Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:00:24 GMT -5
Chapter 3: The Nightmare Begins…<br> Seeing all of them butchered so horribly was something I could barely stomach. The walk up to my apartment was easy. I’d whistled on my way up the stairs because the elevators were out of order; something was always broken in the Zeon Hunter building. Whether somebody blew it up or it just stopped working on it’s own as a preemptive strike.
The lights were out, too, which seemed odd. The lack of light and power in general were the two things that caused me to grab my two .44 Magnums and their holsters from the edge of my bedpost. I didn’t have my shotgun, or my axe, but I could sure as hell still carry my revolvers. I kept two pocketfuls of shells, and two speed loaders handy.
I can’t really explain what it was. I just needed to be armed. I didn’t really know why, or what I would need to carry my guns for, but it was like everything else I’d done in the last two weeks; it just had to be done. On my way back down from my apartment, I fixed my two laser sights onto the .44’s. You could never take chances, making the shot count with a revolver is what was most important.
When I stepped out onto the staircase and began to slowly head downward, I couldn’t tell why it felt wrong, but it was the same sensation I’d had standing in the elevator and ignoring my gut. Strange sensation, I remember it well, I was being watched. While I was getting closer to the bottom, I could hear footsteps above me. My heart hammered. Who the hell could be around right now? I hadn’t seen anyone yet. No one at all. But the sound came again, like an endless rapping inside an insane man’s head.
It was only when I really strained my eyes that I saw it. A shadow. A formless, living shadow following me down the staircase. I could see what I could make out to be a chest rising and falling amongst a bulk of muscles. It was easily a foot or so taller than I was, and looked a hell of a lot more nasty. I drew one of the Magnums and trained it on what I assumed to be the thing’s head. I got a reflection in the thing’s eyes from the laser sight. Red. Dark, crimson red.
The move was so sudden it nearly made me jump. The shadow jumped directly over the side of the staircase, and turned down toward me, screeching, screaming, hollering, and hooting as it scaled the seven floors of space between us. I yelled and jumped back, putting my back against the blocks of the stairwell’s wall. As it got closer, I squeezed off a shot. I saw the shell hit it dead on between the eyes. It squealed, falling now, rather than barreling down the side of the staircases like a dog. I heard the bulk of it’s body impact the ground below with a resounding thud.
I panted, and just stood there, against the wall. I’d seen combat in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different places. But nothing, nothing would ever scare me as much as that silhouetted, crimson eyed figure barreling down at me. I thought that was the only thing that would scare me that night. I would soon be proved wrong.
I ran down the stairs, towards the fallen body. I couldn’t see it anymore, for it had dropped into deep blackness. My feet hit the stairs on the way down almost as fast as my heart had been beating when I’d seen the silhouette jump down the seven floors between us. What kind of creature, or being could cover that kind of ground so fast? Raz could, of course. I could. But who else could possible manage that? The answer to that question would not come to me until much later, but the answer would frighten me more than the monster itself ever could.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:01:42 GMT -5
When I finally got down to the bottom floor, I didn’t even find a drop of blood. Not a damned thing. I’d put a .44 Magnum round dead on between that thing’s eyes and made it fall thirteen floors to the ground, and it hadn’t died. That was enough to make my blood run colder than ice.
Not one drop of blood anywhere. It suddenly occurred to me that what I’d shot at could have been a hallucination caused by the brainwashing I’d been given at that office. Then again, it could be very real, and very dangerous. I was, after all, standing on the border of sanity and insanity. Reality’s limits had nothing to do with what could be achieved here. And I was back to being human again, with two Magnums as my only companions, and no body armor. Today was shaping up to be very, very bad.
Gently pushing open the door of the stairway, expecting to face the horror of my worst nightmares standing on the other side, drooling blood and waiting to rip my throat out, I peeked out. No inhuman monster. Nothing waiting, except for two sets of large claw marks in the floor. Two huge marks left by something trying to get away from there very fast. Unfortunately I only noticed the tracks on the floor. Not the ones on the ceiling.
I cleared the few rooms on the floor. I hated being alone now more than anything. I was in an abandoned apartment building with no power, hunting something that could be shot point blank in the head by a Magnum and survive. I started to talk to myself in my head.
“You shouldn’t have gone into that damned elevator.” said one part of my brain.
“I know, but I had to.”<br> “But you shouldn’t have had to.”<br> “…But I had to.”<br> I finally shook my head softly. I was looking for something that would require all my wits to kill. I couldn’t argue with myself and expect to kill it at the same time. Besides, I hate losing to myself.
