Catharsis Of Yearning Chapter 3 – The Unknown
Authors Note: Until I can retrieve my lost notes, most of my other fics will remain on hiatus, with the exception of: Immortal, Use Me, Forgive Me, Never An Absolution and (maybe) It's A Shame. Thanks for your patience, enjoy the chap.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." – H.P Lovecraft
-
Eddie had always considered himself to be a cool, rational individual, able to adjust to whatever situation he was thrown into and keep his head. That was why, when he first saw the glimmering between the darkening trees, he ignored it. He tried to think of all the things that could possibly reflect the setting sun, and as the list grew shorter and shorter, he cautiously began to approach. He kept his weapon pointed downwards, not wanting to scare any civilian who may have escaped into the relative safety of the shadowed forest. "Anyone out there?" He called lowly, unsure why a feeling of dread suddenly began to roll in his stomach and seep beneath his tough exterior, staining his insides and making him afraid. A frown twisted his lips downwards as he mentally berated his stupidity and he repeated himself, more loudly, "Is there anyone out there?"
Even without a reply, he allowed himself to be swallowed between the giant trees, his eyes scanning the area for any sign of life as he progressed onwards, hoping that someone would finally be able to shine a light on what had happened. He hesitated when the trees began to thicken, blocking out the lowering sun which glowed like fire behind him. Nervously he shifted his weight from foot to foot, contemplating returning quickly to the P.D and calling the rest of the team to join him on his expedition, when he heard a soft sigh filter through the whispering leaves. Now he was certain there was someone in the woods, and though his gut called to him and told him to return to his squad, to fetch them before searching, his head cautioned that whoever it was might be injured, disorientated…might get lost and never be found. Sucking in one last breath, he pushed through the thorny bushes, tilting his body from left to right, passing between the trees as silent as a ghost.
He thumbed on the small flashlight fastened to the underside of his rifle, sweeping it around the area, hoping to catch the glimmer once more as he struggled through the tightly enclosed area. The silence that had stalked him through the town had become lost amidst the trees, and Eddie couldn't help but wonder why the only noises he could hear were the soft brushings of leaf against leaf, the occasional twig snapping under some unknown weight, and the mollifying sighs that urged him onward. Shouldn't there be birds, crickets, insects, anything to add to the unnatural soundtrack?
He snapped around, gun raised and finger poised on the trigger as his eyes landed on nothing but more foliage. Shaking his head and sighing, dismissing the feeling that someone was watching him, he turned back, freezing as he saw a pale figure disappear further into the woods just to his right. "Stop!" He called, rushing forward, and before he could realise what had happened he was falling into a clearing, landing hard on his elbows and wincing at the pain that flared in his ankle. He looked behind him, mentally cursing the snarled root that had snagged his foot, pushing himself up and turning back towards the figure before him. The first thing he noticed about the girl -for though the long crimson hair was scraggly and the hour-glass figure slicked with blood, it was unmistakably a woman- was that she was entirely naked.
"Ma'am?" He moved closer to her, lowering his gun as he fumbled to remove his jacket, propriety urging him to cover her up before taking her back. "Ma'am? Are you alright? My name is Eddie Shaw, I've been sent here to find out what's going on…" On and on he rambled, not even sure what he was saying, drawing closer to her, but she didn't turn back to him. She just kept moving forward, more of a stumble than a walk, sighing her soft sighs. Noticing that she was still not responding, he forced himself to move faster, biting back a hiss at the increasing pain in his ankle. Finally she stopped, her head tilting back, and something in his mind associated the move with that of an animal scenting blood. She inhaled a long, hissing breath through her nose, and as he stopped behind her, a wave of sickness clutched his stomach as the stench of rancid flesh flooded his senses. He touched the jacket to her shoulders, too confused to read the signs, his brain running on auto. "We have a medic back in town, come with me and we'll…get…this…"
He trailed off as his mouth dried out and he took an instinctive step backwards, his hand dropping lifelessly to his side mere inches from the rifle, but using it was the last thing on his mind. A pair of identical angry red slashes extended from the corners of her torn mouth, but this did nothing to detract from the ferocious needle-like teeth that glittered like newly-shone pearls and protruded out from below her upper-lip, each of the four long fangs flanked by three smaller but equally delicate looking points. Eddie flashed back to his childhood, and a picture of an Anglerfish from a book he had once seen in a dentist's office. He remembered sitting in his seat, shivering with fear as his mother warned him that if he did not brush twice a day, his own teeth would resemble the monstrous jaws of the carnivorous predator.
