Morning rose on the power plant. Sometime during the night, the fires ravaging the city of Huy had stopped, leaving behind smoldering ruins and buildings damaged by smoke. The thick column of smoke wafting up from the town mixed with the white steam leaving the power plant’s cooling towers high up in the air, creating an ashen gray cloud high above the ground.

As expected, the fires hadn’t spread in their direction and left the plant alone. Given time to let the smoke dissipate, the city would become accessible again. Damaged by smoke as they were, some buildings still contained salvageable resources and a couple city blocks had managed to escape the fire, mostly those on the river bank opposite to the side ravaged by the fires.

Angelo’s team woke up as the sun crested the top of the hills that marked the valley in which the river feeding the power plant ran its course. They had slept in the back of their trucks for the night, the tarpaulin of the cargo bay doing a decent job of keeping out the humid air of the night. Paired with some sleeping bags they had obtained from the navy base in Zeebrugge, the night was pretty bearable. It was now the first of June, and the late spring weather was pretty mild in that part of Europe.

At Nikola’s insistence, they had established a watch system to keep someone on lookout while the rest slept. Angelo hadn’t been too pleased about it, what with the mental fatigue caused by the shutdown procedure the day before, but the Bulgarian gargoyle’s idea made sense considering the possible risk of a monster getting the drop on them.

By morning, it was Nguyen who wound up rousing the others from their sleep. The cook was brewing some coffee for them on a grill they had fashioned out of an oil drum the evening before. At first, Angelo had protested upon seeing his subordinates throw bits of dismantled pallets in the drum, not being particularly keen on starting that kind of fire within the boundaries of the power plant, but Nikola had reassured him by pointing to a stack of fire extinguishers they had retrieved from the office buildings.

And now the minotaur wasn’t regretting his decision of letting them proceed, smiling tiredly as he took a sip of his morning coffee. At his side, sitting on the edge of their truck’s bed, Nikola was already reviewing the maps to get them to their next objective.

“So it’s next to another power plant on the same river. Simple enough, we just have to follow the river upstream ‘til we get there.” Angelo said as he peered over the gargoyle’s shoulder.

“I’d rather avoid that. Following the river makes the trip twice as long so I think we can safely cut through the hills. That’s what the GPS says, and I don’t think the satellite network is going to break down anytime soon so…”

“Your choice, you’re the driver after all.” Angelo shrugged. “Still got enough fuel to get us there?”

“Yeah, just going to need to stop for fuel on the way back to Amandine. Have they reached Antwerp yet by the way?”

“They got there a little past midnight from what I was told by phone. They said they suffered from some delays because they had to slow down a lot due to not having a harbor pilot or tugs to maneuver. Antwerp is a river port, getting there with a large ship like Amandine can be kind of hard when you lack the usual assistance. Still, they should be doing the shutdown in Doel today.”

“Better hope they’re as successful as we were then.” Nikola concluded as he finally selected a route on his GPS. “Any alarm with the plant?”

Angelo shook his head. His pager had remained silent for the entire night, and he had gone to the control room once during his watch to check out the systems. With nothing out of place, he had gone ahead and closed the control room before returning to guarding the trucks.

The team shared a quick breakfast around the burning oil drum, with Angelo giving them a quick recap of what they were going to do as they ate.

At first, they would have to locate the entrance to the underground HPI facility. The only lead they had (though it ought to be enough) was that it was beneath built inside the bunker of a decommissioned cold war era underground nuclear reactor, on the grounds of the Chooz power plant.

Step two: contact Agent Eko once the target is located and gain access to the inside of the facility.

Step three: establish a stable communication link with the American HPI facility so that they can take control of the European nuclear grid and shut it down.

They might have a bit of a gap between steps two and three, but it really shouldn’t be any trouble. Right?

After breakfast, they wasted little time packing up all their gear. Roberto had had the presence of mind of retrieving his communication equipment the evening before, so they only had to stow and lash the gear properly inside the unimogs’ cargo bays to prevent it from moving around or falling off.

Within minutes, their small convoy rolled out of the power plant facilities and headed south towards their next objective.

Nikola’s idea of cutting through the hills to save time led them deeper in the Ardennes. Unlike American troopers 70 years before, they didn’t have to worry about being attacked by Germans as they made their way to Chooz.

What they did have to worry about, however, were monsters. Nikola had showed them the dead insect he had taken for trophy in Tihange. The dead little bug had been put in an empty plastic bottle after the ice surrounding its corpse thawed out. By then, its blue glow had almost entirely faded away, though you could still see its antenna twitch from time to time.

The rolling forested hills they traversed showed them those bugs hadn’t been alone: two times over the course of their journey they passed a lone demonic circle in the middle of the woods. There were no signs of monsters in the immediate vicinity of these signs, but both times the vegetation around the place of discovery was thoroughly trashed, leading them to think some more wood hounds were prowling the hills.

They were suddenly very glad to have taken guns along for their expedition. The location of the demonic circles was added on their map before they moved on, not too eager to force a clash with monsters that could reassemble themselves each time they brought them down. Two casualties inside Amandine’s infirmary were enough to tell them not to mess with the angry canine branches.

After an hour of driving, their convoy found its way back to a narrow valley. The usual succession of hills and forest of the past hour was replaced with a more open plain when they went down into the shallow vale, and pastures replaced the dense forests. As they drove on, some sheep and goats stopped their grazing to raise their heads. The small cattle had found its way out of their pens and were now sampling the taste of grasses by the side of the road, which quickly got annoying when it forced the seafarers to dismount their trucks and shoo the animals off the road.