Anyway. Looking back on that moment, I wonder if my brain’s little tussle kept me from hearing the monster’s claws dig into the roof behind me. Now I wonder how long it’d been stalking me. Long enough to kill me? See the rooms I’d checked? Long enough to think I wouldn’t check behind myself? Evidently, all of the above. Because when it rushed forward and slammed it’s head into the space between my shoulder blades, I didn’t even turn. I was just thrown forward strait into a wall.
As I fell away from the wall with my head pounding and my heart thumping hard enough to give myself a heart attack, I aimed with the Magnum. Now, I could try to explain just how it looked when I saw it, but I can’t really describe it. It was a hulking monster made of muscle, teeth, and claws. The entire thing looked as if it had been specifically crafted to be the scariest goddamn thing you’d ever see in your life, and let me tell you, it was.
I fired the magnum two times as I fell. Each bullet hit the monster. One instantly struck the monster’s shoulder, the other slammed into it’s chest. It screamed with a voice that sounded more tortured than a man on the rack, and fell from the roof to the floor, scrambling to get up. Finally, one of it’s claws got hold and it ripped itself up, tearing away from me like a bat out of hell. I remember wondering what the fuck I was going to have to do to kill the thing. Or if there was even a way to kill it at all. Either way, I knew I had one place I needed to go. I needed to get to the bar as soon as possible.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:02:56 GMT -5
(After the Prologue.)
I just stood there for a few moments. I didn’t really want to see what had happened. I didn’t want to accept that all of them had been cut down. I didn’t really believe it wasn’t real. I just wanted to believe it wasn’t real. But it was more real than I could really handle at that moment. Too much death for even a soul as dark as mine.
After a few moments of regaining my cold and calm composure, I leaned down by Mav, who had held on somehow, and was still breathing. I was afraid to move him, but if I didn’t that thing could probably find him in here, alive, and butcher him up even more. But what still struck me as ever so strange was the fact that everyone else was cut up, or bitten, but Mav had been shot. That monster couldn’t have held an automatic weapon. Which meant that thing wasn’t the only thing out tonight to scare the shit out of me.
It is my belief that Mav was the Puppet Master’s first and only mistake. Leaving him for dead was an exercise of the Puppet Master’s ignorance to Mav’s blind ability to push through pain. Evidently the Puppet Master didn’t consider Mav to be as tough a bastard as he really is, and for that mistake the Puppet Master would pay dearly.
I picked Mav up off the ground and hauled him out to the street, lying him down again on his back. When I looked up, I saw Libra. Wearing a SWAT jumpsuit, carrying a few grenades, and holding a Berretta M9. As soon as I saw him I jumped up to my feet and sent a hard right punch across his face, knocking him back against the nearest wall. I closed distance fast and held him back against the wall.
“’You’ve been looking for a good demonic weapons dealer and smith, haven’t you?’!?!”<br> Libra grunted in pain and growled back at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?!”<br> “You referred me to that torturing bastard!”<br> “What torturing bastard?!” His eyes were clear. Nothing to suggest he was lying.
I growled, pulling the card, and thrust it into his hands as I let him go. He looked down at it and read it for a few seconds.
“Not the front, the back.”<br> He flipped the card, reading his signature. In his own writing. His eyes pulled wide. “I didn’t write this. I don’t even know what this is.”<br> I watched him carefully. He seemed genuinely without a clue, so I decided to believe him. Besides, two guns were better than one. After a few long seconds and a hard stare, I broke the silence.
“That’s the name of a smithy for demonic weapons…” And I filled him in on everything that had happened to me, right up until that very moment.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:04:02 GMT -5
When I finished, I asked him the big question. “What the fuck happened in there?” I gestured to the bar’s door with my thumb over my shoulder.
It didn’t take him long to fill me in. I already basically knew what he was going to tell me. Everyone had been in the bar, well, almost everyone. Before anyone knew what was going on, something burst in through the window, slashing throats, and tearing through bodies.
“Nobody could hit the god damn thing. It ripped in and just started tearing through us, one by one. It ripped right through us in a strait line to the cloning machine, and took it out before anyone could be cloned.”<br> I frowned softly. That damn cloning machine was near indestructible, and this bastardized monster had ripped in and gotten it in one blow, successfully making it the biggest threat in the bar’s history.
