Somewhere with a lot of guns and people who love using them—your typical day-to-day American military base. Things are happening: grunts eating their crayons (of course) and also drawing little itty-bitty war crimes. It's not a war crime the first time or the second time or the 30th time until they decide to make it into the Geneva Convention. But some days, the Geneva Convention kind of sort of looks like a checklist, and today is one of those days. It's the apocalypse, gentlemen—get yours.

The sky turns red. And a yell is heard throughout the base.

"Grunts, get your checklist and crayons. The skys fucking red. It's either a bomb or the egg heads and wise morons invented something to technicolor the sky and chose red, the fuckers!” the officer in command said.

“What’ ya say?” someone yelled. “It's louder than a metal concert in a sound factory in here, ya gotta speak up son!” another continued. “Must be new” a third told her buddy, snickering all the while.

“Shut the fuck up and grab your guns ya useless wastes of space, the sky’s fucking red!!” the officer tried. He tried, but that didn't mean he would succeed.

The noisy din continued, those closest to the officer and those that heard him passed the message on until it reached someone another row. “Why ya up Jacky?”

“I've got something to say.”

“Well let me get ya an audience, I know you love your spotlight”

The grunt stood, grabbed his plates and banging them like a gong that would stop world hunger make quite the raucous.

The hall turned silent, grunts were confused which if were being honest, is a normal state of being for them.

“Jacky got something to say!!” The plate banger got out.

“What is it Jack? Why all the theatrics?” A lady grunt replied.

“My guts telling me something”

“You sure that just ain't a crayon?”

“Yeah I'm pretty sure that it ain't, that happened once, leave it alone.”

“Not on your life” snickered the lady grunt “I am going keep pulling that up till your grandkids have grandkids. Now get on with it. We got chow in front of us and we like ya but not enough to stop eating when we're home.”

“Yeah, Yeah, fuck off. Ssssooo, I got a feeling”, ‘(that tonights gonna be a good night, that song gets stuck in your head and won't leave)’ shaking his head “that we should grab our guns. Things are weird, I feel surrounded, like a pressure on me.”

“Like a steam cooker?”

“Shut up Tim.”

“Ok, but like underwater type ooorrr…”

“Tim, not now. Like I was saying, get ready. I don't know about all this but I'm gonna grab Big Mamma and like officer Soft Voice over here said, the skys fucking red. Grab your Geneva checklist boys and girls if I'm right. Today's gonna be a party.”

“Wait wha.. wha.. soft voice? Hey my voice is loud enough…” spluttered officer soft voice.

“You hear anything?” “Like what?” “Like a buzzing and a faint whisper. “Nope.” “Must be my imagination then.” “Like you have any.” “Hey I could have a great mind.” “Why are you in the army then?” “...I…” “Why?” “...I…I was stupid. I don't know, ok. I signed up and here I am.

As the banter continues between the two while they walk away to get prepped, a faint sound of something shattering could be heard and a desperate wail like that of a ghost wasn't far off from where officer Soft Voice was last seen.

Jack felt it. It was a feeling similar to a still moment right before something happened, something fast and permanent. Something that changed lives. ‘I felt it before though. Was it during that trip, with the trap, and oh gods, the spiders? Yeah, something similar.’

‘Well no use thinking about it now. Time to suit up and grab Big Momma.’ As his thoughts slowly came into focus, Jack continued with his prep, clip by clip, strap by strap everything was on once again.

‘Damn this feels good, feel naked without the gear. Everyone else seems to be suited up or just abouts.’ Big Mamma time!’

“Hey Bill, get over here and help me with Big Mamma!”

“Can't handle her alone, Jack?”

“Shut yer trap and get over here Billy, you know she weighs a ton and so help me if I get stuck under her I aint standing straight for days, maybe months.”

“Gotta learn to handle your weapons, Jacky my boy. Can't always wait on others.”

“Shut up, she isn't just a weapon. She's a force of nature.”

“Yeah, Yeah, we get it, force of nature blah blah.”

“You'll understand later, but hurry up we need to get set up soon. I can handle her on my own normally but we have to hurry right now.”

“Why the hurry Jacky?.”

Still rushing and almost ready Jack, aka Jacky aka Visionary Jack aka That Fucker shot Bill a look. “Call it a gut feeling. Something is coming and soon, very, very soon.”

