Get Yourself High

"Dude, so my girlfriend has like, the best tan right now."

"Uh-huh."  I peeked around a corner.  "Sprinter coming down this way, Mike."

"No, really," He said.  "Like, it's just the best tan ever.  You need to see it.  She's like brown, brown, brown, bam, white.  Like, fucking alabaster white.  Like fucking Greek statue white."

"Whiskey Two-Tango, will you stop clogging our communication lines with this?"

"Sorry, Command,"  He managed a perfect shot into the thing's three hearts in the middle of his spiel before switching his comms frequency to local.

"So she's got tan lines, so what."  I peeked around the corner again, then waved for him to go first.  "She's gone to the beach some time in the last month."

"One-Tango's clear, Two-Tango, hurry it up over there.  And tell Mike that we can still hear your half of the conversation."

"Also, they can still hear us."

"Not through the helmets, right?"

"No, not them," I wasn't even sure if they could hear.  But that was a different story.  "Command."

"Oh, well tell them to suck a dick."

"Tell Mike that Colonel Richards wants a talk with you two as soon as you guys get back."

"They tell you to suck a dick back, Mike.  Centaur."

A grotesque amalgam of half-decayed flesh lashed together with putrid organic matter burst through a wall in front of us.  Too many legs, humanoid torso, giant clawed appendages, the face of a poor unfortunate soul, forever frozen in twisted agony, all bolted onto what looked like a spider's ass.  I hate these things.

"Circling left, you flanking right?"  Mike starting going around it, pumping a few rounds into its legs.

"I always go right," I said, aiming for its arm-analogues.  It was a bit of a stretch to call them arms, mostly because they were coming out of its neck.

It swung its arm-analogues at us, smashing a small table in the hallway, but not doing so much in the way of killing the dudes shooting at it.

"But anyway, yeah, it's not a bikini tanline," Mike said, rolling out of the way and crippling its middle-front-left leg.  "One leg down.  She's on that swim team, remember?  It's a one-piece tan."

"That's supposed to be hot?"  I ducked as it swung its arms at me again.  This thing just has no idea how to use those things.  Probably because they came from like, five different animals.  I wonder which brain this one got.

"Just think about it, man," Mike jumped out of the way as it turned to charge at him.  We were neck to neck now.  "The sun's beating down on her all day, but the nice parts are still covered up.  It's like, 'Hm, all this brown is nice, but these perfect white titties really draw the eyes over.'"

"So what, you think swim caps and goggles are hot too?"  The centaur tried to turn in the hallway, tearing through the paper-thin walls as it did.  I hate earthquake proof buildings.  "Lead's not doing it, Command.  Permission to switch to incindiaries?"

"Do whatever the fuck you want.  You guys aren't worth the headaches anymore."

"Roger that, Command."  I swapped magazines and motioned for Mike to back up.  "I'm breaking left, think you can outrun this thing until I can take out its back legs?"

The centaur turned to face us again.  Mike put another couple bursts into its front-left-left leg.

"Yeah, I'm alright."

It charged at us again.  I dived back into the hallway we were in before sprinting back out.  The centaur was closing in on Mike.  I steadied my carbine and fired a burst into each of its back legs, switching to the next as the one before it buckled.  The hallway smelled of burning flesh.  Which, admittedly, was a step up from decaying flesh.

"But no, who would find swimcaps and goggles sexy?"  Mike had turned and opened fire again, tearing through the creature's chest.

"You said she was on a swim team."  I worked my way through the remaining legs.  "Swim teamers always wear swimcaps and goggles."

"I was pointing out it was a one-piece tan," he said, ducking as the thing began to flail wildly.  So much for avoiding collateral damage.

"I'm heading up top, keep on the legs for me." Feeling particularly heroic and/or reckless, I climbed onto the centaur's spider-ass back and started firing into it.  This was a terrible idea.  Keeping my footing was a bitch and a half.

The creature roared as its death throes grew less and less dramatic.

"So you'd find a bikini tan just as hot."  It's ass-back was starting to give.  I was really glad these boots were waterproof.

"What?  No.  There's no subtlety there."  Jumping on the 'bad ideas, but probably looks really badass' train, Mike pulled out his knife and started stabbing the centaur in its human chest.  "It's."  Stab.  "The connection."  Stab.  "That makes this."  Stab.  "So much hotter."  Stab.  He took a second to catch his breath.  "You know, it's just the way that the tan frames her body.  She's got this perfect marble-white torso hemmed in with taut and toned brown all around it."

He pulled his knife out.  The centaur gave out a last whimper and fell silent.

"You don't get that with a bikini tan."

"Dude."  I hopped down.  It wasn't that far up, considering it was slumped over by now.  The only real problem was finding a part of the hallway that wasn't completely taken up by dead abomination.

"You have the weirdest fetishes."