[OLD] The Scorpion Mission (#2)

Twenty-Eight

"Finally," Ash muttered as the elevator doors closed. It'd taken him fifteen minutes to escape the fighting. What a nightmare. And apparently, it was all in vain. Claudia mentioned evacuating when she'd given him his task.

He was supposed to go to the Barracks where they kept the soldiers and activate the newest shipment. If they were going to leave, they needed to take as much of their army with them as they could. At least, that's what Claudia said.

Where on earth were they going to go, anyway? The labs? Would they be large enough to hold everyone?

Ash looked down at his shirt. There were a few blood stains, mainly from when he'd been thrown to the ground near where Ivy cut herself on the knife.

The doors opened, and Ash stepped onto the first floor. He'd have to take a different elevator down to the Barracks. Fortunately, it wasn't too far.

It was cold down here. As Ash walked, he could feel wind coming in from the hole the Supers had put in the building. It got worse as he drew closer.

Ash frowned. He'd expected at least some fighting down here, but the floor was completely deserted.

Even stranger was the hole. For some reason, there was a pile of shattered glass on the ground in front of it. No, not glass, ice. Why would the hole have been filled with ice? Did Spencer put it there?

And if he did, why was it shattered?

The humidity outside heightened Ash's senses. As he stood there by the hole, he started to get the feeling he wasn't alone on the first floor.

A clicking sound came from the darkness in front of him. Something moved. Ash tensed up. Had something found its way inside the building? They were in Florida, after all. But whatever it was had to be strong enough to get through what looked like a good six inches of ice. And that was just what hadn't melted yet.

Something flew out of the darkness, and Ash found himself jumping out of the way before he fully realized what was happening. He crashed into the wall and winced as pain shot through his shoulder and ran down his arm.

He turned around and froze, unable to believe his eyes.

The thing coming toward him was unreal. It had legs like a spider's, but bulging with muscle, and a head with no features except its oversized mouth.

It moved closer, and let out the clicking sound Ash had heard earlier. He took a slow step backwards, desperately trying to think clearly. His body screamed at him to move, but he doubted he could outrun the creature.

Fighting was his only other option. Well, that or standing still and waiting for death. Ash searched his pockets for weapons. He didn't have a gun on him. He did have a dagger, but it was too small to be a decent weapon in this case. The creature would have to be on top of him.

Ash continued to take slow steps backward. The creature was going to pounce any second now. He racked his brain, but there was nothing he could do. Weapon storage was a few floors up.

But not the nearest weapons, he realized. The soldiers in the Barracks had guns. He just needed to get to the elevator.

The creature's jaws opened and something flew out. A tongue? No, more like a tentacle. It struck Ash in the stomach, knocking the air out of him as he fell to the ground.

The tentacle wrapped around his leg and tightened. Then it retracted, dragging Ash along the floor and towards the mouth filled with knife-like teeth.

Ash managed to draw in a breath of air. Hands shaking, he reached to his side and grabbed the dagger. He swung as hard as he could at the tentacle. The blade didn't slice clean through like he'd hoped, but it made a deep gash.