Chapter 11: Fateful Encounter
The tunnel was narrow, too narrow to walk any way but single file and all three of the women in the group breathed a sigh of relief when they exited into what remained of some sort of medical lab. Papers and shattered glass lay strewn about the room and what appeared to be a holding cell on one side of the room was ajar, its door having been torn off of its hinges. There were dark smears on the floor and bloody handprints on the door where they had originated. Seras pulled off her mask and began to unfasten the bodysuit, "Well, this is certainly a mess. Guess they won't mind if we add to it."
Aya and Tamsen quickly followed suit, grateful to be out of the bulky suits and able to move normally once again. The three spent a few minutes in the lab readying their weapons and checking to see if there was a map of the facility in the room somewhere; unfortunately, there was not. Seras walked over to the door and tried the controls and, after a minute of unsuccessfully attempting to get the pad to power on, attempted to kick the two inch thick, steel door off of its hinges. The door however did not yield, and instead tore itself and its housing out of the wall, slamming deafeningly into the wall on the other side of the corridor.
Aya looked up from the pile of documents she'd been examining, "So I gather you weren't planning on using surprise to our advantage here?"
Seras looked sheepish, "Um, yeah. Sorry about that." She turned to take a glance at what Aya was up to, "Find anything interesting in there?"
"No, nothing too spectacular, mostly just data on gene sequencing techniques and theories. Some financial information, but all the names are almost certainly aliases, so it probably won't be of any real help to us at all." She started to rifle through the drawers of the desk she'd gotten the papers from, then suddenly looked up and grinned, "Hey, do either of you have a .357 on you? I found some anti-NMC magnum rounds in here."
Both other women considered for a moment, "Nope, I don't think either of us do. Let's take those along in one of the packs though in case we manage to find something to shoot them lying around somewhere down here." Responded Tamsen, "I don't think there's much else left to see in here, all the medical equipment has either been removed or destroyed, and these notes won't be of any help to us."
"Alright, lets get moving then," said Seras as she led the group out the hole in the wall she'd made. She looked up and down the hall in both directions for a moment, "Both directions look pretty much identical. Anyone have any preferences?" Both of the others shook their heads slightly. "Alright, lets go left then I guess," she said as she started down the hall. The lights were flickering, making it difficult to see, and there were what looked like dead bodies strewn about. The walls were dented and deformed in places, and caked with dried blood.
"I think these people need to fire their decorator," mumbled Aya, drawing a short laugh from Tamsen and Seras. Motioning the others to stop for a moment, she leaned down to examine one of the human bodies lying strewn on the floor. "Looks like this poor bastard's been dead for quite a while. Totally cold, and it seems that he's starting to mummify, he looks fairly desiccated."
Seras quickly moved to her side and bent down to examine the body more closely. She adjusted the positioning to look at the neck and arms and swore. "It looks like whatever killed him drained his blood." She started working on changing the clip in her gun back to the blessed silver rounds she usually used. "It looks like both of our genetic nightmares are meeting up in here." She tossed each of the other women a magazine of 9mm silver rounds. "Until we know if we're dealing with vampires here, I'd recommend you load your pistols with these. They're blessed silver so they'll be effective against any undead we might run up against. Though this guy hasn't turned into a ghoul yet, so I really hope it's just some other creature that likes to drink blood."
Tamsen shuddered, "Yeah, me too. Now let's get a move on before whatever the hell it was comes back."
"She's right," said Aya. "Besides, we're not accomplishing anything but making ourselves targets just standing here. I'll take point for now," she said, shouldering her M4A1 and continuing down the hall, stepping over bodies as she went and eventually coming to a halt in front of a large, reinforced door at the end of the corridor. "Get ready for trouble, I can sense something on the other side of the door, and either it's really big, or there are a lot of them close together." She checked her weapon, and waited a moment while Seras drew her Seraphim and Tamsen swapped her pistol for her rifle and lit the pilot light on the under-slung flame thrower. "Ready ladies?" she asked before turning the wheel that served as a latch on the door.
