The Shambling Mass

The Ghostbirds had made their way quickly towards their target. A small brick team of Paratroopers made up of Captain Richard ‘Hawk’ Hollis, Sergeants Emily ‘Sparrow’ Turner and James ‘Raven’ Reynolds and recruit Private Henry ‘Rook’ Bennet. The dense forest worked in their favour as it kept them from being illuminated in the moonlight. They spotted the entrance to the bunker up ahead and oddly absent of guards. Hawk signalled a halt. “Sparrow, Rook take a look, Raven and I’ll provide cover.”

The two soldiers approached the entrance cautiously, checking any hostiles hiding in the trees. “No sign of hostiles, clear to approach.” Sparrow kept her voice to a whisper. Hawk and Raven joined them as Hawk indicated to open the door. The smell of decay and death hit them as Rook opened the steel door. He knew he would encounter corpses or ‘field mince’ as he had heard other soldiers calling the dead during his service but he had hoped it would have been in a small dose to start with.

The stairs leading down into the bunker disappeared completely into darkness. "Night-vision on it looks like." Sparrow whispered.

“Rook, take point. Once we’re in, Raven, Sparrow, shut the door” Hawk’s voice remained calm and collected. They were inside the facility within a matter of seconds and as they made their way down the stairs, the smell of death intensified as blood stains spread across all the surfaces. At the bottom, death in its bloodiest form greeted them. In the foyer of the facility, former workers were strewn across the room. If Death painted pictures, this would have been its masterpiece.

“Raven, find a light for us. Everyone else stay frosty.” Hawk instructed them. Raven located a light switch and flicked it up and down. He turned around and shook his head. “Alright powers fried, proceed as normal. Gather intel, torch the place, eliminate any hostiles we find.”

“Captain…” Rook’s voice was barely audible. “Movement, down that corridor.”

The Ghostbirds took up defensive positions facing the hallway on the right. They heard it before they saw it. From the darkness came the figure. Dressed in a lab coat, stained with blood and a dark black sludge that seemed to flow in and out of the coat, pulsing as it fed off its host. The figure shuffled more than walked, a head hung down too low to be natural.

“Easy…scientists are not part of the mission brief, only engage if they become hostile.” Trigger fingers ached to be set free to as Hawk kept his team in line.

As the scientist reached the doorway, a mumbled voice drifted out from the hanging head. “In the shadows' tapestry, The Shambling Mass, Awakens from cosmic slumber, an entity so vast. Voidwalker's sibling, a formless, haunting dread.”

The scientist’s head began swaying, higher and higher with each swing. The sound of broken vertebrae echoing around the room. The Ghostbirds’ desire to let loose a barrage of gunfire intensified. The hanging head stopped swinging abruptly. Silence covered the room.

The head snapped upwards. Pulsing sludge filled her eye sockets. A broken jaw hung low as blood and sludge dripped out. A crack to her skull offered a clear view to her brain. The undead scientist rushed at the Ghostbirds, broken bones jangling as she moved. The soldiers did not need to wait for an order from Hawk. Bullets ripped into the scientist. Blood, sludge, and flesh went flying as the scientist let out an unnatural scream and fell to the floor.

“Hold fire!” Hawk’s voice rang out over the gunfire. The soldiers paused, listening for sounds of other hostiles but all was quiet. “Raven, check for a pulse.” Raven did not move, his breathing erratic as he struggled to compose himself. “Now Sergeant!” Raven moved cautiously towards the scientist’s body to check.

“No pulse Captain, hostile down.” Raven’s voice betrayed him. The bravado was replaced by fear. Raven looked at the sludge, it too had stopped moving. “I’ll take a sample Captain, looks like some sort of parasitic relationship with a host at first glance.” Raven scooped up a portion of the sludge into a small vial and sealed it away.

“Alright, listen up. Sparrow find us a map. I want any intel found within 30 mins, Rook, contact command, update them on our situation, tell them, we have a potential bioweapon hazard. Hazmat will be required once we have extracted, Raven, search the bodies for anything that will come in handy.” Hawk’s authority was in full force in his voice.

