Chapter 4: The Subtle Difference Between the Dead and the Undead
| Sergeant Freemont Lassart | |
| Corporal Wilson Gammon (second-in-command) | Private First Class Andrew Watchreid (strategist) |
| Private First Class William Patton (soldier) | Private Sloan "Stymie" Hackson (soldier) |
| Private Kyle Hedgewick (pilot) | Private Jane Quigg (nurse) |
| Private Haley Ysborne (sharpshooter) | Ed Payton (sharpshooter) |
| Private Flora Lamont (communications) | Civilian Benson Coldwart (negotiations) |
At least for the first twenty minutes, no one said a word. It was just too suspenseful for most of the surviving members of the platoon that had landed on the moon only a few short hours before. But Stymie had to break the silence and he hated silences more than he hated the zombies that were traipsing around the compound as if they owned the place.
"How many people here are part o' the undead? Raise your hand! God loves ya, anyway! Cheers to y'all!"
"Hackson, shut up," Ysborne chided, trying to keep her demand quiet. "Keep it down. They might hear you."
The surviving members of the platoon walked in a circle formation, at least one person looking in every direction from which the zombies could possibly emerge. It was an old, dated technique they had all learned in training, but it served its purpose well at a time like this and this situation was the textbook example for the maneuver: caught behind enemy lines, trying to make your way to a certain point. That was exactly what was going on, and most didn't want any surprises along the way but Stymie thrived on the excitement that he almost wished one of them would tear its way through the flooring and crawl out to attack them and that way he could blow something's head off, do something at least!
They were looking for the nearest hangar bay, the east one, and Will wore his goggles although the night-vision had been turned off, so that he could follow the map that was depicted inside them.
He looked at Hedgewick, who looked positively as white and pale as a clean sheet or sour cream without the mould. Hedgewick was starting to look greyish, the colour washed away from his face and, even in the bad lighting of the area, Stymie could see his skin beginning to wrinkle in places, his eyes becoming redder, and....
Wait, something sticking out of his elbow glinted, and, boy, did Stymie like shiny objects.
"Wait, wait," Stymie said as he held up a hand. "Hedgewick, turn around for a sec."
Everyone stopped, and Hedgewick complied, slowly and unsteadily lurching his whole body in a half-circle and Stymie blocked his dead-fish breath as his mouth came around. In one gloved hand, Stymie slowly extracted the glint, which turned out to be a long and thin, metallic stick--a medical needle head?
"Hedgewick, have you been piloting our ship on some sort o' narcotic?" Will asked as he looked up to see that Hedgewick's eyes were fluttering closed, as if he couldn't even keep himself awake.
"No," he whispered, his voice grainy and marred with weariness. "No. I don't do that kind of stuff. I took a drug test before we left. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to come." Another series of coughs followed, Hedgewick placing a loosely curled fist to his mouth.
"Come to think of it," started Stymie, "I wouldn't be surprised if we've all been on blue dot for the past few hours. That would explain a lot of things." He turned to Hedgewick. "You sure you--" he began, but stopped as he looked at Hedgewick's fist. A splatter of blood had been spat out of his mouth with the final cough. Hedgewick cleared his throat and, with a disgusted grimace, Stymie looked up to see blood at both corners of the pilot's mouth. "A word, Will," he said as he backed away, and he watched Will do the same.
They strolled down one hallway about six or seven paces before Stymie stopped and, looking at Hedgewick in the distance, spoke to Will. "Will, I think Hedgewick is turnin' into one o' those things. One o' those zombies," he said matter-of-factly.
"What?" Will obviously tried to keep his voice down, but it came out as a sharp, audible stage whisper. "What are you talking about? That's impo--"
"It's impossible?" Stymie interrupted and looked wild-eyed at Will, his mouth hanging open and his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth unmoved after he shaped his last syllable. "Check him out. He's got just about every sick symptom that exists. His eyes are all red and his skin is startin' to look clammy. When I grabbed that needle out of his elbow, I touched him. It's all sweaty and sticky and wrinkled and cold and as mushy as a dead fruit and--"
"Okay, okay," Will interrupted. "I get the point. But what do we do about it?"
"We drop 'im."
"We drop him?"
"Yeah, we let him go. Shoot him or somethin'. Before he turns all wacky." Stymie's hands danced around him as he did what he was considering a display of wackiness.
