept the styling of the samurai armor, but now it could sustain a sniper round without Inori feeling more than recoil. Red Calvin dons his twin six shooters on his waist, his brimmed hat angled over his face and his overall ambiance is that of grit and gall, while Leonardo da Vinci on the other hand has set himself up on the doctor’s bench and while Irving checks his vitals he scribbles away in his notebook. Bastiaan, the most muscular of the group is tightening his sandals and washing his sword in the small stream that ran past the towering tree we set camp next to. Otapi is busy witling arrows out of the surrounding fallen branches and is singing a song in low moans and bass hums. Sergeant Bale stands in the middle of the camp and fills the group in on our objectives, “Command has informed us that we are to take a different route in order to succeed at this mission. I hope you all understand the situation that could have occurred had we not arrived.”
A mumble of agreement bustles among them.
“Command has suggested we split and take separate routes and meet at the rendezvous point set up originally. Clear men?” Bale asks.
More agreement this time; the men seemed discouraged that they wouldn’t be successful had they been on their own. “Men, we’re going to split each other right down the middle, each group is going in different directions. Bale and I will choose our men then we’ll move out.” I explain to the men.
“Inori, Otapi, and Dr. Irving, follow me,” I say.
“Leonardo da Vinci, your ideas could come in handy for what I have in mind. Bastiaan and Red, you two will be great assets,” Bale commands.
“Sir, yes sir,” they all respond.
“Troops, we’re headed down the path, along the stream and try to come around back of the mission point,” I tell them.
“My group, we’re heading up the hill to the house in order to get recon position,” Sergeant Bale tells his group.
We split and I lead my group under the lush canopy of green overhead and the gurgling stream trickles by at twice our walking pace. My men look acute and as we walk, we survey the incredible environment.
“Biological reconstruction is a fascinating science,” says the doctor to himself, “To think that just a decade ago this was all vast desert, but thanks to genetic engineering and modern technology we can create an entire ecosystem.”
“It’s unnatural,” Otapi interjects.
“I can’t disagree there, but by creating the false jungle we provide the groundwork for Mother Nature to do her own handiwork,” replies.
“What do you mean,” I ask.
“Well, the engineers and biologists only produced the jungle and put very few forms of life within it, wondering what would come of it all. Though, they did experiment with the life they did put in, but I’m unfamiliar with what that would entail,” he explains.
“Unnatural,” Otapi repeats.
We continue walking for another hour, discussing what certain plants must have been bred to create the ones in the jungle when the silent one, Inori, stops. We all stop. His hand rests on the hilt of his katana.
“What is it Inori?” Dr. Irving inquires.
“Shh.”
All is quiet, except for the trickling stream. There comes a hissing noise from the trees and bushes, but I can only imagine the gases of the jungles as the cause. A rustle from a bush on the other side of our path and we all turn from the stream to look behind us. A beast leaps out and the doctor and the creature are in the stream, water splashing, mixing, and diluting the doctor’s blood. “Oh God!” Irving screams as the beast’s teeth dig into his chest and the blood pours into the crystal waters, all the while the powerful tail waggles in the air. A snap emits as the creature’s head tweaks and Irving’s flailing ceases. Inori’s slice is precise, but late. The doctor is dead and the reptile decapitated. The sound of Inori’s blade whistles through the air as he flings the blood off the blade into the stream. All is quiet again.
“Men, hold steady,” I command; shocked and curious. What lies before us is the corpse of a man of medicine and a prehistoric beast, a velociraptor, scaly and bloody. Inori has decapitated the bastard and his gaping maw still grips Dr. Irving’s skull, teeth smothered with the fresh blood and flesh. Now was the time to assess the situation. How well equipped are my men for another surprise attack? Inori has his trusted blade, Otapi has a bow and a knife, both of which are military grade, the best there is, and he’s deadly with both, and I stand here with my own arsenal. A standard issue assault rifle that has pulled me through my survival in The Last War, securing my life and my promotion to a colonel. My pistol clipped to my thigh has enough firepower to desolate a human easily, but raptors are something else entirely. Above my waist I also holster my standard issue knife, perhaps the most useful weapon a soldier can own.
“Unnatural,” Otapi mutters as he examines the raptor.
“Otapi, get to higher ground and tell me what’s going on around us,” I command.
“Sir, yes sir.” Otapi climbs a nearby tree and reaches the top branches swiftly. He signals to us below by moving his hand in a circular motion. We’re surrounded and they’re closing in. I unlock my assault rifle and Inori gets in a defensive stance. We lean on each other’s backs as Otapi perches high above taking aim with is bow. He fires two arrows and swings around to fire a third. As I see the blur enter a nearby bush on a ridge above the stream I hear a cry that brings about the image of the twitching artificial intelligence we eradicated during The A.I. War I was drafted into at nineteen and the eventual genocide I took part in, the screeches emitted were more mechanical, but a death is a death.
“Ready Inori?”
“Yes sir,” he whispers.
