The Building

When they reached the building, Zane unsheathed the blade at his hip in his left hand and drew the sidearm from the holster in his right hand. The others attached torches to their rifles. The doors were knocked down so they entered single file and spread out while sweeping the entrance. There were two hallways stretching into the building on the right and left of the desk that was stationed right in front of them by about 10 meters.

The building was a mess. It had clearly been overrun. There were dried bloodstains from corpses being dragged on the floor and bloody, smeared handprints on the walls. These trails were mostly in the hallway to the right. The building was dark so these were lit up by the flashlights.

"Clear. Let's clear the rest of the building." Daniels said quietly. "Richards, Carl and David on the left. Anderson, Zane and I on the right, let's go."

They split into those two groups and started to sweep the building. Zane decided to sheathe his blade and pull out his torch in case he needed to see better. Zane gripped it in his left hand under his pistol and took point once again.

They cleared individual rooms down the hallway. Going through about thirty different rooms before they came to a door that presumably, led to the basement. The door was knocked down and the stairway was dark.

Thinking of his last encounter with a Pale at the grocery store made Zane think twice. He turned his torch off and stuffed it in the trench coat. Then he unsheathed his blade again, relying on Anderson's and Daniels light to guide him.

Before they reached the door Zane heard shots rang out from the mess hall. He assumed their group got lucky and the Pales were in the mess hall. They started to descend down the stairs into the darkness.

About halfway down Zane heard breathing… Deep, heavy breathing. He held out his left hand in a fist. Zane looked back, Daniels gave him a nod assuring Zane that he heard it too. They descended deeper into the basement.

The light revealed it was a server room. All the servers were knocked down and crumpled up to the walls in the center of the room were the Pales. There were about 10 adults and 4 pups. They were sleeping for now. Zane and his team couldn't hear outside but figured the special forces were fighting the other Pales.

All three of them started to go back up the stairs. Making it to the top and Daniels radioed the other three squad members. Gunshots were still ringing in the air. Being the top apex predator now, Pales sleep very soundly.

"Come in, Richards. Richards, do you copy?" he asked.

"I copy, what's up?" Richards responded.

"We found the nest, come to our hallway and help us exterminate it." Daniels told him.

"Roger that."

It took about five minutes but Richards, Carl and David made their way to the first team. Daniels gave them the update of what they saw.

"So we are going to lure them out and shoot them down through the doorway." Daniels told them.

"Like fish in a barrel?" Zane asked and the others chuckled.

"Yes, like fish in a barrel, Zane," Daniels said with a smile.

"How are we gonna lure them out?" Richards asked seriously.

"Well, we could just shout into the stairway, I guess." Daniels answered. "Okay so, Anderson and Richards on the left doorway ahead of us. We will have the Jacksons on the Right behind us and Zane with me in the hallway further down."

We assumed our positions as Daniels had told them. The positions were about twenty feet from the stairway. They all knew what would come next and were filled with anticipation.

"Hey Richards, go give them a greeting." Daniels ordered quietly.

Richards walked up to the stairway and took a deep breath to yell down the stairway, "Hey, you bastards, DINNER'S UP!" He then rushed back to his position, as the shrieks and howls rang up the stairway. Zane stood ready with confidence in the hallway with his sidearm drawn, waiting for the Pales to come bursting through the doorway.

The shrieks and howls got closer and the first Pale appeared in the doorway. It was about seven feet tall barreling on all fours towards us. We opened fire. Everyone connected their shots on it, it crumpled down onto the floor and slid down the hallway in front of Anderson.

The remaining Pales filled the hallway snarling and growling as they came through. The adults came through with a vengeance to protect their den. They were very aggressive in their approach but like the first, crumpled to the ground from the organized assault. Three minutes later all the Pales were dead. Even the pups laid there on the top of the pile with eyes facing the ceiling, lifeless.

"Whew, that was fun. Let's not do it again." Anderson exhaled.

"Yes, let's not." Zane responded, reloading his sidearm.

"Alright, let's get out of here." Daniels said grimly.

They all turned around and proceeded to leave. This time Zane took a place in the middle as he had no torch out. They were all spaced out by about six meters. The bullets had stopped cracking outside, meaning that Bellman's Squad had taken out the mess hall Pales. All six of them made their way to the front lobby and exited the headquarters.