“After it got the cloning machine, it starting picking off patrons. I managed to get back to the back room after pulling some gear off a SWAT officer that went down in the fight. I wasted all the ammo that was in his sub, trying to keep it away from everybody else, but it hit everyone. Ai came in later. I was about to call out to him when I heard the damned thing tear into him. Mav went in about half an hour ago. I heard a few shots, but what the hell am I going to do, walk right into that goddamn thing with no plan?”<br> I sympathized. When I’d first stepped in, my first thought was “Thank God I wasn’t around when this shit started.” He had been, and had been helpless to really make a difference. I felt his decision was the right one, staying out. It meant I had another gun on my side, and he didn’t do anything foolish and get himself torn apart. Though it was more than obvious he felt guilty about staying out. He looked half relieved, half mortified that Mav was still alive and he hadn’t helped him.
I gestured to the pack he wore on his right leg. “Medic stuff?”<br> He looked down to his leg as if he’d forgotten it was there, and then suddenly jumped into action, ripping out bandages and a few clotting meds to make sure Mav didn’t bleed to death. I looked down at Mav, reminded once again that his bullet wounds made him different. He’d come in after everyone else, including Ai. What in the hell could have shot him?
It was relatively obvious to me that we weren’t the only people out there hunting tonight. And it was obvious that we were more than likely outgunned, too.
It took Libra twenty minutes to get Mav’s bandages set. Mav was going to live, I was sure. He would hang on just to spite the person who’d shot him. Me, I was concerned with finding and killing that person so he wouldn’t have the chance to do the same thing to me. I fixed my eyes on Libra, and tossed him one of my magnums, along with a handful of bullets and a speed loader. When I did, he gave me a questioning look.
“Just trust me. It takes a hell of a lot of punch just to knock that fuckin’ thing down.” I snapped open my own Magnum as I spoke, loading in three bullets to replace the ones I’d fired. “He can take one of these things dead in the face and survive it, but I bet if we pump his head full of enough bullets, he’s bound to stay down.”<br> Libra chuckled dryly. “Wouldn’t work on you.”<br> I grinned and snapped the Magnum closed, spinning the barrel. “Wouldn’t work on you, either, but we can damn well try to make it work on him.”
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:05:07 GMT -5
Honestly, I was wondering whether we’d survive the night. I didn’t put a high bet on our survival, but I’m a pessimist, it’s my duty to point out the things that can go wrong. Libra and I alone against something that can take a bullet between the eyes and fall down a stairwell without dying? Who would you bet on?
As we entered back into the bar, I felt a whole new wave of nausea sweep over me, nearly overpowering my mind. I forced it down as I dropped my trench coat, grabbing the closest flak jacket and leg holster I could get, along with a leg set med kit and a radio. If I hadn’t been afraid of dying at that moment, I would have found it hilarious that despite the fact that I’m a big, bad demon, I was still strapping on a flak jacket and carrying around a gun. Dealing with a human view on life wasn’t something I had counted on when I woke up in the morning two weeks ago.
Since we really couldn’t afford to sit there and nurse Mav back into health, we left him lying in the street. Bandaged now, so he wouldn’t bleed out, but still left him in the street. I suppose I should feel bad about that, but I don’t, really. Anyway, with Mav lying out on the street, and Libra and I heading towards god knows what without enough weapons or ammunition.
I kicked open the door into the stairwell, and looked in first. I had already convinced myself that the thing would suddenly reach out, scream, and pull me into the stairwell, and rip me apart, piece by piece. Again, my overactive imagination was merely playing tricks on me. But the stairs were dark, and gave no clues as to what waited ahead.
I wondered as I descended the stairways, whether that monster was capable of setting enough plastic explosives in the elevator to blow it sky high, or talented enough to shoot a gun at point blank range. I seriously doubted that hypothesis, but after shooting it point blank in the head, and hearing it hit the ground, I was open to just about anything.
Libra and I moved cautiously down the stairs, both of us listening hard for anything below us. I checked high, remembering the horrible shadow that had come barreling down at me from above the last time I had been in a stairwell. I resisted the urge to shiver while recalling it’s inhuman shriek while it ripped down the wall towards me. Suddenly, I heard that shriek again, clear as day. It nearly knocked me flat on my ass. I could hear Libra checking all directions with the magnum, trying to see where the bastard was.
I knew better. I looked up, and there it was, silhouetted against the light colored ceiling. The bastard just dug into the roof right there and had watched us head down. Libra grew quiet, and so did eye. The thing’s crimson eyes fixed on us, muscles bristling, no doubt preparing it’s teeth and it’s stomach for a few choice parts of us. I raised my Magnum, and my trusty stolen flashlight up to aim at the beast. When I clicked the flashlight on, the monster went insane.
