Chapter Four The Cannibal Killers

            Chris shut the blue double doors behind him and simply leaned against them for a while, trying to control his rage. People were dead, and the Bravos were missing, and as it had happened Chris had sworn up and down this mansion was something that needed to by personally checked out by the S.T.A.R.S. No one had listened, and now his friends and teammates were suffering just as the citizens of Raccoon had; if only someone had listened to him!

            He swallowed, then breathed deeply, forcing the anger down. Chris had a job to do, and that meant investigating this place and finding the source of that gunshot. And the Bravos.

            Chris gazed around the room in disgust as he noted how well it had been kept up. It was a dining room, overlooked by a second-floor balcony, the long table set for maybe twelve people. A large fireplace beneath a coat-of-arms was at the far end, shrouded in shadows by large, circular columns. The room was filled with the echoing sound of a ticking grandfather clock, and the only other door was just past it. Chris started forward, but then something on the table caught his eye.

            Dust. Maybe a month's worth or so, coating everything: the clock, the table, even the table's plates and utensils and candelabras, as though one day everyone had been ready to sit down to dinner and then just disappeared.

            Uneasily, Chris started for the door, a sense of nervousness replacing the intense fury inside him. It felt like he was in some haunted house or something, the only beings within ghosts ready to drink his blood...

            "Like the cannibal killers," Chris said thoughtfully. "A month's worth of dust... when the murders started."

            He froze suddenly, listening. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he'd heard a moan, or something like it, but that stupid clock was covering the noise...

            Chris checked to be sure his gun was fully loaded, un-holstering it. Grimly he moved towards the door past the clock, which stood about an inch open.

            He paused in the dimly-lit hallway, listening. There were two doors on the opposite wall, and a larger one at the end of the corridor. To his left was an alcove, hidden from his view. Keeping his eye on it, he moved towards the closest door, which was open like the first. He assumed whatever had made the sound had gone through the door, and stepped inside the green-wallpapered hall on the other side.

            The clock could still be heard, so Chris shut the door behind him to block out the irritating noise. He started slowly down the passage, gun ready.

            Just ahead and to the right was a small turn, and Chris saw something moving in the shadows. He smiled in relief as he realized it was a person.

            "Hello?" he called loudly, praying it was one of the Bravos.

            As the man began to turn, a foul stench met his nostrils, something familiar and disquieting. It took him a second to place the smell. It was like rotted fruit and dead skunks, mingling horribly together, making Chris involuntarily wrinkle his nose as he remembered where he'd smelled it before: when his unit in the Air Force had been overseas, and had made a forced landing in a country experiencing civil war. They'd reached a village... and discovered that the small settlement had been ravaged, dead bodies littering the streets, the decaying bodies of men, women and children alike baking in the hot sun. Chris had never been able to forget the smell any more than he could forget the death and destruction.

            As the fetid stink nearly overpowered him, the man stumbled out into the light. Chris stared at him in shock and horror.

            The man's skin was rotted, parts of it actually green with mold, small chunks falling off as he raised his arms and weaved unsteadily forward, as though drunk. Splotches of blood were all over his tattered clothing and cracked skin. His left ear was a bloody stump, and one of his fingers was missing entirely. His eyes were milky-white with cataracts.

            As Chris gaped at him, the man—no, creature—moaned eagerly, reaching for Chris. Chris shook off the spell of disgusted terror and raised the Beretta, shouting, "Freeze!"

            The creature didn't seem to hear him. "FREEZE!" Chris repeated, his voice hoarse. When the monstrous being was only a few yards away, Chris fired.

            The shot struck the guy full in the chest, rocking him back a little. Still it kept coming, and Chris fired again, and again, the next two shots creating the same bloody, ragged holes in its chest, but not stopping it in the slightest.

            The creature was only five feet away now, and Chris aimed higher, for the brain. A gaping hole appeared in its forehead, and it finally went down. Revolted, horror-struck, Chris circled the fallen corpse, pointing the gun at its prone form.

            It was dead.

            He sank against another door, fighting the urge to throw up. Unable to stop staring at the thing on the floor at his feet, Chris saw that blood, dried and congealed, was caked around its mouth. "I'll be damned," he whispered. "One of the cannibals."

            Grimacing, he kicked the body with his foot, turning it over, not wanting to see its bloody lips and gums. The whole scene reminded him of a horror flick with zombies.

            He turned away, rattling the doorknob behind him. Locked. Chris bent down, examining a carving of a sword etched by the keyhole...

            ... and then something grabbed his ankle.

            With a yelp, Chris went sprawling to the floor in front of the monster he killed, his Beretta flying clear to the other end of the hall. Spinning around, he saw the corpse, still alive, pulling Chris's boot to its mouth, jaws open like a little kid trying to prepare for a huge bite of cereal.

            "NO!"

            Chris kicked at it with his other foot, knocking away its surprisingly strong grip and a couple more fingers in the process. Scrambling to his feet, he backed away, watching in horror as it pulled its body towards him fervently.

            Turning, he ran for his gun, scooping it up and spinning back around to aim.

            "Unh."

            The groan to his left was accompanied by a shuffling sound, and he swung his arm to bring his gun to bear on the new threat. Sure enough, two more of the creatures were turning towards him, arms stretched blindly in front of them.
            Crap, no, Chris thought wildly. First didn't die after four shots, that's at least twelve for these two, maybe more, don't have the ammo...

            Door!

            He grasped at the door handle next to him, relieved to find it unlocked. He half-jumped, half-fell through the entryway, barely catching himself before he hit the floor. He kicked the door shut hurriedly, gulping huge breaths of air into his lungs with relief.

            Until he saw another decaying being at the bend in the hall in front of him.