CHAPTER 3
Massive talons clanged against the armoured back of Yorke's space suit sending him sprawling across the deck. The beast leapt over his prone form as he struggle to his feet. It pounced again, launching itself into the air with its strong hind legs. Yorke jumped aside letting it smash onto the floor.
He bolted for the Air Lock but the green- skinned abomination was nearly on him again. It was hard to move in the stiff suit and it seemed like it was taking forever to reach the controls. He tripped over his heavy boots and clattered to the ground. The monster flew over him into the Air Lock. Yorke seized the opportunity, springing up and slapping the switch.
The door swished closed, locking it in. He grinned and pressed the other button. A light flashed and the outer door opened, sucking the Hunter into the cold vacuum of space.
Yorke sat down on a bench panting. He looked at the atmospheric indicator on his wrist. It still read that the air was clear of contamination, but he wasn't taking any chances; preferring to keep his space suit sealed till he was out of this hellhole.
Suddenly his helmet radio crackled loudly in his ears. "Yorke, are you there?" came a female voice.
He tapped the control on his chest plate to respond. "I'm here, Doctor. Where are you?"
"I'm trapped in the main visitor centre. A Shuttle just dropped off someone but I was attacked and can't reach him. Now I've been trapped by a couple of those creatures with the long tongues in a shop."
"Hang tight, I'll be right there." Yorke told her dragging himself to his feet. Snapping a long piece of pipe from the wall as a weapon, he clumped out of the room towards his comrade. David ran down the curving corridor of the Space Station weaving in and out of the way of the workers. All of them were zombies. Totally mindless, they were just as his parents had described to him. He tried to piece the story together in his mind as he dodged the slow, lumbering corpses.
David skidded to a halt and gasped. He was in the main tourist area, with shops and a raised walkway above his head with big picture windows. Just ahead of him a threesome of weird pink creatures were squabbling and clawing at a metal and glass door. He watched, sickened, as their stringy muscles rippled beneath their slimy skin. Their exposed brains pulsed and long globs of drool dribbled over their razor sharp teeth. The tattered rags of NASA overalls clung to their bodies.
One of them turned to David; its strange eyeless face regarded him for a moment before it started to skulk towards him. Massive claws chinked on the metal floor as it swaggered along. A long thick tongue slithered out between its mandibles and began to swish back and forth. The first two creatures ignored him and continued to scratch at the door in vain.
It hissed loudly scaring the crap out of him! He turned to run but the zombies were approaching from behind. He was trapped. He searched about for an escape. The shops? Locked! The walkway? No, too high!
Suddenly a huge shape plummeted down from the walkway flattening the creature. It began to pound on the thing with a metal bar as it scrabbled and screeched in pain. Thwack, thwack, thwack, its blood splattered over the deck and flipped up into the air to tumble slowly to the ground.
David gawped at the dome headed thing that had saved him then realised it was a man in a space suit. The pristine white if the armoured chest and limbs of the suit were streaked with gore and the faceplate was steamed up.
Whump! The other two set upon him, trying to dig him out of his cocoon. The toughened fibreglass barely scratched and the man shoved one of the beasts off of him easily. The other screamed and speared the man with its lance-like tongue. The liquid crystal screen on his chest shattered.
David charged at the creature as it struggled with the man on the floor. Grunting with the effort in the strange gravity, he volleyed it as hard as he could in the head. It fell off of him, its brain split and gouged open. The other one lunged at him but the man threw himself in front of David to let his suit take the blow. The beast slashed mercilessly at him till its claw finally tore into the soft seal of the articulated shoulder. The stranger fell to the floor in pain, blood dribbled out of the gash. David booted it in the chest and fell backwards. He quickly got to his feet and grabbed up the metal bar.
The monster attacked again but was knocked back by a clout around the head. David never let up till its head was a shattered puree of grey matter and gore.
David dropped the bar and helped the man to his feet. He shrugged him off and stepped back. Fingering at four metal catches around his chest and shoulders he released his helmet with a whoosh of air.
"No point in keeping this stupid thing on now that the seal has been breached." Gasped the sweaty astronaut. He ran his hand over his head so that his short blonde hair flicked sweat about and rubbed his eyes.