It squealed and tried to cover it’s face, but it’s claws were jammed in the roof, so all it could do was call out in agony. Libra and I emptied the Magnums faster than a tournament shooter on speed. Every last shot hit the damned thing in the head or in the neck. Unfortunately, one of mine ricocheted off into it’s hand, freeing it.
It would seem that being shot more only pissed it off more. It let out a vicious battle cry and dropped onto the staircase, tearing down after us with it’s eyes burning crimson holes in the darkness. It had a few floors to go, but I think it was just avoiding the mistake it made last time; putting itself in a position to fall to the ground.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:06:40 GMT -5
These days, sometimes I wonder why we had to try to kill it instead of leaving it there. Maybe if it had stayed there, claws rammed deep into the ceiling, Libra would be around today. I think he knew what he had to do. I think he may have even understood what was happening, too, in those few minutes we ran down the staircase, reloading, and praying we’d live to see the sunrise.
Everything that could go wrong in that run, did. Neither of us could get our guns loaded. Neither of us could run fast enough. Both of us were shaking with fear knowing the thing could take 12 bullets to the head and it would just piss it off. Suddenly, Libra stopped in his tracks, and just stood there. I was halfway down the next stairway when I stopped to look back at him, he was still loading the last bullet into the revolver.
“What the hell are you doing?”<br> “What I have to.”<br> “What the hell is wrong with you? We have to run!”<br> “If we both run, both of us won’t get away.”<br> Looking back now, I can see what he meant. With both of us trying to get the other away, we’d both fall behind. One man can run faster than two can. Especially if what’s chasing him gets slowed down by someone. What really pisses me off was the fact that he figured it out before I did. The thing that still confuses me about that moment was my ability to understand his part, and not my own. He knew what he had to do. I knew what he had to do, but I had no idea what the hell I had to do.
All I knew was that now I had to run, I had to run as fast as my body would let me. Libra was about to meet the same grisly fate as everyone else had up in the bar, and he was doing it by choice. I can’t think of a better description of courage.
I remember gunshots amidst the sound of my feet beating my path down those damn concrete stairs. I remember the first yell of agony Libra let out. I also remember the second. It took the monster five minutes to kill him. I imagine that he spent every last one of those minutes fighting off the damned thing until it finally got him.
I think I hated him a little for stopping in that stairwell. For figuring out what his part was before I understood my own. It’s a confusing thing to hate someone for such a good act. I hate myself a little for that, too. But no amount of wishing, or hatred, will turn back the clock and let me drag his ass along those stairs with me. He chose where he was going. Now it was up to me to find out where I was going.
I put away my flashlight and ran. My heart was beating even faster than it had been on my first encounter with the beast. It thundered in my chest as I charged down those stairs. Simultaneously afraid of what was following me, and what I might find as I ran. Now, it would just figure, that the second I look back to find out if the creature had been following me, that I slip.
I went down four stairs and landed hard in the stairwell on something soft. I was horrified to find out what had happened. When I raised my head and gained control of my faculties, I found that I was staring MR right in the face. The floor was slick and wet with blood. His face was taut, and yet somehow slack at the same time. I managed to pull myself up using the nearest railing.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:07:12 GMT -5
I distinctly remember thinking Rose had to be somewhere close, if MR’s body was now lying in front of me. His throat had been torn and slashed, but it looked as though that hadn’t stopped him. Personally, I think he took a hell of a beating from the monster in an attempt to get Rose away from it. I like to think he succeeded, because I have never seen Rose’s body, to this date.
I was suddenly shocked back into reality by the sound of the creature’s claws digging into the concrete. I’d gone down over ten floors in the five minutes Libra gave me. It would take the thing a minute at least to get to me. Lucky for me, the cards were stacked against it, because little did I know I had a friend close by. A living one, anyway…
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:08:12 GMT -5
Chapter 4: A Comrade in Arms.
By this point, I’m sure any normal doctor would have been given a heart attack just by seeing what my blood pressure and heart rate were. Then again, anyone seeing monster who could claw into walls and survive 12 shots from a .44 Magnum in the head, would have some pretty damned high blood pressure.
I rounded another two staircases on my way down. The entire damned thing seemed to go on forever, and I could still hear the beast above me gaining an edge. The bastard could move faster than I could down those stairs. It was like being pushed towards Hell by one of the Hellhounds. I was just thankful that I wasn’t on a straightaway trying to outrun the damned thing. The monster would have already caught up with me and gutted me.
