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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5198538" data-attributes="member: 143">Session 22 (September 22, 2008)Chapter 90“What the hell was that thing?” Jane asked, as they made their way quickly down another city street strewn with wreckage.  Most of the damage here had been wrought by panicked residents rather than the aliens, with an SUV piled up onto the back of a smashed Honda, opposite a broken hydrant that sent a constant plume of water up into the air.  “We not seen anything like this before,” Vasily said, leading them again as they hurried to their next destination.  Ken had reported that the Americans were quickly cordoning off the areas of the city where the alien pods had struck, and that police and military units had already neutralized several groups of snakemen after suffering heavy losses.  Shortly after their confrontation with the infected man and the strange monster that had inhabited its body, the pilot had forwarded an intercepted signal about an alien sighting in the parking garage of a nearby mall that was just four blocks from their position.  “You okay, Cat?” James asked again, as they crossed another deserted intersection and saw the glitzy exterior of the mall another block ahead.  “Yeah, luckily that thing didn’t get a good grip on me,” she said.  “Just a few scratches.”  But she blinked and leaned against a wall as they came to the end of the block, feeling a bit dizzy.  The mall was all but empty, with just deserted cars scattered about the street.  They could see the entrance to the parking garage, which extended under the structure; there was a police car in front of it, its lights flashing.  The policeman looked to be barely out of college, and his expression on seeing them was a mixture of confusion and relief.  “What situation?” Vasily asked.“You guys military?  Man, I’m glad to see you.  I got a report that there was something here, I thought I saw it, went down into the garage.  What the hell… aliens, man!”“Snakeman?” Jane asked. “Man, I’m not sure what it was.  You guys going in there?”The Alphas exchanged a quick look.  “Yeah, we going in there,” Vasily said. The parking garage was dark, with all but the emergency lights deactivated, leaving the entire area cloaked in deep shadows.  Most of the shoppers apparently hadn’t had a chance to get down here to recover their cars during the evacuation; rows and rows of vehicles filled the place in orderly ranks.  The booths where people paid their parking fees upon exiting were empty.    Jane and Vasily turned on the LED lights mounted on their powered armor, the bright beams driving deep into the darkness. “Catalina?” Vasily asked.  “Catalina?”“Oh?  Sorry.  Yeah, I’m getting something… moving… fast…”They heard a skittering noise, and something flashed across their view to the right.  When they turned that way, however, all they saw was another row of cars. “I don’t like this,” Mary said.  Vasily unlimbered his stun rod.  “I want to try stun, if this new alien,” he said. They made their way deeper into the garage, slowing as they entered the radius of one of the emergency lights, moving faster in the darkened spaces in between.  “Catalina…”“I… I’m not sure.  It’s here…”“Where the hell are you?” Vasily muttered.  He didn’t see the dark form that crept between two SUVs to his right.  As he turned away, it rose up out from the shadows, looming over him, a massive thing of claws and angles and dark slickness that oozed along its armored body.  Mary, turning back toward him, saw it, and screamed.  Vasily spun around, but the creature seized him in its claws, and flung him across the garage.  He hit a concrete pylon six feet off the ground, hard enough to crack the material, then fell hard onto a sedan, crushing its roof under his weight. The alien let out a deafening screech, and surged into the ranks of the other Alphas, tearing and sweeping.</blockquote>

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