"Stymie, I'm not going to just kill him. First of all, that's a war crime. We'd be killing one of our own and we'd go to jail."
Stymie's eyes widened even more. "He could eat us at any second."
"We'll find a way," Will replied. "Besides, without Quigg around, we don't even know for sure what he's got. It could be just a mutant allergic reaction."
"I found a needle stickin' out of his elbow, Will. That ain't no mutant allergic reaction."
"Let's go. Watch him, but we keep going. We're already down to six as it is. We can't afford to lose anybody else."
Stymie gave him an anxious look, his eyebrows curving inwardly and his eyes still as wide as he'd ever been able to make them. He was sure to keep an eye on Hedgewick, and the barrel of his rifle in the small of the pilot's back.
Hedgewick looked at the funny one and the normal one coming back. The normal one was saying something, but he couldn't hear it. It was all just a bunch of quiet talking. Then the other one said something. And then the one who was helping him along, the lady with the gun--Ysborne? Ah, who cares?--said something else. They started moving again, so he went along.
Itchy. He was itchy all over. Even his hands were itchy. But how could he scratch his hands; they were the things that scratched the other itchy parts. He took some steps. He didn't feel like taking any more. He wanted to sit down and wait. He didn't know why he wanted to wait. There wasn't anything to wait for. But he wanted to wait. Then a drip of something came down his forehead. It went on his eye. It was salty. It tasted good when it fell into his lips. It was yummy.
He was hungry, oh so very hungry. He wanted to go find food. Eat food. Swallow food and then eat more food. Food was good. And 'good' and 'food' almost rhymed, except the O letters sounded different. Or were they Us. Food. Good. No, 'food' was spelled with a U.
He was still itchy. And hungry. And everything looked so tasty. Hungry. He was....
Then something stopped. But he didn't know what. And then he couldn't see.
Quigg yanked the door open!
Luckily, it swung inwardly, or she would have been stuck forever with the zombies plastered to it. They weren't even surprised when it opened, and just hungrily moved in, tripping over each other in a feverish attempt to be able to eat her. She raised her gun and fired a bullet that punctured one zombie's neck. That zombie was felled, its head almost severed, and the next one received a bullet that dotted its exploded eye and probably most of its cerebral cortex. It went down, knocking the one behind it down as well.
This simple plan wasn't working! They were still closing in, and she became hysteric! Her rifle was just too slow, and she readied it, the empty bullet shell popping out as a full one replaced it. She had to run, get away. They were almost upon her! They were clawing at her face!
She broke into a run, knocking the zombies aside as she did. She whacked a couple with her swinging rifle, and managed to fight her way through some of the thick without being--
No! She felt a zombie's jaw tear a piece of flesh from her arm and she fought it away! It seemed content on chewing the piece it had before attacking again. But another one took a slice from her leg, and she limped out of the room, grabbing the door and slamming it shut behind her!
She watched as the zombies, now in the room, banged against the window and door to be released. She dropped to the ground and so did her rifle, clattering as it bounced against the wall. She looked down at her wounds, reddish marks on her arms and legs where flesh had been torn. She was going into shock; she could tell. It was a different shock than she'd ever imagined, a deeper one. It was probably the toxins taking effect. She let a stifled cry escape her lips and covered her mouth as tears welled in her eyes before dripping down the curves of her cheeks.
She watched the zombies patter the door and window, their muffled attacks somehow getting louder and more dreadful. She tried to stand, but the pain was too much now that the adrenaline shock had worn off. She didn't want to be one of them, and yet she felt her energy draining, her eyes getting drier.
She couldn't handle it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to believe that it was okay, that she was wrong when she told herself that the disease was transferable through biting or clawing. But she couldn't. With every passing breath, she knew she was that much closer to becoming one of them.
She wondered what it would be like, the single-minded fury she would have, the pain and weariness that were enveloping her. She wondered if she would care at all that she was dead, that she had no other goal except to eat others.
She looked down at her rifle, wondered if there were any more bullets left. She picked it up and checked. Yes, but only one more.
She slowly, unsurely took the barrel of the rifle and placed it inside her mouth. She shut her eyes tightly and said a muffled goodbye.
Will thought he could hear a gunshot echo from behind them, a few meters away. It was a single blast and then a wet, slapping sound. He paused as he moved along, but nodded it off. It could have been anything, and he wasn't about to risk the lives of the rest of the platoon here because he thought he heard something strange. Besides, no other gunshots followed and it seemed as though no one else had heard it.