I tore down another flight, and looked back because the thing had made a new noise, along with the sound of bending metal. The view I got was one I wish I had never seen. The bastard had chosen to rip right out into the well itself, just as it had when it came after me the first time. It had torn the guardrail right out, and was now bounding towards me like gravity didn’t matter at all.
I don’t really remember my feet leaving the ground, but they did. I’d jumped backward off the stairwell I was on, and started firing at the hellish monster. I fired four shots. Two hit, and they didn’t even slow it down. When I landed in the next stairwell after flying down the stairs themselves I felt my back scream out in pain. The whole world waved for a few seconds, and finally came back into view. Along with a dark view of the stairwell, I got a front row seat to what I figured the end of the world would be.
The thing was as horrible as I could ever imagine. It’s entire body was coated with somewhat shaggy, nasty fur. It’s face, if it even had one, was drowned in a mound of brown hair that hung over it’s head. The only thing you could see in it’s face were the eyes. Those horrible, crimson orbs stood out about this thing even more than the claws or the teeth. They were more frightening than the prospect of death itself.
And at that moment, they bored into me, into my soul, and convinced me that I was going to die in a horrible, horrible way. Luckily for me, I was wrong.
Now, a rocket, or a bit of explosives has an amazing capability for damage. The explosion spreads, and is really difficult to avoid. At that moment, I remember wishing I had a bit of C4, a grenade, or some sort of portable missile launcher. Or my axe. I swear to God, I would have killed millions to have my axe at that moment. It was a good thing I didn’t have that option. It would have been a waste, since I was about to be saved anyway.
“Hey!”<br> The voice startled me out of my “Dear God I’m about to die” stupor. I looked up to my left to see Ellis standing above the stairwell the creature and I were on. He was holding a portable missile launcher he must have gotten from the armory in town. A L.A.W.
The creature and I just stopped and stared for a few long moments. The creature was considering how to proceed, and I was just happy that I wasn’t going to die alone. I remember thinking I didn’t want to die at all, but dying with somebody would make it a little easier. Probably not the case, but hey, you can dream, can’t you?
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:09:07 GMT -5
Ellis fired the rocket with perfect accuracy and struck the bastard dead in the side of the head. There was no blood that I can remember, but the scream that thing let out almost deafened me. The creature’s entire body was knocked to the side and slammed into the wall. The flames from the explosion licked at me, fortunately the beast had taken the brunt of the blast, and I had just been knocked out of range by the shock of it.
Unfortunately, that shockwave had been enough to knock me strait back into the wall again. My back, and the back of my head, were starting to get pretty damn sore considering the several times I’d been smacked around in the last two weeks. I was starting to get irritated.
It was remarkable how much the monster resembled a mud covered tennis ball after it hit the wall. Ellis’ shot must have knocked it cold because after it hit the wall and bounced back, it didn’t scream or screech it just fell over the safety bar and down toward the MSPB’s unknown depths. Probably down towards whoever, or whatever, had shot Mav.
Now that I think back on it, Ellis could have been the second mistake our friendly little Puppet Master had made. His death must have been planned along with the death of every other person in the bar. Naturally, as far as the Puppet Master had been concerned, I was already dealt with. It slowly started to occur to me that if Libra really hadn’t been the one who referred me to the weapons dealer, who was?
It was strange. Here I was, alive, but mortal, and lacking all of my important weapons and powers on what happened to be the night of the MSPB’s destruction. I don’t believe in coincidences. I had been played, and now I wanted to know just who was behind it all. What in the hell could have made that monster, and how in the hell could they have set it loose on the bar without getting killed themselves?
This Puppet Master of mine was careful. He had obviously not been around when the slaughter commenced. Did that mean he didn’t have full control over his monster? He’d come in later. Perhaps to do the job on Mav himself? Maybe. I idly wondered whether it was the Bar this person wanted, or something more. Something different. Hard to tell.
Even then, I think, I was blind to my part in the little play. My part, at that time, was just to be there. Just to be around to see the mess created because of someone’s ability to turn us all into little playing pieces on a board. With patience and care they had created a unique strategy to use on every last one of us. A small unique and well thought out plan to make us drop into our places on the board.
