He doesn’t. He hits the floor and starts wailing. I shoot a look back, watching as the team’s starting to wake up. They’re sluggish for just a moment. Then, they see the men. Instantly everyone’s off their beds or off the ground, grabbing at their weapons. The entire room’s starting to surge red, and more and more of those shadow figures are lining up along the walls. Above me I feel a dripping as liquid streams from the rooftop. Nobody has to tell me what it is as I glance up and watch the Creep forcing its way through the cracks and seams of the ceiling, breaking off pieces and chunks of the roof and tossing them to the ground.
“Mike, you jackass,” I shout, grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him to his feet. We don’t have time to argue this, so I cock back my arm and put a solid right cross across his jaw. He slams back against the wall, but it’s enough to wake him up. He looks around, and as if for the first time, he sees what’s happening.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he mumbles.
“Hell yeah, we do,” I agree, hauling him hard by the shoulder. We dash into the center of the room just as the wall behind us collapses, a surge of flesh and muscle covering the space we’d been standing in just moments before. It hits with such impact that it slams through the floor, splintering the ground beneath us. “Everyone out!” I scream. “We’re not going through this again!”
Everyone is moving almost in slow motion. Their bodies are catapulting toward the doorway, legs propelling them past the line of beds, when I see something I’ve never seen in my life. The shadow men. They step away from the walls, reaching out for us as we dash away, their hands passing inches from our shoulders. For a long moment, my eyes blaze alive as I see one reaching out toward me, a dead whisper I can’t understand filling my ears. A cold chill arcs through my body and I stumble as one of their fingers brushes my skin, my breath sucked out from my lungs for a moment. Then, as soon as I’ve moved past its grasp, it’s like the whole world shifts gear into full speed again. Then I’m moving with everyone as we stream into the halls and into a full sprint, even as the thunderous noise of the splintering doorframe fills the air behind us. I glance back to see flesh-covered muscle surging out of the doorway, breaking the frame wide open as it floods into the hall. This is it. This is what we knew we’d be risking. A full-on Category 2 Creep Incident.
It’s alive, it’s angry, and it’s not stopping. It grows so fast that it’s filling up the hall from floor to ceiling, tumbling and surging over itself in a wave of disgusting biomass. We hit the corner and peel off to the right. Still, that wave is right behind us, building and growing in waves that surge over themselves. It’s screeching and wailing, almost like it’s crying, and I can feel the shiver in my bones as its scream reverberates in my bones. One thing I know, though, is that we’re not getting away. Even as we streak toward the far end of the hall, I toss a look over my shoulder and see it flying at us, gaining ground with every second.
I don’t say a word to anyone when I stop. I just let them keep running. Then, I haul the chunk of plastic explosives I’ve been carrying with me out and slam it to the floor. Quickly glancing up I can see the wave of that pink and splotchy tissue as it rushes forward, seconds from consuming us. I jam the timer into the explosives, hit the trigger, and then run the few steps away that I can.
When the explosion goes off, it packs so much force that I don’t even feel the pain. I just see black, and then I’m out.
That brings me to now.
So, here I am, in the darkness. Nothing around me but charred Creep. I can feel it, the mix of ash and muscle. I must have blown a hole clear through the floor. Well, at least my plan worked. I knew the only way to save the team was to divert the infestation.
Though honestly, I expected to be dead. I’m not. Instead, I’m just… trapped. My legs are pinned beneath something… not enough to crush me… but too heavy to get out from.
But I’m… okay. This is it, but I’m okay with going out this way. I’ve got no regrets about what I did. I saved the team. That was my responsibility. After all, I’m their commander. Vicious Vick.
Hah. What a kick. I’ll always remember that kid’s face.
Anyway, I can tell by the red light that’s blinking on the side of my recorder that it’s about to die.
It’s kind of sad. I guess nobody’s going to hear this after all. So, what was the point of recording any of it?
But you know… I’ve changed my mind a bit about that. Deathbed confession, I suppose. Because even if nobody ever hears this, I’ll still have existed.
Because my friends will remember me.
Maybe the team will sit around one day, telling some heroic stories about how I saved them. Maybe they’ll just tell tales about their commander, the best dang poker player in the Scavengers. Or maybe they’ll just say I was a good friend.
Yeah. That’d be nice.
Whoa. I feel a little light-headed. I think I’m hallucinating, because I could swear I hear voices calling my name.
Maybe they’re calling me home.
THE BATTER’S STORY
Recording Thirty-Eight
My name is Jackie, and damn, does it feel good to be alive.
Sidenote? Everything is going to hell.
I guess I should, like, at least start from when all this happened.
Well, first of all, they left me overnight. Maybe they were just trying to grill me and get my anxiety up. I don’t know. All I know is that they left me sitting in my cell until I passed out on the floor.
It sucked. Try imagining sleeping on a block of ice. Yeah.
When Security does come for me, they don’t even bother being polite. Instead, they yank me off the ground like a toothpick and toss me out the door. These guys are lining the outside like I’m a violent convict, and they’re not playing around. I get that they’re not supposed to exactly treat me nicely, since I’m a prisoner and all, but dang. Doesn’t mean they have to rough me up the way they do. I’m on my way to get a shot to the brain, so the least these jerks can do is treat me like a lady.
Which is apparently too hard to ask. Whatevs.
Anyway, so, we get to the room. I recognize it because this is where I saw that prisoner get his injection. This time, though, I actually get a chance to see the whole lab. I mean, nobody’s there, but I do get to see lots of tubes filled with pulsing growths. Obviously Creep.
I don’t have a lot of time to think about this, since my “escorts” take about a minute to get me locked in. Wrists, ankles. I don’t care that they’re strapping me into the chair so much except that they put that strap around my mouth. God. It puts a chill in my spine. I can’t talk, which is like my number one quality, and pretty soon I won’t even be able to think for myself. It’s like an entire life of questioning everything around me has led to this.
Which, like I’ve said, curiosity really does kill the cat.
Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that they don’t cover my eyes, because the last thing I’d like to see before they mess with my head is the sight of some jerk injecting me full of Creep gunk. Speaking of which, it takes about five seconds before the doctor follows behind Security. They’ve literally just finished taping down my mouth when he gets here. Want to know the worst part? Dude’s acting like it’s just another day at the office. Okay, whatever, man, just get over here and finish the job.