The heavy doors clunked closed behind Hannah. She was alone in the darkened parking lot in front of Graycliff. Only her light provided a little island of assurance ahead of her. Gravel crunched under her feet. Her gun was already out. She would not be caught off guard here. The unnatural night concealed the world around her. Only sound was her ally here. She was both anxious for, and dreaded, the arrival of something in the dark. She wanted the suspense to be over, for the dark to show its secrets so she could send a dozen bullets into them, yet, when her mind flicked back to her memory of the bedroom, she lost some of her nerve. Only her desire to find the one that took the hostage drove her forward.
Sound whispered on the cusp of her hearing. It grew quickly to the rattling static of the radio at her hip. Her mind flashed with scarred skin and chains and she froze. Part of her gained control and she panned her light around her slowly. The static grew louder. The crunch of gravel joined in. Hannah's torch turned to mansion face. The shadows in the garage and under the eaves of the great house moved. Hannah brought up her gun to level with the dark, flicking from one to the next. Where would it come from?
A dozen foot-falls on gravel followed her anticipation. The shadow belched forth the first of them. A stunted, hideous beast, but still vaguely human. It's shrunken head stretched from its bulbous body on a wrinkled, atrophied neck. It moved like an ape, shifting its hunched, oil-shine body on wolf-like legs and huge, gorilla arms. In its hand it held a rusty, bloody cleaver. Behind it, ripping themselves from the shadows of the house, came a dozen more, and more behind them, all carrying pipes, knives and various other improvised weapons. As little black-bead eyes set in their flayed, mouthless faces found the light, they snorted and picked up their pace.
Hannah backed away from the horde that lumbered slowly into the light of her torch. Her gun shivered as she moved it from one creature to the next. She breathed heavily. There were to many, far to many for her to take down. They were smaller than the other creature, but there were so many of the disgusting brutes. Their little black shell-bodies shone in the light, their heads twitched madly, faster than the eye could follow. A few up the front of the horde slowed, their faces regarding Hannah for a moment. She froze, they froze. Then they began to charge.
Hannah fled as fast as she could down the drive. She had loosed a few shots at the leading creatures, but it did little to deter the galloping charge. So she flew down the unsteady driveway. Her feet slid on the steep downhill slope, her dark hair loosed. She fell, pushed herself up as the clatter of gravel and the squealing and violent snorting followed her in a wave. She looked back and saw the dark tide of monstrosities scrabbling down the drive only a few metres behind her. She screamed. She fled. She didn't look back again.
Hannah son made it to the front gate and vaulted over it, landing on the road. She fell forward and righted herself before stopping. Where would she go? Her car was stuck, but it was a way out. She could go for the garage but that meant crossing miles of road on foot with those beasts chasing her. She looked around wildly, trying to make the decision. Her torch caught movement in the tree line. Charging shadows in the pines. They were coming from the woods. How could she possibly outrun them? The sound of hog-like roars and squeals and trampled gravel filled her mind. She fired aimlessly into the woods and the darkness of the driveway. The horde that had followed her came into her view and she became transfixed with the black-shelled gangs of brute that were coming for her. She fired and screamed at them. She was drenched in sweat and her pistol clicked. Empty, just as the first brute pulled the gate of the house down with his cleaver, screeching through the metal. She fell back, still firing the empty gun at them, screaming.
"NO! GOD NO!"
Her vision filled with light and she shielded her eyes. The sound of her death rang in her ear until a concussive blast slashed through it. Her ears rang for a moment as a high-pitched whine, dulling a rapid, throbbing guttering and moaning, dulling the squeals that hung above these new sounds. Without warning she was assaulted, a huge arm around her midsection. She thrashed and opened her eyes to beat back the brute. She stopped her assault as she tried to register the confusing form. The dark figure threw her onto a seat behind it that shook in time with the throbbing sound. The figure's pale face turned to the horde spilling over the gate. Some had fallen, but others trampled them. The figure held out and arm and another flash of light blinked, and shocked her ears. She instinctively grasped her seat and lifted her legs as the throbbing increased in frequency. She felt inertia toss her to the side and then forced her back into her seat as wind began to whip against her face. Her eyes locked into the tree line, her torch flashing over the twitching heads of the brutes as they soared past her.
