The vapor hit them with a tangibly physical force. It was warm and rancid and horrible, a sickly touch that flooded Marcus with a whole host of nightmare memories. He fought back the desire to turn and flee. He told himself there was no escaping. Not anymore. They were here and now they had to do whatever they could to keep the monsters at bay. He hoped the aces had plans, but he wasn’t an ace. He was just himself, but he could and would fight.

That’s why he was there in the front ranks with the soldiers, all of them on the same side now, ready to defend the place if—when—the creatures got through the barricades. The sound from the host outside was tremendous, a discordant misery of howls and bellows and roars. There was fighting there, soldiers trapped outside and dying because of it. Machine guns mounted in towers strafed the whole scene indiscriminately. Marcus couldn’t blame them. He’d be doing the same in their place. The thought made him realize he didn’t have any weapons. Why hadn’t he asked for a bazooka or something?

The first creatures to scale the barricades and leap over were spiderlike climbers, things with hooks at the end of their long, many-jointed legs. None of them were quite the same. Each was a variation of a similarly grotesque form, with a hard plating over its front portions and on its legs. One of them landed not far from Marcus. Its mouth parts cackled its pleasure as it reached a leg out and pierced a nearby soldier. It shoved the man into its mouth, chomping into his legs and eating up his body as the man screamed and gibbered. Other soldiers opened fire on it, but their bullets thudded uselessly against the armor. The creature darted into them, eviscerating men even as it continued eating.

Marcus carved around behind it. There. Its bulbous backside was unprotected. Marcus slammed into it with all the force he could churn up. He pressed into its bristled skin and began pounding it with his fist. Once. Twice. Again and again. He kept squirming forward to keep it from turning, growing more enraged with each blow. And then one of his punches burst through the skin. His fist went deep into the thing, spraying him with a yellow gook fouler than anything he’d ever smelled. He pulled back, retching.

At least it was dead. But it wasn’t the only one. Others had dropped into the soldiers all around him, hooking and piercing and eating. Marcus grabbed one of the dead thing’s legs and twisted the joint until it snapped. A weapon. Holding it in a two-handed grip, he went to work. He killed three more by getting behind them and ripping them open with the hook. With another he slid up the wall and under its belly just as it came over. He sunk the hook in, sliced, and shoved the body away as its fluids gushed over him. This time, he didn’t even retch. He twisted around and looked over the wall.