The team moved into action, Rook placed his backpack down and opened the communication device. “This is Private Bennet to command over…Private Bennet to command over… This is Private Bennet, do you copy...” Rook stared at the device, there was no reply except the crackle of white noise. “Can’t get through Captain.”

Raven's voice drifted over, "Found some key-cards."

“Found a map here Captain.” Sparrow called out. She made her way to a nearby desk and unfolded the map. Hawk moved to take a look as Sparrow conveyed their positions. “So, we are here at the foyer, through that double door on the left, we head down this corridor, take a right, straight to the end of the corridor and then left and we will come out by the R&D labs. Any intel, its got to be there.”

Hawk straightened up “Alright Sparrow take point, Rook, you cover her, Raven and I will cover the rear, as of right now assume anyone and anything we meet is a potential hostile.” Sparrow and Rook head into the corridor, Raven starts to follow as Hawk grabbed his arm. “Hey, you good? I need to know if your heads in the game Sergeant?”

Raven looked at Hawk, nodding as he does so. “I’m good Captain, just a momentary lapse.” Both men knew this was a lie. Hawk nodded unconvinced and released Raven’s arm. The two men opened the double door and followed their teammates into the darkness...

The Ghostbirds reached the R&D labs with no resistance. This meant one of two conclusions, whatever caused the death of everyone in the facility was gone or was silently watching them from inside the darkness.

“Raven, see if you can get us in.” Hawk whispered in the dark. Years of combat was telling him that their progress had been too easy. Raven brought out a selection of key-cards and selected one. He swiped it but nothing responded.

“Key-cards are useless without the power on.” Raven held his hand out to Sparrow for the map. She places it on the floor facing him. After a few seconds of analysing the map, Raven spoke again “Here, back down this corridor, 2nd door on the left and then 3rd right”. He handed the key-card to Hawk, “I’ll switch the power on and meet you back here.” Raven moved to head off before Hawk's voice stopped him.

“You see or hear anything out of the ordinary, you call us in for backup.” Hawk ordered him.

Raven nodded and disappeared into the darkness. For the remaining three soldiers, an eternity seemed to pass in the darkness, their eyes scanning every corner for hostiles. Only the dead kept them company. The sound of machines whirring and lights turning on spooked them all. They pulled off their night vision goggles, eyes adjusting to their light. Captain Hawk swiped the key-card again, this time it unlocked the door.

They entered and set to work; Rook combed through nearby paper files as Sparrow checked the computer. Hawk was looking into a sealed corner of the room. He noticed a switch to raise the shield. “Rook, Sparrow, eyes up.” Hawk held his gun raised with one hand as the other one moved to the switch. He presses it in and takes cover. The shield parts and lights flick on.

“Well shit” was all Hawk muttered.

The room behind the shield was covered in the strange sludge. Bodies of two dead scientists are spread across the room, looks of horror carved into what was left of their faces. It was the smashed containment cell in the centre that caught Hawk’s attention. Whatever it had once held was twice the size of a normal man. Hawk spoke again. “Rook, you need to contact command and you need to do it now.”

“Yes sir.” Rook was only half listening, he had stumbled across two files, one labelled Voidwalker and the other labelled The Shambling Mass. He placed them into his backpack, command would want to see this later.

“Not much on these computers Captain, downloaded all I could but most of it seems to be ramblings, listen to this. In the forgotten corridors of existence, there stirs a malevolent force—an entity veiled in shadow and known only as The Shambling Mass, sibling to the Voidwalker. Born from the chaos that threads the tapestry of realms, it is an eldritch horror that shambles through the darkened corridors of cosmic entropy. It is not a god to be revered, nor a demon to be feared; it is an ancient, formless malevolence, a devourer of the very essence that binds reality.” Sparrow finished reading through the entry.

