"This fucking thing is such a pain in the ass!"
Wilson's muffled complaints echoed inside his gas mask as he kept adjusting its edges, trying to get a clearer view. "Can't see shit through this thing, and it keeps fogging up! I feel like a fucking idiot on patrol inside a fish tank!"
"Shut up, Dale. Did you hit that doorframe because you couldn't see, or because your head's too big? You know damn well."
Li Jie's voice was equally muffled by the filter cartridge. Holding his rifle ready, he carefully pushed open the creaking oak door. "Still beats taking a lungful of Krain's special piss-yourself cocktail and clinging to Gordon, crying for your mommy."
The inside of Krain Manor was even more dilapidated than its exterior suggested. Thick dust covered everything like a burial shroud, and even through their high-efficiency filters, they could faintly smell a sickening, acrid odor. Heavy cobwebs draped the crystal chandelier, and large sections of the ornate wallpaper had peeled away, exposing moldy wall panels beneath.
"Ever played StarCraft? Doesn't this place look like a Zerg hive?" Wilson used the barrel of his shotgun to lift aside a stained tapestry hanging from the ceiling. "Some monster's gonna jump out from under the floor."
"Then you'll have to get that Jim outside to call in the fleet. Better stop jinxing us."
Li Jie turned toward the long table in the adjoining dining room. Several shriveled rat carcasses lay amid the mess, clearly long dead.
The military gas masks gave them safe air to breathe, but at the cost of almost all their peripheral vision. Moving one behind the other in tactical formation, they cleared the enormous living room, the abandoned dining room, and several empty servants' quarters. The rotting floorboards groaned beneath their feet with a