The peaceful creatures seemed utterly unaware of their masters’ disappearance, or of the looming threat posed by the wood hounds roaming the woods. In a way, Angelo envied their carelessness, because the growing threats they had to take into account were starting to get on his nerves. He was supposed to be an engineer in the merchant navy, and there he was inside a military truck, with a machinegun in his lap, headed for a secret bunker to save Europe from nuclear annihilation after having shut down a nuclear power plant.

Not exactly a normal undertaking.

Roberto finally managed to keep the animals off the road long enough for them to get their trucks past the herd. From his seat in his truck, Angelo idly contemplated the landscape around them.

The small valley they were following had a brook in its center that fed into the Meuse a couple kilometers further. It was rather shallow, and pastures had been set up on either side of the river, with some of the land set aside to make room for meadows, providing food for the cattle in the winter. A road had been built parallel to the river, with the odd farm built here and there along it. Most of these buildings were old, all built with thick stone walls that dated back to the 18^th century, except for some wooden hunting lodges that were usually built closer to the woods.

That rural landscape clashed with the small town they reached further down the road, at the junction between the river they were following and the Meuse. Maybe that was because it was another country- a sign on the side of the road indicated they had crossed the border to France- but the town was more developed, if still old.

The main feature in that town was an old Napoleonic-era fortress. The large fortress loomed over the city from where it was perched on a steep stony hill. A French flag was still hanging on the fort’s mast, doomed to be forgotten with none of the garrison present to salute it.

The rest of the city, if typical of French architecture, was rather forgettable. Angelo didn’t have the architectural know-how to fully appreciate the quality of the buildings, though the mix in types of buildings lead him to believe the city had been there for quite a while, and had fared well until the Event: older buildings in the center were well maintained, and the city folks appeared to have been in the process of enlarging their suburbs and building a mall, if the construction sites on the outskirts of the town were any indication.

Nikola insisted on going through the town to check out if they could find any survivors, but after driving through for half an hour repeatedly blasting their trucks’ horns to attract attention, they only managed to find a pack of roaming dogs which Angelo quickly scattered with a salvo from his machinegun (he shot over the dogs, not directly at them, he wasn’t that heartless).

Nevertheless, the town wasn’t their objective. Beyond a hill upstream of the city, the minotaur spotted the white steam column that marked the position of the power plant they were aiming for. Getting to the power plant was a matter of minutes since a road had been built directly on the banks of the Meuse. They passed a small quarry on the way, where most of the equipment had collapsed after being abandoned for a week.

The convoy was forced to leave the road and find a way through the quarry after they were stopped by a conveyor belt that had fallen across the road. The belt connected to a small dock where a sunken barge laid abandoned in the water, half-buried beneath a pile of rocks.

A short inspection of the wreck revealed no one was on board at the time of the Event, its crew most likely being occupied with managing the paperwork at the quarry’s office while the belt was loading stone onto their ship. Unfortunately, the mining equipment kept going after their disappearance, quickly overloading and sinking the small vessel. They didn’t find any equipment they didn’t already have in the wreck, except for a small bottle of German Schnapps. Most of the gear had been submerged for a week already, and was hardly worth salvaging.

Their unimogs didn’t have any difficulty traversing the terrain inside the quarry thanks to their off-road capabilities. Their only problem in there turned out to be a large amount of tunnels dug in the rocks of the quarry. Their origin was rather quickly discovered by the sailors however, when they found yet another demonic circle burned in the white rocky cliff face of the quarry.

Nikola swore and gunned the throttle in hopes of getting them out of there ASAP. Behind them, the cats’ truck roared to life as Nguyen floored it too. The two little mogs left a trail of dust behind as their drivers urged them out of the now very dangerous quarry, zigzagging around holes in the rock and collapsed mining equipment. The gargoyle at the wheel of the lead truck came dangerously close to toppling his own truck when he sped around some collapsed scaffolding, Angelo letting out an impressive string of swear words in Greek after the mog righted itself.

Just as the convoy left the quarry, three large red creatures emerged out of the ground behind them.

Both trucks stopped after a hundred meters, their occupants turning their heads in the direction of the quarry. Angelo absent-mindedly pulled out his phone out of his flak jacket, his eyes not leaving the creatures that were glaring at them.

They couldn’t see the entire body of the creatures, but the part that came out of the ground made them gulp in fear at their sight: they had a serpentine body with a diameter of a least one meter, covered in thick, dry skin of a dull red color. The red skin was lined with pinkish marks on the entire length of their body on the sides, paired with thin purple fins that ran along their underside.

The head reminded Angelo of a moray eel he had seen once when he went diving in the Mediterranean Sea, except warped to such a point that it looked genuinely evil (and the moray eel didn’t even look kind to begin with): the muzzle was curved inward and the lower jaw extended out beyond the upper jaw, revealing some large serrated fangs glistening with saliva. The fins on their bellies reached just below their jaws where it lengthened to form a sort of ‘sail’, and they had another frillier fin on the top of their head looked like a crest.

The tip of their muzzles was marked by several protruding strips of red skin. Antennas or feelers of sorts, the minotaur couldn’t figure out their purpose, too focused on the most riveting part of the creatures’ appearance: the eyes. They had small yellow eyes, filled with malice, which glared at them across the distance that separated the monsters from the convoy. Their glare was filled a primitive sort of intelligence that told the sailors that, while these monsters were certainly not going to win any Nobel prizes, they had more than enough wits to figure out how to make their prey suffer.

The three… eels were standing halfway out of their tunnels, heads turned in their directions with their jaws parted slightly and their nostrils flared.

Angelo, after having taken a picture of the monsters, had dismounted his truck and now stood a fair distance from the monsters, shoulders squared and machinegun in hand. Nikola was kneeling a small distance behind him, already tracking the monsters through his SCAR’s scope.

“On your mark, boss, and I can nail these fuckers right in the head.” The gargoyle stated, though he had yet to pull the arming lever on his rifle.

