Chapter 13: Urban Jungle
After getting my stuff together and going through the hole again, I woke up in a new area … and my ears were practically ringing already. The noises were deafening, not that I could really pinpoint what any of them were. It sounded like the whooping noises of jungle animals, but none that I recognized. I groaned and opened my eyes to realize that I was face-down on concrete again, but when I looked around, I saw that I was in an alleyway in the city.
I stood and began walking, but I stopped for a second when I saw something above that was just barely within my peripheral vision. I looked up and saw some kind of ape-like animals jumping from one tall rooftop to the next.
The alleyway was incredibly long, but once I got to the end, and entered a more open area, the noises got even louder and were now accompanied by various bangs and a man shouting. The first thing I saw in this new area was a car, but as I looked around, I realized I was on top of a massive building so I had no idea how the car got there.
There was a door, but it was locked, so I went down the fire escape stairs.
Almost immediately, I spotted something crouched in the corner. It looked like a naked muscular man, but with the proportions altered so that it had long arms and short legs, and a thin tail was added. It turned to look at me and that's when I realized that it had no lower jaw—instead, an extra smaller head had grown out of its chest that flopped around, almost bonelessly, as it moved. Both heads looked grotesquely human and were connected to each other by stretchy tissue. Its skin looked somewhat rotted, not unlike the "dogs" I'd seen previously.
I aimed my gun, but, disfigured and repulsive as the creature was, it still looked humanoid, so I couldn't quite bring myself to pull the trigger.
The creature let out a monkey-like scream as it reared back, then leaped at me. A primal need for self-preservation superseded my apprehension. I managed to sidestep the attack, and I pumped four bullets into it, causing the creature to screech once again before collapsing. I slowly put the gun away before moving on.
Again, there was nothing of interest nearby, so I went down another flight of stairs.
I heard a scream from high above me, and I looked up just in time to see a man fall from one of the rooftops, and plummet to the concrete below, landing about 20 feet away from me. I figured he must be dead, or at least horribly injured, but he just yelled, "Dammit!" and rose to his knees, "Where the hell am I?"
I rushed to him and was about to help him up until suddenly I was looking down the barrel of a revolver—I stopped and threw my hands up as I slowly backed away.
That was when I realized I'd recognized him—he was an older guy with slightly graying hair combed back and was wearing an interesting-looking tie with Venus de Milo on it. "Ah," he said, pointing the gun away, "You're a real person." I wasn't sure if that was relief or disappointment I'd heard in his voice. "Hey, you're the guy who lives across from me!" he added, as he stood, miraculously with little difficulty, and stretched his back.
"Yeah … my name's Henry," I responded, finally approaching him and extending my hand.
"I'm Richard Braintree from 207," He said, not bothering to shake it. "What the hell's happened to us?" he said, looking around, "That hole … and this freaky world! But," he continued, thoughtfully, as he paced, "If you're here too, Then there must be something wrong with the whole apartment building."
Interesting point. I wondered if Eileen was in trouble as well.
"And that must explain what happened to that other guy, too!" he said, pacing around, talking more to himself than to me.
"What other guy?"
"The guy who lived in 302 before you," he continued in the same thoughtful tone, "A journalist … he disappeared one day. He got pretty crazy towards the end," he turned to face me, shaking his head. "Hoo … shut himself up in his room and wouldn't come out …"
The guy who was leaving me notes—he must have gone through the same thing I was.
"Anyway," Richard said with a wave of his hand, "I'm gettin' the hell outta here," pointing both thumbs over his shoulder, before turning and walking away. He stopped and looked over his shoulder long enough to add, "You should, too … if you know what's good for you."
"Wait!" I said, recalling the last two people I'd met.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me again.
I paused, but there was no way to say it that didn't sound ludicrous. But I couldn't let him go off alone without some kind of warning. "Watch out for that … kid."
He threw his hands up with a snort, apparently writing off my warning as the ranting of a lunatic, before going through a door. I hoped against hope that he would take it seriously if it came down to it.
Before I had time to contemplate it any further, something dropped—seemingly from the sky—and landed in front of me with a heavy "thump". I screamed and jumped back. I realized that it was another of those ape-like creatures, as a second one landed about five feet to the left. The first one crouched, and I stopped it with two gunshots—it wasn't dead, but stunned.
To my surprise, the second one hadn't moved and simply stood there. It seemed that, unlike the previous monsters I'd encountered, these creatures were more honorable fighters and would only attack one at a time. I wasn't going to give them the same courtesy, however.
I aimed at the second one, and fired two more shots before firing two more at the first one to finish it off, then firing at the second one again, dropping it, and using up the clip.
It was then that I realized something: I'd been trying to be sparing with the ammo, but I couldn't remember exactly how much I'd used since almost every time I resorted to using the gun, it was out of panic or squeamishness. I found a clip in one of my pockets and reloaded the gun. I searched through my other pockets, but that was all I had left.
"Perfect," I muttered with a sigh.
It was time to put the gun away and learn to deal with the monsters in a more hands-on fashion. Killing them was becoming easier anyway, as that primal need to survive was slowly taking over—a thought that was a little unsettling.
I shrugged and put the gun away, since it wasn't as if I really had a choice in the matter.