The three musketeers drove slowly down the bumpy road, none of them speaking a word.
Well, actually, it was one insane bazooka guy, one drunken demolitions expert and one giant dude with a minigun and a baby voice, but "three musketeers" is close enough.
The only vehicle in the RED base's area besides Ms. Pauling's—Sniper's van—slowed to a stop. It was a slow, grinding stop; a stop that would make one sense and feel the sluggish, dreadful agony and hear the aching, tired creaks.
Quite fitting for stopping at a nursing home, don't you think?
"Alrigh'," Demoman grunted, yanking out the key and shoving the door open. His boots crunched in the dry sand that was the road leading to Gray Lady's Nursing Home. Heavy came out of the door of the passenger seat, and Soldier slid out of his middle seat after the Russian.
Demoman turned and looked up at the desolate building. A crow squawked in the distance. "Eh… Y'sure this is where we'll find him, Soldier?"
Heavy, although his voice was unthreatening, loomed intimidatingly over Soldier, who answered Demoman quickly. "Aye-aye, captain! He was here once one time when I was eating popcorn and—"
"Dandy," Demoman breathed in, cutting Soldier off before anything even more irritating happened. He placed his fists on his hips and grinned at the building. "We'll have e'eryone fixed soon enough. Otherwise, I'll wring his bloodeh neck like a washcloth."
Soldier shrugged nervously and Demoman nodded. Demoman walked in through the cheap sliding doors first, and Heavy ushered Soldier in behind him.
As the three mercenaries entered, a rather gaunt woman who could've used the home herself sat at the front desk. She was old and shriveled like a gross raisin, with those librarian glasses with the strings on them. She wore a gray suit with tears at the seams. Her crooked scarlet lipstick stood out horrifically against the corpse-like rest of her.
"Yyyyess?" she droned. Demoman grimaced when she looked up. He wasn't sure if she considered herself to have her eyes open or closed, but either way, she looked like a ghoul.
"Aye, we uh—we're here to see th'witch ladeh."
Slowly but surely, her eyelids lifted a miniscule section of a centimeter in pure horror and shock. "Thhe… witch… lady…?"
"Um, yeah," Soldier butted in, earning himself a glare from Demoman. "She looks like a chimpanzee with a skull hat. Named Merasmus."
"Ooohhhhhh!" the old woman screamed(?), rising shakily from her chair and shuffling away. She hadn't moved a foot, but her arms were still stretched out in front of her and she was letting out breathy gasps of fear.
"Um, ohh-key then," Demo mumbled to his teammates. Soldier was staring at the old woman in confusion and Heavy simply looked flabbergasted. "Mebbe we sh'd look around in the rooms," the bomber added. "Seems like 'e's bin 'ere."
"Sure does," Soldier nodded before he brushed Heavy's guarding hands away from himself. He stepped forward confidently, a strong frown molded into his chin. "Let's go, maggots."
Before Demoman could argue with Soldier's choice of words, the American let out a battle cry like a vulgar gorilla and charged to the left and down the first hallway with an enormous grin on his face. He stopped at the first to doors, slamming one open with the heel of his boot and the other with his right fist. Horrified screams—or, you know, high-pitched whispers—of old women sounded from the hallway.
"SORRY, LADIES!" Soldier hollered, terrifying the poor ancient civilians even more. "JUST LOOKING FOR MY GREEN MONKEY WIZARD ROOMMATE!"
Upon the severely high volume of Soldier's unnecessary screaming, the rest of the old ladies in their rooms began shrieking as well, even with their doors closed. Only one scream was different from the rest. It was a somewhat manly scream; an old scream to be sure, but it sounded like the scream of a fifty-year-old smoker with bladder problems.
Merasmus.
"Hey-HO!" Soldier whooped as he singled out Merasmus' apartment door, taking a few steps back and then charging head-on into the gray-painted, locked entry wall.
Demoman stood silently in shock. He was gaping at the radical, overdramatic scene that was occurring in front of him. Heavy was just staring at the tired old reception lady, who had moved about one and a half or two feet total during this time. She was still screaming.
Soldier stormed out of Merasmus' room like a real trooper, smiling maniacally with a writhing, spitting Merasmus clutched tightly under his arm.
"MOVE OUT, MEN!" Soldier yelled cheerfully, gesturing a half-salute above his helmet for his comrades to get out of there, and fast. The four of them quickly leaped into the car, where Heavy punched the glove box open and Soldier pulled out a roll of duct tape to seal Merasmus' mouth and bind his wrists, preventing any spellcasting from occurring during their ride back.
As the back tires of the camper van screeched in the dirt, the men peered out their windows and saw the old gray lady still shuffling along in terror.
"Alrigh', we're outta here," Demoman stated, shifting into drive and veering off the tiny path, back towards the base.