Upon leaving Alamogordo, we headed through the forest surrounding the Benson Ridge Weapons Facility. For safety reasons, Uncle Pyro wasn't allowed to set the trees on fire, leaving Uncle Demo and Uncle Soldier to hack at the worst bits with their swords – the former's whispering "heads", and the latter's being honour-bound, which may have not been the best choice for a mêlée weapon.
We progressed at a slower pace through the forest. At about one o'clock, we stopped to allow Uncle Demo and Uncle Soldier to have a rest, and as a lunchbreak. After about half an hour, maybe forty minutes, we stared moving again.
As I was walking next to him, I asked dad a question.
"I don't know why Uncle Sniper was hunting around here, dad. I mean, the undergrowth is quite thick in some places. Do you know why?"
"Not really, Aine. He was doing strange things before your mother and I were married."
"Such as?"
"He collected his own urine for 'future use'. But things got worse about a fortnight before I married your mother."
I was about to ask why, but Uncle Demo interrupted.
"Turlough! Do you have yer Uilleann Pipes? We could do with some music."
Dad scavenged around around in his backpack, and pulled them out from the bottom. He started plating Whiskey in the Jar, despite the fact that the noise would attract any zombies within earshot. Uncle Soldier and Uncle Demo started hacking with their swords in rhythm, and Uncle Pyro started whistling.
At around three o'clock, we entered a clearing, with the rather large Aperture Science Benson Ridge Weapons Facility the centre. The place looked like a ruin. Upon Uncle Engineer finding a half collapsed doorway, we entered.
What once was white and clean was dark and dirty, with blood covering most surfaces. Similar to when we arrived Alamogordo, I was almost sick. Uncle Pyro sterilised the place with fire, dad following the arsonist with his ammo bag. Uncle Engineer set up a sentry, a dispenser and a teleporter exit, and upgraded them, with the hope that this might serve as a fall-back position. The red beams of the dispenser engulfed all of us, healing and replenishing ammunition and metal.
After about five minutes, we continued deeper into the weapons facility. Going down the corridor, there were rooms on either side, with abandoned weapons on workbenches, some covered in blood.
Going down into what would have been a subterranean level, we passed what would have once been something like a vault door. It had been battered to pieces from the inside.
Here, a horrible stench of rotting flesh started confronting our noses, and there was more blood around. But still, the rooms at the sides of the corridor had workbenches and abandoned weapons, and no sign of where the biological weapon had been created.
On the floor below that, the blood and the smell grew worse. Along with the other two floors, the rooms on either side of the corridor had workbenches and weapons in them. But something on that floor set it out from the other two. On the wall, someone had scrawled "OUR OWN RAVENHOLM".
I asked dad about this, and he said that a town near Black Mesa East called Ravenholm that had been taken over by zombies. The only living resident was the priest, Father Grigori, who, I am assured, was quite, quite mad.
About five floors below ground level, we came upon science laboratories. We began searching these, but the stench was so unbearable that it was becoming hard to focus. In one of the rooms, which Uncle Soldier had to kick the locked door down, were the remains of several guards. They must have been there about a week. We raided their gas masks, and, after Uncle Pyro sterilised them, we donned them. Bartley and I took some of their automatic rifles.
Eventually, Uncle Engineer found a barely functioning computer, with the daily log of a scientist working on what they described as being "the greatest weapon imaginable".
All of us must have been stupid, as we should have seen what was coming next, but none of us did. It came a complete surprise to Bartley when a zombie started assaulting him.
A/N Take a wild guess as to what happens next. Please rate and review.