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A Marine Named Peters: Night of the Living Dead
Posted By: GLADIATRRR3000<gladiatrrr3000@army.com>
Date: 27 November 2003, 4:21 AM


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       Peters slowly walked towards the door. Karls was standing on the other side, ready to jump anything that came through the door. Peters was breathing heavily, and his hands shook. This is like some bad horror movie. Peters thought. Hopefully no one will die.
       Peters leaned up against the door, counted to three under his breath, and pulled the door open. There was nothing there. Peters stood there for a moment, his arm tiring under the weight of the MA5B. Peters slowly stepped out of the warm building, and the cold air stung his skin. Karls followed him, picking up a large stick, holding it like a bat. Peters was looking from left to right, but couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything, either.
       "You here that?" Karls asked.
       "Hear what?" Peters said, still looking around.
       "...There's nothing. No birds, no wolves... the Covenant would have already killed us. What is it?" Karls said.
       Peters felt strange. Something was wrong, but that barely explained it. It felt like something was watching him, but it felt like he was being watched by hundreds of creatures. Then he heard Karls scream.
       Peters turned around, expecting to see an Elite, Hunter, or any type of Covenant ripping off Karls' head, but what he saw made him freeze.
       It looked like a snail, slug, and seashell all rolled into one, but it was so hideous that Peters couldn't think of what it looked like. It had wrapped tentacles around Karls' neck, and it appeared to be choking him to death, but then a large spike came out of it, and it shoved itself down Karls' back.
       Peters snapped out of the temporary coma he was in, and ran over to Karls. He kicked the thing off of his back, yanked the spine out of Karls' back, and looked where the thing had landed. It wasn't there anymore; it had exploded in a green ball of slime. Peters looked around, then picked Karls up and dragged him into the building.
       He filled the wound with bio-foam and shook Karls. Karls woke with a scream and sat up. "GET IT OFF OF ME!" Karls was screaming, shaking Peters wildly.
       "Calm down! Calm down... It's dead." Peters said in a calm voice, but on the inside, he was scared as hell, too.
       There was a bang on the door, and Peters jumped to his feet, MA5B shaking in his hands. The thick metal door was dented. No Elite or Human could do that. The door shook again, and another dent appeared in the door. The dent looked like...
       "...a human hand...?" Peters muttered.
       Just then, a skylight shattered, and something dropped down. It was a...
       "ZOMBIE!" Karls screamed.
       Peters put half a clip into the things torso. The rounds tore through it like tissue paper. Green blood flowed out of the holes, and the thing fell to the floor, twitched one, and died. Peters walked over to it, kneeled down, and looked at its face. It was a zombie. Its face was that of a human, but the head was pushed back, tossed aside like it was a useless limb. The face had an expression of excruciating pain. Suddenly, the thing came back to life and grabbed Peters' ankle. Peters screamed, tossed away his MA5B in shock, and clawed at the things hand. The skin on the thing just tore away, already decomposed.
       Seven rounds tore through the things head, and it dropped. Karls walked over, MA5B smoking, and kicked in its chest. "Nice throw." Karls said.
       Peters tried to laugh, but couldn't. He stood up, but his ankle throbbed with a horrible pain. Peters fell to the ground, tried to stand up again, and had the same results.
       Karls stuck out his hand, grabbed Peters' arm, and pulled him up. Peters put his weight on Karls' shoulder, and took a deep breath. "Wow." Peters said.
       "What?" Karls asked.
       "Think this is some Covenant trick? A biological weapon, maybe?" Peters said, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like it."
       Karls was about to say something, but a clanging sound rang out behind them. They looked back, saw a staircase leading into the basement, and started walking towards the front door. Karls handed Peters the assault rifle, lifted him over his shoulders, and walked towards the door. "We need to run for it. They'll overrun us with these tactics. They're coming in through places we didn't even know were here." Karls said. "We'll have a better chance in the forest, with all the cover."
       Peters was about to say that it was a bad idea, but three of the things jumped up the basement stairs, looked around, and saw them. "Run." Peters said.
       Karls pulled open the door, held on tighter to Peters, and sprinted as fast as he could towards the forest. Peters, slung over Karls' shoulders, was able to shoot down the things chasing them. 8 rounds hit one in the chest, blowing rotten intestines into the air. 11 rounds tore through another ones head. It fell down, sat there for a moment, then jumped back up. "WHAT ARE THESE THINGS?" Peters yelled.
       Peters could hear Karls gasping for air. That thing crawling into his back must have hurt him a lot. Of course it hurt. Peters thought.
       Karls dodged trees, ducked under branches, and jumped over logs. The little shrimp ones, the ones that tried to climb into Karls, fell from the branches of the trees, stood up on their tentacles, and squirmed towards them. Peters held the trigger down, and shook the MA5B from left to right. Aiming wasn't necessary at this range. "I'm out!" Peters yelled at Karls. Karls took one hand off of Peters' leg, reached in his pocket, and handed him a clip.
       Peters shoved it into the assault rifle, and cocked the gun. He looked up, but there were no zombies left. Karls kept running, however, and Peters didn't think it was a good idea to make him stop. Karls sprinted for miles, carrying Peters on his back. He was sweating, even though it was 20 degrees outside, and he was breathing harder than ever before in his life. Finally, he ran until he couldn't run anymore. He ran into a cliff edge. Karls leaned over the side, and almost cried when he saw that it was more than a quarter mile drop. "It's over." Karls said, falling to the cold ground, almost passing out from pain.
       Peters didn't say anything. He was looking straight ahead, into the trees, into the bushes, into death itself. He saw a branch shake, aimed at it, and opened fire. The rounds tore through the branches and splintered the wood. He hit nothing but tree. The bushed to his right rattled. Again, he shot at it, but it was gone by then.
       Then, seeing it in practically slow motion, Peters saw the zombies running out of the forest at them. Peters opened fire, and the rounds tore through the first line's shins. They fell to the ground, and more climbed over their bodies. The ones with no legs continued to crawl. Peters' gun fired its last bullet, and Peters knew he was going to die.
       GET DOWN!
       Peters didn't know who said it, but he fell backwards anyway. He looked at the zombies, and saw them being torn apart by monstrous bullets. Anything that moved was torn apart, turned into a green mush, and completely destroyed. The bullets stopped, and Peters looked behind him. A Pelican was hovering just 3 feet beyond the cliff edge, it's gun smoking. HURRY! GET IN! the speakers on the Pelican projected.
       Karls stood up, half asleep from his ten-mile sprint, and picked Peters up. Peters looked behind him and saw hundreds of zombies running from the trees. Karls jumped into the back of the Pelican, pulled Peters in, and pressed the button to close the door. It was closing too slowly. The zombies were already there, climbing in, jumping at them.
       An assault rifle fired behind Peters. The bullets mowed down the half frozen reanimated corpses, and left their bodies smoking. The door finally closed, and the Pelican started to rise to the sky.
       A woman's voice softly spoke behind them. "I'm Lieutenant Rodriguez. Welcome back."





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