Inside a vodka distillery, Alyx rescues a scavenger named Larry from a barnacle. In return, he warns her about "Jeff"; a large, horrifically-mutated Combine worker, who is blind but has gained very sensitive hearing. Alyx proceeds through the distillery, throwing vodka bottles to distract Jeff. She tricks him into a refrigerator, only to find that she needs to go in there herself to fix the elevator wiring. After sharing a tense elevator ride with Jeff, she finds the barrier leading to her next destination, but needs three batteries to open it. Sneaking around Jeff and distracting him with more thrown bottles, Alyx finds the batteries and starts to open the barrier blocking her path, only for Jeff to burst in. Alyx is able to draw him into a garbage compactor, where she has the option of activating it to kill Jeff or just leaving him trapped. After making this choice, Alyx is able to open the tunnel and proceed down into the antlion den.
This Chapter contains examples of:
- Alone with the Psycho: Alyx is frequenly forced into close quarters with Jeff, and has to try to evade him while progressing through the distillery.
- Arc Villain: The titular Jeff, a blind, mutated worker that hunts by sound is the main obstacle Alyx has to evade through the vodka distillery.
- Body Horror: Jeff. He was once human, but has been taken over by alien fungus to the point that his head opens up like a Venus Fly-Trap.
- Developer's Foresight:
- In playtesting for this chapter, the developers noticed that people naturally tried to cover their mouths around the spores, so they made that work for suppressing Alyx's coughs.
- If you carry a mask or hard hat with you from earlier in the game, Larry will comment on it.
- Festering Fungus: Xen fungus spews spores, which causes Alyx to cough if she breathes them.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Jeff is a Combine worker who was exposed to so much alien Festering Fungus that he has mutated into a bestial and horrifying Mushroom Man. Despite Alyx's arsenal, Jeff is The Juggernaut and she is forced to work around him, sometimes coming mere inches from the monster so that she can navigate the distillery.
- Hope Spot: Alyx traps Jeff in a refrigerator…only to find that she needs to go in there (and let him out) to fix the elevator.
- Immune to Bullets: Jeff is immune to Alyx's entire arsenal.
- Lost Common Knowledge: Alyx has no idea what vodka is, or who Mozart is when Larry refers to him.
- Sense-Impaired Monster: Jeff is completely blind, but has excellent hearing and uses that to find his prey.
- Spear Carrier: Larry warns Alyx about Jeff and shows her how to trick him with thrown bottles. He also warns her about avoiding the spores. He then vanishes until she has locked Jeff in the garbage compactor, at which point he expresses amazement that Alyx was able to contain him and bids her farewell.
- Stealth-Based Mission: The entire chapter. Alyx needs to sneak around Jeff without getting caught by him. The chapter is even designed to take place in a single level, with no loading screens to neuter the tension.
- Survival Horror: Jeff is Immune to Bullets and must be worked around instead of eliminated.
- Throwing the Distraction: Vodka bottles, mostly. Jeff will be attracted to the most recent source of noise.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Alyx can choose to just leave Jeff in the crusher, or crush him. Achievement stats show that almost twice as many people have the 'crush Jeff' achievement as have the 'leave Jeff' achievement.