Above I hear Otapi whistle and as I look up he pulls a grenade and as he throws it over our heads I see the glow it emits as it sails into the tall grass that we walked through earlier and I see two different paths of shaking grass rustle over to investigate. The explosion echoes across the jungle and a force trembles the foliage in the nearby area. A shower of blood sprays down, staining the dried grass and the other raptor’s body comes flying toward me, knocking Inori and me to the ground and its squirming body crushes me. “Inori!” His blade swings in the air and refracts the sunlight trickling through the leaves above us for a split second as he flips the blade downward, impaling the raptor through the eyes and pinning its head to the ground. A spurt of blood splashes into my mouth; bitter and thick, causing me to gag. Inori and I lift the raptor off of me and above Otapi fires one more arrow and leaps down the tree, agilely stepping on the branches as he descends the primitive staircase. A raptor runs out from the edge of the dried grass and stops, an arrow lodged into its neck. Its head lowers and its jaw splits open to reveal a span of mouth and teeth. I waste no time unloading my magazine into his screeching skull. The entry wounds are unclear, but as the bullets left they carried with them a spew of blood similar to a rotating sprinkler.
“That’s the last one,” Otapi claims.
“Let’s move on before the smell of blood attracts any more,” I say.
“Yes sir,” Otapi and Inori reply.
We continue to make our way cautiously through the thick engineered jungle to the mission objective. The original troops were sent here to rescue the scientist that created the jungle after they sent out an urgent distress call a couple weeks ago. Command said the original mission failed because the scientist fled the house after the jungle spread exponentially, flooding the building with foliage and our men became disoriented by the growing vegetation. The men sent distress calls, but couldn’t give coordinates; quickly men reported deaths, then calls stopped altogether. Command decided all were KIA and the mission deemed a failure. The brightest minds in science and some of our best warriors, all killed.
“bssssh, come in Reed… bsssssh… up here… need… bsssh,” the radio yells out.
“What was that last message Bale? You’re breaking up,” I reply.
“bsssh… emerg… evac… bssssh,” Bale responds incoherently.
“Damn jungle is breaking the signal,” I mutter to myself, “Bale, are you in the house? Do you see the scientists?”
“bsssssh. They’re here…But… bsssh… Don’t…. bsssh.” The static stops.
“They’ve found the scientists. Let’s move to our objective men. On the double!”
“Sir!” Inori and Otapi reply.
We pick up our pace and reach a clearing in the jungle. Mud and puddles litter the spongy ground and the smell of rotting carcasses singes my nostrils. Looking around we see dead dinosaurs, many of which have been torn into and their bones exposed. Ribcages and limbs are scattered about and the large puddles of water are systematically spaced between each other. “This way,” I motion to the men to follow around the perimeter. The ground shakes. The grass shake like hit car antennas and a monstrous roar rattles our weapons and bones.
“Trouble,” Otapi whispers, his eyes scanning frantically.
“Calm men,” I say.
The sound of falling trees get closer as we see the leaves and branches high above on the other side of the wasteland quake. A Colossal silhouette forces itself between the trees like curtains and the enormous face of a tyrannosaurus rex is pushes out from the flora. The ground stops shaking. A moment of silence as the beast peers in. Large amounts of saliva drip from the blood-soaked maw of the giant and the beady eyes dart about. “Stay,” Inori murmurs. The t-rex brings the rest of its massive body into the mud and as the ground sinks underneath its weight moisture is squeezed out to fill the new crater. Each step, cushioned by the mud, trembles the ground as the dinosaur steps closer. Out of the corner of my eye I see Otapi move slowly as he puts an arrow to his bow and as he pulls back I hear the tension as he steadies his aim. A whistle of the arrow is the only warning the monster gets before the arrow infuses with the beady eyeball. The head flails wildly as another earthquake is caused by the voice of the beast. The raptor in its mouth drops to the ground with a plop.
“Move,” I shout as I pull out my assault rifle and reload it with a fresh magazine.
Inori dashes to a nearby dying tree and begins climbing. His armor hinders his flexibility, but he ascends swiftly. The t-rex recovers and begins running straight for Otapi, ground rumbling with each step. The arrow impaled in his eye wags as he lumbers and Inori coils; as the t-rex runs past the tree Inori springs onto the back of the dinosaur and stabs his katana deep into the spine, getting a firm handle. The creature flinches, but continues toward Otapi while I circle around hastily to the tree Inori scaled. Otapi stands his ground and pulls out his knife. His eyes are steady and locked as the beast lunges for him; he quickly thrusts his hand upward and stabs the upper lip of the t-rex. With the momentum of the beast recoiling he swings himself onto the nose and grabs the nostril of the opposite side of where he stabbed, leaving him clutching onto the front of the dinosaur’s mug. I begin shooting its throat and as the blood gushes through the scaly skin he whips he head towards me, Otapi and Inori still clutching tightly. I stop firing and the Inori quickly retracts his katana and clamors to its neck, impaling once again. Roaring again the beast flails hysterically, Otapi’s legs flapping in the air. I holster the rifle and arm my pistol, taking careful aim at the t-rex’s other eye. The beast pauses to balance itself and I fire. Blood flows from the socket and the creature is blind.
Its jaw hangs loose and Otapi wastes no time to release his nostril holding hand and lodge a grenade into the back of the dinosaur’s mouth. A loud choking gurgle and Otapi drops several feet, plopping into the mud just as the explosion blows the dinosaur’s jaw apart. The beast collapses and a wall of mud splashes up. Otapi reclaims his dagger, Inori jumps down and I dash over, pulling my knife out as well. We all begin hacking at the beast’s throat until the moaning and growling stops and the blood ceases to pump out. The muddy crater around the tyrannosaurus rex is filled with blood instead of water.
