TIME/DATE STAMP ERR....
COMBAT OVERRIDE!
COMBAT SYSTEMS ONLINE
...terminate with extreme prejudice...
KILL THE ENEMY!
KILL THE ENEMY!
FINISH THE FIGHT!

The axe swung down before they even knew I was there, hitting the guy in the chest with a sound that brought back horrible memories that I shoved aside the same way I kicked the screaming guy off the axe and waded into them.

"BLOOD FOR LUGUS!" I bellowed out, swinging the axe in my hands. "BLOOD FOR CERNUNNO!" My voice was thunder in the airlock.

They had no chance. Trapped in the airlock with a homicidal maniac with an axe. I used it ruthlessly, putting one hand up by the head, the other toward the butt, using it in close quarters like I was doing bayonet drills.

Teeth and blood flew when I smashed the head of the axe into the point of a guy's chin and it deformed under the power of the blow. The butt of the axe caved in another's skull. Three more went down in as many swings, all of them screaming.

"FINISH THE FIGHT!" The axe bound up on one guy's ribcage and when I kicked him the axe flew out of my hands and he slammed into the glass.

I stood up to my full my height, staring down at them.

One started screaming, staring up at me, and I reached out with one hand and covered his screaming face, staring at the last survivor. When I clenched my fist, his face came away in my hand, bone splintering and shattering in my grip.

The last one kept screaming as I unfolded the guy's face, slowly, and held it up for him to see the empty inside of it.

I grinned as I gently draped it over his screaming face. His wide green eyes staring at me out of the holes, his mouth screaming behind the empty mouth.

He held up one shaking hand and I grabbed him up by the front of his uniform, lifting him off his feet so I could stare into his green eyes.

"I see you, pumpkin," I growled into his face, and felt the warmth of blood run down my chin.

He was still screaming as I stepped up to the door, using my left hand to sweep away the dead man with the axe most of the way through him. I opened the airlock door and stepped out into the dimness of ambulance area.

I set him down gently, then bent forward till my nose touched his  flesh-mask covered nose.

"Run." I growled.

He ran.

Screaming.

I turned back and pulled the door open, moving back into the airlock. My boots made splishing sounds in the puddles of steaming blood as I slowly moved through the dim Dispensary hallway and back to where the nine females soldiers were.

They went pale, staring up at me.

"Are... are you all right?" One asked me. She had brown hair and brown eyes, with a smattering of freckles across her face. I could smell her, her sweat, her grime, her cunt. I could see the pulse fluttering at the side of her neck, see her lick her cracked and dry lips nervously.

"Yes," I growled.

One raised a shaking hand to her mouth, covering it, as she stared at me. I looked back.

Blue eyes. Blond hair hidden under grease and blood. Pale, alabaster skin. Lips swollen and split. Bruising on her neck. I could smell her too, smell how how her cunt had been hammered, plowed, readied.

I shook my head and stumbled back slightly, my left knee going out from under me so I ended up on one knee, my head bowed. Their smell receded. I couldn't tell any longer that two of them were almost ready, almost ripe, almost ready to be swollen.

I coughed and spat blood on the floor.

"Holy Mary Mother of God," one said softly.

"Did everyone else see that?" Another asked.

A pair of boots moved in front of my face and the woman squatted in front of me, her legs on either side of my head. She reached down and cradled my chin in her palm, lifting my face to look me in the eyes.

"Sergeant, how badly are you wounded?" She asked.

"Stabbed," I told her. "Chest. Three times." I coughed again and felt blood drool down my chin.

"Do you know what just happened to you?" She asked, her voice slightly timid.

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. Just flashes. Men screaming and dying. Splitting a man's face in half with the axe and wrenching it free in a spray of blood, bone splinters, and brains.

I shook my head. "Just flashes. I was... angry," I said.

"Do you know why your eye is glowing red?" She asked me, touching under my left eye with two fingers. "There's no white to it, is that normal?"

"No to the first, yes to the second," I said, then coughed again. More blood. I tilted my head and spit it on the floor. "Think someone got a piece of me."

"Let's get you up, sit you down," She said, standing up, her fingertips still on my chin. She put light pressure and I struggled to my feet.

"Are we sure this a good idea? That shit wasn't normal," one whispered.

"I don't give a shit. Bremmer and Callington were about to kill me and fuck my corpse," another hissed. "Shut up, Wellton."

"Shit ain't been normal in a month," Another whispered. "If the Army sent some kind of super-soldier here, I'd rather he didn't do to us what it sounded like he was doing to them."

Dizziness washed over me and I groaned, putting one hand on the chair before sitting down.

"Notice now that the killing's over, he's smaller?" Wellton whispered. "Oh, God, you don't think he's going to rape us too?"

"Shut. Up. Bitch," the one who had almost been an unwilling necrophilia participant hissed.

The one in front of me shined a light into my eyes.

"If he's gonna, you think you're gonna stop a bigass monster like he was? I'll just hope he doesn't gut me like a fucking fish, you fight him, you heard how well it turned out for everyone else who wanted to fight," Necro-Girl kept saying.

She snapped off the light. "Your left eye doesn't react to light, is that normal?"

I nodded and coughed again, bringing up more blood. Not as much as before, but enough I could taste it.

"All right, take off your shirt," She said, her voice crisp and dispassionate. I knew that training and having something to do had slotted in between her and the horrors she had endured, creating a steel bulwark that her instructors had hammered into her brain.

