Eric stood atop the staircase and surveyed the area beyond.
There really wasn't much to see. Just a little area for sitting and chatting, probably for overflow in terms of customers for the places below. The handful of chairs and tables to the left were empty and offered him nothing of value. The way to the right was his only option if he wanted to progress forward, as far as he could tell. There was a structure almost totally blocking the way, and as Eric finished his surveillance, he saw that it was, in fact, completely blocking the way. If he wanted to move on, he had to go through the doorway he was now facing, because the concrete pathway to the right of the small building had collapsed.
The way ahead was not at all appealing.
He knew the place for what it was, remembering passing through it and having a much different view of it then: an arcade. He'd come here a few times, because arcades kicked ass. It was a relatively small room with about two dozen cabinets lined up, their quarter meters turned off so you could play as long as you wanted. He'd seen Area 51 in there, and had just about beaten it once. It had been a fun and welcoming place.
Now, though?
Now it looked like something out of a horror movie. The only light coming from inside the room originated from the madly flickering screens of broken arcade cabinets. From what he remembered, he should be able to just walk straight through it, dead on to the opposite door. There was a natural aisle between two lengths of cabinets. But in that broken, chaotic light, he thought he could see a figure lurking inside.
He decided to call out, but his words died in his throat as he continued staring at the silhouette. Something was just...wrong with it. Something about the way it was moving. Eric roused himself, tried to shake off the anxiety and apprehension. He'd seen battle fatigue before, seen guys acting pretty weird in combat situations before, everything ranging from goofy to downright creepy. Wasn't their fault.
People's brains reacted on a spectrum to disaster situations.
"Hello! My name is Eric Bishop, I'm with Security! Are you injured?" he called.
The figure ceased its uncertain peregrinations between the rows of cabinets, and he heard a low groan. That was definitely not the response he was hoping for, because it didn't sound like a groan of pain. It sounded like...
He didn't know what the hell it sounded like, beyond dangerous.
His combat instincts were screaming at him again, and he decided to listen to them. Whatever it was, it was coming towards him now with a shuffling gait. And it cut loose with another one of those groans, clearer now, and more haunting.
"What the hell is this?" Eric whispered, hefting the pipe wrench again.
Then he had his answer.
It stepped out into the pallid light of the area beyond, and he saw it in painfully clear detail. It was a fellow security guard, and he immediately knew that he was looking at the end result of what would have happened if that little thing he'd killed earlier had successfully hugged his face. And that snapped a thought into his mind.
That's what it reminded him of!
The goddamned facehuggers from the Alien movies!
It was utterly horrifying. The body had mutated. The arms were covered in blood and its fingers had elongated, thinned out, turned into red, bloody claws. Eric swallowed as the thing staggered for him, reaching, groaning.
It sounded like a damned zombie.
"Oh God..." he moaned in response, hefting the pipe.
Could he save the man beneath the monster? Or was it too late? Judging by the disgusting mutations to the body, he figured it was far too late. But maybe if he could just get that thing off of the poor bastard's face...
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.
"Aw crap," he whispered. The pistol was stuck and in his panic he just began tugging on it violently, jerking the body. Another zombie was coming for him, groaning, stumbling in the madly flickering light. Right as it broke the threshold of the doorway, Eric finally got the thing out, whipped it up, and opened fire. This one had been a scientist, as evidenced by the ripped and blooded lab-coat. The shot took it in the chest, which didn't seem to stop it at all.
"Duh," he muttered, surging to his feet and backing up a few steps.
These things were slow, at least. He aimed again, surprised at how steady his hands were, and popped off another shot. This one took it in the thing wrapped around its head. That stopped it for a second and seemed to make it reconsider, especially when it issued another loud growl. He fired again, and this put it down as his bullet punched another gory hole in the bulbous creature. But even as it slumped to the concrete, another zombie appeared in the doorway, and he could see more shifting horrors behind it.
