Extraction

Hour Five

I extended my arm with the flamethrower in hand and ordered, "Take it, it should come in handy." Hendrix took the flamethrower, and slung the strap attached to it around his torso. "So Hester?", Hendrix asked but couldn't finish his statement. "Yeah, he's gone, he couldn't have survived the fall down the shaft regardless. If he didn't sacrifice himself all of us would have to deal with the creatures. He was a good man but we must press forward, we can't dwell on these things", I stated taking a breath of semi-cleaned air from the decontamination chamber. "You ready? I don't know what to expect from this floor", I said grabbing ahold of the dead scientist's arm and sawing it off with my knife. Hendrix disturbed by what I was doing peered away as he replied, "at least we know that using the flamethrower will help. What did that man on the experiment table say about fire again?" "He said to not attack the creatures but at that point he was already injected with whatever that white shit was, so he most likely was trying to sway us to not attack his new form. Obvious reverse psychology", I said making it through the ulna and slicing the rest of the fleshing holding the wrist to the arm. I took the hand and pressed it against a plastic covered hand reading system. The decontamination chamber's door opened and released a burst of lukewarm disinfectant spray.

The hallways were much more pristine than the previous levels we encountered. The only signs of the black corrosion were from the air vents. The hallways were a glistening white tile and the lights were lighting the hallways beautifully. The ceilings were lined with a track that most likely were used for transporting large objects. Hendrix ignited the flame thrower as it made a hiss that echoed through the halls. We silently crept the glistening, white, surreal halls. "I think this area is clear", Hendrix mentioned, "if a scientist as inept at survival as the one we encountered can take on this level, I'm sure we should be able to as well." "If we knew as much about these creatures as he did then we could probably do as well as he did, and now I'm starting to regret killing him," I said keeping my eyes ahead of us. I pulled the tablet out of my pocket to see where our next destination was. I examined the map and noticed all the way across the sub level there was an access area to the cargo elevator. "We're home free, cargo elevator is at the other end of the floor we're on. It's a bit of a hike but we can make it if this level is as smooth sailing as it seems", I said sliding the tablet back into my pocket. I reached for the tracking device and unhooked it from my vest. As I fixed my glare on the distance between us and our objective, my heart sank as I saw the distance.

"Ten fifty two, ten fifty three... Hendrix, the intel is moving", I stated as I stopped and make a squeaking noise on the tile floor with my boot. I held the tracker towards Hendrix and he looked at it as well observing that our objective was moving quickly away from us. "God, damn", Hendrix said wiping his face with his hands, taking a few steps back. "YO! HELP!", We heard as the sound of running became more prevalent. A man in a white lab coat rounded a corner as he was being chased by a creature we haven't seen before. The creature ran on all fours and took the form of what appeared to be a large canine. "Hendrix, is it worth saving him?", I asked as Hendrix raise his flamethrower. "Maybe if we get some goddamn answers", He replied as the man ran closer to us and the dog grew closer. Unfortunately, the dog was slightly faster as it leaped at the man biting the back of his neck. "Kill it! KILL IT!", he yelled as Hendrix coated the dog and the man in fire. The canine creature squealed as it stumbled around and twitched it's head around violently. The fire seared pieces of its flesh until it finally collapsed near one of the air vents. The man laid on the ground as he slowly burned to death as well. The vent next to the dog bursted open revealing a large mass of tentacles grabbing the pile of singed biomaterial and retracting it back into the small opening leaving long stains of a grayish residue on the clean tile floors.

The scientist ceased moving and was officially dead. "Well shit, lets keep going", I ordered walking past the dead scientist and stepping through the gray slime. I looked at the doors lining the hall and noticed all of them has hand print readers and no handles. I hoped the severed hand I stole would be able to get us into any of them in case we were in a pinch. "If we find whatever the ceiling track carries, we may be able to ride it to the cargo elevator. That way we don't have to worry about having to walk all that way", Hendrix suggested. "That is a good idea if it moves fast enough, but it most likely won't", I said scanning the halls for any threats as we neared the first intersection. Walking to where the halls meet, I peeked my head around the corners seeing that to our left there was a object carrying system, to our right was a dead end, and straight forwards was more halls. I decided to test the object mover theory because if it works it could save us some time. Turning left I walked at a quicker pace because the mover was about fifty feet down the hall. Hendrix followed closely behind and said, "I hope this works, If so we will have an express ticket out of here. Not only that but now that we have this flamethrower, we can defend ourselves. Maybe we are actually going to get out of here," Hendrix smiled in excitement at the thought of making it out of here with our sanity.