Demons from the Dark

Someone screamed something, and without warning black shapes were jumping off the walls and pillars, leaping down towards us. We didn't bother to wait for authorization to fire, we didn't care if we were going to get court martialled after this. The cocking sounds of M16s was fallowed by the familiar bang-bang-bang of a trooper spraying the area on full auto.

I couldn't tell if we were killing them or not. Hell, I couldn't even tell if I was hitting them or not, but we kept firing. They seemed to dart in and out of the blackness that our lights wouldn't penetrate, but I did notice several black things in the middle of the hall where the team that was moving up was now huddled in a circle, trying to fend off the hordes that were moving towards them. Abandoning any pretence of fear, I picked up Jenkins who had a wound in his abdomen and hollered for cover fire. The others must have got the same idea, because we all seemed to be pulling back towards the entrance. Pausing only to toss a flare or to reload, we slowly progressed to the entrance.

The shadows somehow darker than black stood out agaisnt the darkness of the room, our lights doing nothing to illuminate these creatures. The blast of a grenade seemed to be swalloed up by the creatures, giving us only a deluded fantasy that there were somewhere theses things were not. A pain errupted in my left shoulder, and I could see some sort of black needle imbedded into the flesh. I shunted aside the pain and slapped home a new magazine, firing from the hip as I half carried, half dragged my fallen comrade.

"Everybody out!" hollared Sarge. Sweat was dripping down his face, and he was bleeding from several obvious wounds, along with several not so obvious ones. He had taken up position just infront of the door as the remaining troopers stumbled on through to relative safety.

I was one of the last to make it to the door, having a hard time seeing as blood streamed down infront of my eyes. I grunted in annoyance and tried to brush it aside, but as my arm crossed my eyes and my vision blured, I felt something stich my leg from my knee on down. I dropped like a stone, trying to keep Jenkins from hitting the ground too hard, as I begun to crawl forwards. Consciousness started to leave me just as I reached the door and was pulled through, fallowed by the familiar sound of explosives sealing the exit. Then pain overcame my will to remain in my current state, and I blacked out.

We must have made it out of there without encountering any more resistance, because I woke up six weeks later in a hospial, slightly paralysed by venom injected through the many black needles I had shot into me. I learned later that only about half of us had made it out alive, the rest buying it from the venom. It made me wonder, lying there in the hospital bed, just what it was we were doing down there in the first place. What was so important down there that was protected by a swarm of creatures no one had ever seen before, that seemed to defy any attempts at killing them and could hardly even be seen?

I didn't want to know, as I slowly sunk back into the bed and glanced nervously at the shadows in the corner. I didn't want to know...