Finally set up in front of the depot with Big Mamma up and ready for support every single grunt held their weapons at the ready and focused on Jack.

“Lady grunts and gentle-grunts” he started off to a few chuckles smiles.

“I hope you grabbed your Geneva checklist cause I think we are going to need it.”

“Got it right here.” an officer answered waving a thick booklet with some checkboxes visible.

“Good. Got your guns?”

“Check!” everyone responded.

“Ammo?”

“Check”

“Armor?”

“Check”

“A complete lack of sanity?”

“Check”

“Mouth-guards?”

“Chmm..kkm.m”

“Just raise your hands for the answer.”

Everyone's hands were raised.

“We're good. We're prepped. I got Big Mamma. So be ready and in a few seconds we'll see whether I am right or not.”

With that final statement Jack slowly started up Big Mamma to a general roar of cheers.

“Woooo”

“Yemmmmm”

“Mmmmmnnnmnmnn”

“Yeah, you got mouthguards in. Shut up and focus”

With that everybody calmed down.

“Shreeuuukkk!!!!” A shriek stilled the air with more following breaking the peace.

‘The time for talking is over, it's result time.’ Jack thought while he fired Big Mamma. Big Mamma wasn't just any gun it was and is a machine gun on steroids. 30 barrels each one can shoot one bullet every third of a second and that's just when it's ramping up.

It can do about 12 times that per second per barrel when it's at full speed. It chews through those bullets like the grunts

chew through those crayons. Now all that fury and crayon chewing went forth and started the engagement.

“Look sharp, we have contact.”

“We can hear Jacky's shooting Bill, we know it started!!! Lady grunt yelled while looking through the sights on her instrument of extreme violence, or Bubbly as she like to call it”

That's a story for another time.

“It's the apocalypse my lovely grunts!! We got giant critters!!!”

“Like what Bill?”

“Rats, fucking huge ass rats, mice, roaches and a humongous raccoon. I'm talking about raccoons at 15 feet and rats at 6, and roaches at 3.”

“What's that in meters you heathen?”

“Lilly, I swear after this is over I am going to fucking get you to understand what a foot is. By force if necessary!!!” Billy yelled while firing at aforementioned rats.

Lady grunt or Lilly was equally pissed off firing at the rats, two to three bullets taking one down, aimed at the head, more if not. “Well we're not all yanks, we didn't all grow up here you absolute heathen!!!! Shut up and do the conversions!!!”

“Fine it's about 4.5 meters for the raccoon 1.8 for the rats and .9 for roaches. Happy!?”

“Yes, thank you Billy.”

“Shut up and fire, Lilly!”

While the conversation petered out the weapons from the squad kept going. Hundreds of creatures killed each minute while thousands were in sight and more flowing along. It was a war of attrition and for the first few minutes the grunts were winning.

The grunts were having fun. Some had crayons in their mouths too, Jack included.

‘It's always red ones, you know they always taste like watermelon. The green tastes like sour apples, and I'm not a fan of those’

Thinking about crayon flavors and colors he stared up at the blood-red sky. And then things get hectic. Even more hectic than a place with so many guns and people willing to use them to check the Geneva checklist.

They were arrayed in a perimeter cover, double line with multiple interior three man fire support squads and 2 man supply units further into the base hauling magazines.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

‘Gotta love the mountains. They help make this a bit easier. Most of the monsters funnel through the north or south with a few on the east and west. I have Big Mamma in the north and I think someone else has one to the south. I mean I am not firing much, just a few shots here and there for support.’ Jack, still in his head, looks around and pulls out a Geneva checklist.

He, honest to God, pulled out a Geneva Convention checklist and with another crayon, half-bitten, of course, purple, no one's favorite, and started writing his name down as the person who wanted to fill out the checklist.

Bill, part of the three man support fire squad for the twenty in front of him, decided to copy him. He knew Jack. He knew when Jack pulled the Geneva checklist, things were not gonna go well for anybody.

Lilly after helping a few grunts out from the double perimeter in front of her copied Jack and Bill. Pulling out an orange crayon and filling the checklist out.