“Amazing job men,” I commend them.
“Sir,” they reply with a sound of satisfaction in their voices.
We continue to the rendezvous point tired and rest for several hours. Bale no longer replied to my radio calls and they never showed up. We stayed up all night and the next morning there was still no answer. Command sent their copter and the three of us boarded. We flew over the mansion, but saw nothing except the enshrouded shell of a house, overflowing with plant life. Another mission failure, but perhaps another squad will be sent back to rescue the scientists and us in another fifty or so years. I have an inkling things won’t be different.
THE END
“Red, Bastiaan, and Leonardo, follow me,” I say.
“That leaves Otapi, Inori and Dr. Irving to work with me,” Bale says.
“Sir, yes sir,” they all respond.
“Men, we’re heading to the house on the hill to the west. It’ll be a great reconnaissance spot,” I tell them.
“My group, we’re following the stream into the jungle to reach the mission point,” Bale tells his troop.
We split up and head our separate ways. Walking up the steady slope the ground of leaves crunch, their rooftop of foliage scarce, letting the sun dry them out. Leonardo has been surveying the area since they first arrived, so I figure I could get some information from his observations, “da Vinci, what do you know about the area?”
“The plant life is all new, nothing here has been found in existence before, though there are several familiar properties to flora recorded in the past. Perhaps cross breeding is the answer, though whether it’s natural or artificially created is hard to tell. That’s one question I was hoping to ask the scientists once we locate them: Which plants were genetically augmented and which bred naturally over time?”
“If it were up to me, I’d burn it all. We’d find the scientists easier without trees in our way,” Red comments.
“Such marvelous creations would disappear from existence if that happened,” Leonardo pleads.
“So?” Bastiaan interjects, eyes stoic and locked on the path straight ahead.
“Think what you will, but what I find most interesting is that the plant life seems to be growing at an accelerated rate. Over the past two days we’ve been here I haven’t once seen a creature, but I’ve come across several new flowers that weren’t there just the day before,” Leonardo says.
“Interesting,” I say, “Do you have any idea why the scientist would send out a distress call about fast-growing plants?”
“No, but there’s probably more information to be discovered once we reach the house,” Leonardo answers, “I’m hoping the scientists aren’t too far away from where the experiments started. One would think the house would be the safest place to be when things go wrong. It is a secure location…”
“Apparently Command says the plants overgrew into the house; caught them off guard. Perhaps they just panicked from the outside scenery coming in,” I suggest.
“Or perhaps one of them went crazy from being alone in the jungle for years,” Red adds.
We debated the mindset of the scientists that created the jungle while we walked and the sun began to fall in the sky, darkness was less than three hours away now. When we reached the house we all took a break to relax on the wooden steps of the porch. The house had been flooded with plants and as the roots, leaves, and branches weaved in an out of the two story mansion I could see where the wood paneling and brick foundation had been pushed apart and splintered by the slow power of the growth. The house looks decrepit and crooked as the windows were all broken and the roofing was porous.
“Whorehouse,” Red remarks.
Bastian smirks, “One can hope.”
“Shall we enter?” Leonardo asks.
“Men, Let’s head in. The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can leave.”
“Sir,” the three men respond.
Inside the house smelt pungent of decay, the air was stifling thick due to the plants that emitted foul odors.
“What’s that disgusting smell? I’ve smelt better cattle,” Red says
Leonardo looks pale with disgust and Bastiaan covers his mouth and nose while he hacks at roots blocking doors from opening. There was creaking in the floors above us and scratching noises came from a few of the surrounding walls.
“Must be the plants growing,” Bastiaan mutters through his fingers.
“Must be,” Leonardo agrees as Bastiaan’s broadsword splintered a doorframe after cutting away some greenery.
We file into the room and the floorboards seem to give a little as I walk atop them. Leonardo walks over to a table with a logbook on it, “Fascinating! They found ways to create new plant life by incorporating cells from other life forms,” he continues scanning the text, “Impossible. They found…” but the floorboards collapse under his feet and da Vinci yells as he falls into the basement below. We all rush over and look down the hole. Leonardo is coughing up blood, “Men, I think I’ve fallen.”
“No shit,” Red replies.
Leonardo had fallen onto the broken floorboards and one was impaling him through the stomach, it’s splintering point soaked in his blood, “Oh my,” Leonardo exclaims, seeing the board protruding from his chest. His screams shake the whole room as he begins flailing uncontrollably, failing to get up.
“Leo, stop moving,” Bastiaan yells down.
Leonardo stops moving, but his agonizing screams continue. As we peer down on the ring of light da Vinci was engulfed in there was movement from the fringes of light. “What was that?” Red asks, but before anyone could answer two humanoid figures reach out and rip Leonardo’s right arm and leg off. Leonardo begins thrashing again and the blood trail of his nubs are like a high-pressure garden hoses in a yard. A third figure appears above Leonardo’s head and lets out a low moan before biting into his skull and Leo’s flailing ends as his brain and blood spill out. Red pulls out one of his six-shooters and lodges a bullet into the person’s head, creating a softball size crater, “Die!” he shouts as he blows the other two’s heads apart while they feast on Leonardo’s limbs. The roots and fallen boards are soaked in glistening blood.
“What are those things?” Bastiaan asks.
