Part 1: SPC Warren

Two years prior…

The clouds swirled like a gray bowl of porridge as 2000 insects and arachnids fell onto the floor mats of a black Chevy Suburban. Detective Vincent mopped the sweat from his brow, panting, but relieved. He was sure that Unit 48 would never hear from Creapicrolly town again. Little did he know that along with stopping an apocalypse, Vincent had awoken one of the most vicious beasts to reckon with.                          Present day

A clunking sound filled the lobby of unit 48. Former Private (now Sergeant) Warren limped into the building with a smile…which was erased rather quickly as he passed by the auditorium on his way to the office. The entire unit sat in silence, awaiting a speaker to come onstage. Some looked grim. Others were weeping. “What happened?” Warren asked Lydia. “Austin is retiring,” she whispered. As Warren reeled off the chair in shock, a false leg falling off, Austin appeared onstage. “You all know I hate giving speeches, so I’m gonna keep it short. Keep working hard, for all that you value. Do not halt in your life just because I’m gone. And, finally, congratulations to detective Vincent. You are the new General”. A murmur of shock ran through the crowd, quickly replaced by applause. Fifteen minutes after the assembly, Warren was called into Vincent’s office. “Hello Warren. You and young private Jacob will be going to the rural area of California. Red Rocks Canyon, to be exact,” Vincent said. Warren nodded.  “Go down to the garage. He is waiting for you”. Warren went to the garage to find a gray Honda frontier parked in the loading zone. The driver, presumably Jacob, waved. “Not so jittery,” Warren thought. The pair shook hands, and took to the road. 

Warren read the ominous case. Multiple reports of sinkholes were given to geologists. However, when anyone fell in, their bodies were never found. At all sightings, a white tip of almost a tail was seen in the holes, then disappeared. Warren felt a worm of doubt gnawing on his stomach. This unclear report left him and Jacob not knowing what they were facing. Jacob whistled to Warren. “We’re here,” he said, turning sharply into a dirt parking lot, empty of cars. Warren and Jacob hopped out, each with a bazooka. They trekked up the mountain, finding more and more potholes as they went. After ten minutes, Jacob peered into his fourteenth hole and gasped. “I saw the white tip! The one on the file!” he exclaimed. Warren hefted his Bazooka and carried on, wary. No sooner had he taken three steps, than the ground exploded in front of him. A white tube the size of two blue whales lined up burst out of the ground, its head split into five columns of sharp, serrated spikes. To Warren, it resembled a very long, large maggot. The creature surged up, and suddenly smoke blocked Warren’s view. “Well done Jacob!” he cheered at the private, who was holding a smoking bazooka and smiling. The ground exploded again, and the maggot-worm shot out, dangerously close. “We got enough to report on, Sarge! I think we can go back to base and give this to the chief!” Jacob roared. Warren nodded, and they went running (well, limping in Warren’s case) towards the truck. Jacob pounced into the drivers seat, just as the worm surged out of the ground, and five columns of serrated teeth bit into Sergeant Warren’s right leg. At that moment, Warren just managed to grab onto the back of the truck, keeping himself from getting chewed up. Jacob tried to drive off with Warren, but the tires spun in place, held down by the weight of the worm. The struggle lasted for less than ten seconds, and with a final stomp on the gas pedal, Jacob pulled out of the park, with Warren in the back. A drop of red hit the rear windshield. As a dozen more followed, Jacob heard Warren screaming and realized what the liquid was. Warren watched, helpless, as his severed leg bled like a school water fountain, every bump in the road throwing tiny droplets up. “Not…again…” he  gasped, before blacking out in the back of a vehicle a second time due to yet another lost limb.