Now, U.S. Army bases are generally clean, what with punishments being a toothbrush and a date with the toilets and floors. They're clean. In a high school, with one janitor, that's larger than a football stadium or two, who just decided to give up on life, type of clean. So not very.

Everyone focused outward with a few gun and ammo toting supply maniacs working hard.

So when rats started trickling out through the barracks they got shot. There weren't many coming out a few here and there. What was dangerous were the other bugs, not the rats, but the cockroaches, the spiders, and let's not forget all the flies and mosquitoes. With all the bugs streaming out the gun nuts without any air superiority decided to fire up.

Though it was a valiant effort by the few bugs in the barracks it resulted in failure. The majority of the suppliers attention was taken up for the fight from the base buildings. “Where are the damn suppliers?”

“I’m out of ammo!!”

“Here take a clip, I got two more!” Someone yelled and a clip came flying.

“Thanks!” With clip in hand and a movie star gun reload the firing and extermination continued.

With the ammo running out a few of the grunts started making a racket. They needed that ammo to kill, and they needed to continue killing or else they would be on the menu for the death wave out there.

“Jack, we need support!! Stop filling out that form and get your ass in gear! We need Big Mama firing as quickly as possible!”

‘Can’t they see that I have most of the form filled out. Not the human section but all of the one with guns and overwhelming force on the fuck off hugh critters out there trying to get a bite of this sweet ass. Well they can’t, a check here and one more there and I have a good stop point for the checklist. Then Big Mama's gonna have fun. HaHaHahahahahaha..Cogh..cough. Enough evil monologuing in my mind.’

“Yeah, yeah, Billy I got it.”

With that in place he decided that if he's going to be using Big Mama he might as well use it at full capacity.

Looking at the wave of gigantic critters out there all of them felt like they wanted to eat brains. And not because they were zombies or the grunts' brains were tasty. But because that was the only nutritional thing that the grunts actually had. And even then, they had maybe a few brain cells, maybe a cluster or a micro network. Just enough to grow up, get good at one thing and forget everything else.

So…with a horde of rats and critters, pretty much larger than any single person there.

Big Mamma started off with a whine. Round and round did the barrels spin. Normally Big Mamma didn't care much. It just was. It got used and fixed and cleaned and moved. It had no say, it just was.

Not today though. Today was one of “those days”. A little bit magical, pretty mystical, a little Spice in the boring of life. But then you kick it up to level 11 and it's the Apocalypse so a little Spice goes a long way.

Today, Big Mamma decided, ain't no rats gonna stay in my house. Big Mamma also decided that lasers can suck my ass.

Jack started firing big mama and let's just say that rain never looks so good, a great red hue with chunks of white and blood and yellows and browns and blue colors. Lots of

blood and by gods were the grunts happy.

This was Christmas, this was cake and Christmas and sex and everything amazing all wrapped up in a tiny little crayon that the grunts can just swallow and by all gods, the grunts were happy.

They were hooting and hollering and they could be heard pretty much everywhere. Those guys were loud and one by one every single one of those rats, the raccoon, the bugs and more died.

Melted like a line of bullets that told lasers to suck their ass, cause they got nothing on em, went streaking through the horde.

By all the gods were the rank and file happy.

Bill being Bill had a few bayonet style knives or Mr. Stabby and family as they like to call the gun attachments Bill and a good many others including Lilly employed.

Some guys in the squad like to go all 19th century on the rats and yell “Have at thee!” and some fans of a certain show about a box had the catchphrase “Mr. Stabby will stabby you to stabby town stabania!”.

With Big Mammas more than impeccable imitation of a laser, the situation seemed under control. People were starting to relax and things were getting easier.

“Big Mamma's amazing Jack, she is a force of nature. A very deadly one.”

“Billy ol boy, told you she's amazing and that you would see for yourself.”

“I saw…man, I saw and felt and smelt and took a blood and bone shower man. I get it. Now wrap up the mob and done. I need a shower!”

“Blood shower?” ‘Is Billy ol boy a deviant? Why bathe in blood and guts? Is it good for the skin? I might need to try it. I'm Beautiful and Handsome and everything but even we the people of Beauty and Handsome need help occasionally of course.’

“No ya doofus, a real shower!! With water and soap and shampoo!! Just..ugh just keep firing you mud for brains.”

