community story mk.2

Howdy,
This is the new community story, as approved by Frederik, dsm, and myself. Add on if you wish, don't if you're going to post something stupid. Authors who wish to add on should first read the guidlines in the "New Community Story?" thread on this forum. Here goes.

*****

Rain pitter-pattered off the ruins, making small, rust-colored ponds in the craters that used to be Moscow. Small fires burned in spite of the heavy rain, thin tendrils of smoke hanging mournfully in the air and unceremoniously dissipating. The sky wept over the ruins of one of the greatest cities on Earth, the rain coming down in torrents and filling every smoldering pock-mark with water.
Here and there carrion birds descended to nibble on the corpses of citizens who hadn't made it into the shelters in time.

*****
Mikhail walked through the downpour, the wind mildly stirring his waterproof poncho and blowing back tufts his jet-black hair. Despite the rain, he regretfully kept his hood and baclava off, in order to get a full field of vision. He would need it.
His AKS-85 slung at his side, he walked cautiously through the streets, sliding his sharp, piercing gaze over every possible hiding spot, and checking every dark corner with a quick sweep of his flashlight.
It irked him in no small way that he was walking through the streets of his birthplace as a soldier, suspicious of every little thing and jumping every time something moved. It didn't seem right.

They had come without warning.
Suddenly they just appeared out of nowhere. Mikhail had seen them teleport into existence. Green flashes lighted up the surroundings wherever they popped up. These creations were clearly not of this world. They looked like mythical demons from Hell and their attacks seemed to be created by pure magical powers – evil magic.

Mikhail had been among the first troops sent into Moscow to respond to the threat. Images of the chaos flashed through his mind as he remembered the bloody battle. The monsters had relentlessly attacked everything in sight killing civilians and soldiers alike in the most gruesome and bloodthirsty way imaginable. No human, neither man, woman nor child were spared.

The troops had fought bravely, killing hundreds upon hundreds of the terrifying aliens, but they just kept coming.

Mikhail had been one of the few survivors.

****

He stopped briefly. Large heaps of rubble lay about 50 feet from him. A flash of lightning lit the area a brief moment. Mikhail saw ruined corpses among the rubble – people who had been caught in the building before it collapsed.
The unfortunate souls had been either crushed or burnt. The area in front of him radiated a terrifying eeriness, which unsettled the soldier.

Mikhail readied his AKS-85. His sixth sense warned him that there might be a few creatures lying in wait for him and he took no chances...

Mikhail circled the building carefully, reciting the line he'd heard someone mutter on the way in.

Never send a soldier in just to dig his own grave...

As he walked around the remains of the building, he came across something he never thought he'd see - the most distinguishing part of the building.

...never send a soldier in just to dig his own grave...

The building that had been destroyed was the Kremlin. Mikhail reached into his uniform and pulled out the golden crucifix he carried on a chain.

...never send a soldier in just to dig his own grave...

He stared at it for a few moments, remembering his wife, Talia. She had given him the cross on his last birthday. He turned away and stuffed it back under his shirt. She'd been killed - as his whole squadron was being slaughtered, he ran off, heading towards his house. Or, at least, what remained of it.

The house was still standing, sort of, though the awkward, 30-degree tilt, told the average observer that something was wrong. Mikhail had run up the stairs, only to find one of those zombies that had popped up busy munching on his wife while she was still alive. He fired off one shot. Boom. No more zombie.

Unfortunately, no more Talia, either. He had become so distraught over this that he hardly noticed the three other zombies lurking in the shadows in his house.

Mikhail shook his head. Self-pity did him no good.

...never send a soldier in just to dig his own grave...

As he cleared his mind, a figure appeared behind him, and said, "So. We meet again."

"Vladimir, what-" he started, mind racing.
"I could ask you the same thing, you to be so stupid" Vladimir spoke, a harsh coldness in his voice as his eyes narrowed like a viper.
"I have not seen you since-" but once again, he was cut off, this time by Vladimir holding his palm up to stop him, as Vladimir turned his head and closed his eyes. All those years ago, when the war had first started...