Part 2: CPL Lydia

Enrique jogged towards the inventory and picked up two blade guns. Those things were basically guns that shot buzz saws. Afterwards, he sprinted out to the garage, where his van was just being parked by Clyde. Enrique gave a wave. “You coming with me, soldier?” he asked. Clyde shook his head and jerked a finger towards the shotgun seat where Lydia sat, armed…with a shotgun. Enrique grimaced. “We don’t want that, señorita. I got the cutters”. “Sure bro,” Lydia said with a shrug, and tossed the shotgun to Clyde. Enrique, being as aggressive as ever, stomped on the gas pedal and sped out. Lydia read the file. “So…some giant worm broke out of old Creapicrolly and is causing havoc,” she said flatly. Enrique snorted. “You sound like you deal with that every day,” he muttered. A groan escaped Lydia’s lips as she read on. “Chicago? It’s in Chicago? I can already hear the skyscrapers coming down in my mind,” she griped. Enrique ignored her and drove on. From their little headquarters in South Dakota, Chicago was quite a long way out. After a good 10 gas stops, 7 fast food restaurants, and one detour to fix a flat tire, the smog-blanketed city loomed into view. It looked like some little kid had gone drunk and threw LEGO’s around. Debris was everywhere, holes were visible, made by the worm. Enrique cruised along the streets, when suddenly, the ground collapsed under them, and the van dropped with a thunk into a dirt tunnel, probably made by the worm as it passed under. The two passengers were panting. The van, against all odds, had landed on all four wheels. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about skyscrapers falling on us at this point,” Enrique said. He started to drive again. The silence was almost eerie. However, it wouldn’t last. 

Above them, they heard a shattering of dozens of windows, and civilians screaming. Out of a hole in the ground, Enrique saw the building. The white giant worm was wrapping around it, smashing through windows and coming back out until it had knotted around the entire building. There was silence for two seconds, before the worm tightened itself, and the building exploded into smithereens. Windows shattered. The van’s windshield was shattered by a printer dropped from the fifth floor. “REVERSE!” Lydia screamed. Enrique looked up, and saw the frame of the building descending down on them. He threw the van into reverse, speeding back the way they came. The hole the van came through was out of reach of the skyscraper. Lydia loaded her blade launcher and fired at the worm, who was doing away with another building. The blade whistled off like a frisbee, and the worm gave a sharp screech as the blade and four more hit it in rapid succession. Lydia cheered as Enrique added his firepower to it. However, their blades only had about as much effect as a minor knife cut if a human were to chop cilantro. The worm turned on them, furious, and dove towards them, five columns of serrated teeth opening and closing like a claw on a claw machine. Enrique desperately tried to reverse the van, but the worm came down on them. Lydia jumped out of the van just as the worm slammed into it, totalling the front part of the vehicle. Lydia screamed, tears streaming down her face as she saw the van smoking, then closed her eyes and stumbled away as the van exploded behind her. There was no chance Enrique had survived. She found an opening in the tunnel, and pulled herself out of the tunnel, before looking around and heading towards the car rental. Private Stefan, now Enrique…who else was going to die with her around?

Part 3: SGT Clyde

The funeral was a simple affair. Clyde held Warren’s hand, guiding him along on his two prosthetic legs, as they made their way to the auditorium. As a silence fell on the crowd, General Vincent spoke. “Dearly beloved Second Lieutenant Enrique is no longer with us, sadly. He was a great man, fighting bravely day after day for us. His passing means that we have to strive all the more”. After the funeral, things seemed to go back to normal. Clyde broke a smile when Warren walked a full lap around the medical sector without falling. The two headed to a meeting in the inventory office. They walked in on Sergeant Ryan explaining a thing that looked like a very thick calculator. “Hey there, Warren. Nice to see you on those legs. This is an underground disturbance tracker. It works like one of those radars on boats that capture underwater activity, but this is used for dry land. If anyone goes out in search of the worm, they can use this. Let’s go test it outside”. As Ryan spoke, he and the groups headed out to the parking lot. Ryan flipped a dial and the thing made a faint whistling noise. “The colors are based on depth, refreshing every half a second,” Ryan explained. “No activity down below so far”. He held the device loosely at his side. Warren noticed something going on with the device. It was changing colors. Blue…now green…now yellow…something was approaching the surface fast. “You might wanna back away from the spot, Serge. Something’s surging up fast,” he said. Ryan checked the device and raised an eyebrow. “Funny…that thing’s only meant to detect big objects bigger than a-“. He never finished the sentence, as a long white tube with teeth, the worm of terror, shot out of the Earth, swallowing the Sergeant whole. It sank back into the ground, and there was a moment of silence before the ones on balcony patrol sounded the alarm. “Scatter!” Warren yelled to the others, heading for the building. Clyde followed him. “Going to inventory?” he inquired. “You know me well, buddy,” Warren said with a smile. 

