Pierce was right.
They ran into a perimeter chainlink fence about a quarter mile dead east of the medical center and Dronning Maud. Blake still would have liked some kind of vehicle. Even hurrying, kicking their way through the snow, he was practically dead numb by the time they hit that fence. He was shivering violently and knew he was really pushing his luck. He and the others needed to get inside sometime soon or they were going to be looking at some serious damage from frostbite or worse. They hurried along the length of the fence until they found a way in, a gate that was still open. Blake imagined that Pierce had come through here not so long ago.
Their goal had changed. He could easily envision Whitley, or someone above Whitley, calling Special Forces in to check out the outposts to cover his ass if the government or military were doing experiments on the infection. Hell, if anything, maybe he was hoping that the SF teams themselves would become infected. It'd be easy to make them disappear, and there'd be new test subjects to boot. That would explain a lot of things: why Whitley didn't want Blake going in after Pierce, the low intel, the poor resources.
Blake wasn't a paranoid man by nature. He knew that most cover-ups in the military existed not as actual, outright evil, but more to just cover some higher-ups ass or to hide a political nightmare due to a mistake. But that didn't mean he had full confidence in the men who signed his paychecks. He could see something like that happening. But this imprinted a new objective onto his mind with a terrifying clarity: if Whitley or anyone else was experimenting on these things, was planning on taking them out of Antarctica...
He had to stop them.
If this infection hit a populated area, it would spread like nothing before. It would make the Black Death look like a slight cough. He'd seen enough movies to know that the scientists wouldn't be able to keep their hands off of this infection, and to know that they wouldn't be able to contain it, no matter how smart they thought they were.
But first thing was first, investigating this outpost.
Of course, he could be wrong, he could just be being paranoid, but if the shoe fit...
As he led the others deeper into the outpost, beyond the fence, buildings began to appear through the mist. He saw one to his left and one dead ahead. The one to his left was closer and he could see a door, so he made his way there. He didn't say anything as he kicked his way through the snow, too cold for words now. Even when he arrived at the door and tried the handle, finding it locked, Blake remained silent.
He tried it a moment longer, then turned away from it and began making for the other structure up ahead. The building to the left, what appeared to be some kind of warehouse, was obviously locked up tight. No time to try and break it down now. He was freezing. They all were. He hurried on towards the next building, a two-story structure with an exterior stairwell. As he made his way towards it, Blake spied a third structure, in between the other two, deeper in the camp. It was topped with the bulbous shape of what appeared to be an observatory.
No time for that now.
There was a door that led into the first story of the base, but it, too was locked. Frustrated, Blake hustled up the stairs and tried that door. To his immense relief, it opened up. He shoved his way in, gun at ready, trembling, and spied a trio of Scuttlers across the room. These ones were different. Unlike the others who appeared to be a head on chicken legs, these more resembled spiders, bulbous heads on four thin, agile legs.
"Open fire!" he managed, taking aim and squeezing despite his trembling. He fired off six shots from the pistol, stepping aside, and managed to bring one of them down. Williams and Pace killed off the other two. Once he was sure nothing else was coming, Blake closed the door and simply leaned against the wall, trying to get his breath back.
"God, so damned cold down here," he muttered through clenched teeth.
"Tell me about," Williams replied.
They spent several minutes getting the feeling back in their extremities. Blake also tried to contact Pierce on his radio, but he received no reply. When the pins and needles became bearable, Blake held his flamethrower up.
"Okay, let's search this place," he said.
"I'm ready," Pace said.
Williams nodded. The room they were in was just a simple entry annex. There were a few large, unmarked metal crates along the far wall. Blake ignored them for the moment. There was only one way to go, a door in the middle of the right wall, so he went. It led through a small pair of rooms, also holding metal storage crates. The next room admitted them to a stairwell that led up. Frowning, wondering where it led and what the point of this building was, Blake hurried up it. The stairs folded back in on themselves and led to a closed door. Blake opened it up. The door led onto the roof. Sighing, Blake headed back out into the cold.
He and the others quickly investigated the snow-capped roof. Blake spied an opening across the way, over the roof of the other portion of this structure, the ground floor door that was locked. It was a vent shaft, a dark square cut into the ceiling. He considered his options for a moment, then finally sighed. He was going to have to investigate.
