Chapter 33

She finally made her way up to the heliport with five minutes left. She started to wait for Roy but heard the sound of steel being ripped open behind her. She gasped and snapped her head towards the shaft, "Kaaaaaat….." she heard it hiss her name again in that demonic voice. She drew her handgun and pointed it at the thing, fired, missed, and fired the rest of the magazine. It slipped out of the vent and flexed its claws… opening and closing them in anger for the pursuit through the vents, hallways, the underground cavern, the elevator, the building… there were too many of them to think about but it was definitely angered for the trouble of hunting her down. It let out a growl and raced towards her.

She barely had enough time to spread her legs in a shooter's stance, raise the handgun after reloading it with both hands, and squeeze off a shot. The firearm roared, and fire flashed from the muzzle.

Fifteen feet away, the creature was jolted by the impact of the shot, stumbled, but did not go down; it didn't even stop, it came forward with less speed but still too fast. She squeezed off a second shot then a third, a forth, a fifth, and a sixth. It screamed a sound that she had never heard before nor did ever want to hear again and it was at last stopped. It fell against a generator and held onto it for support.

She squeezed off another shot, hitting it in the throat this time. The impact sent its body from the generator, electrocuting it from a cut cord and sent it staggering backwards. An eighth shot took it down at last, though only to its knees. It put one clawed hand to the front of its damaged throat, and its arm bent into a position to allow it to hold the back of its neck. She pumped seven more shots into the kneeling creature, and it fell backward on the concrete, flopped onto its side, and lay silent, motionless.

"It's over…" she said to herself, relieved to see the thing unmoving. She heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance, "Roy… you're finally here…" She began to wave out her arms, "Hey Roy!!! Come on!!! Come down here!!!"

"Ka-aaat…." She heard it weakly say. She glanced down and saw it start to move. It got its hands under itself and was trying to push itself up from the concrete.

"No way, you can't still be alive!!!" She said. She searched frantically for an extra magazine or something to use as a weapon but couldn't find anything.

"Kaaaaat…." It hissed as it got up. It wanted her, it wanted blood, it was full of cold rage, it was burning with hot desire, and would not be stopped, not by guns or ventilation shafts, not by anything. It would not stop until it had killed the female, chew out her soft sweet eyes, bury its mouth into her torn and spurting throat, feed on the bloody pulsing muscle of her heart; it just wanted to feed…. It wanted to take down its pathetic assailant.

Kat wanted Roy to land faster as she saw the creature stand back up, "Roy!!! Fire the gatling gun!!!!" she screamed into the mini radio.

He acknowledged her request and fired the rotating barrel of the Gatling gun that was forged onto the bottom of the chopper, the bullets tore through the body of the creature, but it only made the creature stumble back. "Damn it!" Kat screamed, "Roy, can you throw down something I can use?"

"I'll check, Kat."

"Check fast…. NOW!!!"

"Hey, I understand that you don't have any space down there, but I'll have Mel provide cover fire."

"I guess that'll do…" She faced the creature once again to see it straining to keep its posture as it seemed to be struggling against something within it. It let out a bloodcurdling screech as a row of five metallic spikes began to protrude from its back, and its claws were replaced with the same alloy.

"What? Steel?" she suddenly remembered something that Mike said to her once….

"So, have you experienced anything painful in your life?" Kat asked as they sat in the Alucemet Valley High School library, their place to talk in private

"Well… I once had a surgery done to me for my back." He replied, stretching backwards in the chair

"…Really? What kind?"

"For something called scoliosis… an abnormal curve of the spine." He scratched his back, "They had to implant two metal rods in my back…all this happened a few weeks before Christmas break started."

"Do they hurt?"

"Nah, I occasionally feel cramps and pinching my back from time to time… but other than that it's fine…"

She shook her head, "It's just a coincidence… the Virus can't combine with implants of metal…. Can it?"

It dove at her claws first, and tackled her, pinning its newly formed claws into her arms; she screamed out in pain as the cold metal pierced the bone and felt her right arm break. Hot tears began to form in her eyes from the agony as she was overcome by a feeling that she had lost the fight and was going to pay for it with her life. "Kat!!!" she heard the sound of a woman's voice yell at her, "Don't struggle!!!"

The sound of the Gatling gun firing filled her ears, getting the creature's full attention and giving her a chance to stand back up. She started to breathe hard, feeling the blood trickle out of her arms. "Kat!" she heard Roy's voice yell at her through the radio, "Catch this!" She looked up as she saw Roy toss a light rocket launcher out of the helicopter above. "C'mon! Destroy that bastard so we can all go home!!!"

"Yeah…" she said, barely audible, as she started to walk towards the rocket launcher. She picked it up with her left hand and hoisted it over her shoulder, she managed to use her right arm temporarily as the pain started to fade, "You're finished! Rest in peace, Mike…" She fired the rocket out and was knocked back by the rocket as it sailed through the air.

The rocket made contact with the creature's body, exploding on impact, filling the dusk air with the sound of an explosive and the creature's death scream of agony. Its body exploded on impact with the rocket; spreading its arms, legs, pieces of its head, and torso in various directions. Some of the remains rained onto her, covering her with its crimson and amethyst colored blood. "It's over…. It's finally over…." She said almost silently, "Oh yeah… the sample." She opened her side pack, took out and opened the specimen container, and picked up a still twitching and bleeding finger, placing it inside of the container.

Roy finally landed and jumped out of the helicopter, running at Kat. "C'mon!" he yelled, putting his hands under her armpits, hoisting her up, "We gotta get outta here now!"

"Why…?" she said as they both ran towards the helicopter

"The city's about to be nuked." He hoisted her up into the helicopter, setting her down on a bed.

"Isn't there any survivors…?"

"No… at least that's not what the scan said." He began to make the helicopter lift

"….." she groaned in pain and a young woman knelt to her side.

"You'll be okay." She said to Kat, "I'm just going to tend to those wounds."

She set her head to the side, glanced out of the window, and closed her eyes.