They each grabbed a blade launcher and made their way out from the crowd that was loading up on RPG’s, rifles, snipers, and all other imaginable firearms and blades. As they passed by a window on the first floor, they saw a white tube stretching across it. “Lydia told me how the worm destroys buildings. We gotta get out of here,” he said. As he spoke, a crashing of glass sounded upstairs. They rushed out the front door to find the worm coiling around the building, going in and out of it. Clyde wasted no time, opening fire with the blade launcher, making several cuts on the large worm. Warren followed suit. Clyde heard the sound of rifles, and the explosions of RPG’s as the rest of unit 48 shot with them. However, it did almost nothing to the worm’s exterior armor. The blade discs all lodged, but the bullets bounced off, and the explosives looked like water balloons. Finally, the worm, cut and scorched from the unit’s relentless firing, came out of the top. The firing ceased. The worm remained coiled around the building, motionless. It was as if the world was holding its breath, then, with a crash, the worm tightened its hold on the building, and collapsed it. Glass shards fell. Debris rained like deadly bullets, cutting people up, and cutting people down. If it were possible, they would’ve even cut people sideways. Unit 48’s main building, a hub for knowledge, innovation, and the most cutting edge agents, was now gone. As the building started to fall, the unit members screamed and sprinted away, out of the parking lot. Warren tried to keep up on his new prosthetics, but it was a struggle. Clyde helped him along. “Life or death, Warren, life or death! Come on! You can do it!” He urged. They neared the exit, and Clyde smiled. There was hope. Suddenly, a beam crashed down on the exit. Startled, the pair looked behind them to see the building crashing down on them. “NOOOOO!” Lydia screamed, tears flowing freely. A huge wave of dust crashed down on the unit. When it lifted, all that was left of what they worked for was a pile of rubble. Lydia sobbed, then her breath caught as she saw a prosthetic leg in the wreck. 

It was crushed, like everything else.

Part 4: SPC Warren

“I think we’re in the medical sector,” Warren whispered. The building of Unit 48 had just caved in from the worm attack, trapping the two unfortunates in. “Yeah, this is the med sector. Look at those syringes,” Clyde replied. He walked around on the wall. The entire thing had shifted 90 degrees, so walking would be a bit tough. Warren stood up, and instantly fell over. “Where’d my leg go?” he muttered. “It probably got unbuckled in the crash,” Clyde responded. Warren looked around and his eyes lit up. “This is the surgical room. If I remember correctly, the doc left a ton of other prosthetics in here for me to try on. I can borrow one of those”. He sat down and Clyde proceeded to open every drawer and cabinet, until at last, he found a drawer full of false legs, and attached one to Warren’s leg (or the stump that was his leg). Once that was done, Warren looked upwards at the now vertical floor. He grabbed the emergency kits in the surgical room and came out with a few spikes. “What are those for?” Clyde asked. Warren jammed a spike into the now vertical floor. “Ever tried rock climbing?” he asked Clyde. Half an hour later, and out of breath Warren and an even more out of breath Clyde heaved themselves to the end of the makeshift climbing course and sat on a door casing, panting. “Where are we headed?” Clyde asked. Warren grunted. “Old storage unit. I have a half-baked plan, and most half-baked plans work at this point,” he muttered, heaving himself off the door frame and once again resuming the climb up the vertical floor. Sighing, Clyde followed. 

