Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 73: Monsters In The Darkenss

Chapter 73: Monsters In The Darkenss

"Fucking hell!" swore Bai Long Qiang as he pulled the trigger and let out a spray of bullets. "What the fuck are these things?!?"

"No idea," grunted Chang Bi Jing from his right side. He was not interested in wasting bullets on creatures that just didn’t die.

"Do you think the higher-ups knew what they were before they sent us to deal with them?" asked Si Dong from where he stood to Bai Long Qiang’s left.

"Do you really think Brass knew?" sneered Bai Long Qiang. Everything seemed to pause before the screams of one of their teammates echoed around them.

They were walking through the forest, outside of City A, and their teammates were being picked off one by one by the creatures hiding in the shadows.

There was nothing they could do to stop it.

At first it seemed that shooting them managed to take them out, but after a few minutes later, the creatures were back on their feet and coming after them again.

Fan Teng Fei had managed to take the head off of one of the creatures from behind, but all it did was cause it to multiply.

"This is bullshit! Why won’t they just die?!?" Bai Long Qiang was getting more and more frustrated every time one of his men, one of his soldiers disappeared into the darkness.

"I think the military knew. And I think they wanted us to eliminate them before anyone else discovered them," said Ye Yao Zu softly from where he was walking backward, trying to protect everyone’s back.

But the darkness and the shadows weren’t helping.

They were all tired and injured; it was only a matter of time before they did something stupid and lost their lives.

"No way. They would have told us what we were getting into," argued Bai Long Qiang. Si Dong and Cheng Bo Jing simply shared a look. Only Bai Long Qiang continued to blindly believe in the military. The others were there simply for one reason.

If they weren’t military, they would have no reason to see Wang Tian Mu.

Another spray of gunfire that lasted only a matter of seconds before they could hear nothing more than a clicking sound.

"Out of bullets," muttered Bia Long Qiang as he took the SCIG JS 9mm off of his neck and threw it into the forest. It was useless now.

"Did that make you feel better?" asked Si Dong. There was a smile hidden on his face underneath all of the face paint, but it wasn’t a friendly one.

"Fuck off," sneered Bai Long Qiang as he took out his tactical knife. It meant that he would need to get closer to the creatures, but it was all he had on hand right now. "Unlike all of you, I have someone waiting for me at home. And it is going to take at least three weeks to make our way back to City D."

"We could always try and hotwire a car," suggested Fan Teng Fei.

"I don’t think that is going to be a possibility," admitted Cheng Bo Jing.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, all communication is cut off. Our radios and cell phones are nothing more than expensive paperweights; our flashlights don’t work, and neither does the GPS. In fact, all of our electronics are dead. I think we were hit with that EMP that the military warned us about a few months back," continued Cheng Bo Jing.

Not even his GPS watch was working, the blacked out interface laughing at him every time he tried to configure their location. If it wasn’t for ATM bringing five old-school compasses, they couldn’t even guarantee that they were going in the correct direction.

None of the other men addressed Bai Long Qiang’s statement that he was the only one with someone waiting for him. They all needed to see her again.

"We need to find a place to stay for the night," muttered Si Dong. "It is getting harder and harder to see where we are going. We are nothing more than sitting ducks out here right now."

"You’re right," admitted Bai Long Qiang. "Let’s head up into the trees and wait until morning. We should be able to make better time then."

"No," grunted Cheng Bo Jing. "The trees won’t protect us from these creatures. We need to find something like a cave where we can be sure nothing will get us from behind."

There was silence for a few minutes as everyone thought about what he had said.

"I normally don’t like to take sides between mom and dad, but I think Cheng Bo Jing is right. I am not gambling on the idea that these things can’t climb trees," joked Si Dong.

"I’ll go up a tree and see if I can see any formations that might indicate a cave of some kind," sighed ATM as he swung his sniper rifle over his back. He took a running start and managed to get halfway up the tree in front of him before he had to grab a branch.

Most of them were too thin to be able to support his weight, but they were young, which meant that as much as they might give under his weight, they wouldn’t snap.

Not thinking about anything, he continued to move up, never resting until he got to the top.

Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a flair gun and aimed it over in the distance. They had a limited number of flairs, but he needed to be able to see, and there was no other light around. Even the moon seemed to be hiding.

A red light shot out, lighting up the sky before it fell back down to the earth. "500 meters west is a cliff wall. There should be something there that we can use," he shouted down. The cliff wall was just off to their right, and hopefully, they would be able to get to it quickly.

He had no idea how many team members were left, but he was getting tired of losing them to the monsters in the darkness.

Tomorrow was a new day, and they would have to be better prepared for whatever was coming their way.