“Okay I do not know what we stumbled into but as far as I can tell, this Shambling Mass is not something we want to meet. Sparrow finish downloading the files, Rook, go find Raven and get back to the entrance, Sparrow and I will set the charges.” Hawk was still looking at the containment cell. Rook placed his backpack on and made for the door, he made it about 2 steps when he stopped.

For some reason unknown to him, he gripped his gun a bit tighter as he looked towards the door. “I found him Captain.”

Hawk turned towards the door. He took in Raven standing in the doorway. It was three observations that raised concern. The first was Raven’s gun was missing. The second was his stance, Raven's arms hung loosely by his side, his knees buckled inwards. The third was the night vision googles, the lights were on so there was no chance he would be able to see through them.

Hawk knew he was either dead or infected but did not know which one was better. “Raven you good? Sergeant Reynolds, answer me.” The voice that replied did not belong to their teammate.

“I am The Shambling Mass, the cosmic arbiter of your infection. I unfurl the truth, a ghastly tapestry woven from the essence of your collective despair.”

“Well I am Captain Richard Hollis, of the Ghostbirds Paratroopers Division and I’m assuming you’re the reason everyone is dead?” Hawk replied.

“Since your God created this universe, I have witnessed your bile that courses through the cosmic veins—a festering malaise that lingers in the human spirit. I reveal the infection of desire, the insatiable hunger for dominance, and the festering wounds of your perpetual strife. I am here to counter the contagion that defines humanity.” The venom in the creature’s words was plain to hear.

“And Sergeant Reynolds? I'm assuming he's dead?” Hawk’s steel nerves in the face of the unknown were inspiring.

“The one you called Raven was easy, a weak man, afraid of the eternal fire that awaited him upon his death, I revealed the way his God abandoned him and offered solace and peace within my embrace.” The voice oozed with pride.

“Why are you here? I am assuming you have some sort of unholy manifesto you wish to unleash upon humanity? Rain fire from Heaven to cleanse the world?” As Hawk spoke, Sparrow and Rook noted the special phrase for a firefight and quietly readied their weapons.

“I do not hide behind commandments and messiahs, worship me instead of your Tyrannical Creator and witness my revelations bloom like a poisonous flower. I feed on the bitter tears shed by my enlightened followers. Despair becomes the elixir that nourishes me—a symphony of cosmic agony that resonates through the void.”

It was Rook who spoke up this time. “Why?”

“You ask why I reveal the infection? It is a cruel gift I give that much I admit, a reflection of your own darkness that fuels my eternal hunger. Thus, mortals, gaze into the abyss and realise that only I can save you from the eternal damnation that lies in wait for you, a cruel reward by your cruel God. Now submit and join The Shambling Mass and find peace in my revelations.” Raven's began to shake violently as the entity finished speaking.

A broken scream came from his mouth as sludge poured out of his body. Shattered night vision lenses trinkled to the floor as tendrils broke through his eyes. A sludge flower sprouted from his mouth as blood erupted from its petal. Silence descended upon the room. The Ghostbirds all raised their guns.

Hawk broke the silence and the standoff. “Fire”

Bullets flew as Raven’s corpse launched itself into the room. Sparrow and Rook moved around the room, unloading round after round into the corpse. Hawk moved next to the containment cell, his eye looking down the scope of his gun. Breathing in, he took aim at the grenade pouch on Raven's left hip and called out, “Fire in the hole!” Sparrow and Rook dropped to nearby cover as Hawk squeezed the trigger, letting out a single bullet. The explosion of the grenade blew Raven clean in two at the hip, the wet slopping sounds of blood and flesh hitting the surfaces of the room.

The room went dark as the lights were smashed out. Rook was not sure if it was a fire alarm going off or his ears ringing. He tried to discern through the smoke if the grenade had done its job and if his fellow soldiers were still alive.

“Rook, Sparrow sound off!” Hawk’s voice cut through the smoke.

“Rook here!”

“Sparrow here!”