"You two, go back inside, wait for me at the entrance, got it?" he asked.
"What? You're going off by yourself? No way," Williams replied.
"Just do it, Williams. I need to find out what's in this building. I'll be back in five minutes, I promise," Blake replied.
Williams didn't look like he was willing to back down. "That's an order, Williams," Blake added. Williams stared at him for a moment longer, then slowly nodded.
"Fine. Five minutes," he said.
"Five minutes," Blake replied.
He watched them go back inside, then made his way over to the hole. Playing his flashlight into it, he saw there was a little bit of space, like a crawlspace ceiling, enough for him to crouch into. He lowered himself into the hole and found the ceiling stable enough to stand on. A quick check of the crawlspace revealed it to be empty, but he was immediately hit by a pungent stench of fuel. This must be fuel storage.
Wonderful.
Blake spied another hole in the ceiling he was standing on and crawled over to it. The stench got worse, but as he got closer, he heard something heavy stomping around beneath him. Blake poked his head into the hole and looked around. The building below was unlit, but in the flashlight's glare, he could see several barrels of fuel, one of which had been knocked over and broken open. And...a Walker. Someone who wore the tattered remains of a red jumpsuit was stomping around, making horrible, inhuman growling sounds.
Blake considered his options for a moment. He had to kill this thing, but if he used fire, he'd just burn up...unless he ignited the fuel from up here. Blake thought about it for a little bit longer, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a flare. He'd have to act really fast. Holding his breath, Blake activated the flare and tossed it into the hole. He scrambled across the crawlspace, hauled himself up and out of the area.
He got onto the roof and ran across it, just managing to get to the doorway he'd come through a moment earlier when he felt as much as heard the massive explosion. The entire structure shuddered and a great pillar of black smoke began to billow out of the vent he'd just crawled out of, but otherwise everything seemed to be intact. Good. Now he could check out that room, provided the locked door had been damaged enough to admit access, and see if anything had survived. Hopefully that hadn't been Pierce locked up in there.
Blake opened the door and began making his way back down the stairs. But as he reached the bottom of them, he froze, scenting a horribly familiar smell: burning flesh. Fearing that something had somehow gone very wrong as a result of his actions, Blake raced back through the structure. His forward motion was checked as he came into the main entry annex. A twisted pile of charred meat and bones lay crumpled in a smoking heap in the center of the room. Blake could only stare at the remains of Pace and Williams.
For a moment, his mind twisted itself into sick knots, fearing that he had killed both of them. But, as rationality slowly returned, he pieced together what had happened: Williams had been infected. He'd attacked Pace, bursting out, and Pace had managed to get hold of the man's flamethrower. Williams must have lit up like a torch and rushed Pace, engulfing them both. Blake gagged and stumbled, stepping towards the exit.
He managed to get the door open and lurch out onto the landing, leaning over the side, before vomiting. It wasn't just what he had seen, he'd witness burned corpses before, or that these were two men under his command. It was that he was alone now. All of this, everything that had happened, was beginning to be too much. Aliens, Antarctica, conspiracies, cover-ups...having to face it by yourself was almost too much.
But...Pierce.
If he could just find Pierce, or another survivor from this installation, maybe. He still didn't have a test kit, but another human being would nice. Even an alien masquerading as a human. Blake spit a few times to clear his mouth, then remembered his bottled water and MREs. He began to reach for one, but suddenly had a paranoid thought: what if Whitley had spiked them somehow? He knelt, shrugged out of his pack and opened it up.
He reached inside, sorting through the stuff in there. The bottles of water looked clean enough, that was what was great about water, but the MREs...with a sigh, he threw them away. He couldn't trust them. Water, but no food. He downed one of the bottles and tossed it aside, then pulled the pack back on and straightened up. He needed to keep going. There was no way he could salvage anything off of Pace's or Williams' corpses, too risky, so that just left checking out the damned fuel storage and then moving on to the third building.
Blake hustled down the stairs, now totally alone with his thoughts. He wanted this to be over. This all felt too big for him. Sure enough, the door to fuel storage had been blown off its hinges. Blake stepped cautiously inside. The smoke was dying down now. He coughed as he looked around. The walls were all covered in blackened soot and ash, and he spied the charred remains of that Walker. He spent a few minutes poking around the building and finally found something: a reinforced case near the back of the building.
