The Callisto Protocol

CH/\PTER 08: Onward

Jacob stared at a path of bloodshed, death, and destruction.

This was the way he had to go.

"I hate every single thing about today," he muttered, then began walking.

Visions of what he had experienced in the control room and seen so far since waking kept crowding in around him, swirling madly and threatening to overwhelm him. Up ahead, beyond the doorway that he had stopped at, something growled. It was a deep, bubbling, threatening sound and it seemed to pin him back into place.

Jacob grasped at it mentally, again forcing himself to return to the here and now. He had to get his shit straight or he was going to get his own head torn off. But what had that been!? He shook his head. Right now, he had a simple job: find the elevator, ride it up, get to the top of the watchtower. Easy enough.

Hopefully.

He scrutinized the next stretch of catwalk. It was as bloody and smoky as the rest of this place, but he couldn't actually see anything moving around. Although his senses were telling him there was definitely something up ahead, but 'something' could be fucking anything right now. Jacob readjusted his grip on the crowbar and started walking.

The sounds of the prison seemed to press in on him as he made for the other end of the walkway. Men screamed and fire crackled and the alarm blared indifferently above it all. He could hear gunfire somewhere, and directly overhead he suddenly heard the flat, hard packing sounds of punching. He tired to ignore it, which got a whole lot easier when a figure suddenly stepped out of the farthest cell. Jacob froze, then slowly raised the crowbar.

The figure cast about for a bit, looking almost desperate, and then looked dead at Jacob. He couldn't tell if it was a prisoner or a guard or another one of those things.

It issued a deep growl.

Okay, so it was another one of those fucking things.

"Come on," he muttered, feeling that sickly addicting fusion of fear, adrenaline, and rage start rising him once more like black bile.

The creature let out a shriek and began running for him. He waited, staring at it intently, locked into this moment in time and knowing he would be until he'd killed this thing. It was a greenish blur as it came at him, but he knew he could handle it. Jacob swung at just the right moment and smashed the heavy crowbar directly into the thing's skull.

There was a sickeningly wet crunch and it went staggering into the nearby wall, smearing the old concrete with blood. He waited, staring at it, holding the crowbar like a baseball bat. He was reluctant to get any closer to it, as the former human seemed to just reek of death and disease and danger, but there was no way it could've survived a blow like that intact–

The mutated prisoner shrieked and came off the wall like it'd been electrified. It straightened up and stared at Jacob with maddened, filmy eyes and a dented, leaking cranium.

"You have got to shitting me," he whispered.

The beast came at him again and this time he stepped back and swung from the other direction. The crowbar landed on the other side of its skull and sent it staggering once more. This time, however, it went right up to the railing overlooking the deep drop and went over. It grabbed onto the railing at the last second and dangled there, one-armed.

Jacob smashed the crowbar down again on its fingers and it vanished, screaming, into the dark depths below. He made a face of disgust as he saw the sticky smear that remained on the railing from where he'd crushed its fingers, then turned away and hunted for more monsters.

But he was alone.

"Better get moving before that changes," he muttered as he resumed his journey.

The catwalk ran out, jutting out farther over the abyss and leading to...the elevator. It was less of an elevator and more of a lift, just a flat piece of metal with a control panel stuck to it, but whatever. It would get the job done. Hopefully. As he approached it, he suddenly went rigid as he heard a voice inside his head.