NIGHT OF THE CATTLE MUTILATORS
Pt. 6
It was stunning how quickly the light disappeared. The huge production facilities of the plant were like concrete bunkers – they may as well have been miles underground.
After a brief series of corridors, the party found themselves at a huge set of double sliding doors. “Let’s try to be quiet about this,” Jo whispered.
Ross put his shoulder to the handle, slid the door back. It rolled smoothly enough – but soon the track beneath groaned, and the sound of a half-ton of steel rumbling on concrete THUNDERED through the expanse beyond. They actually heard the echo bounce for a few seconds. With a mixture of annoyance and resignation, they pointed their flashlights inside.
The reason for the echo was clear. The next room was cavernous, almost the size of an aircraft hangar. The roof was far higher than they could see. Their flashlight beams ghosted along distant roof struts. They advanced, constantly searching the darkness, guns and flashlights held in overlapping grips.
Andy stopped them suddenly. “Watch your step.”
A vast PIT the size of an Olympic swimming pool yawed out before them. It was a good thrirty feet deep to the bottom, and crossed the entire room, cutting them off from the far wall. Denis scanned the room with his flashlight – there was a slender metal catwalk extending across the gap, dead center.
“Any ideas?” Stephen whispered.
“They refined chromium hexachloride here, remember what the ranchers said.” Denis took the first tentative steps across the catwalk. “They told us, they’d store millions of gallons of the stuff in these tanks.” The rest of the Agents followed Denis’ lead, spacing themselves so their weight (DM’s NOTE: or some rat-bastard DM) wouldn’t collapse the walkway.
Three-quarters of the way across, Denis stopped. He pointed his flashlight straight up. “You hear that?” The other Agents paused. Denis voice echoed slightly in the room, but beyond that, there was a noise. A faint scratching sound high above.
“Off the catwalk,” Ross barked, “now.”
They reached the other side intact, only to find yet another set of metal sliding doors.. The scratching above them was definitely more pronounced. Someone – or something – was moving in the rafters. The Agents waited at the doors. The sound passed above them … and was gone.
“Just keep watching,” said Andy. He and Ross pulled open the next set of doors. Beyond was an identical empty refining pool. Keeping all angles covered, the Agents quickly sprinted across the catwalk and to the other side. Jo pointed her flashlight back and shuddered. The way in was already lost in dust and shadow.
Andy and Ross grabbed the handles to the next set of doors. “What happens if we just keep finding these empty rooms?”
“I’m all for empty rooms,” said Stephen. He and Jo pointed their guns and flashlights dead ahead, waiting as Andy and Ross slid open the doors –
-- only to be BLINDED momentarily by hanging ARCLIGHTS set around the room. At the same time, a smell of indescribable death, rot and filth SLAMMED into them.
Andy, Ross, Johanna and Stephen were facing forward, so they all saw the same thing. This refining hangar had been converted somehow. Lights and generators hummed. The place was too big to be properly lit, but bright pools of light through everything into high shadowy relief. The Agents were too far back from the pool to see what was inside.
Visible across the catwalk was not another set of doors, but a control room of some sort. It had one big window looking out over the refining pool, and behind that window high-tech computers and instruments glowed.
Also behind the window was a man in a white labcoat. He was plainly startled at the arrival of the Agents. Jo could just make out that he’d picked up some sort of small box and was pressing buttons on it.
Denis was facing the other way, covering their backs. That’s why he saw the mutated "Lizard-man" land behind them.
The creature dropped from the rafters, spinning rapidly them SLAMMING into the concrete on all fours. Before Denis could react, the powerful muscles on the Lizardman’s back bunched and it unfurled to its full seven foot height. It HISSED angrily, popping out razor-sharp claws on its “hands.”
The others were still turning around as Denis unloaded three shots from his nine-mil into the thing. The bullets glanced off the thing’s scales – it screamed and CHARGED. It locked Denis in a death-grip and DROVE him toward the pool’s edge.
Ross and Stephen were too spread out to do anything; they didn’t want to fire and risk hitting Denis. Jo grabbed the thing’s arm, found herself dragged along with it. She raised her gun to its neck and fired point-blank. The bullet LODGED in the Lizardman’s scales, hurting it but not wounding it.
Andy, meanwhile, had decided to go for the tactical wildcard. He SPRINTED across the catwalk toward the control room. He was there in seconds, KICKING in the door.
The Lizardman was smart enough to understand that guns hurt him. It focused on keeping Denis’ gun-hand away from its face, all the while SNAPPING at Denis’ throat with its powerful jaws. It was all Denis could do to keep alive. Stephen and Ross closed up enough to risk firing. Their shots THUDDED into the abomination’s scales, barely distracting it. Jo clung to the thing’s shoulder like a toddler grabbing an NFL receiver’s pads, pressed her pistol against it and unloaded three shots. The creature HOWLED in agony, but stayed focused on Denis.
Andy was through the control room door. The scientist within was a frail man in his 50’s. Before he could react, Andy drop-kicked him against his machinery. The scientist slumped to the floor, the electronic control box in his hand tumbling to the floor. Andy picked up the box: it had un-labeled buttons all over it, with one large red one in the center.
“What the hell,” he muttered to himself. And then he pressed the red button.
Across the room, the Lizardman ROARED as electric shocks suddenly lanced through it. Jo spotted some sort of control collar lodged around its throat as the creature convulsed. In agony the creature BOLTED for the edge of the refining pool, and dove in -- bringing Jo and Denis with him!
Stephen and Ross ran to the edge, expecting the sickening crunch of bodies hitting cement.
What they saw was much, much worse.
Jo, Denis and the Lizardman hit with a gooey SPLASH. Some … fluid filled the pool waist-high. It was dense enough to break their falls. In a second, the Agents above saw a ripple as the Lizardman swam off beneath the surface.
Jo and Denis broke the surface, gasping for air. The stench here was almost strong enough to knock them out. The slick concrete pool walls around them offered no handholds. Both of them were both soaked and coated with the filthy goo. It was everywhere, in their hair, on and in their clothing. Jo raised her hand, squinted at the slime on her fingers. Something was moving …
Maggots. The goo was chock-full of maggots, like a rice soup. The fluid itself was some horrible soup of maggots, oozing bodily fluids, meat so rotted it had gone liquid. They were at the bottom of an Olympic-sized swimming pool of corpse-soup.
Before they could even form the first screams of disgust, something moved near them. Jo and Denis stared as something – someone stood up near them. It turned, slowly, faced them. It was a man – or what was left of one, in shredded clothes, his muscle and skin hanging from him in long tatters. He turned toward the Agents in the pool and stretched his jaws wide. Sharp, tearing teeth filled his mouth as he groaned horribly.
Behind him, another zombie stood up. Then another. Then two more.
The Agents watched in horror as zombie after zombie rose silently from the soupy rot, completely surrounding them. Within seconds over forty of the undead beasts, with broken necks, missing limbs -- but all with gnashing jaws intact -- surrounded the Agents.
With a hungry moan, the zombie horde lurched forward ...