Okay, okay...he could do this.
He had to do this, or they were going to kill him.
Well, at least he'd trained for this. Sort of. Eric steadied his aim and began firing off shots with a careful precision, again grateful for how stable has grasp was. He ended up emptying the entire magazine putting down another seven of the horrible things. Almost all of them were technicians, but a few were scientists as well. As the silence fell, his ears ringing from the gunfire, he waited another minute to see if anything else would come, although if it did, he'd need to grab his pipe wrench again. But nothing did.
He was alone again.
Swallowing, Eric dropped to his knees once more. Setting aside the pistol, he quickly began to pat the guard down. Now his hands were beginning to shake. The adrenaline was fading and being replaced slowly with fear, leaden, awful, cold fear. His heart was starting to beat harder and faster, his breath coming more rapidly. Eric knew that if he didn't clamp down and get a grip, he was going to freak the hell out.
What was happening?
Where had these little terrors come from? These...he didn't want to call them facehuggers because that wasn't quite right. Although the facehuggers were supposed to be modeled after horseshoe crabs, they looked more like spiders to him. These things looked...well, not precisely like crabs, but they reminded him of crabs sort of for some reason.
Headcrab.
The word bubbled to the surface of his mind like a bloated corpse rising to the surface of a river. It fit, anyway. At least for him it did. So where did these headcrabs come from!? Was it something they'd been cooking up in the labs? Something they'd found? Some kind of accident? There! He found a single spare magazine in the guy's pocket and took it. It looked intact. Eric snatched up the pistol, ejected the spent mag, and slapped the fresh one in. Well, metaphorically fresh, anyway. It smelled like blood and something else.
There was no time to linger, no time to try and ruminate on why these things were here. He knew they were hostiles, he'd seen the effects of what they could do, and, most importantly of all, he knew that he could kill both of these new terrors that had invaded his reality. He wasted the next ten minutes searching the corpses of the zombies he'd produced, finding nothing that might be able to help him among the new dead.
Reluctantly, Eric slipped into the flickering arcade.
He made the journey as fast as he could. It was eerily silent in there. It felt like there should be a cacophonous eruption of sound given all the wildly flickering lights, but he heard nothing save for the quiet hum of power. Within just ten seconds he was through and out the other door, finding himself on another concrete platform. This one had big cracks running across the floor and up the wall, into the ceiling, which just made him even more anxious. Again, there was only one way for him to go: dead ahead, so he went.
There were windows on either side of the door. They were cracked, but he could see through them, and at least here bright light poured from within. The interior of this next room was well lit and almost welcoming. It was a laundromat, and it was here that Eric really began to see the first examples of the conflict that had apparently begun to engulf Black Mesa in the wake of...whatever the hell had happened.
There were several bullet holes embedded in the far left wall, and he saw a pair of dead headcrabs. There were also two dead scientists. It looked like one of them had gotten caught in the crossfire. Another had a headcrab stuck to him and someone had killed the poor bastard before the transformation could complete. As he performed a search of this area as well, his mind began sliding inevitably back to the creatures.
What were they?
Was it possible that they were from Earth? Some kind of ocean creature? There was all kinds of shit in the deepest, darkest trenches of the ocean, and he knew that we hadn't even properly explored all of our own planet. He remembered that godforsaken, absolute nightmare scenario with the tsunami hitting India back in 2004. Something like two dozen completely brand new, previously undiscovered types of fish had appeared among the ruins. For a few seconds, he recalled that the tsunami had been something like one hundred feet high. Even now, half a decade later, that mere thought filled him with a primordial dread.
He shook it off and focused.
So could they be from Earth? What if it was like some kind of Journey to the Center of the Earth sort of deal? There had to be unthinkably vast amounts of caves and tunnels and caverns buried deep in the earth. It was conceivable that there could be all sorts of stuff down there. Or maybe it wasn't. He wasn't a geologist. Or any kind of scientist. Not even an aspiring one. He just worked out and knew how to shoot a gun pretty well, that was about the extent of his abilities. With a heavy sigh, Eric reached the other side of the laundromat.
