"First rule, son, is you're going to get cut."
CSM Tiernan Stillwater, US Army

The little lizard hit the combat mode button and the pain went away as time slowed down. I knew I didn't have time to grab the knife, and out of the dozen or so plans of action the lizard threw up I chose the one that fit my rage the best. I lunged forward as the bayonet came down, adrenaline spiking through me. My right hand caught the wrist of the hand the bayonet was in. I moved into him, my left hand slamming shot after shot into his side as we staggered to the side. I felt something give under the parka as we reached the edge of the steps.

I might have been out of gas, but months of lifting artillery shells and boxes of ammunition had layered thick muscle on my frame. The punches were weaker than I'd have been able to throw when all of it started, but rage lent fuel to my strikes.

He screamed when I hit him again in the spot where something had gave, and he went from trying to stab me to trying to get away.

The lizard threw up the options, and I chose the one that let me hurt him the most.

Nancy was still screaming my name as I slung him down the steps.

I jumped down the steps as he scrambled to his feet, my boots crashing on the mid-way landing and making the whole stairwell shake.

...two hundred and fifteen pounds of twisted steel, sex appeal, and killer instinct just landed, you little bitch...

My knees flexed when I hit. He was staring at me wide-eyed, one eye bloodshot, as I straightened up, still smiling.

"Miss me, pumpkin?" I asked, taunting him, feeding off of his fear.

He lunged forward with the knife and I swept my arm to the side, pushing the knife to the side. I stepped inside his reach and buried my fist in his stomach, the punch coming from somewhere down around my ankles, my waist twisting as I put everything I had into it.

I didn't see the headbutt coming, and when it did, my vision vanished. I threw two punches, the first one hitting him, the second one slamming into a tile on the walls. A sharp pain sparked at the edge of my hand which made the lizard put another red dot on the silhouette of my body, but I ignored it beyond using it to fuel me.

My vision came back in time to see him scrabbling down the stairs, but the quick turn of my head blinded me again. I didn't care, hurtling myself down the steps as my vision returned. My palms slapped the wall and I thrust myself down and away, chasing him.

I saw him ahead of me, and drove a fist into his kidney as I slammed him into the wall. Before he could do anything else I punched him twice more in the kidney, making him scream. I knew I was smiling in fierce joy at the pain I was causing him.

...you're lucky I'm out of gas, you little bitch...

The punches I was throwing into him didn't have as much power as they should have. If I'd been in top condition I would have ruptured his kidney, driven a broken rib into his lung, but as it was all I was doing was hurting him.

And that was just fine with me.

An elbow hit me in the face, and I staggered back, my eyesight vanishing, but I kept my hands up just in case. Just because I couldn't see didn't mean I couldn't fight. I'd been blind drunk more than a few times and fought one or more opponents. Once had been a life or death fight in an alley in Kassel against a guy with a knife. Another time had been two men in an alley that had tried to box me in, one with a garrote and one with knife. I'd survived them all and left behind nothing but the dead, I could survive this asshole and leave him dead.

My vision came back with a liquid twist that made me suddenly nauseous. He snapped back into focus just as the knife was coming down, and I slapped the knife away, throwing two rights into his face before he could get the knife back around, bouncing his head off the wall. He screamed in pain and shoved me back, and I tripped over the step at the base of the upward flight and landed on my ass, my vision crackling and going gray.

Instead of following up like he should have, he ran down the steps, and I reached between the bars of the banister and grabbed his ankle as he went by, ignoring the flare of pain and crunch in my elbow.

He screamed again as he went down face first. I got up and chased him, jumping from the top step, aiming my boots at him, laughing as I dropped through the air.

I landed in the middle of his back, and he shrieked as something crackled under my boots. My feet went out from under me and I went backwards down the flight of stairs, my head bouncing off the stair and a burning pain erupting in my neck.

"I'll kill you!" He yelled, the first thing I'd ever heard him say. I heard him coming down the stairs, my vision blurring and struggling to come into focus. I guessed, and lashed out with my boots, and felt a jarring impact as my boots slammed into him. He let out a high wheeze of agony, and fell on top of me.

We rolled to the side, and I kneed him off just as my vision came back.

Grinning, I got to one knee, my hand at my belt, looking up at him as he stood up to his full height, the bayonet in his fist. The flashlights from above cast crazy shadows on the walls, and for a split second I could see his bloodshot eye plainly as he lunged toward me and I lunged up at him.

My body was nothing but leaden agony, my reactions slowed, my strength drained away. I'd hurt him, but I'd come into the fight hurting worse than him. His insanity, or maybe booze and painkillers, let him ignore the injuries I'd inflicted on him with my knife after he'd stabbed Nancy. Or maybe I hadn't done as good of a job as I had thought I had.

Either way, it was time to end it.