“Zombies,” Red replies.
“Not quite,” I say, “Did you notice their blood? It was yellow.”
“I don’t care either way, let’s just kill them and get the hell out of here,” Red says.
We leave the room and try heading upstairs, but the staircase is covered in foliage. The creaks and scratches we heard earlier became more frequent and louder. Bastiaan begins heading upstairs when another moan emanates from the second floor. One of the bloodthirsty people stumbles at the top of the staircase and falls. As they tumble Bastiaan slices his sword upward, cutting the zombie in half, rolling past Bastiaan on either side. As the halves reach the bottom of the stairs the yellow blood pouring out reeks of rotting fruit and feces. Red wastes no time blasting the face of the undead and small pieces of teeth and cartilage are flung into the air; the open halves of the corpse launch roots that connect with the rest of the plants veining the house and they begin twitching.
Upstairs is a single open room, but five tree trunks burst from the floor and spire all the way through the roof. Moans and shuffling are audible all around us. The waning sun’s light is bursting through cracks in the walls and ceiling and through the musty mist the zombies can be seen staggering towards us, bile and blood dripping from their mouths. Red reloads his gun and pulls out his second gun, Bastiaan raises his sword and I pull out my assault rifle. Three mindless scientists get in close proximity and red fires a round into the kneecap, separating the leg, and the bastard collapses with a groan, but before he hits the floor Red fires another bullet into his forehead, nectar spilling between the cracks of the wood floor. Bastiaan rushed to one of the others and swings his blade, cutting both the arms off of the zombie, and as the limbs wriggle on the ground the undead lunges forward; Bastiaan steps aside and strikes down on his neck, decapitating the man, another honey colored fountain pours from the hole. Roots and branches clamor from the open wounds and mend to the tree trunks. I begin shooting the last one, a female, and her high pitched shrieks echo as she falls to the ground, shredded and oozing. Bastiaan follows up with a downward thrust, bursting floorboards and the screaming corpse falls down to the first floor; the room Leonardo fell in and she hits the side of the hole to the basement and flips onto the corpse of da Vinci.
“We need to get out of here before the whole place falls apart,” Red says.
“Let’s go. Move out!” I shout, but there’s a crashing noise. The roof peels back and shingles and branches fall as a colossal face shoves itself in to look around. A hairy face the size of a double-decker bus with fiery orange eyes peers in; matted gray fur, outlining the tight leather face of an oversized ape.
“Holy…” Red mutters. The eyes squint and the house quakes as the giant ape tears it apart. Bastiaan sprints across the breaking floor, the ape no longer looking in the hole and only his exposed chest hair visible; springing, Bastiaan latches onto the coarse dirtied hair, rising with the ape. The rest of the house collapses and the full size of the ape is realized. He is over six stories tall and his hair is smeared with mud and greenery and as he turns back to tear more of the house Bastiaan’s body swings limply trying to clamber up the beast. “Steady girls,” Red mutters to his six-shooters as he aims up, his hat low and his dusty overcoat flapping from the wind cause by falling debris. Three shots from each pistol and the beast is enraged. His face bloodied and his groins tattered, the ape is reduced to all fours and Bastiaan takes advantage of the arc and runs along the top of his back, easily reaching the head of the beast. I empty the magazine into the scrunching face of the beast while Bastiaan stabs the hell out of his cranium, the cracking of the skull ringing out across the hill and rubble. “Hahahahahaha!” Red laughs as he fires the last of his barrels into the mouth of the ape, shattering its teeth. Zombies crawl out from the collapsed house and moan as the ape viciously steps on them, causing their rotting bodies to burst like water balloons and the pineapple colored blood splatters the grass. An undead scientist somehow crawled up next to me, her body severed in half from the waist below. I swiftly pull out my knife and drive it into her skull and as her eyes roll into the back of her head, tiny roots sprout from the hole and slither up the blade, tickling my hand. Quickly I pull back and kick her skull clean off here decomposing neck, a spurt of putrid blood soaks into my pant leg, causing my nostrils to burn. The ape roars and I look over to see Bastiaan hard at work with the beast. Bastiaan’s stabs started at the top of the spine, but now he has reached the edge of the ape’s forehead. An earth-quaking roar is let out as his cranium splits in half by the Spartan’s powerful finishing stab; a massive yellow brain spills to the ground as the beast collapses, dead.
“We’ve accomplished the impossible, men,” I commend.
“If only this was a whorehouse,” Bastiaan states.
The smell of rot stayed soaked in our clothes as we reach the rendezvous point, but Bale and his group never called on the radio or showed up. After several attempts of calling them, we eventually realized the worst must’ve happened. The next afternoon Command’s copter picks us up and we fly across the stream, but we find nothing, so we head back to base reluctantly. Yet another mission failure, but perhaps another squad will be sent back to rescue the scientists and us in another fifty or so years successfully.
THE END
“Colonel Reed, I have good news to report sir,” Sergeant Bale, my second in command for the mission, reports.
“Spill it,” I say.
“I’ve found the squad, all of them sir,” he says.
“Wonderful,” Doctor Irving, our medic for the assignment, exclaims.
“Who’s present?” I ask to confirm the briefing information.
“Asai Inori, samurai of Godah, Red Calvin, Leonardo da Vinci, Bastiaan, prince of Sparta, and Otapi, Choctaw Indian, sir,” Bale says.