Then another sound! A shrill, penetrating, spine-quivering sound that mashed his eardrums against his skull! He stopped as the sound did. It echoed through the halls, a long reminder of it after it had died. "What the--"
"That was that monster I was telling you about," Ed replied, a little hoarse and frightened. "It's walking around. I bet you it smells us or something."
"How about we pick up the pace then?" Stymie suggested.
"Yeah, good idea," Will replied, and he saw Watchreid and Ysborne nod in agreement. "I don't think I want to be around to shake its hand."
The soldiers quickened their walk, and it seemed that Ysborne was almost dragging Hedgewick's body along. His legs had curled underneath his body and now hung behind him lifelessly. They reached one corner, and Will had to check and double-check the map. The networking corridors and halls were confusing--and it didn't help that they all looked alike--but he figured his way. They had to turn left ahead and then right. Then they would almost be at the hangar bay. Hopefully, there would be a ship in waiting, or they would have to go to a completely different hangar bay, probably the one on the south side, since that way seemed to be clearest. The north hangar bay was the one in which they had landed and was vacant except for their smoldering wreck, so they didn't want to return there. And Hedgewick's physical state wasn't making things any easier.
Itchy. Scratchy. Something smell tasty. Kill something. Tasty-yummy. People yummy. Hungry. Eat.
Watchreid looked down at Hedgewick's body, and he seemed to be trying to walk, although his legs still dragged along the ground. His head twitched. His arms were twitching, as well--
Hedgewick suddenly lunged at Watchreid with a sudden and unexpected burst of energy like shocking electricity! Suddenly, Hedgewick was at Watchreid's belly, tearing the suit apart with his skeletal, rotting hands!
With alarm, Ysborne dropped Hedgewick and backed away in horror, gasping.
Hedgewick plunged his head into Watchreid's suit, tearing a chunk of Watchreid out with him and slurping it down like it was his first dinner! Watchreid screamed in pain and dropped his rifle. He put both hands at his stomach, clutching at it and trying to keep the gushing blood from erupting any more. He dropped to his knees and Will Patton, Stymie Hackson, and Ed Payton turned. Ysborne turned away while Watchreid tried to bat Hedgewick's gnashing teeth from biting him with one hand, the other still trying to contain his stomach's wound.
Hedgewick grabbed Watchreid's arm and dug in with one powerful, grinding bite, grabbing a mouthful of skin tissue and muscle, and cracking the bone. He moaned as he ate. He followed this by taking a chunk from Watchreid's neck, not even having swallowed the first bite!
Will screamed, "Hedgewick!" as Watchreid's body fell to the ground. Watchreid twitched spasmodically, and a thick film of white spit erupted from his mouth and trailed down his chin. His eyes had rolled up into his head, and he screamed gutturally.
Stymie pointed his rifle quickly at Hedgewick's temple as he continued to eat on Watchreid's severed flesh. Hedgewick attempted to keep his morsel of food from dribbling out of his mouth as blood oozed from his gnarled fingers, but one wet piece dropped from his lip. Stymie pressed the rifle barrel against Hedgewick's temple, trying to keep a steady aim as his heart beat even faster, looking around at Ysborne--who had turned toward the wall and covered her face--Will, and Ed. Ed released a heavy breath as Watchreid's gurgling screams flooded the area. Hedgewick didn't even flinch, didn't even try to move the gun barrel away from his temple. Stymie fired, one quick shot into his ear that erupted out the other side and into the concrete floor, luckily bouncing off into the feebler wall. Hedgewick's head exploded in a shower of mucous, grey matter, blood, and bits of skull. His body flopped to the ground as the top half of his head rocked to a rest beside it.
Next, Stymie chambered another bullet. He turned his gun to Watchreid, noticing a spring of crimson blood fountaining from the chewed part of his neck. He looked up at Ysborne, who was still keeping her head against the wall, then at Ed, who was clutching at the cross on his necklace. Ed closed his eyes calmly. Stymie looked at Will, who saw him through the corner of one eye but was looking down at the ground ponderingly, not at Watchreid or Hedgewick. A few seconds passed, Watchreid's intensifying screams cutting through their bones like chilly, winter winds. Will nodded, and Stymie fired another bullet into Watchreid's head. The screams were cut, and then a deadening, creepy silence followed. Stymie didn't dare look down at Watchreid's body, nor did he even want to see the spray of blood that the bullet had caused.
