Parasite Lost

Parasite Lost Chapter 10

Apate fired a burst down the hall and darted left to an adjacent corridor. She didn't bother to watch as her bullets split through the lead dog's spiny armor and ejected a stream of black ichor through its ribs. Alistair curled his lip in disgust and followed Apate around the corner, panting as he struggled to keep up with her lithe gait. The second mutated dog sprung away from its fallen comrade. It eyed the corpse for a moment before turning back to pursue its prey with renewed ferocity. Saliva dripped to the floor as the mutated canine barreled forward and quickly gained on the team while they searched for a way up to the main level.

"Follow her?" Dante suggested as he aimed his shotgun and fired at the second mutated dog. As if it read Dante's mind the creature jumped out of the way and Dante's shot hit the ground.

"Nimbly bimbly little pup, ain't he?" Bren muttered to himself as he picked up the pace to catch up with the others.

Apate made another quick turn and arrived in front of the elevator. She slammed her fist on the wall and mashed the 'up' button as if the harder she hit it the more likely it was to complete its function. A score of creatures fled in from all sides. Dogs, cats, small monkeys, badgers, lizards and a few arachnids all encased in spiny, bone-like armor and were two or three times their normal size.

A bead of sweat stung her eye as Apate looked up at the glowing display, waiting for it to read 'B' for basement and open the doors in front of them. Although their ammunition was low, they had little choice but to take shots at anything they could. It seemed a useless effort to try to slow the tide given the amount of creatures crawling out of every corner and crevice, but to do nothing meant certain death.

With a deafening howl, a carapace armored spider monkey jumped off a canine in front of it and latched on to Dante's shoulder. It clawed at Dante's neck and its fangs dug into his flesh as it gnawed furiously. Dante looked at the creature as if it were a stain on his shirt and swatted it away. His brute strength sent the monkey careening through the air. It crunched against a wall and fell to the floor with a limp thud.

Two more took its place, and a large lizard-like creature crawled up his leg. Dante smashed the lizard's face in with the butt of his shotgun and lowered the barrel down to finish the creature. He was rewarded with the click of a dry fire instead of a spray of gore. He patted his ammo pockets and fingered the hollow grooves in his ammo bandolier, swatting the mutated monkeys away. "I'm empty!" he shouted, instead using his shotgun as an impromptu club to keep the horde at bay.

Alistair and Bren had similar trouble as the confined space and proximity of so many creatures made it difficult to use their weapons freely. This forced them to use more vicious melee methods instead. Bren took a bad scratch to the face that split open his cheek and almost gouged out his eye before he threw the offending creature down and stomped it into a puddle of bony meat and viscera.

A scorpion-like creature with a long tail barb impaled Alistair's leg. He screamed in both pain and rage as the venom-filled barb punched clean through his leg and oozed toxins out onto his armor. This agony was followed by the horrific weight of a large bird as it slammed into him from behind and knocked him to the ground. The fall caused the impaled barb to break off in his flesh, still pumping venom but thankfully onto his armor and not into his bloodstream.

Apate fired a few bursts into nearby creatures as she bobbed and weaved through the attacking horde with much more finesse than any of the men. She did her best to keep the largest threats at bay so they could handle the smaller ones that broke through her defensive fire. Bren stooped down to help Alistair up, squinting through his own blood as the furious melee consumed them. He blindly stabbed his harpooned fist at anything that got close enough and hoped it wasn't one of their crew.