The smoke began to dissipate, Rook could make out the silhouettes of Sparrow and Hawk, he then spotted the lower half of Raven still standing in the centre of the room. Part of his spine was standing straight up, like a twisted flesh lollipop. As the Ghostbirds emerged through the smoke, they heard a guttural roar echo throughout the facility. In the containment room, the bodies of the dead began to convulse violently, tormented screams piercing the air.

“Sparrow, split up the charges between you and Rook, spread them out as we head back to the stairs. Everything is hostile until we leave this facility, fire at will, move out!” Hawk barked the order as he made his way to the door to watch for hostiles. Sparrow dropped her backpack to the floor and poured out the charges. Rook dashed over and grabbed his portion, placing them into his combat trouser pouches for quick retrieval. They lined up behind Hawk and moved into the corridor.

They moved quickly back towards the foyer. Sparrow and Rook strategically throwing charges as they moved. Rook was watching their rear where the screams of the dead were growing louder.

What he saw next chilled him to the core. The Shambling Mass, a writhing abomination, its form is an obscene tapestry woven from seething sludge of indescribable viscosity, thick and putrid, laced with the stench of decay that clung to the air like a suffocating fog. Within this unholy morass, severed body parts contorted in an unending macabre dance. Heads, twisted in eternal agony, scream in a cacophony of wails. Their mouths open wide, frozen in an eternal scream, as if the very essence of suffering has been encapsulated in their anguished expressions. The limbs, now reduced to a nightmarish fusion, moved with a grotesque centipede-like undulation. Legs formed from the amalgam of severed limbs propelled the creature forward. The sludge drips and oozes off its body. Arms flailed as they smashed into the walls, leaving blood, sludge, and bone behind.

As Rook stared at this abhorrent entity, he could not help but feel a cold existential dread run through his body, in that moment, he knew the creature’s words had been true. As The Shambling Mass fully rounded the corner, Rook pushed the dread away and called out. “Contact!”

Sparrow turned around and took in the abomination now coming towards them, on combat instinct alone, she pulled out a couple of charges and launched them down the corridor, they stuck to The Shambling Mass with a sickening sound “Shoot them!” Rook raised his gun and fired.

The explosion ripped through the corridor, the Ghostbirds were sent flying backwards from the shockwave. Rook’s eyes struggled to focus, through the blur he could see Hawk struggling to his feet, Sparrow was lying on her back, trying to focus through the ringing they were all hearing. As he looked down the corridor, he could see The Shambling Mass had stopped in its tracks, the fire burning away parts of the sludge and dead flesh, a hole carved through its body where the charges had detonated. This ‘God’ could be hurt and if it could be hurt, it could be killed.

Hawk grabbed Rook by his backpack and dragged him to his feet. “Move or die Rook!” Rook gripped his gun and starting retreating with the others. The screams from the animated corpses echoed all around them, a horde of broken bodies pouring cascading towards them from behind The Shambling Mass as they moved towards the foyer. Bullets, Blood, Sludge and Flesh went flying everywhere. The fire alarm screeching overhead could barely drown out the cacophony. “Sparrow, light a fire!” Hawk yelled out over the racket. She reached onto her back belt strap to grab an incendiary grenade; she pulled the pin just as a corpse slammed into her from a door on the right behind her. Hawk and Rook

could do nothing but watch as Turner was slammed into the oncoming horde. Her scream silenced as the 5000-degree Fahrenheit flames erupted and engulfed the horde. In a second, the stench of burning flesh filled the air as corpses dropped to the floor, blood and sludge bubbling under the heat as flesh was cooked like steak on a grill.

“Ohh shit…” Rook could only whisper in that small moment of respite before the remaining charges left in Sparrow's combat trousers exploded. It unfolded in slow motion to Rook, from the centre of the horde, the explosion began, corpses flying outwards as before being battered again as the thrown charges went off like fireworks in a row. For the second time, Rook found himself being knocked off his feet as the two remaining Ghostbirds were thrown through the double doors and into the foyer.

Rook saw the lights of the foyer above him before the world went black as he fell unconscious.

“Rook…Rook...Private Bennet! Fucking come on, wake up! Rook!”

