Nightshift 33: Kitchen
[from here]
The first and only time he’d come to the kitchen, it’d been his first night, and it had started with chocolate cake, too. And ended with fighting off lizards, meeting Sasuke, and being inflicted with Alucard. There weren’t any good memories of this place (if that could seriously be said of any part of the building ( Read more... )
The first and only time he’d come to the kitchen, it’d been his first night, and it had started with chocolate cake, too. And ended with fighting off lizards, meeting Sasuke, and being inflicted with Alucard. There weren’t any good memories of this place (if that could seriously be said of any part of the building ( Read more... )
The reek of blood hit Thursday even before she entered the kitchen. Reeling instinctively, she almost shut the door again, but she grit her teeth and forced her feet to move forward, trying to ignore the only-too-familiar liquid spilled in decidedly unhealthy quantities on the floor.
No sudden movements. No noise. Have to focus. Focus, Thursday!
Oh, God - there was a patient lying over there - was he still alive? Was he the source of all this blood? Oh, God. This was bad. This was bad. What the hell were they doing here? Was it worth checking to see if he was past saving? (It probably wasn't worth it.) Keep moving, Thursday.
She risked a glance backward at Archer and Hokuto. They weren't kidding about this killing machine thing, were they.
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A few steps into the room, and she saw the Alien's victim; her heart ached, for a number of reasons. The body was a little too small to be an adult, too... a few more steps, and she saw his face. She should have known better than to look, there was nothing she could do for him, but she did anyway.
It was Hisoka.
Hokuto's chest tightened even before she saw the jagged, bloody hole in his forehead. His body had relaxed somewhat in death, but she was sure he looked scared. And looking at how badly his body had been torn apart...
She would not scream, she couldn't, the thing that had done this to him was ( ... )
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Following at the rear, he saw Hokuto pause and could guess what she saw, a corpse. It wasn't that shocking. After all, people died everyday, especially in this place. However, he was a little surprised at the victim's identity.
Hisoka...He hadn't really known his fellow patient that well, but Hisoka had helped him when he first arrived, answering Archer's questions about the Institute. Even so, he wasn't particularly moved by his death since they weren't exactly close ( ... )
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The alien had been curled into a near ball, hidden against the ceiling. amongst the pots and pans that dangled from their holding places.
Three, one further away, two had stopped to look at its meal.
Gracefully, it moved out of the wall of metal: it had learned now not to hit against them. Claws tensed, and released, as it crawled along the ceiling, bringing it over to the intruders.
The xenomorph dropped down silently behind Hokuto and Archer.
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"Let's go," she murmured quietly, after a few seconds. "It's not too far to..."
Her voice trailed off as her eye caught movement behind her team. Oh, shit.
"Behind you," she said suddenly, sharply. GSD, why now?
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She looked at Archer; she was still trembling a little, and some of it was adrenaline. Do we run? She meant to ask it out loud, but she was so tense she didn't think she could speak. She had to hold herself together, hold everything in, just until they got out of here.
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As he started running, Archer was torn between two choices. On one hand, people who looked back, in movies, traditionally got caught, but as a battle-hardened warrior, he had learned a valuable lesson, never look away from your enemy. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the ugly bastard in all its glory, towering over them, looking exactly like a scene from the movie.
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It didn't run after the intruders this time. Instead, it tore over the floor, and onto the closest wall, running on all fours, tail sailing behind it like some kind of deranged cat.
Their species were fast learners. It was part of their race's perfection, the ability to adapt. It was mirrored by their very makeup, how the exoskeleton shed microlayers to adapt to the enviroment.
This time, the xenomorph had caught on.
It was running on the walls, claws sending up pieces of it... it was running right towards the fridge door, to cut them off.
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Still, she couldn't think of anything to do besides run. She had a feeling her baseball bat would be little to no use against that thing. Yanking a pen out of her waistband, she flung the object in the general direction of its intended path, knowing quite well that it would probably have no effect whatsoever.
GSD, what she wouldn't give for an eraserhead and her old Browning right now.
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She had her shovel out, but the last thing she wanted was to get into that thing's range; it was less than instinctual, but she pulled herself together enough to throw the strongest shield spell she could between the Alien and them. It was so unlikely to do any good, her shields were never anything like impressive, but she was panicked and desperate and maybe that would strengthen it just enough. If nothing else, running headlong into an invisible barrier that wasn't supposed to be there just might confuse the thing.
Dear gods, please...
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Hokuto's barrier, however, was something else entirely
The thing wasn't enough to stop the alien's run entirely, but it did slow it down. Too late, there was the sensation, some obstruction right in front of it, but there wasn't any time to stop. There was a moment, as if the xenomorph had come up against a web, and hard.
The barrier shattered. The alien lost its grip on the wall, and half-fell, half-slid to a clumsy landing a few feet from the fridge door. It was shaking its head from side to side, tail lashing, clearly disoriented from the spell.
Snarling, it swiped at its face, as if trying to remove invisible fragments from it.
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"Go! Go!"
She'd follow them as soon as they were in...and maybe, just maybe, the creature wouldn't think to follow them as well.
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That wouldn't last long, though--definitely not long enough to let her and Archer run past it. Still fueled by sheer desperation, she threw another shield at it, this time trying to trap it in place. It wouldn't actually hold the alien at all, but it should be too confused to act for at least another few seconds, which should be all they needed to run past it. She hoped.
I know it won't work more than a few times... once it catches on that the shield isn't hurting it, then what?
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Immediately, Archer drew his sword and flashlight in each hand, ready to distract it. He didn't really think that fighting was a good decision, but with the Alien so close to the exit, there wasn't much choice. His blade was ready, and he took on a loose stance, ready to bolt. When his flashlight illuminated the creature's face, he felt a little repulsed by its appearance. Man, it was ugly looking.
If only there was some way to distract it... Damn, I can't remember anything significant from the movies... Isn't there anything we can do, aside from fighting it?`
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Not this time.
The alien had time to sense this shield coming, this strange disturbance in the air that it couldn't taste or quite see. Hissing, it moved out of the way, the motion fluid.
The alien's leg bunched, right before it leapt for them both.
Its tail flashed, stabbing at the one with the sword.
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