Opening it revealed a key with a little tag tied to it marked observatory. Blake hurried back outside, confused. Who the hell would put this here? He shrugged it off, no time to think about that now. Kicking his way through the snow, wary of more Walkers or Scuttlers, Blake made his way towards the observatory. It was also a two-storied structure, and more well-built than the fuel storage had been. He came to the only visible door and tried the key. It worked, the door unlocked and he stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind him.
It was silent in the entryway he stood in, though, distantly, he thought he could hear heavy, plodding footfalls. Not a good sign. Blake made slow progress through the first story of the observatory. It was a total wreck. There were four rooms, one of them a kitchen, the rest seemed to be dedicated to a mix of storage, huge banks of electronic gear and a place to eat and relax. One of the rooms held a stairwell that led up.
There were several bodies, broken by death, and blood everywhere. In the kitchen, Blake found only a torso with a huge smear of blood behind it. He realized the man must have been ripped in half and then tossed aside. Still alive, if only for a minute, he'd crawled slowly across the floor. The sight turned Blake's stomach, but he had nothing left to give. He found himself wondering what had happened here. It was obvious that the infection had struck, and the strike had been violent and brutal. How many men had been stationed here? How many knew what was going on? Blake still hadn't found any direct evidence of experimentation. For all he knew, this could be some kind of weather observation outpost, freshly put up.
But, so it shouldn't be a total waste, he did discover a pair of test kits stashed in a locker near the entryway. Relief flooded through him. At least that was taken care of. Although it was a short-term solution of trust, he knew. He'd only be able to prove his own humanity and that of one other person. Well, Pierce was the man he was looking for. He owed him that much. Blake moved back to the stairs and hurried up them.
As soon as he came to the next floor, he immediately realized he was in enemy territory. Those plodding sounds he'd heard earlier abruptly started up again. A huge, lumbering Walker with sickly white skin and a massive red pincer at the end of one arm stepped out of a doorway to the left and began making for him.
Cursing, Blake did the thing that made the most sense: he retreated. The stairs were a natural bottleneck. He hustled down them, turned around and brought his flamethrower into play. Sure enough, the Walker came right for him. He squeezed the trigger, emptying the remaining fuel in his current canister onto the hideous thing. It began shrieking loudly, loud enough to make him cry out and back up a few paces.
Then it ran right at him.
Blake narrowly dodged it, feeling the horrid heat emanating off of its body. He spun, ready for more, and spied the beast crashing to a halt. It began to turn around, ready to take another run at him, then abruptly collapsed. Blake watched it burn silently for a moment, then made his way cautiously back upstairs.
He did a quick sweep of the area, finding two more rooms and a stairwell awaiting his inspection. The main room was a confusion of desks, tables and chairs. Various maps and papers were spread out over the desks, along with a mix of all manner of office supplies. Blake spent a moment looking through it, discovering several blueprints. He saw what appeared to be a submarine on one page, a collection of large, rounded chambers on another, as well as, unmistakably, the test kit. The models he'd found here looked more streamlined, more efficient, than the ones at Dronning Maud. Setting the papers aside, Blake made for the sole computer terminal in the room. He let his flamethrower hang by its sling and activated the computer.
A report was on the screen. He quickly scanned it.
Those guys in camo gear were here again today. They appear to be working on something under the ground. I have seen a lot of their equipment arriving but I'm not sure where it's being kept. They don't work for Gen Inc, I know that much.
Gen Inc? He'd never heard of it before, but that was a corporate name. He could buy into the idea that the military or the US Government was experimenting on these things...but a corporation? Who the hell would cut a corporation in on the deal? This was too much. Blake sighed and finished searching the area. The only other room was a bathroom that was so covered in blood and gore that Blake didn't feel like poking through it.
There was only one place left to go: up the stairwell. Maybe, in the observatory, he'd discover a way over to the warehouse or a key or something. Maybe it was where Pierce had gone. Blake hustled up the stairwell and stepped onto the roof of the building. He followed a path across the roof to a slanted walkway that led up to the observatory. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open with the muzzle of his flamethrower. Immediately, he noticed a man sitting on the floor to the right of the door, holding a pistol.