“Well hello to you too, blood for hair that's pretty much everywhere.”

With that both turned serious and got back to firing their machine gun laser imitation and stabbing with Stabbington the Fifth.

Stabbing the final previously aerial bugs with Stabby's family the support troops were exhausted. Running on empty they started hauling ammo back to the perimeter. The north and south were covered with machine guns and a lot more people and the east and west were given the same treatment with people rotating out from the light sides to the heavy north and south then back again.

This continued for a while, the rotations helped ease the stress on the lines and with the ammo supply restored things were better.

The huge wave petered out over an hour or two later. With only a few critters scurrying over to the base and being dismantled with fast chucks of force. Things started to normalize. More grunts were free to talk and share stories of how gruesomely they ended the gigantic critters.

“I've never seen you this happy Jacky my boy!”

“ I know right! And…and, look at this!” Showing his Geneva checklist.

“That is an amazing man. You almost got everything checked off. I think the only one who got more than you was Lilly, and that's because she got up close and personal you know.”

On Jack's Geneva checklist a lot of boxes are checked with crayon and some of them have a double-check and a few were triple-checked.

“I know right, today's a good day!

“Bet Lilly had a bunch of fun putting Stabby's kids to use. Haha”

“Stabby's kids are sharp and are up for war, always. You know that!”

With that statement they started laughing like little kids seeing a funny symbol or hearing the word duty. The laughter spread, it was contagious and it most definitely originated from a source of anxiety and confusion. Hope and sheer violence also fueled it.

As things wound down and everyone went about helping those injured and overall just making sure everything was dead none seemed to notice some of the blood and guts seemed to turn into smoke. Just a little bit of the huge amount everywhere.

Most bodies desiccated, slowly disappearing as the Mist disappeared. Somehow though, a small amount seemed to still collect together, not like the normal Mist, but blood red and slithering. It was drifting towards the center of the encampment.

More and more seemed to collect from the huge piles of dead monsters. With everybody still busy working on helping the injured and or just enjoying life, none seemed to notice. The runt of the litter, the straggler of the squad, a mousey guy decided to stay back at the barracks. Guys’ smart as all heck, but none of the grunts knew why he decided to join the army. The poor dude was probably bamboozled.

There's a neat little trick the recruiters like to use. Dress up as a college professor and say they're recruiting for a “special experiential paid seminar on physicality and violence…..research”. Then when the suckers are excited he sets out some forms and says “Read them before you sign cause once you sign it's permanent.”.

But of course not a lot of people decide to read the forms and they just sign at the end.

When they look up from the paper they don't see the admittedly surprisingly buff professor anymore. They see the hardened military instructor Tell them that they're going to be a military recruit soon.

In the end after basic training and the exams, they decided that he was going to be the in base scientist instead of a full on grunt. Everybody knew that it was more his speed to study the weapons and make better ones than actually fire any of them.

Sheltered in the base with a few of the visiting noncombatants that happened to be in-base when the whole fiasco of the apocalypse happened he was on lookout. With a few more grunts taking care of all the other exits. He and another grunt took care of the main exit and entrance, the front door of the central building A few of the more empathetic grunts took care of the civilians.

“Hey. Hey, guys! Are you guys seeing this?” Mousy tried to yell, trying to grab his partner's attention. He was barely audible over the loud cheering and general ruckus going on.

“Hey, um, I can't help but notice, but, uh, some of that red stuff, all the blood and stuff, some of that's, uh, kind of turning into a blood smoke and, and mixing up together!”

His partner really couldn't hear him and anything audible, mostly incoherent babble to him. Seeing that there was no response from his partner, he tried the hand signs that every grunt is taught during basic training. After a few minutes of signing back and forth between Mousy and his partner, the observation finally went through and there was an immediate reaction.

His partner rushed to where Mousey was and when he finally got there, about a minute later he immediately asked Mousy the 5W's every grunt is taught to ask.

Who needs killing? What needs to be destroyed? Where is the thing that needs killing or destroying? When does it need killing? Finally, they generally ask why. Why…. actually never mind, nah, I don't need to know, just point me in the direction.

Well, and the mousey guy, being smart as all heck, knew the answers to those quite easily.