The three women burst through the door, quickly fanning out and covering the room with their weapons. The large room they'd entered appeared at first to be completely vacant, there were what appeared to be piles of something arranged around the edges of the room, but apart from that, it seemed there was absolutely nothing else in the room except for themselves.
Calming down for a moment, Tamsen lowered her rifle and activated a switch on the wall next to where they'd come in. The room was immediately flooded with harsh white light, and after giving her eyes a moment to adjust, Aya suddenly recognized the piles. Suspended over a series of pits ringing the room were six tremendous cocoons, seemingly dormant for the time being. "Oh shit. We need to kill all of these before they're ready to hatch." She pulled off her pack and started going through it looking for something. "Do either of you have anything to pierce an inch and a half of chitin? We could probably use incendiary grenades to kill them inside of the cocoons if we can make a small hole somewhere in them."
"I think I should be able to get through with my gun, these rounds are armor-piercing and explosive. Do we have enough of the grenades?"
Tamsen nodded in response, "Aya and I each have three of them. They're thermite, so they should be able to kill whatever is in those things."
Nodding, Seras walked over to the nearest cocoon, took aim, and fired, making a half inch hole in the top of the cocoon. She fired three more times, to make sure the hole would be big enough to get one of the grenades through, then moved onto the next cocoon and started firing. Aya and Tamsen were wiring the grenades together so they could be detonated remotely and were almost ready when Seras returned, her face spattered with drops of a reddish brown liquid. "One of them sprayed me," she complained as she wiped the goo from her face. "How are things going on your end?"
"We just finished actually. Let's get these things planted and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps," said Tamsen.
It took the three of them about two minutes to plant all of the charges and run the wires from them to a controller which they brought out into the hallway with them before closing the door most of the way. Tamsen grinned, "Looks like we're all set. Anyone else want to do the honors?" She asked, gesturing at the small red button she held in her hand. When neither of the other women responded, she shrugged and pressed the button. There was a low rumble, followed by a loud hissing and popping noise from within the room. The three waited until the noise had stopped before walking back into the room.
The floor around the cocoons was coated in scorched liquid, and the tops of five of the cocoons had melted and fallen in, leaving no doubt that the previous occupant had died. One of the cocoons however still looked completely in tact. Walking over to the remaining cocoon, Tamsen put her hand against the shell. "It's cold. The grenade must've been a dud. Looks like the hole we shoved it through healed over already too." She started heading back to where the other two women were standing when she heard a soft thump come from the cocoon behind her and turned around to see what it was.
A small orange glow suddenly appeared in the area around where the hole had been, and quickly grew. Before she could realize what had just transpired, the cocoon swelled and exploded, the fragments scourging Seras and Aya, half a room away. Out of the small inferno fell something that looked and sounded like a very large, very deformed human baby. It started to try to push itself up, wailing like a thing possessed, but was suddenly silenced as Seras put three rounds right between its eyes. The monstrosity fell forward and continued to burn for a moment before starting to dissolve.
Seras continued to cover the creature until she heard a cry from behind her. "Oh my God! Tamsen!" Aya was crying as she sprinted past Seras to the wall where Tamsen was suspended, impaled by a four foot long spike of shell. Forgetting the quickly dissolving creature in front of her, Seras dropped her gun and ran over to the wall.
Tamsen was conscious, and was attempting to say something neither of the other two could understand. Aya was kneeling at her feet in a rapidly growing pool of blood, "I…I can only heal myself. I'm….I'm so sorry Tamsen. I said I would protect you, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Seras quickly pulled the spike of shell from Tamsen's chest and eased her to sit back against the wall. Aya quickly moved to support her and cradled her head in her lap. Seras tossed aside the chunk of shell she was holding and leaned down, looking into Tamsen's eyes. "Tamsen, can you understand me?" Receiving a barely noticeable nod in return, she continued, "Tamsen," she hesitated for a moment, and sighed, "Are you a virgin?" Receiving another small nod she closed her eyes for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to come with me? Will you come with me into the night?"
Half way across the world, Eve suddenly sat up in bed and cried out, rousing Jodie who had been asleep next to her.
He people, sorry I was so late updating again. I'll try to have the next chapter up sooner.