Nightmares and Monsters

Part 5

Chapter 5

Qatar - Middle East, Day three in the Desert

Normal POV

Caliene let out a sigh of relief as they finally stopped near to a transmission tower of some sort which meant some sort of antique phone they could use to contact a nearby base for extraction. Lennox just gave her the kind of look she was now so used to that they didn't need to say anything, she nodded back at him and started to get the rest of the squad into their proper placement for securing the area whilst Epps and Lennox got on the horn to someone on their side.

"Let's hope this telephone line works." said Lennox as Epps stopped and grabbed a drink out of the nearby warm water barrel before proceeding to pour another cups worth over his dark shaved head to help cool down in the 130 degree plus weather.

Everyone was minding their own points on the edge of the area surrounding the communications tower when Caliene thought she saw something moving underneath the sand, she shook her head - the heat and sun must really be playing havoc with her mind.

A short while later - maybe five minutes by Caliene's reckoning everyone but Donnely jumped as something cut through the support struts of the comm. tower and sent it crashing to the ground, ironically just missing hitting Donnely. Caliene and Lennox both shouted at the same time "Heads up! Hey! Heads up!"

Caliene walked quickly over to where Donnely and Fig were standing and as she got closer she heard Donnely say "What the heck was that?" to Fig who just shrugged and started to mutter off into Spanish - at which point Caliene just grinned when she caught on to what Fig was saying. Donnely just looked at Fig then looked away muttering "English, dude. English."

Caliene was about to chew Donnely out for not paying attention to what was going on around him when they all turned to see Epps yell and jump back making Lennox turn and yell from the sudden realization that he was nearly a Ranger shish kabob. By this time everyone was moving around, but Epps looked like his Desert Camo pants were on fire. As everyone was constantly moving and shooting at the sand below them watching for the strange metal spear to rise out of the ground again, they almost missed it as a hump appeared in between the group and there was loud yells of "Watch Out!"

What Caliene and the others saw next was not what anyone was expecting as a giant metal scorpion and Caliene estimated it to be the size of a tank, rose from the sand past them and then back under the sand. As soon as it had disappeared back under the sand, everyone started to fire at where they saw ripples in the sand. Everyone decided at that moment to turn and run down the sand dunes, shooting into it as they went with shouts of "Contact! Contact!" from Sgt Burke as he was spinning around and shooting at the sand behind him.

They stopped as they reached the bottom of the sand dune and tried to catch their breath. Lennox tried to take back control of the situation, "Quiet, settle." he said as he caught his breath and senses back, whatever that thing was Caliene was sure that it wasn't gone and was now twitchy - not a good thing for a sniper to be. Epps was still freaking out if the expressions of "Whoa, mother...." and "What the hell is..." were to go by, nearby the rest of the squad were still looking around the sand surrounding them.

Donnely scanned the sand and when Caliene looked over to him she was wishing she hadn't as she watched in what seemed to be slow motion as the scorpion looking machine exploded from the sand behind Donnely and impaled him on the spear-like tail, then proceeded to swing him around a number of times, before flinging his now dead body off its tail. At the sound of Caliene's rifle firing, the rest of the soldiers just started running and shouting to one another. Lennox looked around for everyone who was alive yet and spotted Mahfouz down on the sand, he ran over to the boy and helped him up all the while saying "Get up! Get up! Get up!"