The Puppet Master had pulled the strings, and we had all danced to his tune. None the wiser of his plan, or the strings he’d set on each of us. It still scares me, his patience. The dedication and time it must have taken to truly put together his plan was something that only comes with madness. Not the kind of madness you’d find if you walked into the bar’s door. The twisted kind that haunts every last one of us in our sleep. The kind you hope you will never have to face or see.
After the monster had fallen down towards the ground, Ellis had dropped the useless rocket tube. He looked down at me from that staircase above and seemed almost a little surprised that I hadn’t kicked the monster’s ass myself.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:11:12 GMT -5
It didn’t take me long to get up to Ellis. At that point I was more in favor of going up instead of down. I’d had just about all I could take of that tank made of flesh. As we walked up the stairway, Ellis filled me in on his experience. He’d had a few close calls with the monster, too, on his way to check out the bar and see if he could find me. I just felt lucky he hadn’t wasted the L.A.W. rocket before he got to me.
“I saw the whole thing from the spire. The only thing you could see from the outside was flashes in the street from the guns going off inside. Screaming, gunfire. When SWAT showed up everything got worse. That was about when I came down.”<br> I nodded, listening to his story. The only people who had survived this monster’s wrath were people who hadn’t been there in the first place. I wasn’t sure whether I should feel lucky, or just scared out of my damn mind. It was a killing machine the likes of which the bar had never seen. It was built to destroy, and now it was hunting Ellis and I.
I remember absent mindedly wondering where the hell Raz was. He hadn’t been among the dead and he sure as hell wasn’t the cause, so where the hell could he be? Little did I know he was right above us, checking the freezer and finding a big surprise.
When Ellis and I had finally reached the bar itself again, I heard the thing scream again. Evidently it had woken up, and it was very, very unhappy with us. I figured at most we had a few minutes to get the hell out of the bar. Ellis, on the other hand, was able to come up with an interesting idea. It was as if he had a sudden epiphany. I remember it clear as day when he grabbed my collar and started yelling about a way to kill it.
“What the hell are you going on about?”<br> He had just grabbed my collar and started yelling about being able to destroy the damned thing.
“Don’t you see? If we can get to the armory we can wire the bar to blow! The missile hurt it, right? Knocked it out cold. If we get enough C4 or Semtex in here, it might be enough to kill it.”<br> He could have been right. Enough explosives can hurt just about anything. Why would this monster be any different? Because it could take fourteen rounds to the head and keep on coming. Because you could put an anti tank missile into the side of it’s head and let it fall 52 floors down, and it wouldn’t stop. Of course, none of this mattered to me. It was something to try, and since I’d worn out almost any other possible conclusion, we had to try.
There was just one thing that bothered me, and I voiced it immediately. “Ok, ok, but how the hell are we going to get to the armory?”<br> Ellis thought for a few seconds, but was shocked into an idea by the monster’s vile scream coming out of the stairwell again. “Ai’s car, we could try to fix it and get to the armory.”<br> I hated engines. I hated changing tires. I hated the idea of having to fix Ai’s god damn car, but it was the only idea either of us had that was any good.
Now, I have to admit, being a resident at the bar for over two years, and getting to know the load of strange phenomenon and overall oddities that my fellow patrons were capable of was strange enough. But in the last two weeks I’d been knocked out more times than I’d like, got tortured and interrogated, drugged, shipped home to find a near invincible monster and nearly everyone I know dead. Even with all that time I’ve spent in the bar, the last two weeks were full of some of the strangest shit I will ever see in my life. The most irritating of all the things I had to do that night? Try to get Ai’s car to work.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:12:31 GMT -5
Leaving the bar’s front door, we came upon Mav’s body. Ellis had run across him earlier, and had moved him up to the edge of the bar, concealing him a little better. He seemed to be breathing easier now, his chest was rising and falling with a bit of strength, rather than rasping, he was breathing.
Ellis looked at me over Mav’s body. “Get his legs.”<br> I raised an eyebrow at him. “We’re taking him with?”<br> The monster let out a scream that vibrated the bar’s windows with rage. Ellis and I looked at one another and spoke at the same time.
“Stupid question.”<br> When Ellis and I had finally dragged Mav’s limp body all the way to the car, we heard the creature rip out into the street. The door from the MSPB had been shot clean off of it’s hinges, and flew into the next alleyway with a loud splintering crash. The beast itself followed the door and tore out into the street. With any luck it would take the monster a minute or so to catch up with us.