He simply stepped over Hedgewick's rotted, zombie corpse and continued toward the hangar without a word. He looked back as Will followed. Ed stepped along behind Will, first turning to Ysborne and putting a hand on her shoulder, whispering, "It's done."
The piercing shriek of that monster erupted again! Will imagined a huge banshee trying to mimic bagpipes, but as he covered his ears, he couldn't bear to conceptualize what would make such a shrill noise. He crouched, feeling his knees buckle from the shrill pressure of the offensive scream. The scream stopped, and he turned to see the other soldiers. He yelled, "Let's double-time it!" They began a heavier run toward the end of the hall, only a few paces away now. They rounded the first corner, turning left, then the second on their right.
A door slammed open! It was behind them, down at the end of the hall and around the corner, which was still a good ten-minute walk away, but Will could hear the power behind the jarring sound. He wasn't sure, in fact, if the door had been slammed open or torn off its hinges and thrown.
Again, the same sound, this time, a twisting, wrenching, snapping metallic noise, one that was almost as shrill but resembled the screaming horror they had heard only a moment ago. They picked up the pace again, reaching the end of the hall and opening the large, iron door they found at the end of it with great effort. They slipped in. Stymie was the last one through, and forcefully pushed the heavy door shut. There seemed to be no locking mechanism. All four soldiers searched the door frantically, trying to find something with which to bar entry.
"Crap, crap," Stymie chanted. "Can this all get any worse?"
"Yes, it can," said a booming, threatening-but-familiar voice from behind them. Stymie turned around, then Will. Ed and Ysborne followed, but more slowly.
Lassart stood in front of them, a few steps ahead and to their left. He held in one hand a small gun. Neither was it one of the Army-issued rifles with which they had come nor anything Will recognized from the ship when it had been intact. Lassart pointed it menacingly at them, his aim darting from one to the other in a frantic, random pattern. His random aim, however, was belied by his calm, cool demeanour.
Behind him, a set of stairs led up and out of the compound, which was evident from the light that was cast down at it, definitely the glow of the spotlights cast on the hangar bays. To his left and right were doors, leading into rooms adjacent from the short stretch of hallway. To the left, closer than the doors and Lassart, was a hallway that led off somewhere unfamiliar to him.
Will took one cautious, slow step forward, and Lassart reasserted his aim. "Get back!" he screamed.
"Sir, we're not zombies," Will said calmly, putting his hands forward in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "We're still alive. We're not going to do anything."
Lassart clicked his tongue and chuckled. "I know you're alive, you dimwit."
"Then, sir--" Ysborne started, but was interrupted.
"Shut up! I know this comes as quite a shock, to see that your sergeant's pointing a gun at you, but just listen. Listen for one single second before flapping your disobedient mouths. Who's still left?"
Will swallowed and spoke up. "No one. Just us. Hedgewick and Watchreid are dead, and we're assuming that Quigg and Coldwart are, as well."
"Good." His smile broadened. Lassart maneuvered his way closer and into the hall that connected to the current one, just before the doors. He stepped back a couple of paces and motioned them to walk ahead with a slight movement of his gun. "Drop your guns. Hands on your heads. Get going. Into the door on your left and down the stairs."
Each soldier dropped his or her gun, the rifles clattering to the floor heavily. The soldiers slowly walked forward, their sweaty hands placed on their heads. Will was the first to enter the room, and had to carefully move his hand toward the doorknob to open it. He hoped Lassart wouldn't see this as a hostile action, especially after having been given instructions to put their hands on their heads, but there was no other way. Luckily, he opened the door without being shot, and put his hand back where he was supposed to put it. The door revealed a dark set of stairs, lit only with a solitary light bulb that hung lonely from the concrete, downward-sloping ceiling. The stairs ended about ten steps below them, but Will was unable to see what was in the room, the slope of the ceiling blocking his vision.
"Now go down the stairs," Lassart ordered.
Will stepped down, asking, "Where are you bringing us?"
"Just get down there!" Lassart barked. "I only need one of you, so don't test me!"