The sound of gunfire snapped him back to reality, as the three zombies fell to the ground, dead once more. He had been thinking of his family...why? Why was life so cruel?

Blood flowed from the zombies' corpses in crimson streams, slowly creating a small pond of glistening red. The zombies had probably been police officers in life; they were still wearing their blue uniforms and caps.
Vladimir coughed, bringing Mikhail back to stone-cold reality.
"You're dreaming of Talia, again, aren't you?" He asked, pulling a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it. His old, deep-set eyes scanned Mikhail's expression.
Mikhail nodded regretfully, mentally reprimanding himself for daydreaming. If Vlad hadn't been there, he would have died.
Vladimir ended the conversation with a satisfied puff of his cigarette. He sauntered off nonchalantly, as if he hadn't shot the zombies and saved Mikhail's life.
"I've cleared out this whole block," He called out behind him as he walked off. "Go home."

Mikhail opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it and just stood there, watching Vladimir's retreating back. Before long, it was just a dull speck in the foggy air. When his comrade was out of sight, he began thinking about where he would go.

He didn't want to return to his broken house. Going there would only force him to think about Talia even more. Beautiful Talia. He remembered talking about their plans for their upcoming anniversary, the night before he'd gotten called in to respond to the demonic invasion...

He jerked himself out of his reverie, and decided to just start walking. He no longer cared about what happened to him, or the rest of the world for that matter. He'd just keep walking, and dreaming of Talia.

Mikhail walked through the streets for some time, pondering what the world would be like if his Talia were still alive. He felt sorry for himself as he walked down the empty boulevards, only half-heartedly searching for the invaders, even though night was descending on Moscow.
It was completely dark when Mikhail decided to go back to his assigned shelter and call out the night patrol.
He turned on the flashlight that was taped to his rifle and proceeded back towards the shelter, in the industrial district. He reached down to his radio.
"This is commercial district patrol Bravo," He said quietly into the radio. "I'm coming back, ETA in about an hour. Make sure dinner's ready. Over."
"This is base to Patrolman Bravo. I read you L&C. You have clearance to come back. How's spaghetti sound tonight?" The voice of Zofia, the shelter's radiowoman, was music to Mikhail's ears. She reminded him of Talia.
Mikhail chuckled for the first time in a long while. "Spaghetti sounds fine," He replied. "Over and out."
Mikhail put his radio back on his bandolier and walked briskly down the street.
A sudden growl to his left alarmed him...

He turned to face two eyes glowing in the light of his flashlight, staring at him through the darkness. Just then whatever it was issued a low growl and Mikhail raised his weapon in resonse. It growled again, then barked - a very earthly sound.

Mikhail realized it was just a dog, one of the few survivors of the carnage surrounding him. It was probably just hungry. He shined his light on the dog, which whimpered and stumbled backwards in response.

"I's okay," Mikhail said calmy to the dog as he reached into a pouch on the side of his backpack and pulled out his remaining jerky rations. He offered the meat to the dog, but the mangy creature just sat there and whimpered. Finaly he tossed the jerky and the animal snatched it up and ran off.

Yeah, looks like we're all going to have to look after each other now that that's all we have left, Mikhail thought to himself. He walked down to the end of the block, his flashlight cutting through the gloom ahead of him. Just as he had crossed the street he heard a growl to his left. This time, it was not the growl of any worldy being. This time, it was the sound of something all too familiar...

A brown demon lurched out of the darkness at him, gnashing its viciously serrated jaws. Its scales flashed in the light as it tried to tear through Mikhail's vest. Mikhail hastily stepped backward, and the demon let out an ear-splitting roar as its claw found nothing but air. It slashed again and again in rapid succession, and Mikhail retreated backward, unable to aim at the monster while it attacked.
His boot caught on something, and Mikhail tripped backward, landing sprawled on the ground. When the demon realized the portent of the error Mikhail had made, its eyes flashed red victoriously in the dim light, and it jumped on Mikhail, ripping at his kevlar vest. The monster was heavy; a few hundred kilograms at least. A claw found its way through the kevlar and scratched his chest. Mikhail couldn't think.
He simply pulled the trigger.
7.62mm bullets pounded through the demon's thick, scaly hide, actually knocking it back off his body. The monster jerked and twisted as Mikhail emptied his clip into it, the spent casings ejecting and falling in brass piles.
The brown devil fell, amber-colored blood flowing from thirty deep holes in its bulky carcass.
Mikhail took no time to savor his victory; instead, he snapped a new clip into the receiver, cocked the rifle.
The light from his flashlight was muffled; it was covered in blood.

