Captain Fly

Dahlia, sprawled on the ground, rolled onto her side and opened fire, emptying her magazine in several long bursts. But although bullets sent fluid splattering from the Human-Headed Spiders scurrying across the floor, their numbers grew rather than dwindled as more dropped from the ceiling.

Nick slashed repeatedly, chopping the astonishingly springy Human-Headed Spiders apart in midair one by one. These bizarre things seemed especially fixated on human heads, yet ignored the skulls of the mummified corpses on the pews.

"Reloading!" The bolt of Dahlia's M4A1 locked back on an empty magazine.

Nick brought his blade down, pinning the Human-Headed Spider closest to her to the floor, then bent down, grabbed her backpack strap, and heaved, easily lifting her off the ground.

While still in midair, Dahlia simply swung her long legs around Nick's waist. After last night's "strenuous" practice, she was quite familiar with the move.

She quickly reloaded on his back, all her earlier panic gone, and fired in measured bursts.

Nick kept swinging his kukri-shaped Bolo knife, killing the monsters no less efficiently than Dahlia.

But just as he began making his way toward the church entrance with heavy steps, carrying Dahlia on his back, the howls of Hollow Men rang out from outside.

A moment later, the Hollow Men smashed the church doors open, and the first lunged straight at them.

Nick was so "frightened" that he backed away repeatedly. The reason was simple: all four Hollow Men that had charged in gave off a nauseating stench, with flies buzzing around their heads and sticky, yellow-green, shit-like matter covering their bodies.

What the hell, Captain Fly?

Nick grabbed his M4A1 and crouched to let Dahlia down, opening fire alongside her and driving the Hollow Men at the entrance back step by step.

The trouble with these Hollow Men was that each one's vital spots were different.

Although a shot to the head would theoretically kill them instantly, some had heads that weren't where they ought to be, while others came with a whole assortment of vegetation obscuring them. After spraying bullets for ages, you would discover that behind it was nothing but a gaping hole that had rotted through long ago.

Fortunately, the monsters in the gorge seemed to have territories of their own. The Human-Headed Spiders made no exceptions for the foul-smelling Hollow Men that had barged into the church and attacked them too.

"I'll blast us a way out!" Dahlia stuffed a high-explosive grenade into the M203 grenade launcher mounted beneath her M4A1.

With a soft thunk, the grenade launched, blasting the cross at the other end of the church and the wooden wall behind it to pieces.

The heat and shock wave from the explosion instantly cleared the Human-Headed Spiders in that direction. The two scrambled out of the little church, and Nick pulled out a hand grenade and tossed it behind him without looking back.

As the explosion rang out, they ran for their lives without a backward glance. Neither wanted to fight those Hollow Men, which looked as though they had crawled out of a cesspit. They were simply too disgusting.

They crossed the graveyard behind the little church, weaving around rows of crooked crosses, then jogged along the main road for less than five minutes. The cliff on the western side of the gorge was already close at hand, but the howls of more Hollow Men rang out from every direction.

They didn't understand why this road led straight to the cliff face, but they were probably still some distance from where they had fallen earlier. Clearly, they couldn't just keep running like this.

"There's a bunker entrance over there!" Sharp-eyed Dahlia spotted the entrance to a bunker set into the end of the road, clearly a man-made fortification.

"Let's get inside first." Nick could no longer worry about whether they would be escaping one danger only to stumble into another. It was better than waiting to die out in the open without any cover.

Dead vines also covered the area around the bunker entrance. They could just make out some warning signs in Russian and English. Although the lettering had long since been obscured by rust, the large skull symbols were easy enough to understand.

This was clearly a secret research facility. Perhaps it held the answers to everything in the gorge.

Nick stepped forward and tried pushing the bunker's steel door. To his surprise, the seemingly rust-ravaged door creaked with only a little force, but no matter how hard he pushed after that, it wouldn't open.

Seeing this, Dahlia hurried forward to help. Together, they finally pushed the heavy steel door open just wide enough to squeeze through.

Rusted steel beams and heavy objects lay scattered haphazardly behind the door. Nick closed it again and swept his flashlight over the floor, his brow furrowing.

"Careful. Something's wrong here. Someone's been inside, though it was a long time ago."

Someone had once barricaded this door from the inside, and someone else had later forced their way in. That was what had left the old scrape marks beneath the dust on the floor.

"It's not like there could still be anyone alive in here." Dahlia switched on her flashlight, her expression saying she was tired and couldn't care less anymore.

"As long as there aren't any more Human-Headed Spiders or monsters covered in shit, I can handle anything else."

Repeated shocks could desensitize a person, too. Their succession of terrifying encounters had caused their bodies to release large amounts of stimulants such as adrenaline. Now those were ebbing, and a sudden feeling of weakness washed over them.

In reality, however, both still had plenty of physical stamina. Their earlier exertions probably hadn't amounted to even a fraction of yesterday's.

Nick estimated the weight of the objects that had originally barricaded the door and shook his head. "This couldn't have been done by human strength alone. They must have used tools. It might have been the special forces troops who entered the gorge later."

He shone his flashlight down the passage, then asked the girl, "Want to go in and take a look?"

"Of course. Even if I end up dying here, I want to find out what killed me before I die."

Dahlia's tone was firm, but then she took off her backpack, set it on the ground, and opened her arms to Nick. "But before we go on our next adventure, could you hold me for a moment? I really was scared back there."

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Nick pulled her into his arms and promised, "Trust me. You'll make it out alive."

"Shouldn't that be 'we'?" Dahlia looked up at him suspiciously.

"We will." Feeling a little guilty, Nick avoided her gaze, unsure how to explain for the moment.

Dying in this world would only mean failing the mission and returning, so he hadn't felt much sense of danger before. He had only looked forward to completing the mission and receiving his reward.

But after last night, Nick's thinking had changed. Mission rewards and the like no longer mattered. He only hoped Dahlia could live safely and peacefully in the future.

He not only had to get her out of this gorge alive, but also keep her clear of any possible trouble afterward.

Nick had already begun to sense that far too much about this assignment to guard the gorge defied reason. The secrets here were far too shocking.

If they had simply stood guard above the gorge for a year without knowing anything, it would have been fine. But now that they had seen those hidden, horrifying truths with their own eyes, what ending awaited them even if they made it out alive?