"Who are you?" David asked. The stranger pointed to his name printed on his chest.
"Yorke, lieutenant Michael Yorke United States Air Force. You?"
"David Redfield, USAF communications tech."
"Hey, you're the guy that was supposed to come fix the main antenna array. That is, before this happened."
They were both startled by the quiet grating sound of a mechanical door opening. They spun to see a figure step out of the scratched and scarred doorway the monsters had been attacking. It was a woman clad in a similar suit to Yorke's. She had no helmet, though. Her long brown hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Yorke, you came." She said smiling.
"Don't I always?" he smirked. "This is David Redfield, the Comm tech you were expecting. Dave, this is Doctor Helen Belfast." David shook her gloved hand and she smiled shyly.
"What happened here?" he asked them.
"We're not really sure," Helen began, " Yorke and I were out on an EVA (space walk) but after a while we stopped getting feed back from control. So we came back in and the whole place was over run. We haven't found any one alive except you but you weren't here when what ever it was struck."
"Our atmospheric scanners detected trace elements of some kind of virus but it seems to have dissipated now." The computer logs say that a huge release started in one of the cargo holds and spread from there."
David furrowed his brow trying to remember the name of the virus from his parent's stories. "T-virus."
"What?" Helen exclaimed.
"The T-virus. My parents told me about times when they used to fight this big company called Umbrella."
"The pharmaceuticals company?" Helen asked.
"Yeah, they told me that years ago Umbrella were working on a bio-weapons program in the form of a virus. It would mutate living tissue changing animals into monsters and humans into mindless zombies."
"Some bedtime story." Yorke commented.
"I thought that was all they were, stories. But it seems that their true. I think that the T-virus has found it's way here."
They all looked at each other in silence. How was it possible? Why? Questions raced through all their minds, but Yorke was the only one to voice one of his:
"What does the 'T' stand for?"
"'Tyrant'…"
RRRRRROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
The whole place seemed to shake with the force of the ungodly scream. It was so loud they couldn't tell if it was down the hall of on the other side of the Station.
"My God. We have to get out of here." Helen squeaked.
Massive talons clanged against the armoured back of Yorke's space suit sending him sprawling across the deck. The beast leapt over his prone form as he struggle to his feet. It pounced again, launching itself into the air with its strong hind legs. Yorke jumped aside letting it smash onto the floor.
He bolted for the Air Lock but the green- skinned abomination was nearly on him again. It was hard to move in the stiff suit and it seemed like it was taking forever to reach the controls. He tripped over his heavy boots and clattered to the ground. The monster flew over him into the Air Lock. Yorke seized the opportunity, springing up and slapping the switch.
The door swished closed, locking it in. He grinned and pressed the other button. A light flashed and the outer door opened, sucking the Hunter into the cold vacuum of space.
Yorke sat down on a bench panting. He looked at the atmospheric indicator on his wrist. It still read that the air was clear of contamination, but he wasn't taking any chances; preferring to keep his space suit sealed till he was out of this hellhole.
Suddenly his helmet radio crackled loudly in his ears. "Yorke, are you there?" came a female voice.
He tapped the control on his chest plate to respond. "I'm here, Doctor. Where are you?"
"I'm trapped in the main visitor centre. A Shuttle just dropped off someone but I was attacked and can't reach him. Now I've been trapped by a couple of those creatures with the long tongues in a shop."
"Hang tight, I'll be right there." Yorke told her dragging himself to his feet. Snapping a long piece of pipe from the wall as a weapon, he clumped out of the room towards his comrade. David ran down the curving corridor of the Space Station weaving in and out of the way of the workers. All of them were zombies. Totally mindless, they were just as his parents had described to him. He tried to piece the story together in his mind as he dodged the slow, lumbering corpses.
David skidded to a halt and gasped. He was in the main tourist area, with shops and a raised walkway above his head with big picture windows. Just ahead of him a threesome of weird pink creatures were squabbling and clawing at a metal and glass door. He watched, sickened, as their stringy muscles rippled beneath their slimy skin. Their exposed brains pulsed and long globs of drool dribbled over their razor sharp teeth. The tattered rags of NASA overalls clung to their bodies.
