Jason’s POV
As we went through the entrance of Solstice Inn, I looked at the surrounding area. I can sense slow movements, the stretch of rotting corpses and… something else… bleach? Something is wrong here…
“Freeloader!” Jenny cut me off from my thoughts. “This is the Solstice Inn, I don’t suppose we can have any room service?” She smiled as we have made a stop in for the night.
I said nothing since I’m curious about the scent of bleach being in the area, yet I see no bleach stains or any bottle-
“Don’t ignore me, I was talking to you about us getting a room for the time being, but I guess it is not important to you!” She is trying to get my attention, I need to look into this before we relax.
As I turned to explore the hallways on my right, a tentacle wrapped itself around my arm… An infected is attacking us? When I turned to look, it was Jenny who shape-shifted her arm into a monster tentacle.
“Do. Not. Ignore. Me. Freeloader!” Jenny must not be happy that I kept ignoring her. “What the hell is wrong with you? First, you showed up out of nowhere back at Sandy, you tried to take the steering wheel from me earlier, you giving me sass and now you take upon yourself to ignore every word I said? You holding a grudge against me or something?” What… no, I am not, I’m just- “If you are going to wonder off, at least offer to ask one of us if you need to come with us, too.”
“I’ll be back, just need to look around the hallways.” Jenny will not loosen her grip, no matter how much I pull away.
“I’ll go with you, this time, asshole! I wanted to know how much Sam trained you in a fight.” She moves in the direction that I’m heading. “I’m not letting you go by yourself.”
I looked at her as if she cared about as if I’m her brother; she is adamant that we stayed together.
“All right, I wanted to investigate the hallways and I need to know where that bleach scent is coming from.”
“Then let me go with you, Jason.” Samantha wanted to come along and tag along
“No, I am going with the freeloader for this time. You had your turn, Sam.” Jenny is sure rubbing it in her face.
“Okay, lead the way then, Miss Hopeland!” She frowns the moment I mention her last name. She increased the pressure on my wrist and she… yank me, throw me down like a rag doll.
“You are lucky, you can’t feel pain! Call me that again… I’ll make sure that pulling you up by the tentacle would be the last thing on your mind.” She pulled me up with little difficulty. “Let’s go!”
I shake it off; I didn’t think that Jenny insists on remaining with me.
Explore the Hallway with Jenny
As we check each room from the beverage room, Restrooms, Lounging area to checking each of the vacant rooms. We found some zombies in the rooms; I noticed they moved toward us as if we are still alive. She is not kidding that the dead now think we are still alive…
“This way, Jason!” Jenny pointed me in a different direction and I followed her into the stairway.
We sprinted up into the 2nd floor by taking the stairs; we proceed as normal, the mist also helps make us more nimble. I’ve observed Jenny would check the corner to make sure they are no corpses in the area. I did the same things when I hugged the wall to take a quick look to see if the dead are there… Someone…
I turned to land a swift cross at one of the corpse that was close to bitting me. I saw it had only 3 fingers in each hand, its right eye is bloodshot and it howled like a wild animal. It lept up like a spider into the ceiling… I know it will attempt to ambush me again.
“Jenny!” I called out to her, but she is… Where she is?
I felt a sharp pain in my neck, someone biting down on my jugular vein. If that happens… No, I need… to get them… off of me! As I threw off the creature off my back, it crawled backward into the ceiling…
I need to end this now! If I try to put some distance between me and it, no doubt it can try to close the distance. Standing still… the moment I lose my cool, I lose the battle… As I remain where I am at; the creature is crawling down from the wall; it is counting on me to run for my life.
Then I will give it a hunt, I dashed down the hallways on my right. Another corpse saw me and ran toward me, intending to get its meal. At the last moment, I slide down, letting the creature barely grazing me. It almost had me on where it wants me to be. However, it went toward my pursuer, puncturing its throat with its 3 fingers, then it carried its carcass and headed toward me.
“You should have paid more attention, Freeloader.” The creature transformed back into… Jenny?? “I disguised my scent when I shape-shifted into one of my forms. It was a good thing when you pulled off that stunt otherwise, you would have gotten in the way.”
I simply nod, I have known that Jenny has the power to shape-shift into anyone or anything that she choses. She can also change any part of her body as a weapon, it is unlike Sam that she can turn into a Bio-blade.
“Well? Dig in!” She tosses the corpse at my feet. I sat down and digged through the body and got lungs, stomach, left arm and right leg.
As I recalled that us Sentients would need to eat and consume blood and/or body parts in order to survive. I detest this… consuming human blood and it’s organs. If don’t however, my body and system will go into overdrive where it would try to compensate for loss of blood. We would go insane because we have remained unfed for too long.
I took bites of each part, remind myself that I will have to do so in order to survive. Personally, with the mist, I would rather eat normal food than consume blood in order not to starve.
“You seem sick with yourself, Jason. Something wrong?” She asks after gobbling down a human heart in front of me.
But I need to remain focused for now, I’ll just ask her this…
“Jenny, let’s find some suitable rooms to stay in for the 4 of us and find some actual food.” I volunteer the idea, which she laughed it off.
“Some actual food? You mean find some KFC Chicken around here, freeloader?” She smiled at the idea.
“I’m asking if you are up for it?” I stated that I have wanted us to continue moving further.
“Alright…” She turns around and heard noises. “Hide, Jason!” We found places to hide from however is coming this way.
Gas-mask Survivors
“Okay, check each room! I want none of these walking corpses around us. The mist will force us to remain where we are until it clears up.”
“Okay then, what if they are talking zombies within the area?” A woman question the guy’s orders.
“You kill them, too! I don’t plan on letting the walking corpses or their talking counterparts live. We take no chances with them.” The man must despise the dead so much, where if they know where we are… I can’t think of that.
