Author's Notes: Apprehension has held me long enough. I may have only done this to relieve some writer's block I've been struggling with, but I thought it wasn't that bad. Give me your honest opinion on what you think, be it brutal or benevolent.
Running from the Devil
Isaac stood before the security console, bathed in the dim lighting of the USG Ishimura's flight lounge. He poked at the flashing light of the holographic label on the console that read "read damage report?", causing a holographic representation of the Ishimura to appear just above it.
"Huh, that doesn't look good. She's taken a lot of damage", spoke one of the security personnel, SWS Motorized Pulse Rifle held lazily at his hip pointed towards the glass of the security access room barricading Isaac from the rest of the group.
"The tram system's offline", came the voice of Zach Hammond over his radio. "Getting around is going to be difficult."
The vents of the flight lounge purred as fresh air began to flow once more through them. "Air seems to be flowing again, that's a start", spoke Hammond once more through the radio.
Isaac's heart skipped a beat as a siren blared and the lighting of the dilapidated flight lounge went down, replaced by the sickly glow of the quarantine system's blood red rotating lights. The security console shut down, turning a similar color to the lights and displaying a bio-hazard warning symbol in its upper left corner. The security personnel shouldered their rifles, panning around the dingy room using their gun's light attachment to see in the impenetrable dark.
"What the hell was that", inquired a startled Kendra Daniels, the computer specialist of the group.
"Automatic quarantine must have tripped when the filtration system restarted. Everybody relax", Hammond assured, lowering his pulse rifle ever so slightly to his side, reinforcing his point.
Something shuffled through the vents, augmenting the unease of the already tense situation. Kendra jumped a bit out of fear and began looking around, panic welling up inside her. "What was that, did you hear that?"
"Not sure..." Hammond shouldered his rifle once more, searching the decrepit space alongside the others.
A vent shattered overhead, showering the floor of the flight lounge in shards of twisted metal and mechanical parts and earning a curse from the crewman nearest the breach. The crewman looked up, searching for the source of the commotion with rifle raised, its bright light tearing through the darkness with ease revealing the dull gray metal of the ceiling.
"I don't know, something's in the room with us!" Kendra's voice cracked, she'd lost her composure and became panicked, her eyes hastily shifting left to right in search of their uninvited guest.
From the vent fell a mangled monstrosity of decomposed flesh and scythe-like appendages where arms once were. Isaac stepped back from the window, the helmet of his engineering RIG a mask for the sheer terror his face wore. From the beasts mouth came guttural hisses and moans as it crept up behind the security escort closest to the security console. It reared its scythe-arms up, affording Isaac a full view for a few moments.
The monster before him looked as if a demon spawn from hell; lacking a lower jaw, its maw dripping with blood savoring the kill to come, its body bared of clothing and gut torn asunder to reveal a macabre display of festering guts and rotting flesh. In some ways, however, it did resemble a human. Its original arms were hanging near the gaping hole that barely held in its organs, dangling at its sides stripped of their usefulness, its legs, though covered from thigh to ankle in scars and bruises, appeared strikingly similar to a regular humans.
He stared, bewildered by the fearsome creature in front of him. His mouth moved to warn the oblivious crewman it targeted, but his tongue was trapped in the vice grip of pure terror. He could only stare in awe as it sank it's foot long bladed hands deep into the living flesh of the security escort, tearing with bestial vigor at anything it could get its malformed claws on.
"Jesus", cried Hammond as he caught sight of his fellow crewman being flayed apart. "Open fire! Open fire!" He gave the command as he aimed down the iron sights of his Pulse Rifle and squeezed a few rounds into the monstrosity's torso, ripping through dead skin and bone with sickening cracks. The other surviving rifleman quickly adjusted his aim and caught the beast in his sights, firing sloppily out of panic. The bullets hit their marks, most did anyway, but the demon rose to its feet seemingly impervious to their weapons. Again, and again they shot, each time hitting their mark, each time with no result save its ghastly roars and bellows formed more from fury than pain.
Isaac braced himself against the corner near the security console, breathing erratically from the adrenaline coursing through his system and the sight of his crew members grisly demise. Behind his helmet he was wild-eyed, his lower lip quivering slightly as he motioned for words and none came.
"Kendra! Power!" Hammond continued to pump round after round into the creature, to no avail. "Kendra!"
"Come on", Kendra's voice retained its crack as she frantically tried to reroute the power to the door to escape. "Come o- Got it!" The door flew open and she and Hammond made good on their escape. Unfortunately for the other crewman, another of the beasts leapt from a shattered vent near the entrance and tackled him to the floor, gnawing and gnashing at his face with its razor fanged craw, stabbing with its scythe-arms and watching the life blood pour from his wounds.
"Isaac! Get the hell outta there!" Hammond's voice snapped Isaac back from his transfixture, prompting him to search for an exit. He noticed a door near the opposite end of the room he was in, and bolted to it with the speed of an olympic runner. He reached the door and tried to hack it with his RIG only to find it was locked. He slammed his fist into the door as hard as he could, cursing the quarantine lock down under his breath.