“Don’t fire; let’s not escalate things if we can help it.” The minotaur said, though his body language pointed to him being ready to take the violent option any second now, what with the way he squared his shoulders and how his tail was whipping around behind him. He looked like a bull ready to charge a torero at a corrida.

In front of them, the eels whipped their heads from side to side quickly before letting out a bellowing roar, spittle flying from their open maws.

Eyebrows furrowed, Angelo faced their roar head on without wavering before letting out a loud bellow of his own as he took one step forward. For a second, his finger over the trigger of his gun, but he deemed it unnecessary.

“The fuck are you doing?!” Nikola asked him in alarm.

“Letting them know we’re not available for dinner.” He answered, not taking his eyes away from the eels.

The eel in the center of the trio, an individual a bit bigger than the other two undulated its body twice before growling at its companions. It threw Angelo one nasty glare before diving underground, soon followed by the other two.

“You actually scared them away? What the actual fuck?” Nguyen said, walking up behind Angelo with his rifle held loosely in its sling.

“No idea what I did, just following a hunch. Now, how about we get out of there, preferably quickly? I got no idea if they’re actually leaving and I’d rather not find out.”

His fellow crewmembers didn’t contradict the minotaur and hastily walked back to the trucks. The sailors were all too eager to leave the quarry behind, not entirely sure whether their weapons could reliably neutralize the land eels.

“Convoy Two to One, what do you think we will call these when we tell the rest of the crew? Over.” Nguyen’s voice came over the radio.

“Hold on, you still need to find a name for the bugs from yesterday. What makes you think we already have a name for those? That and we literally found them seconds ago, why the hurry? Over.” Angelo answered.

“The bugs? Yeah, I was thinking ‘Electric Mites’ for those. I don’t think these… eels, I think? I don’t think they will pose much of a problem anymore. Looked very territorial, sure, but they didn’t seem eager to track us down. Over.”

“Since when did you get into animal behavior, cook? Though, I approve the ‘Electric Mites’ thing. The eels… Yeah, eels for sure from what they look like, but we need more. Over.” Angelo said.

“Land eels, maybe?” Nikola tried, his eyes fixed on the road.

But the cats in the other truck refused the proposal, saying it was too simple. Eventually, they settled on calling the monsters ‘quarry eels’, because they found them in a quarry. Critics be damned, they were pretty sure some zoologists had done a worse job of naming creatures.

Not a minute later, their convoy reached a crossroads that finally revealed the power plant’s cooling towers. Their goal ought to be situated on the grounds of the plant.

The power plant itself was much larger than the one in Tihange they had left earlier, despite the fact that it only had two reactors to Tihange’s three. It occupied most of the valley it had been built in, which made it rather well defended: the way the Meuse ran its course there formed a horseshoe shaped valley, protected on all sides by steep hills covered in dense forest. If someone were to come from the hills, they would immediately be stopped by the river before reaching the power plant, which left coming from the nearby town as the only approach to reach the reactor facilities.

Furthermore, most of the forestry that separated the crossroads from the power plant’s grounds had been removed to make room for pastures, meaning there was a whole two kilometer stretch of exposed ground before reaching it, giving the plant’s personnel plenty of time to spot incoming vehicles. Angelo even spotted what looked like barracks next to the entrance checkpoint, above which he could see what must have been a guard tower.

Seems like Frenchmen were particularly cautious when it came to ensuring the safety of their nuclear plants.

In front of the plant proper were some rows of small houses, probably built there to house the workers of the plant. The small ‘village’ was just as deserted as all the settlements they had passed through on the way, and at that point they didn’t even bother looking for activity. If a worker had been left behind after the cataclysm, then they would most likely be inside the plant proper to manage it, not carelessly roaming the village.

Despite its heavily militarized status, the power plant’s operators had built a visitor center and a small museum next to the entrance. Both buildings were barely worth a glance to the sailors who immediately made their way to the guard post next to the checkpoint.

Since he was the only French-speaker of the group, Roberto spearheaded their search for some sort of plan of the compound that would orient them in the right direction.

The inside of the checkpoint highlighted even more the militarization of the power plant, if such a thing was possible. Crates of military hardware were piled next to the entrance, awaiting an authorization for entry that would never come. On the wall, there was a personnel list of the garrison present on the plant that indicated which of the guards had been off site at the time of the Event.

Right next to the entrance, subtly hidden past a corner behind the secretary’s desk, was a small armory in which they found a large amount of French firearms, most of which were FAMAS service rifles. They didn’t take any of the bullpup weapons, but a crate of assorted grenades and some night-vision goggles found their way to the back of their trucks, as well as all the optics and accessories they could find for their weapons. They may not be able to affix them to their guns at the moment, but with the tools on Amandine, that ought to be easy enough.

“Any luck finding some plans?” Nikola asked Roberto as the Italian cat was rifling through papers in the building.

“Nope.” He answered curtly. “Not a single plan to be found here, though I did find a large amount of delivery receipts for gear a nuclear plant doesn’t really need.”

“Like what?”

“Manufacturing and lab equipment, lots of food, unidentified prototypes among other things. All shipped to the plant’s delivery warehouse, but that’s just a building on the plant’s grounds. They must have had it transferred from the warehouse to the bunker on their own after the delivery guys left.”

“Maybe we’re not going about this the right way. What do we know about the bunker?” Angelo said, carrying a crate of equipment on his shoulder.

“Apparently it’s built under the hills, cold war bunker, used to be a nuclear reactor before they built the ones outside in the open. What’s in that crate by the way?” Roberto asked.

“NVG goggles. Just in case we need them while underground, and I packed some extra batteries.”

“Can’t we just use flashlights?”

“Packed them too. The goggles just give us more options. Don’t you have night vision anyway, kitten?” The minotaur said.