Pierce.
"Pierce!" Blake cried, stepping and closing the door behind him. "What happened? Where'd you go?" he asked.
"Sorry," Pierce replied, he suddenly started coughing. "Got lost in the storm, found my way here. Blake...one of them got me. I'm infected."
A cold silence filled the observatory. "What?" Blake managed.
"I'm infected, Blake," Pierce repeated. "I can feel it. But listen. This place, I don't know who Genetic Incorporated is, but they've got to be working with Whitley. I saw some of the files. They were signed by him, by Whitley, and some of them had the US Government's damned stamp on it. There's some kind of deal, a conspiracy...you've got to stop it, Blake. Obviously they can't control it, look at this place!"
"Preaching to the choir here," Blake replied.
"Good...good. One other thing...I forgive you," Pierce said quietly.
"Pierce..."
"No, Blake. It wasn't your fault."
Blake stood, frozen with indecision. He was flashing back to several years ago. Not long after Pierce and Blake had become friends, Pierce's younger brother Nate had gotten into the Special Forces. By chance, he ended up on Blake's squad. Their mission was simple: rescue a US ambassador who had been taken hostage by an extremist group in Iran. The mission was straightforward enough, but it had gone bad. They'd gotten the hostage, but ended up getting discovered. They'd had to shoot their way out, and Nate had taken two to the head. He didn't have a chance. Pierce found out and blamed Blake, threatening to kill him if he ever saw him again.
"Nate was always a hardheaded kid, stubborn and full of himself. Getting into Special Forces...it was his dream job, but I should've said something, done something...he got himself killed because he was too stupid to duck. I read the after action reports and I know my brother. It wasn't your fault, Blake. I'm sorry I threatened to kill you," Pierce said. There was little emotion in his voice, it was more like he was delivering a report of his own.
"Pierce..." Blake said again, uncertain of what to say.
"Yeah, I know. Big emotional reconciliation. I just wanted to let you know, because obviously there's only one solution to my problem. You've got to kill me, then burn me. Preferably in that order, because I don't want to die by fire."
Blake shook his head. "Pierce...that's nuts. I mean, there has to be another way. There might be some kind of cure or..."
But Pierce was shaking his head. "What's a matter, Blake? Can't handle it. We both know this is the only way out of this. Once it's in there, it's in there."
Blake hesitated. If it was anyone else, he wouldn't be this conflicted. Well, probably. But this was Pierce. Neil Pierce, a man who had practically been his brother for awhile, a man who's brother he had let get killed. Could he do it?
Pierce sighed. "Well, like my dad always said...if you want a job done right, you've gotta do it yourself." Before Blake could say or do anything further, Pierce raised the pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger.
"Pierce!" Blake screamed as the shot tore through the man's skull, creating a small crater in the side of his head. Blood and brains sprayed all over the wall behind him. All was silent in the observatory, save for the shrieking of the winds.
Blake didn't know how long he stood there, staring miserably at his friend's corpse, before something, duty or survival instinct or the cold, made him start moving again. He looked around the small room that he was in. Most of it was taken up by a huge contraption sticking out of the ceiling. The telescope, he presumed. It was hooked into a pair of computers on a desk. Next to the computers, Blake spied something.
A stack of magazines for an MP-5, and a test kit. Pierce's last official action as a soldier. Sighing gently, Blake tucked the test kit into his pack, reloaded his MP-5 and put the three spares in his pocket. "Thanks," he murmured.
One of the computer screens had text on it. Numbly, he read.
I've positioned the telescope on a large object in the ground. There is some activity and I saw people transporting equipment and containers to the site...
Next, Blake looked at the other screen, which showed what the telescope was seeing. He frowned, looking at a huge, dark disc-shaped thing amidst a field of ice. It obviously had been dug up and there were indeed several huge shipping containers next to it. He wondered how the telescope could see through all this crap, then realized this must be a picture. Sighing, he checked out the rest of the observatory, but found nothing.
