Red Ivy

e's disused grain mill was cov

e steel lid, each tendril snapping with a wet, meaty pop like tearing sinew. When the last one gave, the hatc

e dark with a flashl

sted biohazard signs. Water dripped from the ceiling. Ivy was everywhere, som

posing leaves. Carvings lined the walls, symbols in chalk and drie

, he found the first corps

His face had been peeled off in one seamless piece and nailed to the wall beside

hest in ragged, o

OTS REM

epped around the slick po

rvest

g across the ceiling like skeletal hands. Metal tanks lined one side, some shattered, some sealed. I

test s

ty thud. It writhed shoulders dislocating backward as vines erupted from its spine. I

lun

nce. Twice.

th brain pulp and thick green sap. It collapsed into twitching piec

he heard a s

tur

r catwalk, bare-chested,

r ValeCorp. Presumed dead in th

eins black with root-strands pu

wind through leaves. "The harvest wa

un. "You did thi

smiled. "Th

s, and the vines s

exploded around him. Chemicals burned into his wounds.

hand found a scalpel on the floor. He sla

ss his face, stinkin

stol between two roots. He fired point blank into the

crific

chemicals, Vex stumbled deeper into

he s

pool, filled with viscera, bo

ons entwined

egrowing, eyes re blinking, teeth pus

from the mul

iv

ething

ered from her throat, form

re aw

st of his ammo. H

r skin flayed, her left a

through a blood-stained mouth. "No

dn't h

his backup grenade and

ned an

im, hell

amber flesh, bone, and centuries of

from the roots themselves howling lik

Dr. Kess burning, vines spilling from his mouth like s