“It's not who but what that needs killing, the blood red smoke that's coming off of the bodies. It seems to be collecting somewhere nearby the central building where we are right now. So that's where. The when is preferably 30 minutes ago when it didn't exist, but now would be perfectly fine also. And you generally don't care about the why, so let's get to it.

So both Mousy and Grunt decided to recruit two more of their fellow guards from the central building. Grunt one, two and three in tow, Mousey was in the lead.

(Now I don't know about you, but being a smart scrawny guy, I certainly wouldn't want to be in the lead. More like pointing a bazooka from like 40 feet away or so is my MO).

They headed out about 30 feet in front of the building, where the smoke seemed to coalesce together. The blood, smoke, some of the flesh and some small particles of bone seemed to grind together. The closer they got, the more squelching crunching sounds like a body being thrown in a woodchipper. Don't ask.

Grossed out beyond what they could generally be grossed out about. Everybody had goosebumps pretty much all over their bodies. Instead of a projection of strength and ability for immediate and absolute violence they were a bit more gingery in their movements and actions.

They didn't go guns blazing and immediately shoot the thing.

(Which is what I would have recommended along with killing it by fire and the Holy Crusade. But it's not me in that situation, and I kind of don't know everything. I'm an unreliable narrator, as they call it.)

“I don't know what to do right now. Should we just shoot the thing and call it a day? What do you think, Grunt one (George)?”.

“I don't know either, but I really think we should grab one of our flamethrowers and light this thing up!”

“I don't know about you, but this is some voodoo hobgoblin magic shit and I think fire might make it worse. But if something's gonna help? Let's just light it on fire. Why not?”

With most everybody in agreement with lighting the dang thing on fire, grunt one and two ran back into the central building barracks and grabbed the flamethrower packs. With a manic gleam in their eyes they let the fire rip onto the coalescing blood, bone and Mist mound of suspicious and quite frankly, horrendously disgusting noises.

With more horrendously disgusting noises and screeches, the mound started wiggling, moving backwards away from the fire as the flames, cleansing and purifying, covered the mound and obscured it. With the mound wriggling left and right, everybody took a collective step backwards to be away from any of the flaming chunks of flesh bone and Mist.

Deciding to be thorough, grunt one and two decided to empty their flamethrower packs, dumping any and all motes of fuel onto the mound in the form of purifying flame. Everybody around the flames relaxed, an instinctive understanding passing through everyone. An understanding that nothing should be able to survive this amount of flame for this long without turning into carbon ash and dust.

With relaxation comes a reduction in general alertness. With everyone's adrenaline dropping from the highs they got the adrenaline crashes. Tiredness, lethargy, soreness and jitteriness and much more. But of course these are trained members of the military and as such, they were resistant against their adrenaline crashes.

They were resistant but not for continuous battle and monstrous opponents like this one. So everyone just relaxed. And that ended up being a right big mistake. As the mound shook with a great amount of force, screeching and glopping and gloop-ing and squelching. Everybody freaked the fuck out. They ran. They ran to the hills or at least that's how it felt when everybody turned around and sprinted a good 20 to 30 feet a.way from the now aflame mound of horror that seemed to be strangely protruding, like something was pushing out of it. As everybody turned to stare the hand was distinctly inhuman. Some slight traits of normal humanity were present. Six fingers, two thumbs, claws in place of nails. Dark and sharp. Another hand pushed through, and a third.

To round it all off, another finally pushed through, the 4th. With hands faced opposite of each other, they ripped apart the mound. The sight, both horrifying and strangely fascinating, being similar to a chest-burster ripping out of a human. Not the most copacetic thing to see but horror lovers give it an A plus.

(Even I thought killing it with fire would work, but I guess the universe loves playing tricks. Murphy is very real, my friends.)

With a grotesque head filled with razor sharp teeth. Eyes of multiple insects crammed together. Antenna and other sensory organs crowding the top of its head. A very mismatched monster stepped out of that mound. Well, now a pile of refuse on the floor.

With a shriek that brought attention from many of the remaining military personnel. It was now surrounded by gazes, guns pointing directly at it. Trigger fingers ready to blast it to Kingdom-come. And that was what they decided to do immediately, not giving the bug any chance to rampage and murder.

With a final defiant cry, the now pincushion and falling apart monster desiccates with Mist leaking out of it.