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 Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:07 am
'You wouldn't happen to have a light, would you?' had been the pick-up line Wallace had used on Hartley all those years ago, an awkward young scientist looking completely out of place in a club...Wallace, the suave older man who was obviously well-practiced at the art of the pickup line.
Of course, Wallace had a slim jim in his mouth back then, too, rending the request for a light completely absurd. After watching Hartley fumble in his pockets for a while, he broke the ice and the two had been together since.
Consequently, though, Hartley DID always carry a light with him. The IT staff shuffled towards them. They were losing body parts and brandishing deadly Swingline Staplers, and even though their brains were virus-crazed and rotting, they were still cognizant enough to be angry that they had to come in on a Sunday. Wallace grabbed a bottle of cooking sherry.
"That is so typical of you, drinks before the appetizer." Hartley threw the lighter to Wallace and watched as he expertly stuffed a rag into the neck of the bottle, lit it and sent it sailing in an arc into the gaggle of the Infected. "Of course, I have no objections when we're the appetizers."
Zombie screams made Hartley's skin crawl as the people who used to install the goddamn Bing toolbar on his computer and call THAT an upgrade started on fire and began shambling around in a panic.
Advantage: No longer being stalked by zombies.
Disadvantage: Fire zombies.
Everything was starting on fire. Hartley armed himself with whatever he could find - a heavy metal skillet, a giant carving knife, the fire extinguisher.
"We want to get down to Deep Thirteen. We should go-BEHIND YOU!" Hartley's eyes grew panicked as the flaming, half-eaten remains of Colonel Squishypants prepared to jump on Wallace.
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:16 pm
Jen cursed, she couldn't get a clear shot with Mendoza blocking the door. He was taking his sweet time. Jen grabbed the side and tried to help pull it back.
"Head to the stair access as soon as possible!" Jen shouted. "We need to get the power restored to the elevator so we can take it all the way down."
"Yeah... the elevator to hell." One Grunt commented.
"You're not helping, get these damn doors open!" Jen snapped. She unclipped her survival knife. If any of those undead got near her she was going to have to get more physical.
The door finally fully opened and the troop made their way in. As they stepped in Mendoza was the last to recover and he stood by the doors panting.
"You'll need more training." Jen commented. She heard a small beeping warning noise and turned around, the alarms were still flashing and wailing but this sound was a little different. It was coming from the door.
"What...?" Jen moved closer to inspect and to also give Mendoza a push to stop slacking. There was no warning, the red lasers flashed on at the final beep and Mendoza was shredded into ribbons. A laser grid appeared over the open door.
"WHAT!" Jen shouted. Some sort of security system had been activated. There was no easy way back now they were stuck in this room full of zombies.
The Major panicked a little as she glanced round the room. She had no time to check her map only to use what she could see. This was clearly the reception hall for visitors. The people that had turned into zombies all looked like low tech staff. They had been plain office workers, all the rooms around them were probably meeting rooms, computer rooms and other office spaces. What they needed was the exit and the nice shining green light for 'Stairs' pointed the way.
"Make your way to the stair access!"
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:58 pm
**giggles** x
x __________________Hartley and Wallace had other things to worry about besides the undead remnants of their former co-workers. Just outside of the pens two levels down, a tiny child's hand taped a button on a panel and a series of high security doors begun to slide open with a loud hiss. And from those pens emerged what appeared to be crosses between humans and reptiles, turned inside out. Known affectionately (?) by the scientists as Lickers. The reptile-like ... 'things' started to slowly crawl up the walls and towards the vents that led to Hartley and Wallace.... *** Elsewhere, near the two soldiers battling, a former scientist injected with the mutated virus had started to slither down the hall in his final, mutated form... A child giggles while watching on a monitor.
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:01 pm
"Behind me? Now Hartley? Yeesh, you'd think you'd find a better time for me to -- WAAAHHHH!" Wallace cried out, picking up a pan and slamming it into the face of Colonel Squishypants. "I thought you wanted to do a little bump and grinding...but whoa..." Wallace placed a hand over his heart as he delivered a series of blows to the undead creature's head with the hand still clutching the frying pan.
"So..I think we should leave before we die," Wallace said, stating the obvious as he grabbed Hartley's hand, giving Colonel Squishypants one final whack and hearing the satisfying jingle of his teeth as they hit the floor. "Because I was really hoping for a back rub tonight, and I'd hate to die before I got it. I am so tense lately. No idea why."
