I frantically looked around, terrified by the realization that I was surrounded by demons. Sure, two of them were dead demons, but there were another four who’d appeared that were very much still alive. This was like one of my worst nightmares come to life.

Pete was no longer staying back and keeping his distance as our backup soldiers normally did. Of course, the other three backup soldiers had already been taken out of action so he came up to stand back to back with us. We were a short distance away from Reese, who was out of action due to his injury. I just hoped that we could protect him from further attacks from these demons.

“We’ve got reinforcements nearby,” Rebecca said, her voice shaking to show that she was scared too. “I just called Brooks and asked him to send them ASAP.”

One of the demons was up in a tree, crouching on a thick branch. This demon was the smallest of the four, looking as though she had once been a teenage girl and retaining enough of her old humanity that her friends and family might even be able to recognize her. Though much of her body was still human in shape, she was naked, with light gray skin and solid black eyes that stared down at us with a malevolent expression. Her arms no longer served that purpose, having mutated into a pair of stretched wings much like what a bat would have. And from what I could see of her feet, they looked something like those of a predatory bird…just nastier.

The winged demon let out a shriek and then dove down at us from the tree, sticking her clawed feet out before her. We all dove to the side, with Dani knocking Pete to the ground. The demon swooped past us and the long blades on her feet caught the edge of a tree, tearing deep gouges in the bark.

Once the winged demon had launched her attack, the other three demons seemed to take this as their sign to come at us as well. Nicole opened fire on the winged demon, who swooped behind a tree and avoided being hit. Without a word, the rest of us each picked a different demon to focus on.

Dani picked the stocky demon who looked as though he was made of stone. She fired several shots right at his chest, hitting him dead center. The demon was knocked back but then returned to his feet, now having some chips taken out of his stony exterior but appearing mostly unharmed.

“Oh shit,” Dani blurted out.

One of the demons charging towards us was tall and gaunt with pale white skin and boney spokes that stuck out all over. He hissed and charged right at Rebecca, who opened fire. The demon howled and spat out a spray of green slime, making my sister dive for the side to avoid being hit. She tried firing again but the demon was on her, slashing out with his claws and hitting her in the side. Her body armor seemed to stop the damage but her gun had been knocked aside.

I would have helped my sisters but my own attention was occupied by the demon who was coming towards me. He was about seven feet tall and would have been called morbidly obese if he was still human. He seemed to be made of fat, though his skin was a slimy black color that looked almost as if he’d been dipped in oil. But as disgusting as that was, what really creeped me out was the fact that he had half a dozen black tentacles growing out of his back.

I shot the fat demon right in the center of his torso, and though a hole appeared, his fat seemed to absorb all the force of the bullet. A little black goo oozed from the wound, but he seemed more furious than hurt. His mouth opened up far wider than a human would have been able to and he gave an eerie gurgling roar.

“Shit,” I exclaimed, jumping to the side as he charged me and avoiding his attack. The tentacles on his back lashed out and nearly hit me, though I was fast enough to avoid them as well. Unfortunately, one of the tentacles caught my gun and knocked it from my hand. “This is insane,” I called out.

Since I was currently unarmed, I focused on backing away from the fat demon and keeping out of its reach. I was fast and agile so was confident in my ability to avoid him. But then I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and was thrown to the ground. I looked up to see the winged demon flying away, having just hit me from behind. The fat demon took advantage of the opportunity to charge at me again, this time catching me before I could get back to my feet.

“Monica,” Nicole screamed, shooting the fat demon in the back, though it wasn’t distracted enough by this to drop me.

“Let me go,” I snarled, punching the demon in the face a digging my fingers into its eyes. That was enough to make him let go of me, though his tentacles immediately lashed out at me again.

The winged demon dove at me again, this time from the front where I could see her. My shoulder hurt and my arm wasn’t responding as well as it should, but I dove to the side and rolled, dodging both the flying demon and the fat one. There were several gunshots and then the flying demon fell from the air with one of her wings torn to pieces. Several shots later and she was dead.

“Got her,” Nicole exclaimed.