Nothing. Not even a single spare bullet.
Well, at the very least he knew that he wasn't too far from his final destination. Or at least the final destination of this area. Up ahead would be a pool, and beyond that: an elevator that would return him to the same level as Security HQ, and not too far away from it, either. Theoretically, he could be back in the armory, grabbing more gear, and hopefully getting some answers, within half an hour. Provided he didn't run into much more trouble. That didn't seem likely, his gut told him. Eric soon found himself standing at the opposite entrance, staring out through a cracked window at the way beyond. Another concrete platform.
It looked intact, but that wasn't what was bothering him, not really. He found the image of that stumbling, head-hugged horror with long, bloody claws filling his mind's eye. That could happen to him, if he wasn't careful. Eric knew he wasn't a coward, he'd faced that down years ago, and he had even managed to get past the second, and much bigger, hurtle: whether or not you froze up. A lot of people didn't understand it, but freezing up wasn't a choice. They didn't get that it wasn't just fight or flight.
It was fight or flight or freeze.
And some people just...froze. No matter how hard they tried, when some kind of emergency hit, their body would literally lock up, and it played all sorts of hell on your senses. It had never happened to him, but his research on the subject clearly indicated to him that that wasn't because he was tough or brave or any of that macho BS.
It was just a throw of the dice.
Whatever genetic quirk made you freeze or not freeze, he'd just gotten lucky. Still, it had taken a lot of training and experience to actually be able to keep his head in an emergency. But right here, right now, underground in an old, converted, '70s missile complex called Black Mesa, he was beginning to feel the edges of panic gnawing at him. At first he wondered why, but now he knew: the initial shock had worn off, and some part of him knew that if he really wanted to...he could take a break right here, in this laundromat.
He didn't necessarily have to face the unknown that lay between him and the lift...
Eric growled softly and shook his head. No. No giving into temptation. People were very likely dying, and it was his job...no, more than that, it was his responsibility to help them. As far as he saw it, right now, it was his moral obligation. He would not sit here, he would not hide. As grim and miserable and terrifying as it might be, he knew that facing it head on would be better for him. So he opened the door and stepped out.
After securing the next concrete platform, he found another flight of stairs and moved slowly but surely up them. The pistol felt very reassuring in his grasp as he ascended to the pool area. If there were any more hostiles in the area, he reminded himself, he could take them out. He'd proven it. Eric came to the top of the stairs and stood in the little entryway that led to the pool. Through the windows, he could see the area beyond.
Things lurked in that beyond.
He saw two uncertain figures beyond the windows, one not far away, the other on the opposite side of the pool. Zombies. They were shuffling around. Not quite the zombies all the apocalypse movies and books had so feverishly predicted, but they were, in their own right, zombies. Or that's what he wanted to call them, anyway.
Resolute, Eric opened the door and stepped out. He aimed and fired at the nearest one, putting two shots into what now served as a former security guard's face. He had to be careful: he didn't have any bullets to spare, currently. The zombie gurgled and twitched as it slammed to the white-tiled floor, then became still. The other one across the way turned and began coming for him. Eric aimed, ready for it, but then it walked right to the edge of the pool and over it. A great splash of bloodied chlorinated water went up.
There was another body, someone that had been either shot or cracked on the head by something, floating near the center of the pool.
Eric watched as the thing flailed and moaned, splashing around, but it didn't seem to be making any real progress. Well, that was fine. Took it out without wasting a single bullet. With the obvious hostiles out of the way, Eric began his search of the area. Even before he got to the HQ, he really did need to be looking for any personnel and more supplies. It was unlikely he would find either in this area, but then again this whole thing was unlikely, so he took the time to perform a quick search anyway.