I’d already fallen into the driver’s seat, and Ellis and I had gotten Mav into the back of the car; Ellis was bent over with his head under the hood as the creature came bounding towards the car at full speed. When the door had broken off and had been sent flying, Ellis had raised is head right into the hood causing a dense clank and eliciting the word “Shit!” immediately; whether it was caused by his better view of the monster barreling down the street like a bat out of hell, or the feeling of his head slamming into the hood I didn’t know.
Mav moaned in the backseat. Evidently his Admin System was already kicking into gear, and beginning to take care of the internal damage. If he had any luck at all, he’d still be unconscious when the monster killed me and Ellis; of course I was just being pessimistic at the time. Then again, it could have just as easily happened if Ellis hadn’t slammed his fist against the hood, which snapped closed and kicked the motor on.
The look on Ellis’ face was priceless when the hood snapped shut less than an inch from his nose. If I hadn’t been convinced that in a few seconds we were all going to be maimed and killed in horrible ways, I would have laughed. Unfortunately, seeing his face also meant seeing that the beast was much, much closer than it had been the last time I saw it. Ellis turned to look as well. I have no doubt the expression on his face then wasn’t quite as funny as the one before it.
The monster was blaring out it’s battle cry again. It was also pulling what looked like fifty without breaking a sweat. Since Ellis didn’t have time to actually get into the car, I had to take action. I floored it. The second the front bumper hit Ellis, he jumped, and yelled as he was kicked onto the hood of the car. I was honestly surprised he didn’t scream; I would have. After all, he was suddenly going 60 towards a monster that wanted to mutilate him, on top of the hood of a car that was probably going to break down at any second.
The monster seemed more surprised than we were when we ripped passed it going 70. I don’t think it realized we were capable of going quite that fast. But the monster’s surprise was nothing compared to what happened when it got angry, and it got angry fast. It pulled a u-turn and started gaining on us without giving it a second thought. I knew it was going to catch up to us and kill us now. Lucky for me, no, lucky for us all, Ellis had another idea.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:13:51 GMT -5
“Gunn, toss me your Magnum!”<br> Ellis’ voice had nearly been drowned out by the monster’s scream and the squeal of the tires on the road. If I hadn’t been looking strait at him, I would have missed it completely.
I didn’t know quite what he had planned, but I didn’t have time to argue, drive, and hand him my gun all at the same time, so I chose the quickest option. I pulled my Magnum out of its holster and busted out the window, leaning out and handing Ellis the gun and speed loader. After I’d safely pulled my head and left arm back in the car, I understood.
Since Ellis was on top of the car, if I was able to drive steady for a bit, he could aim over the roof and shoot at the bastard. If he was able to slow the son of a bitch down enough we could make it to the armory without getting caught. The downside to this plan was the fact that we’d have to park the damn car, which left it in the open and vulnerable to the beast. This meant we’d be walking back to the bar, and on top of that, we had no place for Mav.
To my happy surprise Ellis was about as good a shot with the Magnum as I was. On his first shot he hit the creature in the leg, dropping it onto three legs and causing it to slam into one of the buildings when we hit a tight turn. Ellis gave a triumphant whoop that was cut off just a few seconds later when the monster ripped through the roof of the building it had ran into.
The damned thing kept on our tail like fire on gasoline. Every turn, every intersection, but then suddenly it decided to try something new. As we neared the armory the thing dropped back a little, so Ellis could have a decent shot at it. Naturally, Ellis took the shot, but instead of getting the beast he’d chipped a chunk of one of the building’s roofs. The beast caught the bit of shrapnel while it was in the air, and then hurled it down at the car with a tremendous force.
It ripped into the trunk and tore through the bottom of the car. I checked all the gauges to make sure we weren’t losing any gas. I even checked the brakes softly to make sure they hadn’t been cut. Until that point I don’t think I really realized how smart it had been. Taking out the power to the entire town. Hiding and waiting for us to be in the right place at the right time before striking. What scared me the most was the possibility that this thing would manage to figure out our plan.
The idea seemed fine when Ellis had thought of it. But that was when we assumed it was just a stupid beast and could be led to do whatever we needed it to do. Right at that moment, more than any other time, I hoped that something else was behind this thing. Something human. Something I could kill.