The ruined mouth opened in a hissing growl, and he saw that the bottom row had only the smaller teeth, much more tightly compacted but just as effective as their counterparts. His eyes, scared to know but needing to see, took in the rest of her appearance. Now that she was facing him, he could see the mottled black taint her torso had become, fading into a pale grey at her ribcage, and bleaching into smooth flawless ivory as it disappeared towards her back. From behind, she had looked like a normal being, but now…her hands rose, seemingly in slow motion before his dazed eyes, and he could see where the skin of her fingertips had frayed as bone had pushed past the weak barrier and morphed into lethal looking claws.
The sight of her had thrown his logical mind back into the void, and he found himself continuing to stammer out platitudes and warnings for her to stay back, even as she launched herself at him with a deafening shriek, knocking him back to the ground. He felt his mouth open in terror as he felt a burning sensation zip across his cheek, and he was unsure as to whether he was screaming or not as her other hand came whizzing down through the air. Instinct kicked in and took over, and he brought back his fist, slamming it hard against what should have been a cheek but felt more like a side of frozen beef, feeling his fist connect with sickening strength, sending her head jerking to the side. He drew back for another, deathly ashen eyes locking on deep brown as her head snapped back to face him, and the fist froze mid-air as she lunged forward. He screamed as those needle-like teeth broke through the skin of his arm, and another of those burning pains raced down his chest as her claws made contact once more. Finally breaking free of his trance, he grasped desperately for his gun.
He could only imagine what would have happened to his neck had she hit her target -for those teeth were designed to latch onto their prey and immobilize them, clearly so she could slash away at her victim without resistance- and instead he now felt her yanking at the flesh of his forearm as he grasped the weapon trapped awkwardly between them. He forced the barrel up into her stomach, and disregarding his training, unloaded a full clip into her torso, forcing her back with a screech of agony, and a silver-dollar sized chunk of flesh from his forearm. Blankly he squeezed the trigger once more, stunned more by the fact that she still sat atop his waist than the empty click he received from his gun. Blood dripped from her mouth and down her chin, a wild snarl rumbling from within her bullet-riddled torso. Gripping the barrel with his free-hand, he brought the butt around, slamming it solidly into the side of her head, knocking her aside.
Shakily forcing himself to his feet he backed away, feeling blood ooze down his arm as he reached for a new clip from his belt. He felt it coat his fingers as he tore the magazine away, the fingers of his other hand fumbling to eject the spent clip while at the same time shoving the new one in. He didn't feel pain from the bite, too horrified to feel the pain inflicted upon him by the creature that rose up before him, emotionless eyes crazed with blood-lust.
A third eye appeared between the other two, and for an instant it seemed as though she would continue to come after him, then her body collapsed slowly to the ground with a little tremor. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the corpse on the ground, even as he felt someone grab his arm and begin to inspect it. "It's not too bad, but she definitely got a good chunk. Eddie, are you alright? Eddie? Eddie?"
"Keep away from her!" Eddie yelled frantically as he saw Johnny approach the corpse, drawing everyone's attention to him. "She's fucking crazy!"
"Crazy she may have been Eddie, but she is also dead." Robert muttered lowly, his eyes travelling between the naked body and the bleeding male by his side. He did not want to jump to conclusions, and he believed he knew Eddie well enough to know the strength of his values, but he still couldn't help but ask, "Why is she naked?"
"Don't ask me man, I have no fucking idea! I saw something in here, and came to find out. I see her walking around in here, and I go to give her my jacket and bring her back, bitch freaks out and attacks me!"