Mikhail raised his hand and wiped the blood off his flashlight
they're still here
His breathing shallow, his keen eyes scanned the dark for more demons but found none, his gun still smoking, Mikhail's arm numb, his vest torn.
there is nothing for me now
Mikhail turned and headed back to base in New Stalingrad

-

The base was an underground shelter, dug out beneath the ruins of a large building complex.
Conditions there weren’t particularly favorable as the underground camp had been established in a hurry during the initial wave.

Mikhail went over to a small hole in the rubble, which wasn’t visible in the darkness beneath the ruins, but the guard behind the hole could clearly see anything approaching the area.

The guard recognized Mikhail as a human and opened the secret door disguised as plain rubble, which looked very convincing. Only soldiers who knew of the location of the base could find the door and even then it was tough to find out exactly where it was. Therefore there was constantly a guard at the door and he had movement sensors, capable of tracking movement as well as identifying what caused the movement.

Walking through a dark hallway, Mikhail entered the interior of the camp. Soldiers lay on the floor either in dirty sleeping bags or on stretchers or mattresses. Mikhail saw lots of soldiers wearing bandages. Occasionally a hoarse coughing rang out in the claustrophobic rooms. The rooms were lit by homemade electric lamps scattered around on empty crates or hanging from hooks on the walls.

Mikhail kept walking through the room until he heard the familiar static and chatter of Zofia's radio room. The smell of freshly made marinara sauce wafted into his nose, and Mikhail suddenly realized how hungry he was.
Mikhail walked into the room and Zofia looked up from the radio, her enchanting amber eyes sliding from his face to his wound. Mikhail's dinner lay on the table, still piping hot.
"Ran into a little trouble one the way back?" She asked, standing up and coming over to inspect the wound.
"Yeah. Ran into one of those brown things after I called you up. I killed it; you don't have to send out a task force."
Zofia didn't seem to hear as she went to a first aid station on the wall and pulled out a roll of bandages.
Mikhail obligingly took off his kevlar vest and his shirt and let Zofia put disinfectant on the wound, then gingerly wrap the bandages around his chest. He ate his dinner the whole time, listening to Zofia's seemingly ceaseless chatter (a byproduct of her radio post).
"Vladimir says he found a whole den in the old mall during his patrol," She said as she wrapped the bandages around his chest one last time, cut it off and cinched it. "He requested a task force to deal with it. Are you feeling up to it?"

Mikhail looked into her wonderful eyes for a moment. He briefly saw a picture of Talia in his mind.

He remembered the first battle.

He had seen the merciless brutality of the demonic creatures, how they sadistically kept some of their victims alive, playing with their entrails or other organs before leaving the poor souls screaming on the ground until they died from their injuries.
These monsters had no love for anything and they had already taken those he loved.
And they would take many more lives and destroy more families.

Mikhail felt the hatred burn inside him. He no longer felt sorry for himself.

"Mikhail?"

He looked at her again and nodded. "Yep, I'm feeling up to it. In fact I feel more up to dealing with the bastards now than before"

He walked into the armory, his eyes adjusting to the lower light level. The glint of the firearms was unmistakeable. The smell of firearms was welcome, the many ammo boxes adorning the walls were a sure sign to him they still had a chance. He was ordered to pick two handguns, one automatic and 10 hand grenades. He picked up his first piece, a Colt .45, his second choice was a .357 Magnum, with scope, L.A.M. (Lazer Aiming Module). It took him a while to decide on an automatic, he had many choices before he opted for M-16a1 with a top end scope that had thermal mode, nightvision and a special mode that drained the batteries fast, it didn't really zoom, what it did is it used radar to detect something, and used many tools, like X-Ray and Opuscan to detect bone structure and the vital organs, then reported the data back into the scope, and whereever the barrel pointed a flashing blue dot blinked on the spot on the scope. For sure the most useful mode. He snatched up the grenades, then left to the briefing room.