The world exploded back into life with a vengeance, the alarms ringing in Rook’s ears as the red emergency lights stung his eyes. Hawk was kneeling over him, blood dripping from a cut on his head as he attempted to rouse his comrade. “There you are! Come on, we do not have much time, that creature will back any minute! Time to go!” Hawk was breathing heavily as he helped Rook to his feet. Rook looked back towards the double door. The doors had been blown off and the corridor was blocked by fallen debris. The dead screams had been silenced.

The bodies in the foyer were missing, most likely gone to find their ‘God’ in the dark corridors of the facility to repair the damage they had done to it.

“I’m good to go Captain” Rook was standing by himself, his body ached but he knew the adrenaline was keeping most of the pain away, that would come later. Hawk sat down on the arm of a nearby sofa. Rook noticed the blood seeping down his side and the wheezing sounds, his captain made with each breath. “Captain you good?”

“Punctured lung Rook” Hawk's breathing was getting worse. “Mission stays the same, gotta destroy the facility. That thing cannot get out... Open my backpack.” Hawk pointed to his nearby backpack. Rook moved it over and unzipped it.

“Captain?” Rook was not entirely sure what he was looking at but he had an idea. A miniature nuke or as they called it ‘the pocket nuke’ a nuclear bomb small enough to be carried by a soldier but capable of a blast radius equal to 500ft. In the underground facility, the fallout would be spread quickly throughout the building. “I thought scientists were not to be harmed, that was the mission parameters right, find intel, eliminate hostiles, destroy the facility? Scientists to be evacuated back to base?”

Hawk looked up at Rook and weakly chuckled. “It’s a Bioweapons factory Rook, there was never going to be any survivors, including the scientists.” He coughed up a hefty amount of blood and sighed. “Why allow two countries to have the biggest weapon when it can just be you with it?” From behind the door, he heard The Shambling Mass begin to break through the debris.

Hawk reached in and pulled out a small device and a clicker. “End of the line for me Rook. When you leave, place this strip next to the door bolt, then once you have closed the door, press the button, it will fuse the two together, not even that thing will should get through it.” Hawk coughed violently and reached into the bag to pull out a detonator. “Besides I have a little gift for our so-called saviour and it would be a shame for him not to have it.”

Hawk laughed, before doubling over in pain. Blood poured out of his mouth. The sound of breaking rubble was getting louder. Hawk placed the device into Rook’s hand. “Get going, contact command once you’re a safe distance away, they’ll need to hear about this.”

Rook looked at the device in his hand and then at Hawk. Arguing was pointless. Hawk knew Death was coming for him, at least this way one of the Ghostbirds would make it out alive. “Been an honour Captain” Rook stood up straight and saluted, Hawk nodded his reply. Rook made his way to the stairs and forced himself up them, tired muscles and bruised bones screaming with every incline step.

The noise from the corridor was ringing throughout the bunker, The Shambling Mass would break through any minute now and he did not want to be here when it did. As he reached the door, he turned the handle, his arms screaming in pain as he did. The door mechanism clicks and he pushed it open. The cold air hit him like a brick but it was a welcome feeling after being underground. He attached the device to the inner door bolt, moved outside and closed it.

He stepped back and held up the clicker. “Send that bastard back to where he came from Captain.” He clicked the button and fused the door shut. Rook had only gotten about 50 feet from the door to the facility when he felt the ground begin to rumble beneath his weary feet. Hawk had detonated the device and he could only hope it had incinerated The Shambling Mass along with any other reanimated corpses.

As he made his way towards the extraction point, his mind pondered a question. What was it that first dead scientist had said? The Shambling Mass was The Voidwalker’s sibling. Another existential chill went up Rook’s spine as he thought that somewhere out in the universe was another creature like this one and if what The Shambling Mass had said was true, The Voidwalker had made their God abandon them...

With an aching body, he tightened his backpack and disappeared into the darkness of the forest. Rook knew that a war was coming and humanity would need to be prepared if there was to be any slim chance of survival...

The End.