"The door's unlocked! Run", Kendra shouted through the radio. Sure enough the door opened, and just as it did one of the monsters from before tore through the vent on the wall to his left. The beast eyed him with intense hunger as he slipped under the half-open door and into a long corridor. Before he could get far, he was tripped up the by the monster and forced to the ground. The beast mounted him and stabbed its claw down at his head, just glancing off the top of his helmet and sticking into the metal floor. Isaac mustered what strength he could and kicked it with both feet, launching the beast from its position and ripping its stuck arm off at the shoulder. He rose to his feet and rushed down the hall, nearly being caught by another of the beasts as it broke through a vent on the ceiling.
He was moving so fast he accidentally hit the wall that turned into the other section of the hallway. Taking a moment to look back, he saw the monster from before lumbering over, now missing an arm, and the other that he'd just missed rising to its feet. He grunted as he pushed himself from the wall and sprinted over to the next turn in the hall, pivoting on his left foot to face another turn at the end of this hallway. As he rushed towards the end, he noticed a door at the middle of the portion of the corridor he was on and ran to it. Isaac tried to hack it, periodically looking back to see if his attackers had caught up with him.
The locked door refused to relinquish its state, and the monsters were very nearly upon him. He tried one last time, but just as he did one of the beasts leapt at him. Luckily he caught it before it did, and leaned into the corner of the niche where the door was and kissed the head of the monster with his metal boot. It's head went rolling back down the hall, hissing and biting as if it were still attached, and its body continued to move, striking out in a zealous rage as rotted blood fountained from its neck wound.
Isaac ducked out one swing, and another, and another. Another vent back down the hall shattered, and yet another of the demons came forth, signaling him to run.
His RIG's communication system let out a beep, and Kendra came in on the other line. "Run Isaac, get the hell out of there!" As if he needed to be told that.
He made another turn, pivoting on the same foot as before when one of the undead tackled him into the wall and began biting and slashing furiously at him. Isaac could feel its razor sharp teeth sink deep into his forearm as he screamed in agony, blood gushing from his new gash. He didn't feel as much pain as he should have thanks to the vast amount of adrenaline that flooded his system. The horror rose one of its scythes to strike him, only to have it caught by the engineer. He forced it to slice through the dead tissue of its neck, severing its head from its body as he knocked it back with a swift knee. The head remained latched on with a death grip until Isaac tore it from his arm, taking with it a few chunks of his own flesh.
He looked down the new portion of corridor to see an elevator awaiting him. Without hesitation, he let loose in a frantic bumrush, grabbing at the wound on his forearm trying to cover it up. Though the distance was short, it felt like an eternity as he constantly looked back at the encroaching abominations. He reached the door and hacked it as fast as he possibly could, trying not to look back for fear that they were already upon him. The doors began to slide open, parting down the middle, each side going its separate way. He suddenly felt cold, as if he'd just taken a dip in freezing water, and felt himself slide along with the side of the door he was closest to. Looking down, he saw a blade like appendage sticking through the upper right area of his chest and pinning him to the elevator door; one of the beasts had caught up with him, the one with one arm and stuck him clean through into the door.
Under his mask Isaac didn't cry out in anguish, or scream, or anything. It just felt... cold. He could feel death's chilling embrace overtake him as blood oozed from the new puncture wound. Looking back, he could see the soulless glowing eyes of his attacker, an aberration of a human, twisted and disfigured to suit one purpose; to kill. He grabbed at the blade between him and the door in a desperate attempt to free himself before the rest of the pack arrived, biting back the visceral pain that engulfed his senses.
A crack sounded, the creature pinning him to the wall pulled its scythe-arm from his chest, freeing him. It was then that he noticed a small part of the creature's blade still inside the elevator door; it must have been caught by the wall and sheared off, how fortuitous. He wasted no time in entering the elevator, and as he did the beasts seemed to back off. The last thing he saw before the door slid shut was the pack of undead retreating into the air vents; he'd won the moment. His back hit the rear wall of the elevator and he sank down, still grasping the bloodied forearm where the creature bit him.
Now, with splotches of blood covering his RIG and a rent forearm, he could finally relax for a moment. His chest rose and fell slowly as he lie on the metal floor of the elevator taking deep breaths to calm his heart down.
A scratching noise came from just outside the door, escaping his ears while he sat on the ground, tired and beaten. A claw, like the ones owned by the abominations before pierced the seal of the elevator door, making him scurry back into a corner. The beast forced apart the door with its unholy strength, frothing at the mouth, flaunting its blood-slicked razor teeth. Isaac merely raised an arm to cover his face, praying the creature would overlook him, but through his guard he could see it staring him down with lifeless glowing eyes. It stepped back onto its left foot and leapt forward, and he closed his eyes praying in his mind that it finish him quickly.
The metal doors of the elevator began to creak and shift inward and outward. As the undead monstrosity's claws cleared the doorway, it slammed shut with enough force to shear a small steel I-beam in two, easier yet a human body. Coagulated blood coated the walls of the elevator now; no matter where he looked, blood tinged the gray steel of the walls, he couldn't escape it.
He sat there, completely alone in the darkness of the elevator, head in hands not making a sound, for no words were there that he knew could make sense of anything that had just happened. No, there was nothing to say. The elevator began its descent, deeper into the bowels of the darkened Ishimura, deeper into the hell.