The sauna, thankfully, wasn't on, and was dark and empty and silent.
The bathrooms had suffered some damage in the quake or explosion, but were otherwise unoccupied by friend or foe.
The final area, a locker room, took a little bit of time. He didn't have time to try and break into every locker, but some of them had been opened, and some of them weren't properly locked. It was possible that someone had stashed something useful in any one of these lockers. He moved among the lockers one by one, ears open for any strange sounds. It was a slow job and he went through it as fast as he could.
In the end, the most interesting thing he found was a half-empty box of condoms and a switchblade that he didn't bother to take. What the hell was it going to do against a zombie, or even a headcrab? He left the locker room, feeling a mixture of frustration and relief. Frustration at his lack of findings, relief at finally being able to leave this place and continue on his journey. Heh, journey. It felt like a damned journey, ever since waking up in that concrete corridor.
He moved over to the security guard turned zombie he'd killed and took a moment to pat the guy down. His gun was missing and nowhere to be found, but he at least had another spare magazine in one of his pockets.
"Thanks," Eric muttered as he pocketed it. Standing back up, he started to head for the elevator, but stopped as he stared at the other zombie. It was still splashing around in roughly the same spot. Something was nagging him.
What if...
What if whoever it was was still somehow locked away in there? Trapped inside their own mind? If there was even the smallest chance that the tiniest part of that man's consciousness was somehow still awake and aware and locked into this hellish nightmare, then...Eric raised his pistol, aiming carefully.
If that was the case, then it was worth at least one bullet to put an end to his potential suffering. He squeezed the trigger. It was a clean shot, a clean kill: right through the back of the head. The splashing stopped, the body bobbed gently in the water.
After a moment, he set off.
Eric finally came to the elevator that would take him up and hit the button.
Nothing happened.
No chime, no hum, nothing. Sighing, he pushed it again, and again.
"Come on, come on, don't do this to me!" he whispered.
Of course the elevator would be out. Of course. He stood there before those silver doors for a moment, considering the situation, then began hunting along the frame for the emergency release. As soon as he found it, he pressed it and the doors popped open an inch. Working his fingers into the space between them now, he got a grip and forced them open. It was tough, and it made him wonder if he'd been slacking on his working out more than he thought lately. But he got it open and found himself looking at a red-lit elevator shaft.
He glanced up. Nothing overhead.
He glanced down. "Aw hell," Eric muttered.
There was the elevator, maybe fifty feet down, and he could see smoke rising from its dented frame. It had crashed all the way at the bottom. He really hoped that there hadn't been any people in there when that occurred.
Standing there a moment longer, he finally realized what he was going to have to do. Make another climb up. Well, he'd dealt with ladders before and he could do it again. The only ladder in the shaft was directly across from him, and he'd have to move along the ledges to get to it. He holstered his pistol and made sure everything on him was secure, then stepped into the shaft, carefully getting onto the ledge and beginning the terrifying process of moving along it. What kind of asshole had designed this? Why put the ladder all the way over there? Why makes these damned ledges just barely capable of being traversed by a human?
How was anyone supposed to do this safely!?
Seconds bled by slowly, but his fingers finally found the ladder's rungs. He stepped onto it and gripped the metal bar tightly, breathing a sigh of relief. Then he looked up. That was when he finally noticed another piece of awful reality that had been deposited neatly into his lap: the ladder was damaged. In fact, it was unusable. Just a few feet above him, it ended abruptly in a tangle of twisted metal. There was no way to go up.
Slowly, he looked down.
The ladder beneath him seemed intact all the way to the bottom, although he could see no other doors along the front wall. Wherever he was going, it was to be all the way down. Eric looked up again for a few moments. He supposed he could get back out, try to hunt down a vent, but...with those headcrabs now part of the picture, that seemed unacceptably dangerous. No, he was going to have to go down now.
With a sigh, he began his long descent.