Story A Christmas in McWar. Outpost Infect: The Four Days

A Christmas in McWar
Outpost Infect: The Four Days​

Dec. 25. 2015

I shuddered as the icy wind whispered it's cruel song. It must have been the hundredth time that hour that I had mistaken the unholy noise for the low groan of one of the foul green monsters that had annihilated all but a sixth of our original force. Noticing how clearly unnerved I was, my companion, @LucaFersko, leaned closer to me and muttered a word of encouragement. It fell upon deaf ears. We were doomed, and I knew it. I had known it ever since we had set out on the ill-fated mission. Questions buzzed around in my mind as they usually did when I was faced with a difficult situation. Why did this have to happen? Was it fate? Ill-fortune? So many fallen comrades... how could the world ever be the same after so much death? Why had the federation sent us here in the first place? Two forces larger than ours had already tried and failed to rid the Siberian outpost of the green plague. What could have possibly possessed the federation to send us on what was clearly a mission tantamount to suicide? Unfortunately, this was the one question I knew the answer to. We were the expendable ones. We had been deployed here in order to buy the federation enough time to muster a force large enough to wipe the zombies off the face of the earth. Supposedly, the green beasts would have spread had the federation not put more boots on the ground. None of this mattered to me. Miserable, I was crouching half-frozen in the snow with absolutely no chance of survival. Me and four others simply sat waiting for the hunters to finally find and devour their prey. Then, it happened. Breaking the blanket of white that spread in all directions, a hideous green head slowly rose above a hill of snow. It fixed it's black orbs on us for a moment before jerking backwards under the force of a bullet shot from Luca's Python. It was a perfect headshot. The creature collapsed, screeching it's revolting death cry. Upon hearing their brother's cry, the rest of the creatures began to congregate at the edge of our hiding place. Every so often, one would peer over the hill only to quickly duck down again to avoid being shot. I knew they wouldn't attack us until every one of them were in one place. It was the beginning of the end. I suppose it was going to be a fitting end for such a tragic mission, though in the beginning, things had looked like we had hope.

The first day, we had parachuted down from helicopters, and stormed a few of the dilapidated buildings. The monsters occupying the buildings quickly fell under the onslaught, and we proceeded to set up a makeshift base within our only source of cover. Things seemed to go well that day. Everything went to plan. Not so with the next day. The second day, we realized simply how little a chance we had. All throughout the day, the zombies relentlessly, recklessly threw themselves against our squadron. We were forced into our buildings as the horde attempted to flood through our doorways. Building two fell that day. There were simply too many zombies for those hiding in the building to stop. Only building one and three remained. After twelve straight hours of stopping the beasts from taking our building, they finally seemed to retreat. We thought we had won, though at great loss. Ten of our squad of thirty had fallen that day. As it turned out, the clever monsters were only planning more devilry. We found that out on the mourning of the third day. The few of us not on sentry duty were awoken by a massive explosion. Building three was no more. Literally. The only thing that remained in it's place was a massive crater, five feet deep at it's lowest point. Most of our munitions had been located in building two. To our shock, we realized the monsters must have learned how to place and detonate our C4. Another ten of our comrades were dead. It was not five minutes from when the other building was annihilated, and we began to hear the zombies place C4 on our building. We knew we had no chance but to make a break for it. After saying what we thought would be our last goodbyes to each other, we bolted from the building, spraying our guns madly, hoping that by some miracle we would survive. Three of our number were instantly overwhelmed and devoured. With that, Luca and I, with miniguns blazing, carved a path through the horde. And through the path we fled with a green tidal wave on our heels. I knew that our only hope was to stick together, but apparently, not all in our group held those sentiments. Two of the remaining seven of us bolted in different directions. The poor fools, the couldn't have gotten far. I don't know what became of them, but if not for their madness, I most likely would have perished that very day. The zombies quickly split into two large groups and followed the easier targets. Only a fraction of the zombies continued pursuing our group, but they were cut down by me and Luca's miniguns. As a group, we ran until we had nowhere left to run. Finding a perfect hiding place behind a hill of snow, we threw our exhausted bodies behind it and waited. There was nothing. No sound, no anything. Silence ruled that day, silence and fear. There was no sleeping that night. How could there have been after all we had endured? The sleepless night gave way to dawn, but the light held no joy for us. We knew that it only meant that we were one day closer to our deaths. It was the forth day, and we sat in our hideout for hours on end waiting, always waiting. Eventually, we took to softly talking amongst ourselves about this and that. How much we missed our families, the occasional crude joke about one of our overbearing sergeants, etc. We spoke of anything and everything that came to mind. We had to do something to diminish the terrible gravity of our predicament. For a brief moment, things were actually somewhat enjoyable. It was Christmas, and each of us daydreamed about what we would have been doing if we were safe in our homes. Then, the noises began. The wind rose and played tricks with our minds. Sometimes we thought we heard shuffling or snorting. A low growl or voices of demons drifting in an unseen spirit realm. The wind brought to life our worst fears and made the fantastic and impossible appear like reality. I'm positive almost all of us nearly went insane because of that hellish wind. That was the foul wind that ushered in my impossible questions, and during my pondering was when Luca deprived the zombie of half of it's face.

Now, with the green creatures gathering before our hideout, I knew that our mission would soon be over. We could only take so many of the beasts with us. Some might have thought our last stand glorious, but not me. No, I was far too pessimistic for that. Death held no glory for me. What did it matter to me that I would be remembered in death? I began to think of the stupidity of such a sentiment, but was interrupted min-thought. The end had come. Droves of zombies flooded over the hill in a mad rush for the last bit of human flesh remaining within their grasps. Me, Luca, and the remaining three of our comrades sprang to our feet. Screaming, we began filling the wave of green in front of us with lead. The sound was deafening. The screeches of zombies and our own screams intermixed with the blasting of our five machine guns. I'm happy to say that my opinion on going down in glory changed the instant I blew a stream of lead through the monsters. This wasn't death, it was life. Yes, our mission was nearly over, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered then. There was only the fight. Zombies fell in droves before us. At one point, when a grenade was hurled at us Luca covered me with his shining, new minigun while I picked the grenade up and flung it back at the enemy. I was immediately rewarded with an explosion of green. Our ammunition was running low and I knew that we only had a few more minutes left to live. I attempted to scream something poetic at Luca, but my sappy words were lost in the roar of our gunshots. As I unloaded my remaining minigun ammunition, something entirely unexpected happened. The hope we had given up rushed back in a moment. Our prayers had been answered. It was truly a miracle. Backup from the federation had just arrived, and from the look of it, it would be more than enough to destroy the zombies. For a brief moment all action froze as both zombie and survivor stared at the helicopters and jets that must have been carrying enough explosives to destroy the entire outpost ten times. A new sound split the silence then. The sound of twenty helicopters unloading their machine guns on one spot no more than fifteen feet in front of us. The zombies then scattered in all directions. Most of them were no longer in one piece, but even those that remained intact scattered nonetheless. As exhausted as we were, we didn't let our guard down until we were picked up by one of the helicopters. We were finally safe, finally out of harms way. I plopped down exhausted next to Luca, and once again grew introspective. This time, it was characterized with a lot less pessimism than usual. I pondered the gift I had been given that Christmas day. An unwrapped gift, not given by family. It was the greatest gift I had ever received to date. It was the gift of hope. The gift of life. The gift of living on to fight another day.

(Written for this thread. I took so much time on this, that I wanted to give it it's own thread. :V)