“Correct, and don’t call me that.”

“Noted. Now about that bunker…”

“I may have an idea. The two working reactors, they call them Chooz 2 and 3, but I also see some mentions of Chooz 1, which is said to be disused.” The cat said.

“Must be our objective then.” Nikola said. “Got a plan?”

“Just directions. It’s on the other side of the power plant; think we can get the mogs there?”

The gargoyle pressed a button on the secretary’s desk. With a whirr, the large gate that blocked the entrance slid open.

“Now we can.” The gargoyle said, quickly turning around. He caught himself on the side of a desk as he overbalanced with his tail and then just walked away with his head lowered, his colleagues snickering behind him.

Finding the bunker once they had directions was much easier. Once their convoy crossed the power plant’s grounds; they reached a concrete bridge that crossed the river. It had a fence and gate of its own separating it from the rest of the facilities, topped with razor wire and several video surveillance cameras. A pile of sandbags next to a small shed on their side of the bridge lead them to believe it had been under constant watch before the Event. Opening the gate posed them little trouble with the help of some bolt cutters.

Beyond the bridge, the opposite bank of the river had been covered in concrete to make room for a small dock and a large building that looked like a pumping station. Several pipes and cables left the building in the direction of the rest of the power plant, crossing the river parallel to the bridge.

Next to the building was an open-air depot that was covered in shipping containers from various shipping companies from all over the world. Angelo even spotted some that came from their own company, but that didn’t bother him too much considering they did also have a trucking branch in the company. Containers get around so much, at one point you stop paying attention to which company they belong to, at least that’s the way he thought of it. The deck guys might not necessarily agree.

Everywhere around the area, he could see barbed wire fences and cameras. The place was kept under a tighter watch than the most secure of military bases.

Towering above each corner of the dock were metal reinforced guard towers, each topped with what looked like remotely controlled guns. Very large guns that wouldn’t look out of place on a light tank. The sailors eyed them warily as they parked their trucks next to the pumping station.

Better hope the HPI doesn’t turn on them or they wouldn’t even be turned into Swiss cheese with those, more like fine red paste.

Behind the pumping station, there was a large concrete hole dug into the side of the hill, heading downward at an angle. It was easily wide enough to fit two lorries side by side, and the concrete that made up its walls was beyond two meters thick. The pipes and cables that coursed through the pumping station dug in the side of the hill, following the tunnel entrance and running alongside that tunnel.

Contrarily to many Cold War relics, that installation looked expertly maintained and kept to modern standards.

“Well… here we are folks.” Angelo said hesitantly to the rest of the group standing behind him.

They had left the trucks parked next to the pumping station behind them, and were now all staring at the gaping maw of the tunnel entrance. Dull red lights were illuminating the tunnel, which curved to the left a hundred meters in, masking what lied beneath.

“Don’t you guys have some weird feeling of impending doom?” Nguyen asked. “I know that tunnel looks ominous and all but… there’s something off, am I right?”

“Yeah” Nikola nodded. “It’s like all my instincts are screaming at me to get the fuck outta here ASAP.” The gargoyle said, strengthening his grip on his rifle.

Angelo didn’t answer but he had a deep feeling in his gut, as if something terrible was about to happen. Which was odd: a simple look around told him the bunker didn’t have any apparent flaw, yet his heart didn’t seem to believe his mind and kept pressuring him to leave. He just ignored the feeling.

Without taking his eyes off the entrance, the minotaur dialed Agent Eko on his sat phone. The HPI agent would tell them how to go about that ‘mission’ of theirs.

“Agent Eko on the line, state your business.” The Indonesian’s voice came on the line.

“Second Engineer Molnàr, calling to tell you we’ve reached the entrance to the European facility. We’re awaiting instructions.”

“Good. First you will need to gain access to the inside of the facility. Information has been compartmentalized between continental branches of our organization, but we all have an override code in case of emergency. I have been authorized to send you this code by my superiors.” The agent halted and the tone of his voice hardened. “Be aware that we will know it if you abuse this code, which changes daily anyway. It will allow you to bypass all electronically locked doors inside of the facility, including the main door.”

“I see we very much trust each other…” Angelo said wryly.

“Be certain that resorting to asking you and your shipmates for help is not what my superiors would have done if they could help it.” Eko answered. “We do not usually reveal ourselves to the public, and you should remember it is within your interest not to reveal this affair once the dust settles, understood?”

“It’s not like there are a lot of people to reveal your existence to anyway…” The minotaur muttered with his muzzle held away from the phone. “Understood.” He resumed. “What shall we do once we’re inside?”

“You only need to reach the control room and reset the transmission array. Once the facility is back online, then our experts can take over and shut down the European nuclear grid remotely. Indications inside will be in English, it’s our working language. I wish you the best of luck with that task.”

Angelo had an idea it would be far more complicated than just that, but he let it slide without commenting. The agent was just an intermediary, not an actual expert. Pity they would have to figure it out on their own.

“I doubt we will be able to contact each other as long as we’re underground. I guess you will know soon enough whether we’re successful or not.”

“One last piece of warning Molnàr.” Eko said. “We have no idea what went on under there since the cataclysm, and while you’re under no risk of irradiation thanks to this facility using the reactors outside to supply its electricity… little is known about the inside of the European facility, even from us. Be careful, there is a lot hinging on your success.” To the HPI agent’s credit, the minotaur felt a bit of genuine concern in his voice.

“Thanks for the cryptic warning, better than nothing.” Angelo concluded, hanging up and shoving his phone back in a pocket of his coveralls.

A minute later, said phone pinged once, indicating he had received the override code. The Greek minotaur squared his shoulders and walked forward into the red lit tunnel.

“Need I say I’d rather be tasered by electric mites again than getting in there?” Nguyen commented, his tail swinging back and forth wildly behind him.

