H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 04: Not Alone

Eric waited, then swung with all his might in a clean, hard arc, and gagged as he not only smelled the thing, but heard the godawful crunch the impact made. The thing let out a wild shriek and stumbled backwards, nearly losing its balance. Half the little monster's body had been caved in. The zombie swayed on its feet for a moment, then took a tentative step towards him. Eric didn't give it the chance and repeated the action, hoping to knock the thing off for good.

Well...he kind of succeeded.

"Oh damn!" he cried, gagging worse as the zombie was laid out and a grotesque spray of gore escaped the little facehugger like he'd popped a massive pimple. He stumbled away, coughing, trying not to vomit, and just barely won the battle. Though it didn't feel like much of a victory. After getting himself under control, Eric cautiously approached the corpse again. He immediately knew that there was no saving this poor guy.

He'd managed to rip away a good portion of the creature through brute force (though he could still see the two lower legs clinging to the man's flesh, just above his collarbones, they'd really dug in there), he'd also revealed most of the guy's face, which had been reduced to ruin. His nose was mostly gone, his eyes eaten away, and his face was mostly raw meat and skeleton. As he stared at the body, Eric realized what he was going to have to do, and this time he did turn away and collapse to his hands and knees, losing his battle and puking his breakfast up in a burning spray of stomach acid and half-digested food.

He coughed, moaning and spitting several times.

Vomiting was one of the worst feelings ever, and he wasn't even sick, so he didn't get that relief that followed puking from illness. He just felt awful. He wasted a few minutes spitting and clearing his mouth out, then slowly got back to his feet and looked at the body again. The poor guy had been wearing a security vest...and had a pistol secured in his holster. He hadn't even gotten a chance to draw it when whatever had happened had reached him. If he was going to get out of this alive, Eric knew he needed those supplies badly.

He couldn't afford weakness.

Eric nudged the corpse a few times with his toe, because he really did not need this thing twitching, let alone suddenly jumping up or making a grab for him with those wicked-long fingers. They looked like they could do some damage. Slowly, he crouched, then set aside his pipe wrench and began the unhappy process of getting the guy's vest off. It was gross and took too long, but he finally got it off and pulled it over his own head. It smelled awful, but it would stop a bullet. Or anything else this place had to throw at him.

Okay, that wasn't true.

It obviously didn't stop those head huggers.

Taking off the vest had revealed something truly strange and hideous. The man's shirt was soggy with blood and had ripped in several places, revealing his chest. And...his chest had split open! And it was lined with teeth! The split was down the middle, starting a few inches below the base of his throat and going down to the start of his stomach.

"What the hell?" Eric whispered.

He stared at the bizarre change, and then at the hands, and another reference suddenly smacked into his skull. This was oddly similar to a few scenes from John Carpenter's The Thing. Both the long hands and the way the chest split open were just like two of the characters mutating into hideous alien monstrosities.

Completely unsure of what to make of it, Eric felt the urge to just keep moving, because he couldn't deal with looking at this or being around it for much longer. He began relieving the security guard of his holster and pistol, and that's when he heard another groan from inside the arcade. Looking up, he saw that he had more company.