“Sir! I inspected a corpse… It is too precise for a zombie.” They noticed the corpse… we should have hid it.
“Then we know they are corpses hiding somewhere! They can’t hide forever,” Oh no… “Check under the bed, bathroom and closets as well.”
“Brad!” I used my mind to reach out to Brad “Brad!!” No use… something or someone is interfering with the signal.
I hope Jenny has found a good place to hide since these people are going to be through each room. Brad cannot help us this time, and I doubt running would do any good since I would get blown bits before I get down the stairs.
However, I heard a growl from where I am at; I looked around for the source of it… It revealed itself in front of me as it flipped over the bed from where I was hiding at.
It has yellowish skin with cracking throughout it, its nails are black as if shaped out of charcoal, and I see green ooze dripping from its mouth. There are no eyes on the thing that I can see and moving as a freight train, it threw a swift Left Jab at me.
I slowed time, but it can only delay the inevitable for so long. I hurried toward the door where I ran into a survivor who looked at me with surprise.
“You!” As the woman raised her rifle at me, I quickly notice that the monster is heading toward us, intending to maul us into pieces. I quickly used telekinesis to push the woman back away from the creature who nearly lands a punch on her.
A hulking predator
The creatures made it to the hallway where it sniffed for its prey; The creature began moving toward the survivor, whom I know will be no match for that thing. I thought about leaving her to her fate since this is my chance to escape… but I would condemn her to death if I do. Going toe to toe with that thing is complete suicide since it can sprint and hit hard as a sledgehammer.
As the monster got close to the woman, I threw a vase at its head. It quickly turned around to know who threw it.
“Over there, you fucking beast!” I goad the monster into coming after me. All I need to do is to draw it away from here and that woman.
As the soon of the creature charge at me with the speed of a wild jaguar, I’ve slowed time and ran to run to the nearest stairway but…
I saw someone in a hazmat suit blocking the way back to the first floor; I see static… Whatever it is, it cannot be good. But the creature had caught to me and grabbed my throat. It slammed me on the wall; I saw it was protrude its teeth… I need to focus… someone threw a fist at its face; then I felt something pulling me toward it.
“Stay away from my Freeloader!” The creature roars at her and charged at us. Jenny pointed at the stairwell.
She filled it up with green energies as the creature almost came close to reaching us. It gave way from under it; the creature fell down through rounds of concrete as its mass is too heavy for it to stop its force.
“Jason? Are you alright?” She… She is restoring me, but how? “Using Psionic energy to fix your spine, but we need to go now.” I can… I can move again. She had to help me in order to move.
I heard growls as we headed up to the next floor; it doesn’t stop as if it’s… As we got out of the stairway; we saw a swarm of the dead, Jenny used her power to open us a path. We wasted no time to move on; need to find Brad and Samantha right now!
“Guys!” We found Brad and Samantha “We need to get out of here!” A zombie almost jumped on him, Samantha made sure that it would not lay a hand on her friend by slicing it in mid-air.
“Guys, we have trouble!” I noticed that zombie in the hazmat… the one that was in the stairwell is here. The static is affecting our vision, It is coming from that thing.
“Samantha! Can you fight from a distance? Close-range combat is a bad idea.” I pointed to one of the corpse that surround it, it decays as its presence is melting the flesh, the eyeballs. It soon melted into the floor, its skeleton showing.
“Oh… Shit…” Brad saw that getting too close to that thing is instant death, apparently he doesn’t want to wind up as a skeleton.
Hazmat + Gas = Death
Samantha used her right arm as she flailed it around to fight it at a distance and flung it toward her target. As soon as her blade arm reached its range, it melted off the closer it got near. She regenerate her arm and she then used her bio knives. None of it is getting through to it.
“Let me try!” Jenny charged a laser from her fingertips, which she fired it at the creature, making it stagger back for a bit.
I’ve followed her lead and charge my finger with bio-energy to fire off at the creature. Me and Jenny pushed it back, shooting off any corpses that get in the way. I’ll call them ‘corpses’ anyway.
I twirled my two fingers in a circle, firing at multiple corpses within our range, but didn’t go too far from Jenny since she can blast with a powerful laser in a straight line. The corpse, however, adapted to our attempt to blast at it with bio-energy. It became apparent that it can now be immune to anyone we can throw at it, even telekinesis cannot make a dent in it.
Its aura also intensities to where we saw more static coming through.
“Guys, we need to fall back now!” I quickly rallied the group for us to flee, but we are being become surrounded by a sea of corpses. I took a deep breath…
When the hazmat corpse was in the hallway, it somehow made its way to the third floor or… There’s 2 of them but in different places. That is not possible since I would suspect it used its own bio energy to get up there on its own to meet us. And when we were blasting it with our bio lasers… It adapted to our attacks and it responded by developing an immunity to any form of bio or organic energies that we can throw at it.
We don’t have any guns, Samantha is clearing us a path despite being bitten on the neck, the arms and right legs. Brad is trying to hold them off using mind control & telekinesis. He had to use his bio-armor, prevent the zombies from getting a bite out of him. Jenny and me, attempted to blast as many of them as we can, need to keep them from getting closer.
Eventually, they pinned us in a corner despite our efforts to fighting our way out. Samantha remains in front of us but with the hazmat corpse is getting closer to us within 50ft. Our effort wouldn’t matter since it made sure that it would pin us down in one place.
“Guys…” Samantha, bloodied with her suit being torn up in sections, blood dripped from her scars, one of her heels broke after stepping one of them and got caught in it. She still has her blade out, but she is reaching her limit, the longer it goes on. “We aren’t going make it…” Despite that, she slightly raised her blade against the corpses that are now surrounding us.