Will reached the bottom of the steps, and the first thing that caught his immediate attention was the biohazard symbol emblazoned on a lighted, plastic screen embedded in an uneven wall. The symbol was inside of a small, five-foot square nook implanted in that same wall. The only side of the nook that wasn't concrete wall was its opening. A computer terminal, sitting on a concrete pedestal, was on, a rectangular cursor blinking, ready for human input.
Will stepped to one side of the small basement area and positioned himself against the far wall. Next, Stymie stepped down and moved to beside Will, followed by Ed and then Ysborne. Lassart, of course, was last, and stepped over to the opposite wall. He motioned to the small nook. "I need one of you to get in."
"What's this all about?" Ysborne asked, a sense of hostility coming through that Will would ill-advise in a situation like this.
"A little background, then, before you die. About ten years ago, a few of us were on a mission in a city called Raccoon. It turns out that we were doing a little reconning at the former site of a defunct and crooked pharmaceutical company called Umbrella. They were illegally producing some sort of toxin. The toxin--the T-Virus, as they called it--would turn whoever ingested it into what you've seen here: zombies. We gathered the notes the company had, information on how to duplicate it, and then tried to develop a bio-weapon that the U.S. Army could use on its enemies. Unfortunately, the higher-ups shut the project down.
"I was part of that team, conducting the experiments to create those weapons. Up until two years ago, I was directly involved in it. Then, when the U.S. government decided it was too inhumane to follow through, they pulled the plug. However, a small handful of us decided it was too powerful a project to just abandon. Soldiers that don't need to sleep or that have morale problems. They were perfect, amoral war machines. We decided we needed to go through with our plans, and so those that were left on the moon continued to develop this thing, while I and some others kept things on Earth quiet about the project.
"Then the moon lost contact with Earth. When contact was restored and we got that garbled transmission, we knew exactly what had happened: some idiot spilled something. The whole project had laid waste to the compound, and a cover-up was needed. So they called on me, because I knew my way around the base, to lead a team here to mop up the mistake. They figured the public wouldn't buy a solo run to the moon to find out why the transmissions hadn't been restored, and I needed assistance in dealing with the zombies, so they had to come up with you--the team that would accompany me--based on a bunch of loners that knew nobody and wouldn't be missed, just so that the clean-up wouldn't draw attention. And, now, I have to make my escape. And the final piece of all of this is to set off the self-destruct sequence that will wipe away any evidence of the experiments, then blame the explosion on terrorists. To do that, I need one of you to enter that cage and go about it."
"That's why we weren't expecting a siege, but were armed for one?" Stymie asked.
"Exactly."
Stymie's face turned into a wrinkled grimace. "What the--What good are these stinkin' rifles against an army of zombies?"
"Get in the nook! Private Payton, step in there!"
Ed looked up, shocked. He felt his heart skip a beat at being the one that was chosen to perform the self-destruct sequencing. He hurried into the nook and faced the computer. He was surprised that Lassart hadn't picked Stymie, but Lassart probably thought that Stymie was too computer-illiterate. Ed was known for his interest in computers.
"Why don't you just do this yourself?" Ysborne asked. "Why do you need us?"
"Home base is so full of surprises lately," Lassart said as he gave a slight smile. "I just want to make sure this isn't one of them." He turned to Ed and barked, "What does it say, Payton?"
Ed turned to the computer and studied the screen intently. "It's asking for a username and password," Ed replied, his voice slightly shaky. The nook looked looming enough without the overhanging dread that it could be a deathtrap. Ed was almost going out of his mind looking around the place with every movement he made, watching the walls, the floor, the terminal itself.
"The username is 'administrator'," Lassart replied. "The password is 'apocalypse'." He smiled.
Ed set his fingers on the keys, tying and mistyping the username and password so many times that he noticed his own nervousness, the shaking in his body and fingers. Finally, he stopped typing and pressed the enter key with such a soft touch that he was wondering if the computer would sense it.
"What now, private?"
"It's asking for a clearance code. It's assuming you want to set off the self-destruct function."
"The clearance code is niner, alpha, niner, gamma, cappa, theta."
Ed typed in those keys: 9, A, 9, G, C, and T.
"What's it saying, private?"
Ed watched as bland, green-lighted colours spilled onto the screen, one after the other. "It says 'Self-Destruct Activated: 10 minutes. Escape rocket: Fueling and Charging'."