Before he left, he made sure to light up Pierce's corpse, preferring to think of it as a funeral pyre rather than containment precautions. A little like shooting a dead friend in the head to keep him from becoming a zombie. Making his way back out into the cold, Blake felt at a loss. All he had left to go on was the warehouse. He knew he couldn't just sit down and die or wait for something to happen, it just wasn't in him. Even after all that had happened, even if he was totally alone now, maybe working on borrowed time, he couldn't just quit.
So, when he found a narrow walkway between the observatory and the warehouse roof, he walked carefully across it, found a vent in the roof and pried it open. He played his flashlight into the dark opening, saw nothing of danger and ducked inside. He half-expected the vent to collapse from his weight, but it seemed sturdy enough. Blake spent a few moments crawling through it, then stopped at the first grate he came to.
It offered a dim view of the warehouse interior. He was up high, just over a catwalk that ringed the interior and seemed to serve as an impromptu second story. Figuring that this was as good as it was going to get, Blake kicked the grate off and dropped onto the catwalk. To his immediate right was a door, but further up, beyond that, he spied something short and bulky moving around in front of another door. This door had a window in it, and a terrified face looked out from behind it. A survivor! Blake hurried forward.
That was when he really saw the bulky thing. It was a Walker...but not like any Walker he'd seen so far. It was squat and three-legged, built like a bulldog on steroids. It turned towards him and let out a low, menacing growl.
Blake didn't have time for this. He was cold and angry and sad. He began backing up, opening fire, spraying the thing down with half a magazine of ammo from his MP-5. He quickly switched to his flamethrower and lit the ugly monster up. Blake made sure to keep his distance until it had died, then made his way over to the door.
"Open up," Blake said.
"Who-who are you?" the man asked. He was pale and had short brown hair. He wore a blue jumpsuit with a heavy hood.
"I'm Captain Blake, Special Forces. Open the fucking door," Blake replied.
"No way, I don't know if you're human," the man replied.
Blake sighed, reached into his pack and retrieved a test kit. "You know what this is?" he asked.
The man nodded his head. "Yeah! God, I thought they were all gone," he replied.
"I've got more. I'll test myself, then you test yourself, got it?"
"Got it."
Blake tested himself. When it was negative, he threw away the kit and the man unlocked the door. Blake covered him with his flamethrower, then passed a second kit to him. The man stuck himself, pulled the trigger and held the kit up. After a long moment, Blake lowered his flamethrower, breathing out a long sigh of relief.
"Thank god," he muttered, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.
The room was small, just an office, crammed with a pair of desks and filing cabinets. Blake studied this man. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Marcus Collins," the man replied. "I'm an engineer here. You said you're...Special Forces? Like the United States Army?"
"Yes. John Blake. Who do you work for? What is this place?"
Collins grinned awkwardly. "Well...officially? A weather observation outpost. Genetic Incorporated runs this place. But it's obvious that that's a load of crap. We've been down here for about a month and-"
"A month!?" Blake cried.
"Yeah, why?"
"I...just keep going, I'll fill you in when you're done," Blake replied.
Collins nodded. "Okay. So, me and a bunch of other guys were flown down from Virginia. We all signed on for a huge, huge bonus to run this weather research station in Antarctica. I needed the money. I started to get suspicious when I was told that we weren't to go into the warehouse, it was off-limits. Then, even weirder, they weren't allowing us to sleep or really live here. We were flown or driven out from a 'support station'. And then there were all these delays, sometimes we'd go whole days without coming out here. And even when we were here, there'd be guys in gasmasks and white camouflage coming and going from the warehouse.
"Me and some of the other guys managed to piece together that this was some kind of cover up. Gen Inc had set up a fake weather station to cover up another operation. It wasn't unheard of. What we couldn't figure out was what they were doing. I mean, it's Antarctica! Then one of the braver engineers broke into the warehouse and stole a box that looked important. Turned out it was a box of those test kits, with instructions. Obviously, they freaked. We all freaked. They were making some kind of virus down here? We went to our boss, who told us he'd check it out. Unfortunately, we did that here, instead of back at the support station.
"I supposed it wouldn't have mattered, either way, but we were rounded up by those guys in the camouflage gear. They had guns. Freaking machine guns. One guy in charge started giving us this speech about not asking questions and ignorance is bliss when all of a sudden one of the camo guys starting have a seizure...then another, and a third, and two more. Then they just...changed! They became these hideous monsters...they tore into us, into their own men. That commander got his head torn off...
