Arnquist had to liken the approach to breaching a P.O.W. camp through enemy lines...only most of the time, as he was able to see it from cover, prisoners weren't tortured for long...many were turned into these werewolves. What was unnerving...they were all female. It wasn't necessarily a mysogynist attitude, he once had a wife...until cancer claimed her. But she was loving, smart, independent, strong...
'I'm getting too old for this,' he thought. Then another thought...'Then why do I feel so strong?'
"Move up," he said. "Tunnel access is this way."
***
"They're breaking through!"
While the tunnels were sectioned off, the hardened doors didn't last more than ten or twenty minutes against these monstrosities. It seemed that if you had a Y chromosome, you were food. Either that, or you risked joining their ranks.
"Come on! Into the next section!"
"Guys, I don't feel so good..."
"Crap...look at his ears...his eyes!"
"Guys?"
"Leave him behind! Go! Move!"
"Guys, NO!"
Keith saw his fellow men slam the door and lock it in place...leaving him alone. Yeah, they figured out the pattern, and he had taken a bite. The door behind him breached, but he didn't even look up, even after he heard the deep growly voice.
"Well...at least this one gets a choice. Mate, or food?"
***
'Damn,' Arnquist thought. 'This helmet is really killing my ears...never used to before...'
At that point he thought of physical changes...did he have to be left behind? Was he changing and had to be shot for dead to protect his fellow soldiers? He ran the checklist.
'If I'm changing physically, that's a warning...but...I'm still me. These people around me are still my fellow soldiers...'
Colonel Arnquist shucked his helmet, and felt what was wrong.
His ears were becoming pointed.
'Impossible...I didn't get bitten, how...'
But he knew what he had to do.
"Lieutenant Colonel," he said. "I think I may have been compromised. Take the men ahead to section A5, find the remaining humans, and bring them to extraction point alpha. Deviate from the original mission as needed."
"Sir?"
Arnquist held his ear, and shined his flashlight to illuminate the odd contour. "There. That's an order, Lieutenant. Finish the mission."
There's a pause, and then the soldier snaps a salute. "Hoorah, Colonel. You heard the man, let's move!"
Arnquist watched his men move through the next door, slam it, and bar it.
"Hoorah," he muttered, as he heard the door pound behind him. The she-wolves seemed to have found him.