Whoever had made this had seemingly put more effort into the body than the rest of the level design. Maybe the gore detail was supposed to be a selling feature. Some people would buy a game like this just for that alone.
He wondered if Jenna would be one of them.
“Sweet Jesus,” Rogers muttered.
“This doesn’t look like an accident,” Smith said, leaning closer to the carnage.
You don’t say, Lewis thought.
“What kind of person would do this?” Rogers said, to which Lewis rolled his eyes. Christ, why were people in horror fiction always so slow to realize that monsters were running around?
Smith started to back up. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”
He had just made it to the door frame when suddenly a bald figure appeared behind him. They wore a similar flight suit as the dead man, but their skin was ghastly pale and covered in glowing blue veins. The eyes were black as coal with tiny red pupils. The teeth were pointed and razor-sharp. Like the corpse, this model was rendered with a higher level of detail. It seemed to stand out from the rest of the objects in the game, as if its horrific image were meant to be uncannily real.
Time seemed to slow down as the thing took hold of Smith and sunk its teeth into the side of his neck. Smith started screaming, his blood spewing everywhere. Lewis felt unable to move as he watched the creature’s claws dig through its victim’s abdomen and begin pulling out a tangle of innards. In fact, he realized his character was actually incapable of motion by design. He jerked the Touch controllers, nudged the analog sticks, but nothing happened. Even turning his head had a delayed reaction, everything happening in slow-mo.
They wanted him to watch.
It was awful. Smith was now on his knees, his own intestines mixing with that of the corpse’s on the floor. The monster pulled upward on the helmet, one bare and sharp-toed, glowing-veined foot planted on the helpless man’s shoulder. Its claws were stuck fast into Smith’s neck. He could hear the man choking on his own blood.
Why aren’t we shooting? Lewis briefly thought.
This whole scene had just been a few seconds, but already it felt like a surreal eternity.
Then the zombie-thing tore the head off and a geyser of blood erupted into the room. Things started happening faster, much faster now. Rogers was running past him, screaming, “Go, go, go!” and Lewis turned to follow as the horrible creature screeched after them. A second door opened at the other side of the conference room and a moment later, both of them were sprinting down another darkened corridor.
A noise came from behind them, sounding like a banshee. It drew closer and closer even as they ran. Closer and louder and–
No.
Lewis pressed the Start button. The game paused, a series of options floating before him as the rest of the world froze and blurred. He took a deep breath in and then exhaled, placing the Touch controllers back on the desk. The Rift headset joined them a moment letter and Lewis found himself alone in pitch blackness.
As a chill shot down his spine, he felt around for the desk lamp and cursed under his breath until he found it. The bright white LED light flashed on and nearly blinded his eyes, but he adjusted it away from him, blinking several times.
Lewis had played violent games before, but something about this one troubled him. It was the focus, he realized. The gore was the star of the show. But not just any gore. It was unnerving, gratuitous violence that somehow got under his skin unlike anything he’d ever seen or played.
He glanced at a digital clock sitting on the desk. It was nearly two in the morning. That probably wasn’t helping either. Shit, why had he let Jenna talk him into this at such a late hour? He had to get to work in the morning. Rubbing his forehead, Lewis got up, turned off the lamp, and stumbled his way to her bedroom. Sleep was all he needed now.
The forest was dark. The only sounds came from the chirping of crickets and a soft breeze that rustled through the treetops.
Lewis walked forward, careful not to trip on the uneven ground as he reached the side of the road. Here there was light, or at least more of it. Several lampposts lined this lonely stretch of asphalt that snaked off deeper into the wilderness.
The scene was unsettlingly calm, and as he turned to the left, he saw why. A late 90s Ford Explorer lay upside-down in the middle of the road, badly battered and windows smashed. About twenty feet from the vehicle was a black woman and her child, huddled on the shoulder of the lane.
Lewis cautiously ventured closer. “Excuse me? Are you hurt?”
The woman paid him no attention. She was holding the boy very tightly. He kept looking back at the car, but she pointed to the heavens and directed his attention upward. “Look,” she said, “look up there.”
The boy did so and Lewis followed their gazes. Far beyond the treetops was a twinkling sky, serene and instantly calming in its majesty. He felt his shoulders loosen up and inhaled a breath of fresh air. Much better.
“Everything’s gonna be alright,” the woman said. “Everything’s gonna be alright…”
She kept saying it over and over again and Lewis looked back down at them. Both mother and son refused to take their eyes off the stars. Tears poured down her cheeks, but she never looked anywhere but up, repeating the same words as if saying them many times would make them come true.
“Everything’s gonna be alright.”
Lewis looked ahead, down the road, and immediately shielded his eyes. There was another vehicle that had spun off the road, its rear end pressed up against a tree as a single high beam shone out across the pavement. The other front light was smashed to smithereens along with that half of the car’s front. It was also an SUV, an old red Chevy Trailblazer.
As he watched, the driver’s side door swung open and a figure climbed out. Lewis immediately felt the pressure returning, the strain on his shoulders, the goosebumps on his skin.
It wasn’t a man, at least he didn’t think so. It looked like an astronaut, but the suit appeared way more sleek and advanced than what NASA had today. It was white, metallic, and covered in blood. Through the helmet’s glass there was not a human face, but an ethereal blue luminescence.
The otherworldly thing began stumbling toward them, picking up speed as it walked out onto the road. It gave off an aura of pure evil. Lewis could feel it in his bones. Then, in the same instant, he realized it wasn’t coming for him. It was after the woman and her son.
Lewis turned back to them and crouched down, trying to shake her arm. “Excuse me, ma’am – you need to get out of here.”
She wouldn’t listen and the boy didn’t seem to notice him, either. They were still stargazing and she kept muttering over and over, as if stuck in a loop, the same four words: “Everything’s gonna be alright, everything’s gonna be alright…”
Lewis looked back toward the advancing menace. He could hear its strange, inhuman breathing. The blue light from within its helmet cast a glow on the ground before it.
“Please, ma’am, you need to get away from here,” he said.
It’s going to kill you, it’s going to finish it. Leave. Leave now.
But he couldn’t even bring himself to speak the words. He stood up, backing away like a coward as the monster advanced. He didn’t want to look–
A hand roughly grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He found himself face to face with Jenna, wearing an evening dress. She stared past him with a blank expression, blood smeared all over her face and clothing.