A minute later, they came upon a room, a closet jam packed with needles, fluids, taxidermied organisms, and a ton of other little things that one expects to see at a mad doctor’s office. Warren rummaged through the B locker, until he shouted “A-HA!” and Clyde nearly fell off the sink. Warren held a few jars of a green liquid, with an entirely different sign on the jars. Clyde squinted. “You’re gonna fight a giant worm that just destroyed the main building…with green peanut butter?” he asked, puzzled. Warren sighed, turning the backside of the jar so Clyde could see the real label: BUG-148. “Haven’t used this since Vincent came back with mutant insects,” Warren muttered, grinning. “So, here’s my half-baked plan. We strap a few syringes of these to a grenade, and launch that grenade in the RPG at the worm. The heat from an exploding grenade should be able to evaporate the BUG-148, causing the giant white tube of a worm to turn into the red spaghetti that we see everyday”. Clyde nodded. It made sense. Then he frowned. “Another climb to the inventory? Seriously?” he asked. Warren nodded, grinning cheekily, and half an hour later, they went to the dark room that served as an inventory, and picked up two RPG’s. After a quick stab with his pocket knife, Warren made a hole through the window and climbed out. The two hopped off the building, and using the overgrown calculator that was Ryan’s idea of an underground radar, walked around the parking lot. As the radar turned orange, Warren speed-limped out of the way, tackling Clyde as the giant worm exploded out of the ground. Rolling over, he pulled the trigger on his RPG. It worked exactly as he envisioned, green vapor swirling around the worm. It began to shrink, getting smaller and smaller. However, when it hit the size of a school bus, it stopped shrinking. It was a hideous pink, probably the result of a half-mutation. Clyde pulled his trigger…and wasted their last grenade on empty air. “Nice one Clyde!” Warren said sarcastically. “Sorry,” Clyde mumbled. Warren’s eyes glinted as he pulled out one last syringe. “You’ll have to get close to the worm, and stick this into it.” “Why not you?” Clyde asked. Warren sighed. “My legs are not what they used to be, given that one got chewed up by a sports car, and the other is probably dissolving in that thing’s stomach” he said. Just then, the worm exploded out from under them, chomping up Clyde. Warren looked awed, as the Sergeant, half of his body being chewed by five columns of teeth, stuck the last syringe into the worm’s “face”. It gave out one final screech, and spat Clyde out as the shrinking resumed. It became the size of a rhinoceros, then a dog, then a toy car…then it returned to the healthy red that an earthworm should be, and burrowed deep into the ground, the only trace left behind being an empty needle…and a crushed building. 

Epilogue

The sun set, casting long shadows over the ravaged parking lot. The bricks were still a mess, though the lobby had already begun to take shape again. Still, it would be a good four years before the main building of Unit 48 would ever be restored to its former glory. The scaffolds and metal beams glinted in the last rays. However, nothing could dampen the spirits of the crew members of the unit. Lydia had broken down for the third time in a week upon seeing the two heroes coming out of that parking lot, and rushed up to hug a blushing Warren. Vincent slapped Warren on the back. “That old peanut butter went to good use, eh?” the General said happily. Warren and Clyde could do nothing but smile. 

A celebration was hosted that evening. The whole unit bundled into a restaurant, scaring all the other patrons off. They celebrated over paella, recounting losses, reliving past heroic missions, and talking about the pest that almost destroyed the entire unit. Warren and Clyde sat with Vincent himself, a somewhat less tearful Lydia sitting by them as they told the General about how they stopped the worm while the evacuees had taken off. “Did we bet on whether or not the BUG-148 would ever be useful? Cause I hope we did. That way you owe me cash,” Vincent said. Warren sighed. “Sure, chief.” But a smile was on his face. Clyde left to sit with some fellow officers, who congratulated the underdog on his success. As dusk fell, a cake was served up as dessert. Just as Warren was about to cut it, the candle fell away, and a worm coated in cake slithered out, screeching madly, slithering towards Clyde. As the cake slid off the thing, everyone started laughing at the robotic snake that scared Clyde half to death. “Not sure if that’s hygienic, but who am I to argue with the chefs? Let’s eat!” Vincent said.

Life. Laughter. Love. Those things mattered most.