Shortly after the invention of time travel the military decided to enlist several warriors of different parts of history in order to better our own troops and, perhaps, to teach them something about future warfare, “Good, give them the orders from Command and let’s move out.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Doc, check all the men. Make sure they’re healthy.
“Yes sir,” he replies as he heads to our makeshift tent of the jungle’s thick foliage.
The men look operational; Inori’s armor (as well as everyone’s) has been upgraded after his arrival, but to his request we kept the styling of the samurai armor, but now it could sustain a sniper round without Inori feeling more than recoil. Red Calvin dons his twin six shooters on his waist, his brimmed hat angled over his face and his overall ambiance is that of grit and gall, while Leonardo da Vinci on the other hand has set himself up on the doctor’s bench and while Irving checks his vitals he scribbles away in his notebook. Bastiaan, the most muscular of the group is tightening his sandals and washing his sword in the small stream that ran past the towering tree we set camp next to. Otapi is busy witling arrows out of the surrounding fallen branches and is singing a song in low moans and bass hums. Sergeant Bale stands in the middle of the camp and fills the group in on our objectives, “Command has informed us that we are to take a different route in order to succeed at this mission. I hope you all understand the situation that could have occurred had we not arrived.”
A mumble of agreement bustles among them.
“Command has suggested we split and take separate routes and meet at the rendezvous point set up originally. Clear men?” Bale asks.
More agreement this time; the men seemed discouraged that they wouldn’t be successful had they been on their own. “Men, we’re going to split each other right down the middle, each group is going in different directions. Bale and I will choose our men then we’ll move out.” I explain to the men.
“Inori, Otapi, and Dr. Irving, follow me,” I say.
“Leonardo da Vinci, your ideas could come in handy for what I have in mind. Bastiaan and Red, you two will be great assets,” Bale commands.
“Sir, yes sir,” they all respond.
“Troops, we’re headed down the path, along the stream and try to come around back of the mission point,” I tell them.
“My group, we’re heading up the hill to the house in order to get recon position,” Sergeant Bale tells his group.
We split and I lead my group under the lush canopy of green overhead and the gurgling stream trickles by at twice our walking pace. My men look acute and as we walk, we survey the incredible environment.
“Biological reconstruction is a fascinating science,” says the doctor to himself, “To think that just a decade ago this was all vast desert, but thanks to genetic engineering and modern technology we can create an entire ecosystem.”
“It’s unnatural,” Otapi interjects.
“I can’t disagree there, but by creating the false jungle we provide the groundwork for Mother Nature to do her own handiwork,” replies.
“What do you mean,” I ask.
“Well, the engineers and biologists only produced the jungle and put very few forms of life within it, wondering what would come of it all. Though, they did experiment with the life they did put in, but I’m unfamiliar with what that would entail,” he explains.
“Unnatural,” Otapi repeats.
We continue walking for another hour, discussing what certain plants must have been bred to create the ones in the jungle when the silent one, Inori, stops. We all stop. His hand rests on the hilt of his katana.
“What is it Inori?” Dr. Irving inquires.
“Shh.”
All is quiet, except for the trickling stream. There comes a hissing noise from the trees and bushes, but I can only imagine the gases of the jungles as the cause. A rustle from a bush on the other side of our path and we all turn from the stream to look behind us. A beast leaps out and the doctor and the creature are in the stream, water splashing, mixing, and diluting the doctor’s blood. “Oh God!” Irving screams as the beast’s teeth dig into his chest and the blood pours into the crystal waters, all the while the powerful tail waggles in the air. A snap emits as the creature’s head tweaks and Irving’s flailing ceases. Inori’s slice is precise, but late. The doctor is dead and the reptile decapitated. The sound of Inori’s blade whistles through the air as he flings the blood off the blade into the stream. All is quiet again.
“Men, hold steady,” I command; shocked and curious. What lies before us is the corpse of a man of medicine and a prehistoric beast, a velociraptor, scaly and bloody. Inori has decapitated the bastard and his gaping maw still grips Dr. Irving’s skull, teeth smothered with the fresh blood and flesh. Now was the time to assess the situation. How well equipped are my men for another surprise attack? Inori has his trusted blade, Otapi has a bow and a knife, both of which are military grade, the best there is, and he’s deadly with both, and I stand here with my own arsenal. A standard issue assault rifle that has pulled me through my survival in The Last War, securing my life and my promotion to a colonel. My pistol clipped to my thigh has enough firepower to desolate a human easily, but raptors are something else entirely. Above my waist I also holster my standard issue knife, perhaps the most useful weapon a soldier can own.
“Unnatural,” Otapi mutters as he examines the raptor.
“Otapi, get to higher ground and tell me what’s going on around us,” I command.
“Sir, yes sir.” Otapi climbs a nearby tree and reaches the top branches swiftly. He signals to us below by moving his hand in a circular motion. We’re surrounded and they’re closing in. I unlock my assault rifle and Inori gets in a defensive stance. We lean on each other’s backs as Otapi perches high above taking aim with is bow. He fires two arrows and swings around to fire a third. As I see the blur enter a nearby bush on a ridge above the stream I hear a cry that brings about the image of the twitching artificial intelligence we eradicated during The A.I. War I was drafted into at nineteen and the eventual genocide I took part in, the screeches emitted were more mechanical, but a death is a death.