A calm, female, mechanized voice overpowered the area, blaring over speakers from up the stairs and in the hallway. "Self-destruction procedures have been activated. Evacuation is necessary. Ten minutes remain." The voice echoed and reverberated down into the basement.
"Well, I guess that's it. You only have ten minutes to live--"
Ed's heart sank. He relaxed his muscles, and slouched his shoulders. More words, and he interrupted Lassart to say them out loud: "'Trap set.'" His voice was so feeble, so shaky, he felt like he was going to cry. He heard something metallic clang on the ground behind him, and turned around to see that a sturdy cage wall had dropped from the ceiling, trapping him inside the small nook. He grabbed the cage bars with his hands and a cast a solemn look over his face.
Two slabs of rock slid out of the way, one on either side of him, in a heavy, stone-scraping drone. Each slab revealed a larger recess, both containing a crowd of zombies. Ed closed his eyes as he heard the zombies scuffle toward him from either side.
Will watched as Ed was enveloped by a crushing wave of zombies that came from both sides. There was nowhere Ed could run, nothing Ed could use as defense. The zombies chewed into him mercilessly, and all that could be heard from him was a loud, torturous scream that soon turned into a gurgle that died down to nothing. The zombies continued to feast as Will turned away from the gruesome scene, from watching someone he'd come to know very well be eaten alive by unyielding, ruthless, cannibalistic killers.
"I guess I was right," Lassart said, and Will turned up to see that he hardly had a shocked face that spread over his usually calloused and calm demeanour. "It was a trap."
"Nine minutes and thirty seconds until destruction of base," the intercom voice warned.
"Well, let's get this done with," Lassart spoke calmly and pointed his gun at Stymie with his arm fully extended. "First, we'll take care of Hackson."
A scream! It was that shrill, frightening, and overwhelming cry from whatever that howling fiend was. It came from upstairs, muffled through the thick, heavy iron door. Then the wrenching of metal, the tearing of hinges as what sounded like that very same door was being torn violently from its mooring! More screeching, tearing metal, and then the sound of something slamming against something else!
Breathing. Heavy breathing. It came from upstairs, right at the head of the staircase that led down. It was so heavy and so intent that Will could hear it over the humming of the computer and the smacking of hungry zombie lips munching on his long-dead teammate.
Lassart looked up, the calm and coolness washed from his face, replaced with slight distracted worry. He looked upward to the top of the stairs. "Oh no," he muttered softly, so softly. "Someone let the Tyrant-2 out."
"What's a Tyrant-2?" Stymie asked as he took a step away from the wall to see what the monster was.
"Don't move. It'll come down if you move. Let's just say the Tyrant-2 is what you get when you inject a grizzly bear with the T-Virus." His eyes widened. "Oh, no. It's looking at--"
Suddenly, a green blur slammed into Lassart, sending both him and the blur colliding into the wall behind them, right next to the zombie-infested nook! Claws flew upward and slashed at Lassart's face, goring his features! Lassart screamed as it grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up, cutting short his sounds of protest. A bone-snapping crunch echoed out of his throat as the thing strangled him, and then it grabbed him by the legs and twisted. Another bone-snapping sound and his upper body had been severed from his lower body except for the gooey strings of gore and tissue that remained, stretching like hot cheese on a pizza. It flung the lower piece aside and left the upper body in its grasp, mashing Lassart's face with one gigantic fist. It grew bored of tearing Lassart to shreds and turned toward the three remaining soldiers, its nostrils flaring, as it dropped the faceless half-body that used to be Lassart to the ground.
It was green, slimy, and scaly. It was human shaped except for the extra pair of enormous arms on it, ones that almost scraped the ground. Its fingers weren't fingers; they were long, bloody talons. Its feet were massive, long, twisted claws jetting out of its toes like gargantuan toenails. It was devoid of any sex organs. Its face was a monstrosity on its own, a pudgy nose with yellow, catlike, thin eyes and a mouth twice the size that it should have been, with teeth that glimmered red and shiny with wet blood, teeth that curled downward and outside of its mouth. Its ears stood up, but it was presumably unable to hear since it more than likely had screamed itself to deafness.
The Tyrant-2 menace stood, staring at them, not moving except for its heaving, rock-hard chest as it breathed. It watched them intently, probably savouring the moment before the brief hunt.
Stymie managed one sentence: "It's game over, man."
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