The camp was a dump. An old boathouse turned into a slimy, fortified den. It contained one rotten, old boat on the other side, with planks taken from it to reinforce the doors and windows. A small oil lantern guttered in middle of the camp, throwing strange shadows all over the camp. Junk was scattered over the floor; tools, nails, chip packets, cigarette butts and milk cartons, as well as shards of broken glass, and empty bottles and cans. In the corresponding corner of the room to Hannah was 'Sasha', or so Hannah's rescuer had called her. He was currently fidgeting with her engine and fixing her rear seat. She was a bulky, and heavily customised ride, made for long journeys and durability; and so was he. Hannah sat on a seedy, damp mattress that was worm-eaten and smelt of equal parts brine, cigarette smoke and booze.
He had the typical biker look about him; black bandanna, black leather jacket, black boots, overweight, with scruffy, blonde stubble all about his face, grasping chip bits, oil and God-knows-what-else. He had flung her on the bed when they arrived at the boathouse, and at first she had feared the worst, but he simply left her there, sealed the door and started working on his bike with barely a word said between them. She had managed to coax precious little out of him since then, becoming more than a little annoyed.
Now he tramped over to her from the bike, retrieving the lantern and placing it at the side of the mattress, squatting to get to eye level with her.
"Right…what's your name?" His words slurred together in such a way that she had to pause for a second to try and decipher what he had said.
"Detective Hannah Chou, Ashfield County Police." She leered at him, and her words came out as a sneer. He stank of waste and oil, and Hannah had always disliked bikers, picturing them as animalistic, dirty and brutish.
He nodded and stood up, walking a little ways towards his bike again, the lantern throwing ghoulish version of him dancing about his form. He said nothing else. Hannah was taken off guard by his response, and this quickly turned to anger.
"Hey! And who the hell are you?!" She stood up and asserted herself. He stopped walking and turned a little and made a face as though she was speaking Greek..
"Hmph…name's Luke." He turned back and remained there, looking at his bike.
Hannah pushed on. "Well, Luke, what the hell are you doing here? You certainly don't look like one of those…things." Luke walked over to one of the supports of the boathouse and leant against it as Hannah talked, his face neutral and unreadable.
"The question that should be asked is what a pig like you is doin' here. What's Ashfield want with this dump?" he crossed his arms and regarded her in the flickering light.
"Why should I answer that? That's police business. Wha-" Luke cut her off.
"It's my business now you fuckin' sow! This town's gone to hell and I rescued your ass to boot! I think I deserve and answer, eh?" She was taken aback a little at the gall of the man before she snapped.
"You don't deserve a damn thing! I'm the one that has the authority here, dammit!"
The biker's voice began to rise as he squared off against her. "If we're gonna survive whatever the fuck has happened here, we're gonna need to co-operate, and I need to know what the fuckin' police have to do with this mess?"
"The police don't have anything to do with this damn mess! You think those things out there are human?"
Luke paused and looked away. "I think a lotta things."
Hannah sighed in exasperation and turned away from him. She walked to the wall and peered through one of the tiny gaps in the wooden boards. A dark yard lay outside, fenced in and scattered with mechanical and wooden detritus. She couldn't see or hear anything of the brutes from Graycliff, only the lapping of Lake Toluca behind her. She was stuck here with this bastard until she could figure out what the hell was going on from him.
Luke spoke again, the anger gone from his voice, soft now, making it all the harder to understand him. "I don't know how long ago it was I came here. Time is hard to gauge like this. Maybe hours, maybe days, I don't really have a clue. I came in from the highway to pick up fuel and booze. I got to South Vale and found the place empty. Not a fuckin' soul. Servo's were full, and the food was still good, but not a fuckin' soul. Rode through the place and found nothin'. Tried to go back and the road had turned into a fuckin' cliff! Then I get mobbed by a bunch of ugly, butcher-knife bastards and I ride for Paleville. Crashed here when it got dark. And fuck did it get dark fast. I heard your gunfire from here and I bailed out to see what it was. Now we're 'ere." He crouched by the lantern and did not meet her eyes once during the whole recount.