With his trusty frying pan in hand, Wallace kicked a secret panel - a secret known only to himself and Hartley. Well, maybe it was actually known only to him since Hartley was always dragged there blindfolded. In fact, that would explain the surprised look on his face. "It leads to our boffo place," Wallace whispered, all of a sudden modest in front of the undead.
He began to run, well, it was more of a skip actually, tugging Hartley behind him. The tunnels ran beneath a series of vents, from which could be heard a squelching noise.
"Oh that's just...gross, I can't...how...ugh what a turn off," Wallace frowned, looking up at one as a long sting of goo oozed from it. "Ewwwwww. Who is going to have to clean thaaat? I nominate Misty."
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:57 am
*Raph ran a hand over his head when the doors finally burst open. The thing was beyond his conception of fear, and ALMOST beyond his copncept of how to kill it. He fired a few rounds from the minigun he was carrying, but that only seemed to enrage the beast further, causing it to hurtle towards them with ever greater velocity.*
*He fired another volley at the thing, then glanced at the Major.*
I've got an idea, but I don't know if it's gonna work. We could feed the thing a C-4 sandwich, but it'll probably take all I've got to make a dent.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:17 am
"AAAAAAAAAGGGH!" Hartley screamed as a Licker (who the hell named these things) jumped out of the air vent. It chomped down on Hartley's arm.
Chomp, chomp.
"AAAAAAGGGHHH!" Hartley screamed again as a veritable fountain of blood erupted from his now armless stump, launching everywhere as if his heart had the pressure of a fire hose behind it. Blood sprayed on everything. Everything.
"AAAAAAAAAGHHH." Hartley smacked the Licker in the face with his good hand and the frying pan contained thereon. The Licker's face exploded, sending virus-encrusted inside-out lizard-thing bits all over the place.
Yeah, it was totally gross, but the awesome soundtrack made up for it.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 5:22 pm
Major's eyes boggled as she saw the giant slug like beast slither into the hallway. Any zombies that was in it's way was gobbled up or thrown aside by giant tentacles as if they were dolls.
Jen looked down at her shotgun and knife, it was going to take a bit more. She heard Raph shouting over the chaos at her.
"Nice idea Raph." Jen said. "Me and the men shall charge in and distract it. Get your charges ready!"
Jen grabbed the grenade launcher from the Mule guy, a walking armory.
"Let's take this slug down!" Jen shouted to the petrified men.
Some were shaking and followed her down anyway.
A tentacle came forward and grabbed the guy who had the family that he never shut up about.
"Damn it Hughes!" Jen cried out.
"Tell Elicia I love her!" He called back as he was thrown into the jagged mouth of the thing.
Jen cursed under her breath as a tear came to her eye...she couldn't let any more of her men die. She ran forward shooting her grenade launcher to clear the zombies and to get a clear aim. Her men ran behind shooting off their automatic weapons.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:04 pm
Damn you, Major, if anyone here's gonna be all self-destructive, it's gotta be me!
*It was kind of a mess, the way thiungs were going down, but Raph managed to get the timers all set for 30 seconds. 6 really big charges. He started the countdown, and then elbowed his way past the Major.* You finish the job and kill those ******** scientists!
*It was tricky getting past the tentacles, but he managed to pull it off, and stuff himself into the damned thing's mouth. It was agony he'd never suffered before, but he held his breath and waited.*
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:10 pm
Fortunately for Hartley, Wallace had been waiting his entire life for an opportunity to make a tourniquet. He had always hoped it would happen to someone he loved solely so he could tie the tourniquet with a neat red bow which would symbolize his affection. Unfortunately, this meant that Hartley now had one less arm to hold him with, and he would never be able to double fist drinks again.
His hands moved quickly, tying the tourniquet and watching the blood flow stop and reduce to a tiny dripping trickle. He then turned away and promptly vomited, feeling something wet and warm drop on him from the ceiling. "OH MY GOD, BACK THE HELL OFF ME." Wallace stood, backing up into the wall and slamming the Licker into it. "DO YOU NOT SEE WHAT JUST HAPPENED? I HAD TO PUT A TOURNIQUET ON MY BOYFRIEND BECAUSE YOUR BRO OVER THERE ATE HIS ARM." Wallace promptly got sick of caps lock and continued in lower case letters. Very angry lower case letters. "Seriously, you just put a damper on my love life, and I am not about to let you rip out my spine right now. You should be ashamed of yourself! Downright embarassed."