I looked past the fat demon to the others and saw that Pete had moved away from my sisters, who were busy keeping the demons occupied, and was now taking cover behind a tree and shooting at the rock demon. Between Pete and Dani, the demon had huge chips and chunks removed from its body, but it was still standing.

“I’m stuck,” Rebecca called out furiously.

The ground around Rebecca was covered with the green slime that the boney demon had been spitting out. She was pulling one of her legs which seemed to almost be glued in place by the slime. The fact that she was currently unarmed made her situation far more dangerous as the demon was now approaching her, snarling and displaying his claws.

“I’ve gotcha,” Nicole called out, turning to help Rebecca until the fat demon lashed out with a tentacle and caught her ankle, yanking her feet out from underneath her.

With a grimace, I ran past the fat demon and grabbed my rifle from where it had been dropped. I shot the boney demon who was thrown back with several holes through his chest. He didn’t get up after that so I turned my attention to helping Nicole, who was trying to get into a position to shoot the fat demon. I fired several shots at the creature, though it seemed to take them as though they were little more than bee stings.

“Get this fat freak off me,” Nicole demanded angrily.

Then the fat demon took a shot in the head that actually made him stagger. However, that shot hadn’t been one of mine. I quickly looked around and realized that it had come from Reese, who was sitting up against a tree and using his remaining hand to shoot. There was a look of pain on his face as well as one of determination.

“I’m not going down like a bitch,” Reese snarled.

“Good idea,” I responded, following Reese’s lead by shooting the demon in the head. So far, that seemed to be about the only thing that got through to him. I charged the demon, and when he opened his massive mouth to roar, I shot right inside. The back of his head blew out and he finally collapsed to the ground.

The last demon standing was the stone demon, which was extremely tough but slow moving and easy for us to avoid. Dani and Pete had nearly taken him down, and now Nicole and I joined the assault, tearing through the rest of its armored skin and killing it just as we had the others. Only then did we help Rebecca get free of the green goo that had her glued in place.

“That was disgusting,” Rebecca said with a wince.

“We did it,” Pete exclaimed, coming out from where he’d been taking cover.

Pete started towards us but Rebecca held out her hand and warned him, “Don’t come any closer… There’s demon blood everywhere and we’re all covered with it.”

“Gotcha,” Pete responded with a scowl, backing away instead.

“I hate getting this shit on me,” Dani spat out. “I hate getting those damn foam baths.”

Rebecca nodded but was slowly looking around at the six dead demons that were scattered about on the ground. This whole area was so contaminated that it was going to be a huge mess to clean up. I glanced at Pete, really hoping that he hadn’t caught the demon strain.

“I’ve never heard of demons working in a pack before,” Rebecca finally said, the worry clear in her voice. “Usually, when there are multiple demons, they’re just as likely to fight each other as they are us. Usually, we just have to stand back and let them tear each other apart. But this…”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Nicole agreed grimly.

I nodded at that but was instead looking to Reese, who was staring at the demons with a haunted look on his face. “I’m not going down like a bitch,” he said, finally looking up at us. “I’m not turning into one of those THINGS.” And with that, he pulled his rifle to his own chin and pulled the trigger.

“NO!” I cried out, but it was already too late. Reese was gone.

I stood there for a moment, just staring at Reese’s body and crying. I knew that I’d done everything I could for him, but it still felt like it hadn’t been enough. I’d been able to patch up his arm, but what good was that against the harkon virus?

Dani snarled angrily, then got on the radio and demanded, “Where the hell were the reinforcements we asked for?”

“We were on our way but ran into trouble,” Mike’s voice came from the other end of the radio. “We ran into another one of our squads that had been ambushed. All three of them were torn to pieces.”

“Oh shit,” Nicole whispered.

“The demon who did it jumped us,” Mike continued grimly. “Two of my guys were killed before we took it down.” There was a long pause before he added, “But it gets worse.”

“How could this get any worse?” Rebecca asked over the radio, her voice more tired than anything.

Mike was silent for a few more seconds before answering, “The one we killed was carrying a couple demon eggs.”