Chapter 1: (v.2) Dead to Rights

A pair of soldiers ran through the abandoned hotel lobby in a British town near London. Electricity had failed in this building, and only the glow of battery powered emergency lights lit up their surroundings. The howling of the clone horde behind them grew louder in the wake of the two fleeing men, and was a constant reminder that death was closing in around them. They were not the only soldiers alive. The sounds of sporadic gunfire announced the presence of a few surviving members of the British-US coalition forces. Tasked with defending the town, the soldiers were supposed to hold a defensive line until reinforcements could come. That would never happen now. The streets were filled with the seemingly endless number of flesh eating clones.

The clones, more like biological humanoid monstrosities, were created by the Horzine Corporation, a government-run research group. It was all in the name of improving science and military technology. When the focus of research shifted toward the military side of the equation, an increase in unethical practices were observed by facility staff members and were complained about on a regular basis. This did not stop the experiments, however, and scientists concocted a wide variety of horrible combinations ment for war. While most clones had a regular human anatomy, except for light grey skin and no genitalia, there were far deadlier versions that twist this original mold in an attempt to weaponize them.

Public outcry of Horzine’s incredibly questionable practices had eventually shut down the research and its projects. Before the company was closed for good, however, a breach in Horzine’s massive stock of clones inexplicably took place in all of its locations. With the cloning process being fully automated, it did not take long for nearby cities to be swallowed whole by a constant and relentless stream of clones. Now, they were rampaging all across Britain, and have just recently added a new town to the list of overrun sites. In this very town, a United States Army Ranger, Kyle Porter, along with a soldier from a British unit, darted around a corner, into the first floor hallway of the four-star hotel.

As they ran, Porter covered his ear piece so he could hear the incoming message.

“They’re sending helicopters!” Porter announced to his partner.

He was able to speak without shouting now, as the noise of wailing clones slowly diminished behind them, “We have to get to the roof and mark it with flares.”

He saw that this was all too much for the British soldier. Not only was the man’s home being invaded by these… things… but he had just watched most of his countrymen die within the first few minutes of their defense. It was an absolute nightmare. The scene back at the military blockade was littered with bodies, either strewn about like ragdolls, or ripped apart into bloody indistinguishable pieces. The only thing keeping Porter together was the hope that there was still a way out of this mess. The British soldier, Porter didn’t know his name, simply nodded and kept running on, the Ranger leading the way.

It was about halfway down the hall when things went from bad to fucked up. Just as Porter passed one of the rooms, the door to it exploded off its frame, slamming into the British soldier and knocking the man under. Hearing the crash behind him, Porter turned around and saw it. A massive sized clone stepped out onto the broken door, pinning his companion. Larger than the two soldiers combined, it practically filled up the entire frame of the hallway. This clone uncharacteristically wore clothes. An apron with a surgical mask over its mouth. Other than that, it was almost impossible to miss the chainsaw, jutting out of where a hand should be. Porter briefly noted that it had the overall appearance of an 80’s horror film monster, though this was all too real to be a movie.

Before either soldier could react, the hulking clone let out a maniacal, low-toned laugh and sent the chainsaw splitting through the wooden door, into the helpless man. The British soldier screamed in agony as blood sprayed from his abdomen, creating streaks of red on the beige colored walls and blue carpeted floor. "Oh god!" Porter didn’t say, as he raised his weapon, knowing it was already too late. He fired anyway, sending a controlled three round burst into the monster’s head. The impact moved it slightly, but all the 7.62x51mm NATO rounds seemed to do was cause some minor flesh damage, and to piss off the oversized clone.

Realizing that his bullets were having little effect, Porter turned to run. As he did so, he was just able to catch the menacing glare the monster had sent his way. With fear motivating his legs, Porter sprinted down the hall, hoping to god that he would find some stairs or a working elevator. From the struggling he heard behind him, the clone had a hard time freeing its chainsaw from the door and his dead college. This gave Porter precious few seconds of space. As he reached the end of the hallway, he saw a sign that read “Stairs” on the last door to his left. “Yes!” Porter thought, as he grabbed the door handle.

His heart sank… the door was locked. “Shit, SHIT!” the Porter cursed as he shook the handle, hoping that had been mistaken. In a moment of panic, he looked down the hall to the giant clone. It was still stuck. "So I still have some time," Porter thought to himself with some false hope. And so, he frantically went to work on kicking the door open, aiming for the doorknob to try and break it free. But before he made any real progress, Porter heard, and felt, the large powerful steps charging toward him. He had no choice. He had to fight. Porter turned and pointed his weapon up, and at the charging enemy.

Round after round, and all it seemed to do was make the thing flinch, shrugging bullets off like they were tiny insects. Porter switched his rifle to fully automatic when the oversized clone was almost on him, trying his best to keep his rifle steady. He emptied the rest of the clip in desperation, just before the thing  slammed up against him with its massive forearm, pinning Porter against the wall. “This is it”, he thought to himself, as his body wrenched in pain, “I will die here”. His mind flashed images of the other men in his unit. Their bodies being ripped to pieces before his eyes, the blood chilling screams as some were eaten alive… and now, this would happen to him.

Porter struggled under the pressure of the clone’s massive arm. Its head was oddly shaped and damaged from the impact of high velocity copper. He stared into the thing’s remaining eyes. They were faded and cloudy, but he could still see the bloodlust there. Unable to do anything, he just watched, and witnessed, the large chainsaw lift into the air, so that it could come back down to cause life-ending pain. Except that it didn't. Instead, the arm had fallen harmlessly to the side. A tip of a crossbow bolt violently penetrated through the clone’s forehead and Porter was splashed with a spray of blood.