The Licker turned a pretty shade of pink, then rubbed against Wallace's leg. Wallace sighed and leaned down to pet behind where he imagined his ear when be. Then he punted it down the tunnel.
"Little b*****d. You ok Hart?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:36 pm
"RAPH!" Jen screamed. "This is no time to be the damn hero!"
His plan was to feed himself to the beast? Was there any way to know if this suicide bomb would work against this thing. It seemed to be shrugging off any grenades and machine gun fire like they were pebbles.
"We're only here for the basic virus sample!" Jen was frantic, she didn't want to see any of her men throw themselves away. It was such a stupid plan. True they needed to kill everyone that were in their way but by the looks of it there were no survivors, only zombies.
She glanced over to the open elevator shaft. The elevator had long since fallen down and there was only a tunnel straight down.
"We're a team and we're all going together!" Jen shouted and ran after Raph.
She stabbed at the teeth that were munching on his body and saw the ticking bombs. It wasn't long... not enough time. Her men kept the suppressing fire to keep the tentacles back and distracted. Jen hardly noticed another guy being picked off behind her.
"We're going down the elevator to hell!" Jen shouted pointing to the open shaft as she kept pulling Raph trying to loosing the bombs from his body.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:46 pm
*Raph was tugged free from the gaping maw, with the majority of the damage being taken by his body armor. His bombs were still "safely" lodged in the thing's gullet. At least, they were for three seconds. Before the tentacles could push Raph and Jen back in, our would be suicide bomber started pushing Jen away . . . just in time to get out of the blast radius, but not enough to avoid a shower of creature entrails.*
*Raph, aside from being covered in blood and gore, was a mess.. He had been grinded by the thing's teeth, but he was alive. He grumbled a bit.* That . . . sucked.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:54 pm
"Rrrarrrhh. Uh, I mean, I've felt better." Hartley admired the loving affection put into the tourniquet, but no amount of tenderly applied linen was going to stop the retrovirus that was now raging through his body and making everything, especially Wallace, look exceptionally chompable.
Plus, being a one-armed biophysicist was like being a one-legged man in an a**-kicking contest. It was damn hard to recode RNA when you could only reach the jkl; side of the keyboard.
The sounds of hissing, slithering and exploding coming from up ahead told Hartley that it was possible that their escape was futile anyways...
"Wallace, I never told you...I never said the words....But I loaarrrrgggggghhle." DAMN YOU, RETROVIRUS! Hartley cleared his throat and tried again.
"I love you. And I hope you will be able to forgive me when I attempt to eat your brains in a few minutes."
Wait a second...exploding? Why were there sounds of explosions coming from up ahead? Could it be....
"Wallace...I think there are people nearby - LIVING people!'
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:04 pm
"Tell me about it." Jen grunted. "It's only going to get worse though!"
She grabbed hold of Raph and attached her grappling hook. The thing was writhing still and tentacles were still whipping around. The fire was intense and the smell was something that was better off being called indescribably disgusting.
"Going DOWN!" Jen shouted and they started to abseil down the shaft running forwards. She tried not to look at Raph he was a complete state and she didn't want to think about what would happen after they recovered the virus. Minor explosions seemed to be happing behind them as some gas pipes began to ignite.
She checked to see if any of her men were following, there were only 4 of her other grunts left and from what she could see one was the Mule with the important medi-kit attached to him.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:26 pm
*Raph grabbed an injector-pen from the Mule, and jabbed himself in the arm, then followed the Major down the shaft.*
I doubt I could go through something like that and NOT get . . . whatever virus did this. I just hope the "cure" actually works. I'd be pretty pissed if it just made things worse.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:41 pm
That thing seemed different from the others, obviously...so Jen thought it might be a stronger infection... maybe a mutation. She couldn't say that though, she wanted the anti-virus to work.
"Why do they always put the research labs down so far!" Jen snapped.
They landed with a thump as everyone got down safely and Jen propped up Raph near the elevator shaft. A zombie that had followed them down landed with a splat.
"Just hold on and stay toasty." Jen said to her friend. "MEDIC!"
The Mule scrambled over and tried to bandage Raph's wounds.
Jen looked around, they had reached their goal at least but the place was an obvious disaster zone. This was were the infection had started and the meandering zombies were not showing any slow down of stopping. This time it was lab coat zombies with a particularly bad glazed look.
"Move forward, you're coming with us Raph." Jen said. "We got to take all these bastards out, shoot anything that moves!"
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