“Shit, this can’t be good,” Priest said under his breath. “Are they raping her?”
“Yes, they just ripped her clothes off and now,” Shin stopped. His mouth slightly open and closed. Priest noticed his jaw tightening. “They did not rape her.”
“Whew, that’s a relief,” Shaw said.
“No, it’s worse. They tore her belly apart, and she is still alive.”
“Fuck!” Neville whispered. It would have been a yell.
“They removed her intestines and draped them over themselves, dancing with them. They are pulling other organs out and tossing them in the air like catching a ball. They are covered in her blood.” Shin dropped his scope and faced Priest, “She is still alive. Neville needs to kill her. Put her out of her misery.” Neville moved forward but Priest stopped him.
“We can’t.”
“Why not?” Neville’s eyes were full of rage.
“You pop one off at this distance and they will hear it and come after us. It will give away our position. Plus, we don’t know how many more of those things are out there we just can’t see or haven’t seen yet.”
“But she is being tortured!” Neville whispered with more rage and venom than before.
“Son of a bitch, Neville. You think I like this any more than you do? Fuck no, but we got to be smart about this. We’re not playing with the normal scumbags.”
Neville knew he was right. Hell, they all knew he was right, but it didn’t stop their guts from wrenching. Didn’t stop the hopeless and sinking feeling of guilt. This is part of what they do, they save people. Unfortunately, not this time and it felt like shit.
Priest was just glad they couldn’t hear her screams from the distance, or this might have been a different conversation.
Shin spoke, “Finally she has died. Not before they pulled her eyes out and ate them. I have seen nothing like this before.”
“Hell, none of us has,” Priest lamented.
“Three have returned into the garage. The other two remained outside. Buddha bless us,” Shin said in Korean.
“What now?” Shaw asked.
“Uh-uh, one of them is rolling around in her blood. The other…. The other one is playing with the body or what’s left of it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Neville breathed.
“Yeah, we are not dealing with our run-of-the-mill warlords, terrorists or dictators. These fucking things have no remorse, no fear, no instinct for self-preservation. Just killing… in fucked up ways. We can’t scare them, reason with them, and they outnumber us. They don’t care about any of that. We have to avoid them or kill them until we can regroup back at HQ and figure out how to eliminate these things off the damn planet.” Priest finished. “Shin sit rep.”
“The other two have gone back in the building, and I don’t see any other movement outside.”
“Ok, we need to access that building and eliminate all hostile, so we can continue our search for the doctor. Neville, Shin, can you make your way to the left, behind one of those hangars? Cover our ass while we take that building.”
“Can do.” Neville nodded.
“Let me know when you’re in place.”
“Copy, give us five.”
Priest and Shaw waited for confirmation that Neville and Shin were in place. Five minutes went by. Six, Seven, Eight. Priest wanted to contact them, but if they were in a compromising position, he would give their loca
tion away. About ten seconds later, Priest heard from Shin.
“Father, this is Gandhi. We’re in position. Sorry about the extra time, but we found a maintenance ladder, and we are now on top of the hangar. Much better vantage point.”
“Ok, sounds good. Just don’t scare me like that.”
“Copy that. So, we can see into the building, and the five infected are still there. They are all congregating around a table in the far west corner. Completely opposite of your present location.”