“We heard you the first time cook.” Roberto retorted coldly, though Angelo could see the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up straight. “Man up, we don’t have much of a choice at this point anyway.”

Angelo stopped a dozen meters into the tunnel and gave the Vietnamese cat a sympathetic look.

“Listen cook, we’re all volunteers here, nobody’s paying us to do that. If you don’t want to get in, it’s fine, I understand. I won’t force you.” He said.

Nguyen looked back towards the parked trucks, a look of hesitation on his muzzle. For a moment, he looked like he was about to walk away and wait outside, but then he shook his head firmly and turned around, heading down the tunnel at a brisk pace.

“Nah, screw that, I’m not leaving you guys to do that alone.”

Behind the cook, Roberto’s large ears twitched in annoyance. The secretary glowered at Nikola before pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and throwing it at the smug gargoyle. Angelo just observed the interaction with a soft smile on his snout before following the cook deeper into the tunnel.

Some three hundred meters after the entrance, they reached a large metal door hidden from direct sight from the entrance by a curve in the tunnel. From the looks of the hinges alone, the thing must have weighted a hundred tons. It was also fiercely guarded by several remotely operated gun emplacements on each side.

Phone in hand, Angelo approached a control panel next to the door. With a press of his big finger, the panel opened up to reveal a keyboard onto which he quickly typed the override code. The keyboard then flipped to the side, showing a big red button.

Angelo glanced back at his companions who all gave him a nod to tell him they were ready before pressing the button.

Yellow alarm lights flared to life, with a siren screaming loudly (which made them put on their ear defenders, almost out of reflex) before the door slowly swung open. Beyond the door, everything was dark, the red light of the tunnel not managing to pierce into the deep darkness of the bunker.

“Great, the power is off, ain’t that fantastic.” Nikola said.

“Nothing we can’t work with, just a bit cheesy.” Angelo stated. “Complete darkness? That’s one more point on the spooky scale.”

“The spooky scale? Really?” Niko said incredulously. “And how high are we on that anyway?”

“So far? Three, one for the underground bunker, one for the ominous feeling and one for the darkness.”

“How far up does it go?” The gargoyle asked.

“Five points, any higher and it turns into comedy horror.”

“You watch too many movies.”

“And you, not enough.” Angelo chuckled before stopping to gape at Nikola. “The fuck are you doing with that flashlight?”

“Duct taping it to my antlers, what do you think it looks like?” Niko said as he stuck it in place using a roll of industrial tape. “Unlike our two pussycats I don’t have night-vision, so might as well get some use out of those.” He said, tapping a finger on his left antler.

“But what about the NVG goggles?”

“If they’re anything like what I had in the Bulgarian army, then they’re a piece of shit you won’t see anything out of.”

Angelo glanced dejectedly at the pair of goggles he had been about to put on. He really wanted to try them out, but maybe the more experienced gargoyle was right… With a huff, he shoved them back in the rear pouch of his flak jacket and unbuckled a large flashlight from his belt.

Once again, practicality had won the day over the excessive use of high-tech gear, much to the minotaur’s chagrin.

The group of sailors slowly progressed inside the first room of the facility. Their flashlights revealed they were in some sort of hangar, with many armored vehicles and deactivated drones around them. A gantry above the vehicle held most of the cables and pipes that had ran parallel to the entry tunnel. The inside of the facility stank of dust and copper, and ventilation fans whirred in the background.

Silently, they followed Angelo. The minotaur advanced at a crawling pace, checking every corner behind the vehicles they passed. Towards the back, they reached a section that had been arranged into a repair shop of sorts, which is where they discovered the first corpse.

The man, a German apparently from the flag he wore on his shoulder, was dressed in the same black coveralls they had seen on the nuclear experts the day before. He was sprawled face down next to an IFV with an open hood, probably having been fixing it at the moment of the cataclysm.

“Heavens almighty…” Nguyen muttered, turning away from the cadaver.

Despite being just as disturbed as his colleague, Angelo approached the week old cadaver, Nikola behind him. The gargoyle didn’t appear as disturbed as the rest of them, though the stoic look on his features showed he didn’t like it any more than they did. Angelo gulped once before hesitantly turning the corpse over.

He had to wince upon seeing the state of the man: blood, now dry, had pooled around his nostrils, ears and eyes. The dry sterile air in the bunker had slowed down the decomposition process, but after a week he certainly wasn’t pleasant to look at, and his death mustn’t have been very pleasant either.

The man had bit his tongue off, and had specks of yellow dry saliva mixed with blood and vomit around his mouth. A brown puddle next to his head showed he must have spilled his guts while unconscious, pretty much sealing his fate if he had any hope to begin with.

The strangest part wasn’t the blood and vomit, but the black lines that crossed the man’s body. Angelo turned his face this way and that, not sure what to make of them.

“Any idea Niko?” He asked tentatively.

“Blood and vomit would look like an overdose I think… But those black lines, that’s on his veins right?”

“Not the veins… The nerves I think? Look how they trace the palm of his hands but the veins on the back seem fine.” Angelo pointed out, easily overcoming the corpse’s rigidity with his strength and moving its hand around.

“I’m no forensic, but let’s just take a some pics and keep going. Didn’t come here to start fooling around with corpses.”

Angelo nodded and dropped the dead man’s hand. They took some pictures of the corpse before moving on with a macabre chill on their back. Angelo’s joke about the ‘spooky scale’ was now entirely forgotten. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Roberto wipe some vomit from his muzzle, the Italian looking a bit haggard.

They eventually reached the end of the hangar. On one side, the tunnels continued towards some supply depots and storage rooms, and on the other they found a lift that went down deeper into the bowels of the Earth. A gleaming light above its control panel told them it was powered by the emergency generators.