“Ready Inori?”
“Yes sir,” he whispers.
Above I hear Otapi whistle and as I look up he pulls a grenade and as he throws it over our heads I see the glow it emits as it sails into the tall grass that we walked through earlier and I see two different paths of shaking grass rustle over to investigate. The explosion echoes across the jungle and a force trembles the foliage in the nearby area. A shower of blood sprays down, staining the dried grass and the other raptor’s body comes flying toward me, knocking Inori and me to the ground and its squirming body crushes me. “Inori!” His blade swings in the air and refracts the sunlight trickling through the leaves above us for a split second as he flips the blade downward, impaling the raptor through the eyes and pinning its head to the ground. A spurt of blood splashes into my mouth; bitter and thick, causing me to gag. Inori and I lift the raptor off of me and above Otapi fires one more arrow and leaps down the tree, agilely stepping on the branches as he descends the primitive staircase. A raptor runs out from the edge of the dried grass and stops, an arrow lodged into its neck. Its head lowers and its jaw splits open to reveal a span of mouth and teeth. I waste no time unloading my magazine into his screeching skull. The entry wounds are unclear, but as the bullets left they carried with them a spew of blood similar to a rotating sprinkler.
“That’s the last one,” Otapi claims.
“Let’s move on before the smell of blood attracts any more,” I say.
“Yes sir,” Otapi and Inori reply.
We continue to make our way cautiously through the thick engineered jungle to the mission objective. The original troops were sent here to rescue the scientist that created the jungle after they sent out an urgent distress call a couple weeks ago. Command said the original mission failed because the scientist fled the house after the jungle spread exponentially, flooding the building with foliage and our men became disoriented by the growing vegetation. The men sent distress calls, but couldn’t give coordinates; quickly men reported deaths, then calls stopped altogether. Command decided all were KIA and the mission deemed a failure. The brightest minds in science and some of our best warriors, all killed.
“bssssh, come in Reed… bsssssh… up here… need… bsssh,” the radio yells out.
“What was that last message Bale? You’re breaking up,” I reply.
“bsssh… emerg… evac… bssssh,” Bale responds incoherently.
“Damn jungle is breaking the signal,” I mutter to myself, “Bale, are you in the house? Do you see the scientists?”
“bsssssh. They’re here…But… bsssh… Don’t…. bsssh.” The static stops.
“They’ve found the scientists. Let’s move to our objective men. On the double!”
“Sir!” Inori and Otapi reply.
We pick up our pace and reach a clearing in the jungle. Mud and puddles litter the spongy ground and the smell of rotting carcasses singes my nostrils. Looking around we see dead dinosaurs, many of which have been torn into and their bones exposed. Ribcages and limbs are scattered about and the large puddles of water are systematically spaced between each other. “This way,” I motion to the men to follow around the perimeter. The ground shakes. The grass shake like hit car antennas and a monstrous roar rattles our weapons and bones.
“Trouble,” Otapi whispers, his eyes scanning frantically.
“Calm men,” I say.
The sound of falling trees get closer as we see the leaves and branches high above on the other side of the wasteland quake. A Colossal silhouette forces itself between the trees like curtains and the enormous face of a tyrannosaurus rex is pushes out from the flora. The ground stops shaking. A moment of silence as the beast peers in. Large amounts of saliva drip from the blood-soaked maw of the giant and the beady eyes dart about. “Stay,” Inori murmurs. The t-rex brings the rest of its massive body into the mud and as the ground sinks underneath its weight moisture is squeezed out to fill the new crater. Each step, cushioned by the mud, trembles the ground as the dinosaur steps closer. Out of the corner of my eye I see Otapi move slowly as he puts an arrow to his bow and as he pulls back I hear the tension as he steadies his aim. A whistle of the arrow is the only warning the monster gets before the arrow infuses with the beady eyeball. The head flails wildly as another earthquake is caused by the voice of the beast. The raptor in its mouth drops to the ground with a plop.
“Move,” I shout as I pull out my assault rifle and reload it with a fresh magazine.
Inori dashes to a nearby dying tree and begins climbing. His armor hinders his flexibility, but he ascends swiftly. The t-rex recovers and begins running straight for Otapi, ground rumbling with each step. The arrow impaled in his eye wags as he lumbers and Inori coils; as the t-rex runs past the tree Inori springs onto the back of the dinosaur and stabs his katana deep into the spine, getting a firm handle. The creature flinches, but continues toward Otapi while I circle around hastily to the tree Inori scaled. Otapi stands his ground and pulls out his knife. His eyes are steady and locked as the beast lunges for him; he quickly thrusts his hand upward and stabs the upper lip of the t-rex. With the momentum of the beast recoiling he swings himself onto the nose and grabs the nostril of the opposite side of where he stabbed, leaving him clutching onto the front of the dinosaur’s mug. I begin shooting its throat and as the blood gushes through the scaly skin he whips he head towards me, Otapi and Inori still clutching tightly. I stop firing and the Inori quickly retracts his katana and clamors to its neck, impaling once again. Roaring again the beast flails hysterically, Otapi’s legs flapping in the air. I holster the rifle and arm my pistol, taking careful aim at the t-rex’s other eye. The beast pauses to balance itself and I fire. Blood flows from the socket and the creature is blind.