"And it took an entire clip to subdue her?" The elder male retorted dubiously, nodding to Rei to begin tending to the vicious wound. Instead of continuing to meet the frustrated eyes staring at him unbelievingly, he watched as the Neko-jin removed a small glass bottle from his pack, paying painfully close attention as he unscrewed the cap and prodded at the ragged hole in the otherwise undamaged forearm. Tipping the clear liquid directly into the injury, he frowned as thousands of tiny white bubbles erupted from where it had made contact.
"Eddie, how long ago did she bite you?" Rei asked, tearing his eyes away to meet Eddie's curious gaze.
"You heard me hollering. That was when she bit me."
"But that was only a few minutes ago…and your wound is infected pretty badly. Did she look sick to you?"
"Did she look sick?" He snorted with laughter, shaking his head and wondering if somewhere along his journey into the woods, he had stumbled into insanity. "Well Rei, I've never seen anyone with white eyes before, so yes, I'd say those made her look sick. Plus the mouth and those teeth, oh and the fact that she tried to tear my throat out and still came at me even after I unloaded a full clip into her gut. Didn't even slow her down, as a matter of fact. Then I slammed my gun into the side of her fucking head and she fell off. Does she sound sick to you Rei?"
"Sounds like she's high on PCP to me. Keeps her flying so goddamn high she wouldn't have felt a thing." Johnny muttered over his shoulder, giving the girl a demonstrative kick with his booted foot. Not even a twitch. He crouched and grabbed one of her wrists, drawing it away from her body as he felt for a pulse. The skin was cold, and he could see no signs of drug-usage, but that proved nothing as far as the Scot was concerned. Junkies were very clever when it came to consuming narcotics. He noticed the many mutations that had taken place, but said nothing of them, knowing Rei would be better fit to make a diagnosis of what had happened to her. "Whatever the hell was wrong with her isn't wrong now. She's deader than shit."
Tala stayed back, eyeing their surroundings, unable to forget the small girl waiting back in town. Maybe dead by now, but none of them had thought to carry her out to the woods with them. None but him, and he had dared not raise the suggestion to their Lieutenant when the screams had started and everyone had bolted from the room, searching for Eddie. It had been a lucky chance they had been able to find him, for if not for the other males terrified screams, they might never have found him in the small clearing. They had all seen the woman, and Tala could not help but compare her to Missy, lying weak and frightened on the bloody floor of the police headquarters. The pale eyes were the only thing they shared in common, but they alone brought the worry that there might be a disease…and now Eddie might have it. Swallowing back his worry, he called to Robert, "We need to get the girl."
"…there is no hope for her Tala, within the hour we'd be carrying nothing but a corpse. We can't afford to be weighed down."
"I can't afford a little girl dying alone on my conscience Robert." Tala rebutted, shaking his head as he turned away. "I'll carry her myself the whole damn way, but I can't just leave her there. Besides, what if she gets attacked?"
"Attacked by what, exactly? We have no idea what we are facing here, or where they are, or how many there are. For all we know they could be miles away."
"I agree with Tala." Enrique spoke up softly.
"I don't care what you agree with Enrique, this is my decision. I won't have half the team running back to town to fetch a dying girl. I'm sorry, but I cannot and will not let her jeopardize the safety of the squad or the mission. Tala! Get back here!" The redhead did not stop, breaking into a run as he disappeared into the thick foliage, and Robert growled and shook his head as Enrique made a move to follow. "Don't you dare Giancarlo. I godamnwell can't afford to have two of you missing."
"What are we going to do sir?"
"We'll wait until Rei has finished treating Eddie before we do anything. But when this is over, Tala will be wishing he'd stayed at base and cleaned latrines with his tongue for a year."
-
Fear was perhaps one of the most deadly adversaries of a man in peril. It all traced back to the time when man was a curious cross-breed between primate and homo-sapient, and they feared the night above all else because of the unknown predators that lurked in the darkness. The fact that his men knew what stalked them did not dissuade their fear, and Kai wondered if H.P Lovecraft had ever considered the plausibility of a zombie apocalypse before the cancer that had wrecked havoc upon his intestines had defeated him. He highly doubted it.