Hannah turned away when he finished. "My business is still my own, but I can assure you that I know nothing of what has happened here. My…partner and I came here and our car came off the road…we made it to the estate and we…got separated. I was attacked and…" She paused as she remembered, her lip twitching in disgust. She also did not desire to tell the biker about the call she had received.
She turned to him and locked her eyes with his. "My partner is in the east garage in the tourist district of Paleville."
"Is he armed?" Luke didn't move still taring at the lantern. Hannah put her hand on the second pistol on her belt conscientiously.
"No…"
With that Luke stood and carried the lantern to the middle of the boathouse, hanging it, and snuffing the flame, turning on his flashlight to compensate before moving to his bike.
"Ok, lets go."
"Go? What do you mean, 'go'?"
He stared at her for a moment as he swung a leg over his bike. "To the east garage."
Was he serious? Bolting into the darkness without know what was going on? He read her hesitation and cut in.
"Your partner hasn't got a chance if he's unarmed. If Paleville's as bad as South Vale then you'd better hope your man ain't dead already." With that he started the bike and rammed the helmet that had sat on the handle-bars onto his head. He waved Hannah over as he slung a shotgun over his shoulder. Hannah almost instinctively moved and sat behind the biker. Part of her reassured herself that this was the most direct way of getting to Paleville, but another part of her still reeled at the man's proximity. She tried to remain as far away from him while still seated as she could manage.
Luke lifted the latches and bolts on the door and shoved it open, shuffling forward to do the same for the iron gate. With that, Hannah was forced to clutch the seat tightly as 'Sasha' screamed into the darkness of the road ahead.
Hannah felt a void to the left of her as the bike sped down the dark, abandoned road. A change in the air, different from the forest, heralded that they were passing the lakeside amusement park. It wasn't long now until they would reach the garages. The trip had thus far gone without incident. It had been, to Hannah, too smooth.
The bike pulled to a sudden stop and Hannah automatically reached for her gun. Luke already had his shotgun out and pointing it into the darkness of the road ahead, focused on the empty space just beyond the field of his bike's headlight. She kept her firearm similarly ready, although her gaze roved about the circle of light that sat in.
"There's something moving up ahead." That was all the explanation the biker gave. Hannah aimed at the spot the Luke was focusing on and waited. The apprehension was horrifying, and her mind began to form visions in the darkness, perverted forms of people, of monstrosities loping from the void. They waited for what seemed until the end of the world.
Then came the siren.
An agonisingly long, wailing howl rippled through the dark air. It rose slowly, Hannah's muscles tensing with it and raising herself a little in time with it, until it lingered at a single, ear shattering note. The sound pulsed as it held itself in her ears, as if the unnatural night itself was screaming. Parts of it lingered and echoed as it finally fell, Hannah feeling herself relaxing with its fall. It came up again and Hannah became more nervous as t repeated its call.
A feeling in her gut drew her attention to the subsonic moan that hung beneath the siren. A groan that grew and grew, holding on with a disturbing harmony to the lingering siren note. The bass moan washed over her from the void ahead like a dying breath, and she heard the tress rustle as it passed them. The night closed in around them, somehow thickening and pushing back the beam of light from the bike. The moan dropped off rapidly, quickly falling into lower keys until it disappeared. The siren continued as the darkness pulled in.
Both she and Luke were looking around, bewildered and alarmed by the sudden event. They no longer aimed ahead, but paned about, the shifting darkness moving like it was alive, and making the air smell and feel like hot breath. The siren fell off, leaving the ghosts of its wail in the foul air until there was absolute silence. Not even the lake lapped in the background. Only the bike's motor made any sound, and another, fainter one that crackled at Hannah's hip.
Luke turned to her as if to speak but never managed it. It had felt like the wind had knocked her down. It was like a tornado, made from hundred of tiny prickling knives flaying her skin, ravaging any exposed piece of flesh and flinging her off the bike. The wind held her, and it was all she could hear besides the dulled sound of her own scream. She flailed in the air and she was whisked away. In but a few moments she could no longer see the precious saviour light of the headlight and she was plunged into thousands of pinpricks of darkness.