Mikhail walked through a series austere hallways deep into the shelter, where the briefing room, along with the rest of the task force, was. It was not long until Mikhail's nostrils were filled with the scent of Vladimir's cigarettes, and a wide assortment of vodkas and beers.
He opened the door to a scene of utterly silent melancholy, save the deep, hoarse voice of commander Zugjin, who was explaining the mission objectives to the assembled task force. No one looked up as Mikhail entered the room; the only recognition of his entrance was a short, serious glance from Zugjin that said, "Sit down and shut up." Mikhail took the seat closest to the commander, which was, until now, unoccupied for ages. Zugjin continued the briefing...

"We have to make a series of attacks before a full scale assault" Zugjin started, his eyes daring back and forth, like he was expecting something otherworldly to kill him.
"The first attack will be on Lenningrad, there is a huge power supply there" he stated, as he said this, a projector showed pictures on the wall. He clicked to the next slide, there was a brief second of darkness, Mikhail thought he saw two floating orbs where Zugjin was standing...he could not pay attention to the rest of the briefing in full...

The projector slid to another picture, this one distorted and blurred, as if taken by someone in a rush to get away. It showed two large 20mm cannon emplacements sloppily set up near the power plant's main gate. In the picture, they both were manned by crews of zombified humans, their glazed eyes staring blankly into space. It deeply saddened Mikhail to see former Russians in the army of the invaders, but he knew they could no longer be helped.
Mikhail spaced out for the remainder of the briefing, his thoughts on Talia and the war. He only absent-mindedly examined the pictures of the power plant and the surrounding architecture; he didn't even listen to the briefing.
Finally, Zugjin turned off the projector and started gathering his papers into a manila folder. The other soldiers got up, stretched, and started to file out.

Mikhail slowly shuffled out the door, his sour attitude getting the best of him when a soldier bumped into him. He quickly threw the butt of his gun up to meet the young mans chin. The young soldier groaned and fell to the ground flat. Mikhail sighed, helped him up and apologized.
"No problem...you veterans have always been nutty" the kid said. Mikhail now wished he hadn't helped him up...

-

The interior of the APC was pitch black.
Mikhail held firmly on to the barrel of his assault rifle and pressed his knees against either side of the cold weapon. The cabin was cramped with soldiers – most of whom Mikhail didn’t know. Vladimir was sitting next to him. Mikhail could easily tell him from the other soldiers because of Vladimir's tobacco breath.
The vehicle bumped to and fro and the horrible sound of its wheels churning the rubble beneath them reached the soldiers' ears. Mikhail could smell the fear in the air, but he was no longer afraid of death himself. Life wasn't worth living without Talia.

"All right, troops!" Sergeant Shura yelled over the droning of the engine. "We're going to take the power plant from the rear. Get ready to charge at twelve o'clock!"

Just then the sound of artillery kicked in. Mikhail heard a surprised murmur from some of the other soldiers "Isn't it a bit too early?" he heard one of them ask.

Suddenly, the APC shook violently and the vehicle began to tilt.
"We're hit! One of the wheels have been destroyed, Sergeant!" the driver shouted.
"Everybody abandon APC, repeat, everybody abandon APC!" The Sergeant bellowed at the top of his voice.

The ramp was lowered and Mikhail stormed out alongside the other soldiers...

Mikhail could tell the difference between the vets and the new guys by one simple fact. The vets found places for cover while the new guys just stood there looking for something to shoot. Fireballs and explosions assaulted their post.

