The bell rang. Bong…………
This is the first time that he was ever distracted from his work that night. He looked down at his handiwork to assess the situation, and then up into the rain-filled sky. He silently cursed under his breath with a dawning realization that it might be too late.
Bong…………
There isn't any time for this, he thought to himself. There wouldn't be any time for cleanup on this one. One knows that once the bell rings-
Bong…... Bong……
-and they got more frequent, your chances of getting out of this place alive were very slim. Making a mental note to badger himself later, he abandoned the half-bloody body and made a break for the gates, careful to use the shadows to his advantage.
Bong…bong…BONG…
He grimaced a bit at the last bong, not because of terror, but because of wonder. The bell never rang outside of one volume, so this must be an extra-special time….a time he would be sure to miss if he could help it. Unable to help himself, he looked up into the sanctuary of the building he had exited, where the bell was, and saw nothing. The bell wasn't moving anymore. In fact, everything felt very still; the rain had stopped as well.
Hoping that everything that just happened was a hallucination, he stopped moving under the safety of a large, dead oak. The black of the night and the lack of a moon under the dissipating storm clouds unnerved him. He had no idea why he felt this way, usually he was more sure of what he was doing. Damn those old wives tales…Of course the bell hadn't been ringing louder, it hadn't been ringing at all. Looking at the tower, there was no evidence, and he had some instances of insanity in the last few months.
Regaining his composure, he traced his frantic path back to the head of the steeple. Locating the mutilated body he had been working on, he shrank to his knees and tried to finish the job. He sank his teeth into the open wounds and drained the man of the rest of his blood. While he ate and filled up to his level of satisfaction, he noticed a nametag on the late man's shirt. It read:
Professor Henry Bates
2nd Division
Advanced Quantum Theory
This guy must have been important, he thought, and for a moment the human side of him felt remorse. He regretted that his drive for food was put above all else, and cursed the beast that put him under this condition. As much as he hated it, it sure tasted good……
Once he was satisfied, he quickly buried the body in a patch of soft dirt and made his way back to the cage doors. To failed attempts and one failed kick told him that the door was locked. What's worse is that the gate didn't have a lock on it. He stared at the gate a long while before deciding to attempt to jump over it. It was only about 20 feet tall, it should be an easy feat, he thought.
He crouched on his haunches and sprang up over the gate…until he was knocked backward by a seemingly transparent barrier. He fell back onto the ground, but being what he was he reacted quickly and landed on his shiny boots. He frowned his bloody mouth at the gate and wondered aloud: "What the fuck is going on here?" His mind led back to the bell, and at how sure he had been that it was fake. As he stood there, he remembered the conditions of the bell once more. That's when the murderous realization dawned on him.
There was no moon.
The clouds had gone from the storm, but being so wrapped up in his own thoughts he hadn't realized that something he noticed every night wasn't there. His heart began to beat quickly and he accidentally spat up some of Henry's blood. His eyes danced furiously in his sockets back and forth, looking for the threatening entity. At last, he located it. The lights in the steeple had come on.
Currently, the transparent barrier wasn't so transparent. Ghostly faces and etherical beings loomed around the walls and leered at him. They made no sounds, but their sight was sickening enough. He closed his eyes from this hellish vision and muttered that he had come to finish him off. There wasn't a point in trying to evade him. Reluctantly, he made his way up the steps into the steeple.