Angelo found a message flashing across the control screen talking about some thaumic shield and how the facility was compromised by a leakage of thaumic radiation.

“The mysterious human killing radiation?” Roberto asked, still a bit queasy.

“Most likely. Seems like their shield did a piss poor job of protecting them. Probably made the whole experience worse than it otherwise would have been.” Nikola said.

“Good or not, the lift controls tell me where they put the shield just happens to be on the same level as their generators and electric grid controls.” Angelo said, eyes riveted on the control screen.

“And what level would that be?”

“Bottom level, of course.”

“Obviously.” Nikola muttered, rolling his eyes. “Found the control room yet?”

“Two levels above the shield. Did you know these guys have an entire factory complex in there?”

“Really?” The gargoyle peered over the minotaur’s shoulder. “Damn, shame they lost the facility, these guys were loaded. That bunker would make the Swiss army envious.”

Once they boarded it, the lift went down the shaft at a slow pace. The darkness of the facility was temporarily alleviated by the passing red lights marking each level of the facility, but even the inside of the lift didn’t have an emergency light to illuminate it. They descended for what felt like hours, the temperature rising as the depth increased, just like the ominous feeling they all had. It was getting harder for Angelo to focus and not crawl into a corner in fear.

His colleagues didn’t fare much better: Roberto was absent-mindedly clenching and unclenching his claws, Nguyen’s ears twitched in all directions and Nikola, who kept a better composure than the rest, still was frenetically tapping his pistol holster with his fingers.

Just as the lift stopped and opened its door, a tremor rocked the facility, shaking the cab and sending the sailors tumbling. Bits of concrete fell on the floor around them and the red emergency lights flickered a few times before settling.

“What was that?!” Nguyen yelled out in alarm.

“Nothing good.” Nikola answered, getting up. “We best keep going.”

Upon leaving the lift, the group was faced with a thick steel door covered in warning labels. Angelo had to once again use the override code to open it.

Inside, they found some large installations as well as a complex looking apparatus that was lit with an eerie green glow. A large amount of wiring left the generators to feed into the machine, and it was surrounded by half a dozen remotely controlled gun emplacements. Several steel walkways traced paths around the machines and the apparatus, with one of them going to an observation room protected by thick ballistic glass windows.

As they walked towards the observation room, they noted the green-lit apparatus sometimes let out sparks and arcs of lightning. It also seemed to be the source of their feeling of dread.

“You think that’s their shield?” Nguyen asked.

“Not unlikely.” Angelo said. “I’d rather not do anything to it. It’s not something we’re trained to manipulate.”

The Vietnamese cat contemplated the minotaur’s words for a few moments, staring intently at the apparatus before turning away quickly.

“Can we go? That thing gives me the creeps.”

“If I can turn it off, I will. Let’s get going.” Angelo said before walking on towards the observation room.

The controls they found inside were, thankfully, fairly simple. A computer told them the shield, which was the weird apparatus inside the room, was trying to draw all power from the facility in an attempt to keep out this so-called ‘thaumic’ radiation. Whatever that was supposed to refer to, it wasn’t successful: the shield was running at twice its normal output and failing to keep out the radiation in question. Its backup unit was running too, to an even lesser effect.

Angelo made sure to avoid looking in the direction of the corpses at the back of the observation room. Some more victims of the cataclysm, a team of four French engineers had been having their coffee break when the radiation killed them. The group gave the vomit covered corpses a wide berth, though the stench of death permeated the observation room.

In its attempt at keeping out the radiation, the shield’s processor was cutting off energy from other sections of the facility, including the lighting, to feed more power to the shield core. Which explained why all the facility had gone under emergency power like that.

Angelo had no idea whether that was damaging to the core or not, but he decided to override the processor’s choice of re-routing power to the shield. The moment he pressed the button on the keyboard, the green light around the shield core dimmed and it ceased releasing sparks in the air. After a few seconds, the feeling of dread in their gut lessened somewhat, though it didn’t disappear entirely. Several warnings popped up on the screen in front of him, telling the engineer the shield was ‘insufficiently powered’, but he ignored it. They had taken a Geiger counter along and it showed they were fine, ‘thaumic’ radiation or not.

It took a minute for the lights to come back on, but the screen in front of him showed other sections were steadily reactivating themselves. No trouble on that part, the facility had a lot of electricity sources in the region to suck its power from, the nuclear power plant on the surface included.

Just as Angelo turned to his companions to tell them they were ready to move on to the control room, another tremor rocked the bunker hard enough to make them fall on the ground. A long groan of strained steel reverberated through the walls.

Nikola picked himself up, flicking a bit of concrete off his shoulder.

“Okay, now there really must be a problem. I don’t think Western Europe is known for its earthquakes, so what’s going on?” He asked.

“Computer reports a breach in the upper levels. Still above the control room. Lifts are shut though.” Angelo read out.

“Well, whatever’s causing this, we gotta put a stop to it.” Roberto said, his rifle held in his paws. “Bet you it’s those quarry eels.”

“No deal, I don’t take lost bets.” Nikola answered. “Angelo, got the level where the breach occurred?”

“Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself now?” Angelo said. “Pretty sure 5.56 won’t be enough to take them down, if that’s really quarry eels we’re facing.”

“Probably not. At least not with a single bullet. But I may have an idea.” He pointed to one of the gun emplacement around the shield core. “Those are most likely able to.”

“And yet we don’t have the controls for them, so that’s a moot point.”

“But these controls have to be somewhere, and if there’s anywhere I’d look first, that’s the control room.” Nikola countered. “You’re with me, Rob?”

The Italian just shrugged.

“Okay, fine.” Angelo relented. “Nguyen, you’re with me. We’re going for the control room and we’ll try to find those gun controls.”