Fireballs and worse mowed down the new recruits, ripping through flesh and bone and coming out the other side. The soldiers' bodies shuddered for an instant as they were pulverized, then they fell, dead or screaming, into the mud. Those who could still move tried to crawl under the killing sheet of bullets and fire to a safer spot while Mikhail and those who had taken cover behind a large section of rubble at the outset laid down a blanket supressive fire at the fireballs' points of origin.
Mikhail gritted his teeth as round after round left the barrel of his gun, the empty shells ejecting and falling to the ground with a dull 'clang.'
A man to his left was hit by a bullet in the right shoulder and went down with a surprised yelp, clutching at the wound. Mikhail bent down to attend to him. He didn't even notice when a fireball sailed through the spot he was seconds earlier.
He wrapped a bandage around the man's shoulder and patted him comfortingly on his other shoulder. While he still had his medical supplies out, Mikhail ran to the wounded recruits who had just managed crawl behind the rubble and attended to their wounds as well, dodging fireballs, rockets and bullets all at once.

Mikhail didn't mind playing nurse, he liked to help people. As he finished patching up a few recruits, he grabbed a Jackhammer Automatic Shotgun and strapped it to his back while he pumped rounds out of his M-16a1. The demons fell swiftly, until the Cyberdemon showed up. It crashed through the side of a huge building roaring, its red eyes glaring at the soldiers. Most froze in awe, they had never seen a Cyberdemon. Mikhail and most other vets fired on the creature, Mikhail felt this called for the jackhammer. He held the trigger down, the .12 gauge rounds coughing out one after another until the 50 round drum was dead. The Cyberdemon looked almost as dead as the drum, hardly able to stand. It did get a few shots off but the rain of bullets and rockets was to much for the massive beast.

The huge cybernetic terror staggered backwards when a rocket exploded in its open midsection. The huge demon let out a roar of agony, but its roar was interrupted by the series of explosions which occurred inside its internal circuits, blasting the thing apart in a cloud of pyrotechnics and blood.

The situation was still very grave though. The number of human soldiers were dwindling by the minute and hordes of monsters kept rushing them. Mikhail could see their glowing eyes through the smoke as the creatures charged at them.
Mikhail had not hesitated while the Cybernetic goliath received its quietus, but had leapt down next to a dead soldier and grabbed an PKM-X275 – a light machinegun firing caliber 10.5 rounds at a rate of 1000 rpm. This gun was highly effective at dealing death due to its relatively high rate of fire combined with the force of the heavy caliber projectiles and Mikhail had tried using one of these before, during his first battle with the demons where his squad's machinegunner had been killed.

Mikhail had just picked up the gun when he felt something fast moving towards him out of the side of his eye. He quickly turned to face whatever it was and saw a burly, pink monster with a wide-open jaw filled with misshaped teeth rush at him. Mikhail pulled the trigger and sent several heavy rounds into its ugly hide.

The monster fell just before it reached Mikhail, but it bumped right into him. Mikhail fell into the mud and the heavy corpse fell on top of him. It was enormously heavy and Mikhail could barely move an inch. Feeling the panic rising inside him he struggled harder to get out from underneath the dead beast but all to no avail.

Mikhail realized that it would only be a matter of time before more demons would reach him and finish him off...

He was going to die, die under the corpse of a demon. He struggled, his veins popping out, his eyes wide, his teeth, white and gleeming, were gritted together as he strained against the weight of the massive monstrosity. One might say that there is no such thing as miracles, but Mikhail belives in miracles, mainly because one happened that moment on the field. An explosion close to him knocked the body off him, and also killing a few creatures that were close to him. He quickly got up and ran back to the remaining troops.

...or, at least, the remains of the troops.

The explosion hadn't just taken out the enemy forces, it had taken out quite a few of his fellow soldiers. The closer ones were lucky - they'd just been hit by the flame wall and died instantly. The farther ones...

Mikhail saw the remains of one troop whose gun had exploded, sending shrapnel all through his body, performing a crude lobotomy as well as other impromptu surgery. He looked at the man form one word silently - please - and fired one round. Point-blank.

"At ease, soldier," he said.