Its jaw hangs loose and Otapi wastes no time to release his nostril holding hand and lodge a grenade into the back of the dinosaur’s mouth. A loud choking gurgle and Otapi drops several feet, plopping into the mud just as the explosion blows the dinosaur’s jaw apart. The beast collapses and a wall of mud splashes up. Otapi reclaims his dagger, Inori jumps down and I dash over, pulling my knife out as well. We all begin hacking at the beast’s throat until the moaning and growling stops and the blood ceases to pump out. The muddy crater around the tyrannosaurus rex is filled with blood instead of water.
“Amazing job men,” I commend them.
“Sir,” they reply with a sound of satisfaction in their voices.
We continue to the rendezvous point tired and rest for several hours. Bale no longer replied to my radio calls and they never showed up. We stayed up all night and the next morning there was still no answer. Command sent their copter and the three of us boarded. We flew over the mansion, but saw nothing except the enshrouded shell of a house, overflowing with plant life. Another mission failure, but perhaps another squad will be sent back to rescue the scientists and us in another fifty or so years. I have an inkling things won’t be different.
THE END
“Red, Bastiaan, and Leonardo, follow me,” I say.
“That leaves Otapi, Inori and Dr. Irving to work with me,” Bale says.
“Sir, yes sir,” they all respond.
“Men, we’re heading to the house on the hill to the west. It’ll be a great reconnaissance spot,” I tell them.
“My group, we’re following the stream into the jungle to reach the mission point,” Bale tells his troop.
We split up and head our separate ways. Walking up the steady slope the ground of leaves crunch, their rooftop of foliage scarce, letting the sun dry them out. Leonardo has been surveying the area since they first arrived, so I figure I could get some information from his observations, “da Vinci, what do you know about the area?”
“The plant life is all new, nothing here has been found in existence before, though there are several familiar properties to flora recorded in the past. Perhaps cross breeding is the answer, though whether it’s natural or artificially created is hard to tell. That’s one question I was hoping to ask the scientists once we locate them: Which plants were genetically augmented and which bred naturally over time?”
“If it were up to me, I’d burn it all. We’d find the scientists easier without trees in our way,” Red comments.
“Such marvelous creations would disappear from existence if that happened,” Leonardo pleads.
“So?” Bastiaan interjects, eyes stoic and locked on the path straight ahead.
“Think what you will, but what I find most interesting is that the plant life seems to be growing at an accelerated rate. Over the past two days we’ve been here I haven’t once seen a creature, but I’ve come across several new flowers that weren’t there just the day before,” Leonardo says.
“Interesting,” I say, “Do you have any idea why the scientist would send out a distress call about fast-growing plants?”
“No, but there’s probably more information to be discovered once we reach the house,” Leonardo answers, “I’m hoping the scientists aren’t too far away from where the experiments started. One would think the house would be the safest place to be when things go wrong. It is a secure location…”
“Apparently Command says the plants overgrew into the house; caught them off guard. Perhaps they just panicked from the outside scenery coming in,” I suggest.
“Or perhaps one of them went crazy from being alone in the jungle for years,” Red adds.
We debated the mindset of the scientists that created the jungle while we walked and the sun began to fall in the sky, darkness was less than three hours away now. When we reached the house we all took a break to relax on the wooden steps of the porch. The house had been flooded with plants and as the roots, leaves, and branches weaved in an out of the two story mansion I could see where the wood paneling and brick foundation had been pushed apart and splintered by the slow power of the growth. The house looks decrepit and crooked as the windows were all broken and the roofing was porous.
“Whorehouse,” Red remarks.
Bastian smirks, “One can hope.”
“Shall we enter?” Leonardo asks.
“Men, Let’s head in. The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can leave.”
“Sir,” the three men respond.
Inside the house smelt pungent of decay, the air was stifling thick due to the plants that emitted foul odors.
“What’s that disgusting smell? I’ve smelt better cattle,” Red says
Leonardo looks pale with disgust and Bastiaan covers his mouth and nose while he hacks at roots blocking doors from opening. There was creaking in the floors above us and scratching noises came from a few of the surrounding walls.
“Must be the plants growing,” Bastiaan mutters through his fingers.
“Must be,” Leonardo agrees as Bastiaan’s broadsword splintered a doorframe after cutting away some greenery.
We file into the room and the floorboards seem to give a little as I walk atop them. Leonardo walks over to a table with a logbook on it, “Fascinating! They found ways to create new plant life by incorporating cells from other life forms,” he continues scanning the text, “Impossible. They found…” but the floorboards collapse under his feet and da Vinci yells as he falls into the basement below. We all rush over and look down the hole. Leonardo is coughing up blood, “Men, I think I’ve fallen.”
“No shit,” Red replies.
Leonardo had fallen onto the broken floorboards and one was impaling him through the stomach, it’s splintering point soaked in his blood, “Oh my,” Leonardo exclaims, seeing the board protruding from his chest. His screams shake the whole room as he begins flailing uncontrollably, failing to get up.
“Leo, stop moving,” Bastiaan yells down.
