Surface: Doomed Planet

Excerpt 16- Bitten

The Cafeteria was actually pretty busy, which, given the weather, wasn't all that surprising. The population was mostly guards and little kids with their parents, but there were some of Ryu's higher ranking official's there as well. They were congregating in the back, discussing the supply situation no doubt. The cafeteria was serving pizza and chicken soup MRE"s and quite frankly I was having a hard time deciding which one I wanted. I ended up just grabbing a piece of pizza and finding an empty table near the back of the room, soon finding myself joined by Chy.

"Hey Skyline", she said sitting down, "how did everything go?"

I shrugged, "as well as it could have I guess. I'd like to know what Mike and the others did to attract all those Zombies though. I suspect that whatever it was that was in those tunnels was holding some kind of telepathic control over them, given how strong the field around them is."

Chy looked at me funny, "'bout 7 feet tall? Looks like a human with mandible jaw and Chitin armor growths?"

"I'm going to put money on the idea you know exactly what I'm talking about", I said.

She nodded, "call them Volatiles, one on one, if you get the first hit in, either with a firearm or a blade, then they can't win. They bleed to death very, very quickly, however, if two or more of them catch you off guard, your pretty much done. They like to hunt alone, which makes them easy prey to anyone with a sniper rifle and a basic understanding of camouflage and how Xenomorph telekinesis works, but any amount of sound, hell even breathing, can tip them off. Their so unpredictable it's best to just avoid them."

"I'm starting to see how they got the name", I said.

"The thing is though, I only know of one nest, a couple miles from the lifeguard tower near the shores", Chy began, "the damn thing was cordoned off by Ryu when the outbreak began and the entire thing is one toxic spill, so they gotta be coming up for air somewhere."

"So they do breathe?", I asked.

She nodded, "couldn't you hear it?"

"Yeah I could, but I wasn't sure if it was actually trying to or not", I answered.

"I can't figure out where their coming up for air", Chy said, "If I had that info in hand, I could place a big ass chunk of C4 inside of that shaft, blow it open and let the sun do the rest."

"The sun?", I asked.

"Their skin doesn't like the sunlight", Chy said, "it blisters and falls off at a pretty disturbing pace, I've killed a few of them by holding them till daylight."

I looked outside, the rain was pouring harder than I'd ever seen rain come down, there were periodic flashes of super bright plasma bolts followed by window shaking thunder.

"Is there a possibility that they could wander out in this storm?", I asked.

"Not till the sun goes down", Chy said.

"You sure? Looks really dark to me", I told her.

"Positive", Chy said, "they can't take sunlight at all."

"What can't take sunlight?", Sarah asked walking up behind Chy with a small shoulder bag in her hands.

"When you'd get here?", Chy asked turning around.

"Just now", Sarah said sitting down beside her, "what can't take sunlight Chy?"

"The Volatiles", Chy said.

"Is that what their called?", Sarah asked, "Volatiles?"

Chy nodded, "did you see some?"

"Skyline showed me a picture on his PDA", Sarah said, "I'd like to have a live one to pick apart."