We ripped around another corner and I heard Ellis call out that the armory was just ahead. When I looked back to see where the creature had gone, I was stunned to see that I couldn’t find it. It had disappeared right in plain sight. I watched confusion dawn on Ellis’ face as my mind attempted to sort through the astronomical possibilities. Could it become invisible at will? Was that why I hadn’t seen it in the stairwell at first? Had it just given up? The worst of all these thoughts came last with a resounding and horrible vision of our deaths, again; Was it laying a trap for us? As far as all of those questions are concerned, I had no answers at the time. I honestly had no idea what the hell the creature had been up to. All I know is, when we pulled up to the armory the entire world seemed more silent than a graveyard.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:15:14 GMT -5
Ellis was glad to be off the hood of the car, and handed my Magnum back to me. I snapped it open and loaded it, expecting that we’d have company soon, or would run into some inside. After I’d dropped my Magnum back into it’s holster Ellis and I hauled Mav out of the back seat and into the building. If the creature attacked the car, Mav would have been defenseless if we’d left him lying in the backseat.
The armory itself wasn’t much of a building. It stood two stories, and looked a lot like an office building. Desks were lined in a nice uniform way, and cubicles were set around here and there. The second floor housed a few offices and a mail room, but what we were looking for was in the second basement. As far as I know, the first floor is dedicated to firearms only. The second floor, however, has enough explosives to take out the entirety of Neutral Town. My guess was that was why they kept it in the second basement.
Ellis and I got Mav onto one of the closest desks. I checked Mav’s wounds and found that each was healing rather well. All except for his eye. The injury must have been so severe that the Admin system couldn’t retrieve it. I almost felt sorry for him. I did lose an eye once myself, after all.
As soon as we got Mav set, Ellis volunteered to get the explosives himself, since I wanted to stay up top and keep an eye out. If we’d both gone down in that elevator, and Mav had been murdered in his sleep, I don’t think I could have lived with myself.
It was about halfway through Ellis’ trip that I heard the monster again. It wasn’t screaming this time. I could just hear its claws tear into the pavement, walking outside the building towards the car. The hulking behemoth now stood in front of Ai’s car, and suddenly brought it’s claws into the engine fast and hard as it could. The impact was enough to make the car flip up and stand on it’s front bumper, the deep claw marks making the entire car look like a giant bent fork.
While watching the car I had zoned out of reality. I felt like I was watching an episode of the Twilight Zone where three lost souls were about to be mutilated and killed for absolutely no reason at all. Unfortunately, I got ripped back into reality when the creature started to turn towards the building.
It was instinct that kicked in, really. I knocked Mav right off the table and kicked his limp body in the stomach to push him underneath for the sake of saving time. I drew my Magnum while diving for the second table in the row just as the Monster crashed through the front of the building. I had just barely gotten myself out of sight when the monster looked inside and sniffed the air. I was quieter in that moment than I will ever be in my entire life. I could have heard a pin drop a mile away if I wasn’t so focused on the fact that Mav was sure to groan again and get us both killed.
I could hear as the creature stepped into the building slowly, just a meter or two from where Mav and I lay concealed under the desks. My heart thumped hard in my chest and it took all of my concentration not to breathe as fast as my body told me to. It was strange though, despite listening to the creature draw in enormous breaths I could hear the elevator coming up.
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Gunn
Dark Poet
Time to die.
Posts: 417
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Post by Gunn on Jun 15, 2004 15:16:39 GMT -5
I can only imagine what the look on Ellis’ face was when those doors opened and he found himself facing the beast again. Evidently, he’d thought of the possibility, because along with several pounds of Semtex, he’d brought up something else he thought we’d need; a minigun.
It took him a few seconds to pull the trigger. I think it must have been shock that hit him, to be staring down the beast again when he must have expected that it had given up the chase. When the barrels started to rotate, I slapped my hands over my ears. The dulled roar of automatic gunfire came to my eardrums nonetheless, along with the shrill screams and squealing the beast let out as it was struck with round after round after round of high caliber ammunition.
Ellis held the trigger down for 10 seconds, and pelted the creature with as much ammunition as it could take until it finally backed out of the armory building and ran. I suppose taking a few shots didn’t bother it much. But that much punishment was enough to take a toll. I waited until Ellis finally stopped firing and stood up with a grin. Ellis smirked at me.
“Like my new friend?”<br> “Oh, no, I love your new friend.”<br> “We still have a ride?”<br> I gestured towards the doorway. Lying in the street were the remains of Ai’s car. Ellis sighed unhappily. The destruction of Ai’s car wasn’t surprising. After all, when I’d gotten in I’d expected to be killed before Ellis could get it started. The car was dead before we even got here; it had been nearly out of gas when we left and had been running on fumes by the time we arrived.
I secretly thanked Ai for that, because if his car had actually made it to the bar, we’d have had no way to get here in the first place.
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