Leonardo stops moving, but his agonizing screams continue. As we peer down on the ring of light da Vinci was engulfed in there was movement from the fringes of light. “What was that?” Red asks, but before anyone could answer two humanoid figures reach out and rip Leonardo’s right arm and leg off. Leonardo begins thrashing again and the blood trail of his nubs are like a high-pressure garden hoses in a yard. A third figure appears above Leonardo’s head and lets out a low moan before biting into his skull and Leo’s flailing ends as his brain and blood spill out. Red pulls out one of his six-shooters and lodges a bullet into the person’s head, creating a softball size crater, “Die!” he shouts as he blows the other two’s heads apart while they feast on Leonardo’s limbs. The roots and fallen boards are soaked in glistening blood.
“What are those things?” Bastiaan asks.
“Zombies,” Red replies.
“Not quite,” I say, “Did you notice their blood? It was yellow.”
“I don’t care either way, let’s just kill them and get the hell out of here,” Red says.
We leave the room and try heading upstairs, but the staircase is covered in foliage. The creaks and scratches we heard earlier became more frequent and louder. Bastiaan begins heading upstairs when another moan emanates from the second floor. One of the bloodthirsty people stumbles at the top of the staircase and falls. As they tumble Bastiaan slices his sword upward, cutting the zombie in half, rolling past Bastiaan on either side. As the halves reach the bottom of the stairs the yellow blood pouring out reeks of rotting fruit and feces. Red wastes no time blasting the face of the undead and small pieces of teeth and cartilage are flung into the air; the open halves of the corpse launch roots that connect with the rest of the plants veining the house and they begin twitching.
Upstairs is a single open room, but five tree trunks burst from the floor and spire all the way through the roof. Moans and shuffling are audible all around us. The waning sun’s light is bursting through cracks in the walls and ceiling and through the musty mist the zombies can be seen staggering towards us, bile and blood dripping from their mouths. Red reloads his gun and pulls out his second gun, Bastiaan raises his sword and I pull out my assault rifle. Three mindless scientists get in close proximity and red fires a round into the kneecap, separating the leg, and the bastard collapses with a groan, but before he hits the floor Red fires another bullet into his forehead, nectar spilling between the cracks of the wood floor. Bastiaan rushed to one of the others and swings his blade, cutting both the arms off of the zombie, and as the limbs wriggle on the ground the undead lunges forward; Bastiaan steps aside and strikes down on his neck, decapitating the man, another honey colored fountain pours from the hole. Roots and branches clamor from the open wounds and mend to the tree trunks. I begin shooting the last one, a female, and her high pitched shrieks echo as she falls to the ground, shredded and oozing. Bastiaan follows up with a downward thrust, bursting floorboards and the screaming corpse falls down to the first floor; the room Leonardo fell in and she hits the side of the hole to the basement and flips onto the corpse of da Vinci.
“We need to get out of here before the whole place falls apart,” Red says.
“Let’s go. Move out!” I shout, but there’s a crashing noise. The roof peels back and shingles and branches fall as a colossal face shoves itself in to look around. A hairy face the size of a double-decker bus with fiery orange eyes peers in; matted gray fur, outlining the tight leather face of an oversized ape.
“Holy…” Red mutters. The eyes squint and the house quakes as the giant ape tears it apart. Bastiaan sprints across the breaking floor, the ape no longer looking in the hole and only his exposed chest hair visible; springing, Bastiaan latches onto the coarse dirtied hair, rising with the ape. The rest of the house collapses and the full size of the ape is realized. He is over six stories tall and his hair is smeared with mud and greenery and as he turns back to tear more of the house Bastiaan’s body swings limply trying to clamber up the beast. “Steady girls,” Red mutters to his six-shooters as he aims up, his hat low and his dusty overcoat flapping from the wind cause by falling debris. Three shots from each pistol and the beast is enraged. His face bloodied and his groins tattered, the ape is reduced to all fours and Bastiaan takes advantage of the arc and runs along the top of his back, easily reaching the head of the beast. I empty the magazine into the scrunching face of the beast while Bastiaan stabs the hell out of his cranium, the cracking of the skull ringing out across the hill and rubble. “Hahahahahaha!” Red laughs as he fires the last of his barrels into the mouth of the ape, shattering its teeth. Zombies crawl out from the collapsed house and moan as the ape viciously steps on them, causing their rotting bodies to burst like water balloons and the pineapple colored blood splatters the grass. An undead scientist somehow crawled up next to me, her body severed in half from the waist below. I swiftly pull out my knife and drive it into her skull and as her eyes roll into the back of her head, tiny roots sprout from the hole and slither up the blade, tickling my hand. Quickly I pull back and kick her skull clean off here decomposing neck, a spurt of putrid blood soaks into my pant leg, causing my nostrils to burn. The ape roars and I look over to see Bastiaan hard at work with the beast. Bastiaan’s stabs started at the top of the spine, but now he has reached the edge of the ape’s forehead. An earth-quaking roar is let out as his cranium splits in half by the Spartan’s powerful finishing stab; a massive yellow brain spills to the ground as the beast collapses, dead.
“We’ve accomplished the impossible, men,” I commend.
“If only this was a whorehouse,” Bastiaan states.
The smell of rot stayed soaked in our clothes as we reach the rendezvous point, but Bale and his group never called on the radio or showed up. After several attempts of calling them, we eventually realized the worst must’ve happened. The next afternoon Command’s copter picks us up and we fly across the stream, but we find nothing, so we head back to base reluctantly. Yet another mission failure, but perhaps another squad will be sent back to rescue the scientists and us in another fifty or so years successfully.
THE END