"It was absolute chaos. I don't remember some of it, all I know is that I ran through the base, there was a fire, lots of shooting and screaming and dying. Me and a few other guys holed up in the bathroom with one of those camo dudes who actually seemed to know what was happening. He admitted he'd figured it out, seen a few reports he wasn't supposed to, explained all about the infection, how someone could be one of these things and you'd never know it, unless you had the test. He had a few on him, and he started testing us...
"This woman I knew, Casey, she...was infected. The bathroom turned into a freaking slaughterhouse. I guess I was the only one who got out. I ran, ended up here, locked the doors behind me and then that damned...thing chased me up here. I've been here for a while," Collins explained.
Blake nodded, listening intently. It made a lot of sense. He spent the next five minutes bringing Collins up to speed on the situation, then gave him the bad news.
"We're going to search this warehouse top to bottom. I want to find where they were preforming the experiments," he said firmly.
"Ugh...do we have to?" he asked.
"Yes. I didn't see any helicopters or vehicles out there. You've seen what happens, Collins, we can't let this thing get out. Imagine this thing in New York or LA..."
Collins sighed. "Yeah, I know, I know...god, fine. I'll help."
"Thanks...and here." Blake passed Collins his pistol. "There's about half a magazine in there. I'm sorry I can't give you more but...well, I'm just not ready to trust you with a machine gun or a flamethrower," he said.
Collins nodded. "I understand. I wouldn't trust me with it, either. I'll just try to be an extra pair of eyes for you."
"Excellent. Now, don't aim that at anything you don't intend to shoot. Be careful and aware of your surroundings at all times. If you see anything, anything, let me know."
"Got it."
Blake did a quick search of the room, found nothing and led Collins back out into the dim warehouse. "Damn, it's dark in here," Blake muttered.
As if in response, he heard an electric noise coming from behind him, like a short circuit. In a small alcove in between the only two rooms on the second story, he spied a blue-white flare. He and Collins checked it out, and found a malfunctioning junction box.
"I got it," Collins said, tucking the pistol into his belt.
He disappeared into the alcove. A moment later, the lights overhead flared to life, casting the warehouse into an immediate and powerful light.
"Good job," Blake said, genuinely pleased. "Now let's check this other room out."
He moved over to the other door and looked inside through a window in the door. There was another office, this one a bit more well-furnished and with what looked like an important card on the desk. To Blake, it resembled a credit card, though one side had glistening lines and squares on it. It seemed important. He tried the door, but it was locked.
"Hell with that," he muttered, then shot out the window.
The sound of gunfire and shattering glass brought no one, so Blake reached in and undid the lock. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. A quick sweep of the room showed nothing dangerous, but he spied a computer next to the card he'd seen. Blake grabbed the card and pocketed it, then looked at the report typed up on the computer.
Construction of the test chambers has been relatively smooth. We lost another three workers in an accident last week, but the boss doesn't seem to think that is a reasonable excuse for being a few days behind schedule. I can't get any more hands on this project. The workers have been glorifying their experiences here when they return to base and as a result people are too scared to come here.
Well, that certainly helped fill in a few blanks and confirm Collins' story. He suddenly remembered Weldon talking about checking out those military types. The guys in white camo? It'd make sense. Maybe they were a Black Ops team or ex-military gone into the private sector. Why would Whitley do this? Or was he just a pawn? Too many questions. They needed more answers. Blake led Collins down into the main warehouse.
As he walked down the ramps to the main floor, he studied it. There was a large, open area with a crane hovering overhead. The exterior of the room was ringed with huge cargo containers, all of them stamped with Gen Inc on the side. As Blake came down the ramp, he suddenly heard a thud, then another, and several more.
"Blake! More of them!" Collins cried suddenly.
"Get back upstairs!" Blake shouted as he spied another two of the Bulldog Walkers charging towards him from across the warehouse. Blake knew he didn't have long. He raised his MP-5 and focused on the nearest one, hitting it with a concentrated stream of gunfire. He emptied the rest of the magazine into it, then switched to his flamethrower, raced up to it and lit it and the other one on fire, spraying them down.