The downward thrust happened faster than I could slap his arm to the side, and the lizard screeched in anger. His knife hit me in the shoulder, driving deep through my jacket and shirt, the hilt slamming into my skin. His body crashed into mine, trapping my arm between both of us as I wrapped my left arm around his body and hugged him tight. He was staring down at me, his eye wide, and his teeth bloody.

I twisted my knife, and he spat blood into my face.

I grinned at him as I twisted it again and he coughed, dark red blood running out of his mouth and spattering my face. I laughed as I twisted it a third time, and he whimpered slightly.

He surged forward, against me, my feet slipped on the icy stairs and we went down them. I lost him, tumbling, and I realized I was blind again when I came to a stop. I was on my back, still holding my knife, but couldn't do anything but lay on the tiles of the bottom of the landing.

I was laying in something soft and I could feel cold seeping in through my jacket, my pants, as the pain in my shoulder faded to a dull throb.

In the back of my mind the little lizard shrieked in rage and hate, trying to get me to my feet, trying to get me moving. He kept punching buttons, slapping his tail on the brushed steel floor, but nothing happened. I just laid there.

Nagle and Hernandez were coming down the stairs.

I felt something tug on something inside of my shoulder, rocking me in place, but all I could see was darkness, and I lacked the strength to even scream.

...I'm out of gas...

My vision came back, tunnel vision, the middle strangely magnified, the edges blurry, but the center of my vision sharp and clear.

He was bent over me, one arm around his waist, his left hand reaching down toward me and vanishing from my vision. He rocked back, and I felt another pull of agony from my shoulder.

I couldn't even groan.

"Goddamn asshole enlisted puke." he snarled, letting go and standing up.

He brought back his boot and kicked me in the face, my vision vanishing in a white flash.

"ANT! ANT!" Nagle was coming down the steps. "I'M COMING, BABY!" Her voice was a tearing shriek of fear and loss.

He laughed; rich, deep, evil laughter that echoed through the stairwell.

Snow crunched next to my ear, and my body ignored my command to lash out and grab him as he went by.

I heard Nagle and Hernandez's footsteps stop on the stairs as his footsteps rang on the steps, his rich dark laughter filling the stairwell.

"Run!" Hernandez shouted.

"Ant!" Nagle yelled.

...My Nancy...

"He's gone! Don't throw away the time he bought us!" Hernandez yelled back, "Run!"

I could hear him going up the stairs, his footsteps thudding in the darkness, his laughter leading the way.

"Anthony! I love you!" She yelled down the stairwell.

I heard their boots pound back up the stairs.

...I love you...

I lay there in the darkness, in the snow. I could feel the wind blowing in, and knew he must have gotten the door open. My eyes were open, but I couldn't see, and I couldn't even blink when cold snowflakes hit my unseeing eyes.

Footsteps came back down the steps, and paused near me.

"Stay down, Stillwater." The voice was full of hatred, repeating the words I'd heard so often. The guy coughed and then groaned before cursing. He kicked me again, but I barely felt it.

With another cough that brought a curse from him, he walked away. The footsteps crunched through the snow and disappeared, leaving me alone in the cold, and the snow.

Time ticked by, my shoulder was growing cold. It felt like all my warmth was pulling out of my shoulder. I could feel the freezing blade stuck through me, pinning me to the ground, pinning me to the ice and snow.

Sharp, cold icicles touched my face, slowly tracing over my face, pausing on my lips to tug them open. My skull began to ache, and then my teeth, as the cold sunk into my flesh and bone.

There was a low, bubbling chuckle as the sharp icicle ran down my cheek. The lizard hissed and recoiled, but was unable to get me to do anything but struggle to breathe.

I could hear footsteps pounding down the stairs.

"Stillwater, we're coming for you!" Someone yelled.

Carter.

...No...

The talon dug into my shoulder, pushing next to the blade, and then withdrew as soon as it dug deeply into my flesh. There was a sucking sound, then another low chuckle. It was wet, and cold, and without any humanity.

"He's dead." Nagle, sobbing.

"No way, he's alive." Carter.

"He's not dead till I see the body." Hernandez, his Brooklyn accent thick. "Tandy didn't take him, he's not dead."

I heard a low, bubbling hiss.

...run...

A flashlight beam illuminated the dark form straddling me.

The lizard screeched in primal fear as the figure swam into my view.

Deep, sunken eyes, nothing but black pits burning with hatred and dark mirth. Gaping open jaws revealing broken and jagged teeth that were too long for the mouth. White skin, with the edges of the mouth pulled up in a horrific grin.

Grimy, dirty, tattered BDU's, covered with frozen mud and a rind of frost.

A hand held in front of my face, at the end of a too long arm, the wrist and forearm protruding from a ragged torn BDU sleeve. The fingers were blackened, inhumanly long, and twisted, the sharpened finger bones thrust through the blackened flesh.

My eyes tried to flick down, automatically, out of habit, but my field of vision didn't change. Even so, I spotted the nametag as Carter, Nancy, and Hernandez all screamed at once from where they stood on the mid-point landing.

TANDY