After saying that, Leah took a deep breath and nodded to Mike.
Mike moved first, turning sideways to slip through the triangular opening in the metal. His blast shield was braced in front of him, and his gun barrel stayed trained on the darkness inside the facility.
A moment later, his voice came from within. "Entrance clear. No threats. Visibility inside is extremely low. Heavy dust and unidentified deposits present."
Leah entered second, the beam of her headlamp cutting across the space ahead.
This was the Raw Material Loading area. The space was tall and open, but it was filled with collapsed shelves, shattered containers, and thick chemical stains that had been building up for who knew how long.
As Leah looked around, the beam from her headlamp revealed the floor, walls, and ceiling, all covered in a layer of strange dark-brown substance that looked like grease mixed with rust and then dried out.
In some places, it had even formed stalactite-like hanging crystals.
Even through their protective suits and filtration systems, they almost seemed able to sense a stale, rotten smell.
The team filed in one by one and automatically split into front and rear security formations.
The beams of their headlamps crisscrossed in the darkness, lighting only the limited area in front of them and making the darkness farther away seem even deeper and harder to read.
Aside from the hiss of their respirators and the faint creak of boots stepping across the floor, the facility was dead silent. There was no sign of any walkers in sight.
"Command, reporting in. We have entered the target building. The environment matches our assessment. Clear signs of chemical contamination. No active targets detected so far. Proceeding along the planned route," Leah reported quietly.
"Copy. Continue monitoring."
The team began moving slowly deeper into the facility.
Their route had been decided in advance after repeated simulations based on the building blueprints, reconnaissance data, and Honeywell's information. It avoided potential structurally weak areas and known high-intensity interference points as much as possible.
Shane stopped from time to time to check radiation levels and air composition with a portable instrument. Radiation readings were normal. There were trace amounts of unidentified volatile organic compounds, but the concentration was still within the tolerance range of their chemical protective suits.
So far, everything looked fine.
The first few hundred meters went relatively smoothly.
Only once, while passing through a corridor piled with discarded pipes, a strange sound came from deep inside the ventilation ducts above them, like something wet scraping and dragging itself through the ductwork.
The sound was so unpleasant it made their skin crawl.
Everyone stopped at once. Gun barrels and headlamp beams all snapped toward the source of the noise overhead as they held their breath and listened.
The sound continued for more than ten seconds, then gradually faded and returned to silence.
"Could be structural expansion and contraction, or... traces left by something else passing through," Michonne analyzed in a low voice, though she did not sound certain.
Everyone knew the second possibility was probably more likely.
The unknown was always the most terrifying part. Fortunately, the task force members were mentally steady. After pausing for a while, they continued deeper in.
"Stay alert. Keep moving," Leah ordered.
After that, they passed several small laboratories and offices. Most of the doors were either shut tight or left half-open.
Through the gaps, they could occasionally see chaos inside. Overturned desks and chairs, scattered documents, all covered in the same thick grime.
There was still no sign of walker activity.
"It's too clean in here," Carver said warily. "There are so many walkers outside, but in here it's like the place has been emptied."
"Maybe they're all gathered farther in, closer to the contamination source."
Mike made the calm guess, but he did not lower his guard. The muzzle of his rifle moved slowly with his gaze, carefully covering every shadowed corner.
As the team continued deeper, the surrounding environment began to change.
The dark-brown deposits on the walls and pipes grew thicker. In some places, they had even formed tissue-like lumps.
When the headlamp beams swept over them, they reflected a greasy sheen that made people nauseous just looking at it.
The air detector occasionally gave a faint warning, indicating that the concentration of certain unknown chemicals had risen slightly in localized areas, though it had not yet reached the danger threshold.
Daryl suddenly shoved Merle just as Merle was about to step forward. Caught off guard, Merle stumbled a huge step ahead and nearly slammed into Wells.
He instinctively opened his mouth to curse, then remembered where they were and quickly lowered his voice. "Son of... idiot, what the hell are you doing?"
"Dumbass, watch your feet." Daryl pointed at the spot where Merle had almost stepped. A large puddle of strange slime sat there.
Then he warned the others. "There's a lot of thick liquid on the floor here. Jesus, that looks disgusting."
The team carefully moved around the patches that still looked slick and reflective beneath the dust.
Turner accidentally stepped on a small patch. The sole of his boot immediately gave off a faint sizzling sound, and a wisp of nearly invisible white smoke rose from it. "Holy shit!"
Startled, he quickly lifted his foot and wiped it against a relatively clean patch of ground.
"Command, Task Force reporting. We have reached the designated coordinate point. The surrounding environment is deteriorating. We appear to have entered an area with high-concentration contamination residue.
No encounters with walkers or other organisms. Approaching the outer corridor of the central control room now." Leah remained calm, but the eerie surroundings still made her speak a little faster.
"Copy. Stay alert. The area near the control room may be a zone of increased interference."
Just then, Daryl, who was moving on the flank, suddenly raised his fist in a stop gesture. At the same time, he tapped his ear with one finger, then pointed toward the shadows at a fork ahead on the left.
Everyone stopped, lowered their headlamps to the minimum brightness needed to see, and held their breath.
From deep within the darkness at the fork came an extremely faint pattering sound, like thick liquid dripping, or something soft and wet dragging slowly across the ground.
Then came a broken, intermittent hiss, completely different from the sound of an ordinary walker.
Leah moved silently to the front of the team, her gun pointed straight at the source of the sound.
Carver tucked his rifle into his shoulder, his finger resting outside the trigger guard.
Mike stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Carver, his muzzle steady and aimed at the same point.
The others were ready for contact.
The sound was getting closer, growing clearer with every second.
Then, at the edge of the overlapping beams of their headlamps, a silhouette slowly emerged from the darkness.
It was still roughly humanoid, but its torso was grotesquely bloated. Its clothing had long since rotted into scraps and fused with the swollen body underneath, a body covered in a layer of translucent grease and dark crystalline deposits.
Its head was almost unrecognizable.
The brain was exposed. Swollen nerves and blood vessels crisscrossed around the exposed tissue, making it look more like a constantly writhing, shifting tumor of flesh. Several openings of different sizes were scattered across it, opening and closing as thick yellow fluid seeped from within.
Most disturbing of all, this nauseating creature seemed to have no eyes. Its facial features were completely swallowed inside the tumor, with only a large mouth exposed at the very bottom.
And yet it was precisely "facing" the direction of the light, enough to make anyone's sanity plunge.
Its limbs were twisted, and its right hand was grotesquely enlarged, dragging along the ground like a tentacle. Sharp claws extended from its fingertips, part bone and part crystal, scraping the floor with that pattering sound.
This tentacle was the same kind the drone had captured earlier inside the crack.
"A Black Fire mutant..." Everyone drew in a sharp breath.
...
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