Allowing his eyes to trail around the room of men attempting –and failing- to sleep, he frowned his disapproval. Sleep deprivation would do nothing but weaken their characters further, and then he'd have to deal with more and more little spats and scuffles beginning over nothing and ending with nothing but bruised egos and hard feelings. Sleep deprivation and fear did not bode well for his ability to effectively control them either, and he knew Martinez was just waiting for his next opportunity to attempt another mutiny. "Sleep, or you'll be dead by the time your shift comes around…and just because we're not on base doesn't mean you're going to get to sleep in. It's business as usual guys."
Even though one or two continued to feign slumber, and most of the others didn't bother to respond, Miguel Martinez sat up, meeting the bluenette's blazing eyes with a grim stare. Aforementioned bluenette shifted himself into a more comfortable position, preparing for the conflict he knew was to come. "Business as usual would imply we were all here Hiwatari. Brooklyn, Raul…they're gone. How do we know who'll be next?"
"When I lived, I provided for every thing but death; now I must die, and am unprepared. Caesar Borgia."
"Don't give me that history shit, spouting off quotes about death doesn't negate the fact that we are all probably going to die here, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it because you won't let us go home and leave this shit for someone else to deal with!" He met his commander's gaze with a confident glare, and his hands balled into fists under the blankets. "Every single one of us feels the exact same way Kai, we want to go home! Why are you making us do this?"
"…you want to go home, Miguel? Fine. Go home. But in one week, maybe two…home might not be so far away anymore. Home might not be so safe anymore. Whatever the hell those things are, they are spreading. You saw what they did in town, and you can see what they're doing outside right now, Darwinism to its purest form – survival of the fittest. As soon as they realize that the food source here is gone, basic instinct is going to kick in and they will seek greener pastures. In simple terms, Martinez, this might spread if we stay here and fight it, but if we go home, it will spread. Then your family, your friends, your girlfriend, that fat chick who keeps ogling you at the mall and that store clerk who thinks you're too stupid to realize he's short-changing you every time you drop in, they'll all be like those things out there. Still wanna go home and hide from reality? Do any of you?"
A tired yawn was the first answer he received. Then, an almost incoherent mutter drifted from one of the several corners of the room. "He ain't speaking for me; if he was he would've mentioned that we should've hit the liquor store before we shacked up in this place." Crimson hair unruly, blue eyes awash with sleep, Michael sat up and shook his head as if dismissing his weariness. "Anyway, whose shift is it?"
"Ian and Kenny are out in the hall keeping an eye on things. You still got a half hour, use it wisely and go back to sleep, you damned stupid American."
"You let Shorty and Super-Wiz keep watch? Together? What're they gonna do if something actually happens?" He paused for a moment, rising to his feet as he side-stepped a scowling Miguel, who had since folded his arms across his chest, his eyes revolving between the tired American and glaring Russian. "Ian'd probably blow up the entire mansion if he saw a butterfly, jittery little shit, but Kenny? He gonna talk 'em to death?"
"They both have weapons, and they both know how to use them. And I'm sure that without caffeine, Ian will find himself a lot less twitchy and trigger-happy."
"I still think it's a mistake, but what can you do? I wish we had some decent food man, I'm starving."
"Michael, you know we need…"
"Yeh, yeh, I know. 'Supplies must be rationed'. But still, logic doesn't stop my mind from taunting me with the reminders of a burger and a cool pitcher. Hell, I missed World Series for this, Yankees and the Red Sox. I had money riding on that game."
Kai sighed through a smirk. Same old Michael, would never change. Still, he was thankful for the redhead's ability to piss all over Miguel and his mutinous attempts to flee with such flippancy. "It'll still be there when we get back…and if you don't happen to return, I'll be glad to collect your winnings for you."
As Michael opened his mouth to reply, the sounds of an explosion leaked in through the doorway and then moments later sporadic gunfire followed. If any of the men had managed to remain asleep through the explosion, Kenny's terrified figure throwing open the door and casting a long shadow into the room had changed that for them all. Panting for breath, watching the members of Gamma Team scurrying to prepare themselves, he stated the obvious. "They're coming!"