One of them turned to David; its strange eyeless face regarded him for a moment before it started to skulk towards him. Massive claws chinked on the metal floor as it swaggered along. A long thick tongue slithered out between its mandibles and began to swish back and forth. The first two creatures ignored him and continued to scratch at the door in vain.
It hissed loudly scaring the crap out of him! He turned to run but the zombies were approaching from behind. He was trapped. He searched about for an escape. The shops? Locked! The walkway? No, too high!
Suddenly a huge shape plummeted down from the walkway flattening the creature. It began to pound on the thing with a metal bar as it scrabbled and screeched in pain. Thwack, thwack, thwack, its blood splattered over the deck and flipped up into the air to tumble slowly to the ground.
David gawped at the dome headed thing that had saved him then realised it was a man in a space suit. The pristine white if the armoured chest and limbs of the suit were streaked with gore and the faceplate was steamed up.
Whump! The other two set upon him, trying to dig him out of his cocoon. The toughened fibreglass barely scratched and the man shoved one of the beasts off of him easily. The other screamed and speared the man with its lance-like tongue. The liquid crystal screen on his chest shattered.
David charged at the creature as it struggled with the man on the floor. Grunting with the effort in the strange gravity, he volleyed it as hard as he could in the head. It fell off of him, its brain split and gouged open. The other one lunged at him but the man threw himself in front of David to let his suit take the blow. The beast slashed mercilessly at him till its claw finally tore into the soft seal of the articulated shoulder. The stranger fell to the floor in pain, blood dribbled out of the gash. David booted it in the chest and fell backwards. He quickly got to his feet and grabbed up the metal bar.
The monster attacked again but was knocked back by a clout around the head. David never let up till its head was a shattered puree of grey matter and gore.
David dropped the bar and helped the man to his feet. He shrugged him off and stepped back. Fingering at four metal catches around his chest and shoulders he released his helmet with a whoosh of air.
"No point in keeping this stupid thing on now that the seal has been breached." Gasped the sweaty astronaut. He ran his hand over his head so that his short blonde hair flicked sweat about and rubbed his eyes.
"Who are you?" David asked. The stranger pointed to his name printed on his chest.
"Yorke, lieutenant Michael Yorke United States Air Force. You?"
"David Redfield, USAF communications tech."
"Hey, you're the guy that was supposed to come fix the main antenna array. That is, before this happened."
They were both startled by the quiet grating sound of a mechanical door opening. They spun to see a figure step out of the scratched and scarred doorway the monsters had been attacking. It was a woman clad in a similar suit to Yorke's. She had no helmet, though. Her long brown hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Yorke, you came." She said smiling.
"Don't I always?" he smirked. "This is David Redfield, the Comm tech you were expecting. Dave, this is Doctor Helen Belfast." David shook her gloved hand and she smiled shyly.
"What happened here?" he asked them.
"We're not really sure," Helen began, " Yorke and I were out on an EVA (space walk) but after a while we stopped getting feed back from control. So we came back in and the whole place was over run. We haven't found any one alive except you but you weren't here when what ever it was struck."
"Our atmospheric scanners detected trace elements of some kind of virus but it seems to have dissipated now." The computer logs say that a huge release started in one of the cargo holds and spread from there."
David furrowed his brow trying to remember the name of the virus from his parent's stories. "T-virus."
"What?" Helen exclaimed.
"The T-virus. My parents told me about times when they used to fight this big company called Umbrella."
"The pharmaceuticals company?" Helen asked.
"Yeah, they told me that years ago Umbrella were working on a bio-weapons program in the form of a virus. It would mutate living tissue changing animals into monsters and humans into mindless zombies."
"Some bedtime story." Yorke commented.
"I thought that was all they were, stories. But it seems that their true. I think that the T-virus has found it's way here."
They all looked at each other in silence. How was it possible? Why? Questions raced through all their minds, but Yorke was the only one to voice one of his:
"What does the 'T' stand for?"
"'Tyrant'…"
RRRRRROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
The whole place seemed to shake with the force of the ungodly scream. It was so loud they couldn't tell if it was down the hall of on the other side of the Station.
"My God. We have to get out of here." Helen squeaked.