The pair of Bulldog Walkers began roaring and Blake turned and ran from them. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that his plan had been partially successful. The one he'd whittled down with gunfire was now lying on the floor in a burning heap, the other one, however, was currently bounding across the warehouse towards him, still aflame.
"Look out, Blake!" Collins called.
Blake threw himself out of the way. The beast raced past him, trailing flames. Blake picked himself up off the floor, hit it with another dose of fire, and ran away once more. This time, the creature collapsed before it made it to him a second time. Blake let out a long sigh and did another sweep of the area. He called Collins down once he was sure they were alone again.
"Jesus, those things..." Collins muttered. "I mean, I've read a lot of books, seen a lot of horror movies, but...god."
"Yeah, I know. Come on."
They spent another fifteen minutes searching the warehouse, finding and killing a few lingering Scuttlers. All of the crates were either full and sealed up tight or open and empty. Blake grew increasingly frustrated as their sojourn ultimately ended at a single door. It had a magnetic card reader next to it.
"I guess this is it," he said as he fished out the card and swiped it through the reader.
"Yeah," Collins muttered.
The door opened. Blake pushed through it and came to a small metal room. The only two things that popped out to him were a stairwell and a shelf filled with tools. He spent a moment searching through it and, finding nothing else, made his way down the stairwell. It led the pair of men down into a large tunnel carved out of ice. A sense of subtle dread and disquiet settled over Blake as he slowly began to make his way down the ice tunnel.
"I don't like this," Collins murmured.
"Yeah, me neither," Blake replied quietly.
The tunnel ended in a large, steel door. No window. Blake placed his hand on the door handle, hesitated, then opened it up and stepped inside. A stack of boxes directly ahead of him suddenly exploded apart and he cried out, stumbling back into Collins. Something huge was coming towards him. Blake screamed and threw himself to the left, knocking aside more small wooden crates. "Collins, get down!" Blake yelled.
But Collins didn't have Blake's training. He'd survived this far, but no farther. The monster, a twelve-foot horror, came down on him like a hammer. A tentacle whipped out, wrapped around Collins' neck and tore his head from his body. Blake opened fire with his MP-5, getting as far back as he could from the huge beast. He prepared himself for the horrible end, the agonizing death that was to ensue...but it never came.
Blake got to his feet, backed into the corner, and realized what was happening. The huge thing before him was stuck fast to the floor, as though it had grown straight out of the metal plating. It was a hideous monstrosity, a concentration of exposed musculature and tissue. A collection of gnarled strands of bloody tissue supported the base of the creature. The rest of it was a huge, roughly torso-shaped slab of exposed muscle. Out of the left side grew a huge arm that ended in a bloody dog head, out of the right was an arm that ended in some kind of strange lizard-shaped head. A powerful tentacle grew directly out of the middle.
The beast roared and raged, but it couldn't move and its reach wasn't long enough to get hold of Blake like it had Collins. Blake considered his options for a moment, trembling with adrenaline. All he had to do was kill it. Easier said than done. So far, he'd experienced excellent results by shooting these things and then lighting them on fire. He supposed that would work. Blake made sure he was in a perfectly safe position, then opened fire.
He emptied the current magazine and another one into the monstrosity, loaded the final magazine, then brought his flamethrower to bear. He frowned. How to do this? The monster's roaring and shrieking was making it difficult to think. He took a step back and bumped into one of the boxes. It tipped over and something hit the floor between his feet. Blake glanced down. It was a grenade, painted orange, with a symbol of flames on the side.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
This was perfect. Blake grabbed it and two more from the box he'd knocked over. Working quickly, he retreated behind a small stack of crates to his side, pulled the pin on two of the grenades and tossed them both in rapid succession. He ducked down and felt the immense heat of a pair of incendiary grenades going off. He waited a few minutes, then poked his head up. The beast had collapsed to the floor, a smoldering heap of burning flesh. The room was slowly filling with smoke. He spied a door at the back of it and hurried over to it. Opening it, Blake stepped through and found himself in another room.
This one ended in another large room with a pair of elevators that were firmly locked and dark. They weren't going anywhere. There was a hatch, however, so Blake made for that. He undid the wheel at the top and opened it up. A metal hallway that appeared to be empty of anything lethal waited for him. He hesitated, waiting, and saw nothing.
Blake jumped down.