Taking off my T-shirt brought out a groan, same as the woolen longjohns top. I was panting by the time she was done.

"Jesus," one of them said.

"If you bitches can't find anything else to do but gossip, start getting a med-pack together or see if you can rustle up some weapons," the one squatting down in front of me said. She reached out and touched my chest. "These stab wounds are mostly healed, just new scars. How old are they?"

"What's today?" I chuckled, then reached down and grabbed my top. In my pocket I found my smokes and a lighter and lit one.

When I looked up and snapped the Zippo closed I saw the raven haired medic was frowning at me.

"Lean to your right and lift your left arm," She told me.

I sighed and did it, groaning when something pulled, then coughing. No blood taste.

"Three stab wounds, lower chest, mid-torso," she said, trembling fingers touching the itching spots on my side. "Dried blood under them like they've bled recently, but they're scarred up."

"So no open wound?" I coughed. I wiped my chin and took a deep drag off the cigarette, sighing in pleasure.

She shook her head. "Can I have a drag?"

"Have a whole one," I told her, waving at my top.

"What happened?" She asked me.

I frowned. "When?"

"What happened to you?" She asked again, tapping the scars on my chest.

Shaking my head I blew smoke up. "I don't remember. The last thing I remember was being at Graf with my unit, then I woke up standing in a circle of salt with an Irish witch staring at me," I gave her a grin, "No bullshit. An honest to God Irish witch."

She shuddered and lit herself a cigarette.

"You were dead, when she found you I mean," She said.

I just shrugged.

"Jesus, magic," she said softly. She blew smoke off to the side then looked at me. "Cannibals, now magic and some kind of half-dead killing machine."

That made me chuckle. "Honey, on Alfenwehr, you take what you can get," I told her. "My medic did her job, got me on my feet, got me back in fighting condition. We got separated when the fighting got tough, but I led the enemy away from her and the pregnant women."

At the last the female soldier choked up, looking away and biting her lip. I gave her a moment to compose herself and she looked back at me. "For the love of all that's holy, unholy, whatever you revere, don't let the pregnant women fall into their hands."

She didn't need to tell me why. I'd heard someone once say that fetuses tasted the sweetest, were the tenderest, of human meat. I retched once, spitting on the floor.

"You aren't here to save us," It wasn't a question, and I stared her in the face. "You're here because of the nuclear weapons, your medic, and those pregnant women, and that's all."

I just nodded.

"How do we fit in now?" She asked. She hugged herself tightly, the cigarette hanging from her lower lip, "You saved us. You're Irish right?" I nodded and she continued, "Doesn't that mean we're in your protection? That you're responsible for us?"

Something twinged inside of me, twisted weirdly in my chest, and a headache spiked through my brain, feeling like an icepick had slammed into the flat spot at the back of my skull and exited out my nose.

"Your eye is glowing brighter," She said softly. She stared at me for a long moment. "Diana, my name is Diana."

"Hi, Diana, I'm Sergeant Stillwater," I told her, trying to push her eyes away. They were wide, pale, ice blue, and they tried to pull me in, drown me.

She blinked, and the vulnerability went away.

"Sergeant Stillwater it is," She said gently. She leaned back on her heels. "As near as I can tell, you're fine. Except for spontaneous growth and reduction, and that glowing red eye."

The lizard hissed at her.

"Thanks, doc," I smiled, reaching down for the longjohns and groaning when that cracked rib twinged.

"Wait," She said, and began pressing on my side. "No shifting, but tenderness and bruising under the blood. I've say you've got a couple of cracked ribs."

"Yeah. Ghost pushed me off a cliff," I told her, pulling the longjohn top over my head. When my head popped free she was staring at me.

"You aren't joking," she said.

I shook my head. "My old crew medic. She's been haunting me since I got her killed."

"Now that isn't true," Westlin said from the darkness. She came out into the dim light of the stove, wearing a denim skirt and a white blouse. "That sniper killed me, and I let him by taking off my body armor."

"You're seeing her now," The living woman said.

I nodded, staring at Westlin.

"Look at me, not her, Sergeant," The female medic said. I turned my head and stared, ignoring when Westlin jiggled her boobs at me and laughed.

"It's this mountain, isn't it?" She asked. "All of it. My unit going crazy, the dead coming back to life, the ghosts, you."

I nodded again and she exhaled.

"Jesus."

"Doesn't care about Special Weapons or this place," I snapped automatically. I shook my head again, pushing away the distractions. "Are you all that's left of Charlie Company?"

She shook her head. "No. Some of us were taken to the barracks. Some sided with the ones that went savage. The rest were killed and eaten, leaving just us. Some of them like to kill when they're having sex."

"When did that start?"

"About two weeks ago. Some of them started getting really twisted," She looked at me. "You're going to think I'm crazy..."

I shook my head. "I've survived four winters up here. Try me."

"Some of them, the crazier ones, well..." she looked away.

"They're most bestial," I guessed.

She nodded. "That too. They're, well, they're abnormally hung, I mean, it's really noticeable now. The bigger their cock, the more they like to hurt people," she stared into my eyes, "I'm not crazy, seriously."

I shook my head slowly. "No, no you aren't."

"So you've seen it before?" She asked.

I shook my head again. "No, but it doesn't surprise me that Alfenwehr would offer gifts to those who gave it what it wants."

She shuddered, hugging herself again, then looked at me as she put out her cigarette.

"What does it want?"

"Blood."