The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 18: Beneath the Ice

                                                                       PART TWO
                                                                –The Long Road–

They drove across the island, beneath a cold winter sun, and came at last to their only means of escape.

Greg drove down the main road of the only town on Polaris Island, Milton, and felt once again what it was like to pass through a ghost town. A place of immense isolation and death. There were some signs of attack: broken windows, bullet holes, dead bodies in the street. Some of them were Combat Forms.

The Flood had definitely come to the island.

"Damn," Izzy whispered. "They got hit hard."

"Yep," Greg muttered. He sat in the driver's seat, listening to the wind and the vehicle idle.

"Should we search the houses?" Izzy asked uncertainly, looking around.

"No, I don't think so. We already know that we're the only people in the area, and I have serious doubts there's any kind of big stash hidden here. But...I do think we should try to make sure that our back is covered."

"How's that?" she asked.

"Get ready, I'll show you," he replied.

She nodded and stood up in her seat, pulling her pistol out. Greg leaned on the horn. It was loud and even though he knew it was coming, because he was the one doing it, it still startled him. He was pretty wound up right now. The horn blared on, echoing across the dead, frozen landscape, washing over the vacant structures. After about half a minute, he stopped and then slowly stood in his seat, joining Izzy in her vigil.

"I don't like this," she muttered.

"It is pretty dangerous," he replied. She sighed. "I'm sorry, but this is the best option. Way better for them to come to us."

"Yeah, well-"

Something growled off to the right. They both fell silent and took aim. The growling grew louder as the entity producing it drew closer. It was coming from the right side. Greg held his pistol firmly, aiming towards the general area the sound was coming from. He began to hear footsteps, crunching in the snow, and he shifted his aim to between a pair of houses. A shadow appeared, swaying from side to side as the creature came closer.

And then a Flood Combat Form stepped out into the cold light of day.

It was hideous, he saw as he took aim, but more than just hideous. It was monstrous. It was a perversion of humanity, because it had obviously once been human. Its greenish, mottled skin was grotesque to behold. Its lopsided, asymmetrical nature touched him on a deep, primal level, evoking disgust and fear, as one of its arms had been replaced with a bundle of writhing tentacles and two enormous claws. Its shoulder was easily four or five times normal size on that side and it hobbled as it advanced on them.

By far its most disturbing aspect was the fact that a human head hung off to the right side, like a forgotten thing, like a tumor, pushed aside to make way for its new alien face, which was a trio of bristly stalks that ended in puffs of what resembled plant roots. They stuck out of where the neck once met the chest, which was now just a solid lump of flesh and meat. The thing stared at them, inasmuch as it could, and made a gurgling, growling sound.

Both Greg and Izzy fired at the same time. He aimed directly for the chest area, where the stalks stuck out of, and the twin rounds punched into the corroded flesh, killing it instantly. The creature went rigid and then fell onto its back with a heavy thud, becoming still as a statue in the recently fallen snow. A cold wind blew.