Part 24

    Now the question was whether he should move back to where he had cover. From there he and Graves could probably defend against the onslaught that would come when they made themselves known. He started crawling back to cover.

    The light above him sparked again, showering him in sparks. One of the hot embers hit him on the exposed bit of his skin on the back of his neck, and he swatted it away. A yelp of pain willed itself into his throat, but he didn't let it escape. That would have been a problem.

    A series of shots rang out from where Graves was hunkered, and snarls and roars sounded behind him. 'Fuck.' He rolled over, a string of curses pouring from his mouth as he brought the Breaker to bear. Already the  troop of fungal beasts - for what else could they be - were sprinting toward him at full tilt.

    He started firing in bursts, unleashing spouts of fiery death from the barrel of his rifle. A few rounds here meant a small speedy beast went down, a few to the left dropped the next closest. To the right dropped another speedy one. When he reloaded the monsters were clumped close enough that he switched to full auto and let spray with the next twenty rounds.. With the added fire from Graves' pistol, they dropped about a dozen more, but before he could even pop the next heat sink from it's chamber, the monsters were all but upon him. He dropped the breaker to his feet while unslinging the shotgun, aiming at the biggest threat - a charging alpha - and letting loose.

    And then they were there, tearing into Kevin's flesh with teeth and claws. There were far fewer than there had been when this started 10 eternal seconds ago, but there were still more than he had fought at any one point in time. Either Graves had run out of ammo, or he was worried about hitting him, and although Kevin almost wished for a stray bullet to take him out - 'better than being ripped apart,' he though to himself - and he fired the last of his rounds from the shotgun. It was hard to miss in this cluster, even firing blindly, and he brought the number of maws tearing into him down to only two.

    The amount of attackers, however , never really mattered when you were dead, as he soon would be. 

    Of the two attackers, the biggest threat was the alpha. The large bony head could crush him into a pulp if it hit him right. The long jagged teeth were the size of Kevin's forearm and would rip him to ribbons if they got into him. Thankfully the smaller fungal beast had been staying in the larger ones way, but when he punted the smaller one away, the toothy grin of the larger monster became a void rimmed with razor sharp teeth.

    Within it Kevin saw the flashing contents of his life...