After getting a nod of assent from the cat, he turned to the other two in the group.

“Niko, Rob, try to find those things.” He then held up his machinegun towards Roberto. “Take my gun, it’s chambered in 7.62, packs a hell of a lot more punch than yours. If you can down them with it, fine, but if you can’t, try to lead them to one of the gun emplacements. Nguyen and I will do the rest.”

Roberto accepted the proffered gun, giving Angelo his rifle in exchange. The smaller cat visibly strained under the weight of the heavy MAG machinegun.

“I would give you some extra ammo, but I don’t think you can take the weight.” Angelo said.

“How much rounds are there on the belt you loaded in anyway?” Roberto asked, looking at the weapon in wonder.

“A hundred. If you want to fire, flip the safety on the pistol grip, and pull the lever back, then push it all the way forward. I zeroed it to one hundred meters and frankly, you won’t go much further in there so don’t touch the rear sight.”

“Will do. You think a hundred rounds will be enough?”

“If whatever you’re shooting at takes more than a hundred shots of 7.62 to bring down, better find something bigger to shoot with ‘cause you’re doing it wrong. You ready to go for the kill pussycat?” Angelo said.

“Kitten was already a bad nickname, what makes you think that any better?” Roberto bristled. “Let’s go, before I change my mind.” He added, already walking towards the door.

“Pace yourself buddy.” Angelo chuckled as he followed him. “You’re gonna have to haul that thing up ten floors.”

If he could have snapped a picture of the aggravated cat’s face right then, Angelo would have had it framed on a wall in the engine room.

The group split in two on the level of the control room, with Angelo announcing they would keep in touch with them via the PA system and guide them to the nearest gun emplacement with it. When they figured out how to make it work, that is.

A bit winded from having to climb up so many floors using the stairs, Nikola and Roberto eventually reached the breached level. The staircase opened up to a clean, white tiled floor. The white neon lights of the rest of the facility (now that they were turned on) changed to a softer bluish tone. When Nikola breathed in the air, he felt that the dusty smell of the bunker was replaced with a more pleasant humid air, imprinted with the smell of damp earth (though the smell of death was still present, if slightly overshadowed by the floor’s smell).

The corpses littering the ground of the facility there were dressed in coveralls marked with green stripes on their shoulders, and they all had some letters on their back that read ‘hydroponics’.

They had found the facility’s food source.

With a gesture of his hand, Nikola motioned for Roberto to follow him quietly. The gargoyle cocked his gun, mindful of catching the lever before it made the typical ‘clack’ of a gun being armed, before slowly progressing ahead, gun at the ready.

After passing some offices and store rooms, still littered with decaying corpses, the two sailors reached a succession of long narrow rooms in which planters had been set up. Rows upon rows of planters, each filled with a different plant occupied these brightly lit rooms. A thin mist reduced visibility in the area, caused by the irrigation system.

Despite the constant noise of the ventilation system, they managed to hear some noise coming from the other side of the plantations. Quietly, they followed it, taking great care not to rustle the plants inside the green rooms.

Nikola took cover next to the door leading to the hallway from which the noise was coming and carefully leaned through without making a noise. Roberto took cover on the other side of the door, next to a stack of seed filled jars.

Two dozen meters down the hallway, the gargoyle spied the red silhouette of one of the quarry heels. From the shape of its head fin and its general size, it must have been the ‘alpha’ eel of the trio they had met. The creature was entirely out of its tunnel, which came out on the side of the hallway, merrily chomping on the corpse of one of the dead HPI guys. Behind it, its two partners were snoozing on top of each other, completely unaware of their surroundings.

Nikola stopped Roberto before the cat could open fire on the eels, mouthing for him to wait. They needed to wait for Angelo’s signal; otherwise they wouldn’t be able to use the gun emplacements as backup if their guns turned out to be insufficient.

They had seen two of those right next to where they exited the staircase, hopefully they would be able to outspeed the eels until they reached them.

Nikola was suddenly deeply conscious of how the transformation had affected his mobility. The two hooves he had wound up saddled with might have been sturdy, but he had yet to be fully accustomed to running with them. Adrenaline had better do the trick or he would be…

The alpha quarry heel snapped its jaws, cracking the bones of the corpse it was eating without difficulty and sending guts spraying all over the floor.

Yeah, Usain Bolt was a role model alright.

Next to Nikola, Roberto was practically hugging his machine gun like a comfort pillow, deservedly terrified of the spectacle in front of him. The cat had his ears stuck against his head beneath the large ear defenders he was wearing, and his breath was coming short. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the fangs ripping at the decaying flesh some ways in front of them.

They managed to wait for about ten minutes like that, which gave the alpha enough time to finish its dinner and coil around its partners before the inevitable happened.

Roberto’s tail, which had been swaying back and forth increasingly faster, eventually toppled the stack of seed jars next to him. The glass jars shattered with a sharp sound that echoed through the hallway.

The next moments happened in slow motion for Roberto. First all three eels opened their eyes, the alpha swiveling its head towards them; and next he knew Nikola was already halfway through the door in a kneeling position, filling the hallway with supersonic lead. The gargoyle’s fire, relatively disciplined and willingly kept to single fire, was mostly accurate, for all the good that did.

The first bullet to hit its mark hit the alpha on its forehead, ripping at the skin but failing to penetrate the angled bone of its skull. The next few hit it in the jaw, still managing to damage its skin but failing at causing significant damage thanks to the thick bone protecting its head. The very last bullet of the salvo chipped a fang, sending shrapnel against the creature’s tongue and forcing a bloodcurdling scream out of it.

For a rusty shooter, Nikola was a pretty good shot, only missing the first few rounds he fired. It took Roberto a good three seconds to react and throw himself down in a prone position (he didn’t dare think he could handle the machine gun in any other position) next to the gargoyle, which gave the eels enough time to rise up and roar at them in challenge.

