Screamer Read Online Free PDF Page B

pulled it off.
    She took the pod back, tipped her head to the side and, clamping her lips tightly closed in spite of the agony it caused, she poured to bitter contents of the pod over the scrape on her cheek. It felt warm at first contact, then cooler and soothing. The last of her captured urine trickled out, leaving a strange feeling like an echo of a sting on her cheek.
    She straightened her head and looked around, afraid somebody might have seen her. It was just her and remains of the shelled monster. Her cheek was still warm and throbbed, but the fire had been taken out of it. She chuckled at the ridiculous situation, then started laughing. Her laugh went deeper, erupting into fits of giggles and belly-racking convulsions that made her shoulder ache and her face hurt. When the hysteria passed she was sitting on the shelf with fresh trails of tears running down her cheeks.
    “ I don’t want to die on this fucking planet!” It was whiny and she knew it, but with no one to stand tall for, she just didn’t care. She was a Marine, it was her job to keep her men in line and to protect others. She looked around: she had no men and women looking up to her and she had no people to protect. What does a Marine do when a Marine has no one to do it for?
    “ You pull your head out of your ass and you do the job!” She answered. Elsa reached across and unhooked the armor on her arm. Getting it off was a painful process that took several minutes. She studied her shoulder it as best she could, then reached across her body to feel the joint. It bulged from dislocation, an injury she’d seen on a few of her boys and girls over the years. It happened during training more often than in the field, so she’d seen veteran trainers put the tortured joint back in place enough times to have an idea what to do. The problem was there was only her, no one else to hold it and pop it back in.
    “ Semper Fi,” She growled. Elsa slipped her glove back on, knowing full well that without being connected to the rest of the armor it would serve little purpose. She snarled in defiance and forced her arm out so it was only a few degrees forward of being held straight out from her body. She took three steps across the slippery rock and threw herself forward with a primal scream.
    The resulting pain the erupted in her shoulder silenced her scream and drove her into a darkness free of monsters.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
    Elsa woke to the feeling of something on her face. She swatted at it absent-mindedly, then jumped up in terror. Bugs, hundreds of them, were crawling across her or on the rocky shelf surrounding her. She bit down the scream and scampered back, slapping the chitinous creatures off of her. They were making short work of the pieces of dead monster, and she had no doubt she’d have been next. Individually they were smaller than the palm of her hand, but the sheer volume promised a painful, if quick, death.
    She grabbed her rifle and fired a few shots into the thicker concentrations of them. The overgrown cockroaches superheated and exploded instantly. She barked out a laugh at them and fired again until they got it into their insect brains that she was a threat they didn’t want to mess with.
    Elsa realized she was breathing hard again, then felt the pang in her stomach. It had been almost a day or maybe even longer since she’d last eaten anything other than water. Intel said there was lots that could be eaten on Vitalis, one such meal, pre-cooked, had just been disposed of by the bugs. Elsa sneered and set about putting her armor back on. She’d been caught with her pants down, literally, and she expected she’d catch hell when she was debriefed. Debriefed by her superiors, that is, not the debriefing she’d given herself the night before.
    Elsa’s eyes went to the passage to the surface. Her instincts had been right, light was shining down through the tunnel. It was daytime again. That meant she’d been out for several