1) "I stared in horror. Even eighteen months of picking up after the Scythe of Glory and their Shining Path buddies didn't prepare me for what was left of pik Nizganij.
It was a Bosch canvas, severed limbs and hollowed-out trunks — eaten out by animals, I prayed — planted through the fields like stalks of corn, blood painting doors and walls like the first Passover... except it was human blood, not lamb's blood.
Corporal Flynn Taggart, Fox Company, 15th Light Drop Infantry Regiment, United States Marine Corps; 888-23-9912. Everyone calls me Fly, except when they're pissed."
2) "At least for the one day we spent on Mars, we had a view. The domes were made of super-thick, insulated plastic, but were cleverly designed to give the illusion of being thin as a soap bubble. The only trouble was that the view wasn't very impressive — a blank expanse of empty desert broken by an equally barren, dark purple sky. I was only so thrilled with looking at stars. I liked something bigger up there. Although we could see Phobos from Mars base camp, it was so tiny it almost looked like a bright star trucking across the sky. Not enough moon for a melancholy mood.
But now as I crawled the land-cart out under the black, airless sky of Phobos, I enjoyed my first genuine feeling of freedom since I left Earth. Mars loomed in the sky, three-quarters full, larger than any moon and burning red as all the blood of all the armies ever spilled in uncountable battles across the stupid, drooling face of eternity — the face of a monster."
3) "Bill didn't stop; he came closer. Desperate, feeling like Cain, I returned fire. Given the half-dead condition Bill was in, killing him all the way should have been easy. The first bullet took him in the throat, above his Kevlar armor. That should have done the job, but he kept on coming. I pumped more rounds at Bill, and finally one connected with his head. That dropped him.
But even as brains and blood oozed onto the corridor floor, his body continued to flop around the way a chicken does when its head has been removed. Humans don't do that... and they don't have a sour-lemon smell either, which was suddenly so overpowering that I could barely breathe.
I stared, shaking like a California earthquake.
I was looking — at — a zombie."
4) "I felt like a ghoul, but feelings were a luxury. With a shotgun in my arsenal, my survival rating took a big leap up the charts.
I checked the bore and found no obstructions. There were plenty of shells in the bandoleer around her body. I thanked Dudette for being a Marine to the end... semper fi, Mac."
5) "The alien grimaced, facial muscles finally growing rigid. Then for a moment it relaxed. 'We could eat anybody onccce,'' it declared. Then it stopped moving; even the cilia in its mouth stood up straight and froze. The demon was dead."
6) "The simplicity of the layout and the big blocks of stone made secret doors less likely here, although I would pause occasionally and try pushing against anything that looked remotely promising."
7) "Then it died the messiest monster death I had seen so far. One moment the ball was bouncing against the walls; the next, there came a spray of sticky, blue goo that smelled like caramelized pumpkin pie and sounded like an overripe squash dropped ten stories. I seriously considered losing the lunch I had struggled so hard to ingest.
'Oo-rah!' exulted Arlene. 'Smashing pumpkins into small pieces of putrid debris! What the hell was that?'"
8) "We found a cozy room with four doors and a single switch in the center. 'Do you hear that?' Arlene asked.
Until she mentioned it, I hadn't heard anything but our heavy breathing; but then I noticed something so unbelievably loud that a deaf man should have felt it; concentration is a funny thing.
It sounded like the World Trade Center taking a stroll just outside.
We rotated slowly, tracking the noise, and I thought about that movie with the tyrannosaurus stomping around."
9) "To exit the room we had to squeeze through a narrow opening that looked exactly like... well, I didn't like to even think about it.
I volunteered to go first, and she didn't object. 'Fly,' came her voice as we wriggled and writhed through the orifice, 'do you ever get the feeling you're being born again?'"
10) "Suddenly, Arlene gasped; her eyes opened wide. 'Fly, I have it!'
'What?'
'I know how to do it!'
'Do what damn it?'
Her lips moved, silently calculating. Then she grinned. 'I know how to get us across to Earth, Fly!'"