“Cazzo!” The Italian swore as he fumbled with the charging handle of his gun. He accidentally ejected one round without firing before deducing it was ready and pressing the trigger.

Nothing.

With an annoyed growl, he pressed a thumb against the safety before trying his luck again, Nikola already having dumped a whole mag downrange in the meantime (and yet failing to do much more than piss off the alpha by skinning half its head and chipping at its skull, the guy was dedicated to achieving a headshot).

Roberto only really realized his colleague had gone through his first mag when he accidentally dropped it on his head, eliciting a sharp yowl and a ‘ Watch it,Stronzo!’ from him.

By the time he sent his first salvo down the hallway, the eels were already throwing themselves in their direction. Thankfully, with the 7.62 round being about twice as powerful, the effect was better perceived by the recipient of the gun’s attention. Even with the help of the ear defenders, firing such a gun in an enclosed environment made his sensitive ears ring.

The twenty shot salvo went wide and missed its mark on the alpha, but it hit the one behind it in the belly with half the rounds fired, ripping a large gash in the thick muscle mass that coiled around its body and sending blood spraying. The rest of the bullets dug large holes in the concrete walls behind.

The monster let out a high-pitched screech in pain, tumbling tail over head and making its partners turn towards it. Without missing a beat, Nikola yanked Roberto upright by his collar.

“Run!” The Bulgarian yelled, struggling to insert a fresh mag in his weapon after having shoved the spent one in a pocket.

The duo raced back through the plantation towards the entrance of the hydroponics level, a crashing noise behind them telling them they were being pursued.

Before they were able to reach the entrance, the wall beside them exploded in a cloud of dust and small rocks as the wounded eel smashed through it effortlessly. Nikola ducked just in time to avoid being smashed by its trashing tail, though he got a nasty gash on his cheek from the sharp fin at the end of the tail whipping him.

Still not having reloaded his rifle, the Bulgarian went to draw his holstered pistol, quickly flipping off the safety and firing a round at the eel’s head.

The disintegrating rounds of the less-lethal pistol crumpled on the creature’s nose, hardly doing anything more than irritate it further. It smacked Nikola with its tail, sending the gargoyle on an assisted flight in the opposite direction and cracking a few ribs of his in the process.

A couple meters behind, Roberto neatly dodged the flying gargoyle and, forgetting his earlier calms about the recoil of his weapon, opened fire from the hip. Most of the shots missed, but the few that hit added to the injuries of the quarry eel and pushed it to retreat with a large hole in its tail and a ripped head fin. The shrapnel caused by it digging down into the ground nicked the cat somewhat, but it was nowhere near as bad as Nikola who he had to help getting up.

Hoping to give them some time, Roberto threw a flashbang as far as he could down the hallway before pulling Nikola inside an out of the way office. The resounding ‘bang’ and roars that followed told him the eels had bitten the bait. They needed more time; time to let Angelo gain control of the guns, and time for him to patch up Nikola.

The Bulgarian was still dazed from the hit he had just received, softly moaning in pain as he cradled his injured ribs. A small trickle of blood fell out of the gash on his face. It didn’t look too bad, with the wound being more of a shallow, long gash. It went from the lower part of his jaw to the top of the gargoyle’s stubby muzzle.

Still, it would require some treatment to take care of: some bits of concrete had lodged themselves inside the wound.

Careful not to make too much noise lest he attract the quarry eels, Roberto unlatched the first-aid kit from his flak jacket. He wasn’t particularly good at it, and Niko would most likely require stitches when they got back to the ship, but he could do his best to ensure the wound didn’t get infected.

“Brace yourself buddy, that’s gonna sting a bit.” Rob whispered. Niko didn’t show any sign of having heard him beyond his fist unclenching and freeing the less-lethal pistol he was still holding.

The gargoyle started to regain his wits the moment Roberto applied disinfectant to his wound, his eyes now focusing on the Italian that was tending his wounds. Fortunately, he didn’t stir too much and was smart enough not to make noise, only clenching his jaw when disinfectant was sprayed over the gash.

“We’re hiding until Angelo can get the guns online. I’m already halfway through my ammo; we can’t fight them like this.” Rob answered upon receiving an inquisitive look from the gargoyle.

He wrapped a bandage around his head to keep the blood from pouring out. Nikola wouldn’t bleed out, but that would leave a nasty scar once they got him stitched up. He didn’t know what to do for the damaged ribs, so Niko would have to deal with it and hope for the best until he could get some advice on the matter.

Once his comrade was treated as well as he could, Roberto set up his machinegun on a desk in the office, pointing it towards the door. He sat down behind the gun, getting ready to wait. Next to him, Nikola rested his back against the wall opposite the door, his now reloaded rifle in his lap, ready to fire once more. He popped a painkiller in his mouth without looking away from the door.

Next time, he would aim for the throat.

Somewhere down the hallway, the quarry eels were rampaging through offices, trying to track them down, breaking down walls as they searched for the sailors that had hurt them and dared to enter their territory.

Two floors below, a cat and a minotaur were frenetically looking around the control room, the sight of the eels fighting their colleagues on the security cameras spurring them to look further for the gun controls.

The race was on to see who would find their goal first, where the winner would get to take the life of the loser.

Author's Notes:

Another monster enters the arena. Adding them was a bit of a coincidence: I was looking at sat pics of the Chooz area when I just happened to spot a quarry on the last stretch of road from Tihange. I wanted to do the whole facility part in one chapter but as you can see, that wasn't exactly successful so I had to stop at the 20 pages mark. Length is starting to be a bit of a problem, the story has only made it 9 days after the Event, and I'm 5 pages short of 200 on my word documents.