Disclaimer: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and its characters are copyright Jhonen Vasquez. The Original Characters in this story are mine, not yours. Enjoi.
Tom and Mort had come to an immediate dead end in their path. They had wandered into a fully furnished kitchen at some point and had the door behind them locked down, keeping them from their captive point and able to look out the window across the death-splattered yard of grass to their next objective. Their gracious host had provided a row of lights to guide them from the door out of the kitchen to the elaborately decorated basalt cavern across the dark yard.
"It's a trap" Tom said.
"Of course it is" Mort agreed. "Those skeletons out there wouldn't lie to any man, would they?" Indeed, the skeletal remains of some invasive people were scattered and broken across the overgrown, uncared lawn. The borders of the yard weren't greatly visible due to the unfocused illumination, but they seemed odd and out of place.
"We should just sprint across" Tom said. "Maybe we can outrun whatever killed them." Mort stared and hummed thoughtfully at the scene.
"Unlikely" Mort said. "Observe." Mort retrieved his trusty shovel and, cautiously, held it outside the door. Nothing happened. There were very, very feint clicks and a slowing whir after them, but nothing else.
"What am I looking at?" Tom asked.
"One moment" Mort asked. He found the stove and heated his shovel blade in the gas fire. He went to turn it off and blow out the light, but he couldn't.
"And now you see the marvelous power of the Mark 1800 GasGriller!" the mechanical voice announced. This time it was an entirely cropped voice from what seemed to be an infomercial. "No matter what, the light won't go out! No winds or storms will blow this baby out! Watch! I'll blow on it, hard as I can, and it won't go out!!!" The transmission cut out then, apparently relaying the message that the light wouldn't go out.
"That's problematic" Mort said.
"How so?" Tom asked.
"If we can't get the flame out or open the door and leave," Mort explained, "this room will become a gas chamber and we'll suffocate. However, if I'm correct..." Mort carefully drew out his shovel into the yard again. This time, the clicks were followed by a high, screeching whine and a rapid succession of arrows with silver tips flew out from the walls. They were deflected off the ancient shovel's hardened metal, but Mort had readily proved his point and withdrew his shovel once more.
"Heat sensors" Tom said. "Smart."
"Not only that" Mort said, "but those arrows seem to have some toxic residue on them..." His observation was brought up when he saw the curious wet spots that oozed from the scratches the arrows made.
"Damn" Tom said. "Looks like we're screwed."
"Of course we're not" Mort argued, sheathing his shovel. "The winds of destiny blow strong through these corridors, and I can feel them tugging me onward. If there's a way, we will find it!" The boys took a moment to think about their current situation, but came up with ideas that held scarce amounts of possibility.
"Can they pierce all metals?" Tom asked.
"Hopefully not" Mort said. To that end he opened the refrigerator, ignored the horrid stench of all the rotting and rotted corpses that were chaotically stuff within and held the paneled door over the flame for a few seconds. Then, he held the heated spot over the green ground. The arrows hit and stuck to it, not piercing the whole way through. Mort carefully retrieved the arrows and threw them back out, seeing that only the left wall fired the arrows with such heinous force.
"Here's the plan" Mort began...
Elsewhere in the hideous compound, Sam had survived his ordeals through some unknown miracle and busted down the next door in his way. He was now in a room decorated with the mad scrawlings of some terrible madman just previous to his untimely doom. The scratches and scribbles seemed as freshly made as the rest of the mocking structure, with the shavings and cracks in the wall without dust around them. The blood that stained the floor was recently dried. Also, there was some strange thing in the center of the room.
Whatever it was, it looked like it was responsible for whatever gore had occurred in this room previously, so Sam paid it no mine. It was a connecting pattern of curious, glowing orbs that spun around slowly in a large glass cylinder. The connecting plates and arms were fashioned of beautiful gold and brass, emblazoned with jewels that could only be of some horrible alien origin.
"Aren't you curious?" the old Eli asked over the speaker system. "Isn't it a tantalizing thing there? Won't you look into it?" Sam didn't waver. He continued across the short room, not even bothering with glancing at the walls a second time, and proceeded to the door.
"My only real interest is in killing you..." Sam said.
"It can predict you future" Eli offered. Sam stopped. Perhaps the concept of seeing what was predestined was just amusing enough for him to give the object a glance. However, such notions still didn't phase him, and he unpaused to continue out of the room and into the next. It was a much larger room with a myriad of terrible machinations made from hideous, rusted shrapnel. It seemed to be a rushed project at the time of its building, and now reflected that upon Sam's glasses. Eli hadn't anticipated him to advance through that room so quickly and failed to start up the traps in time. Once he started them from his master control, it took a while for them to warm up.
"Weak" Sam said. He broke off in an instant sprint, dashing through the whirring machines and amalgamations of bladed horror before they could even begin to click into motion. He ignored whatever great plans and blueprints were drawn when this room was made and advanced up to the final trap. It seemed impossible, continuously picking up speed. A fence of rushing, gusting blades that were rusted with blood started whirring beyond any normal or mechanically safe speed just in front of the exit.
"Quite the valiant effort" Eli complimented, "but all in vain. You shall not kill me today, young man. No one has ever gotten past this most brilliant design of mine in one whole piece..."
"Well then" Sam said, retrieving his gun. "Let us match our 'impossibilities', shall we? You see, this is no normal gun. It is crafted from a metal that is thusfar unknown to modern metalsmithing science. It's a super light alloy of helium-enriched depleted uranium code-named 'Hein Compound #12'. The bullets are made from laser-crafted fragments of meteorites and deep-sea nodes of super-concentrated salt. When the bullets impact upon something solid, the force they exert becomes exponentially multiplied, pushing away everything that gets in their path."
"Why are you telling me this?" Eli asked, obviously unamused.
"So you won't have any questions when this happens" Sam said. He raised the huge barrel, pointed it at the pivot of the right spinning gizmo, and fired. The metal was obliterated, slammed through its original place into the wall behind, and even through it. The bullets did push away everything, creating a nasty hole that drilled through to the core of the bedrock-layered wall that ran around the entire complex. Twenty feet of destruction. Sam then aimed and repeated toe process on the other spinning blade machine. There were no blades anymore. With no pivot to hold them they went flying into the ceiling and walls and went skidding and spinning across the floor. The electronic wires crackled violently, but as Sam pressed onward, they stopped. He even intimidated electricity with his gun...
"Now then" Sam said, "you said I won't kill you today? How are you so sure that any stray bullet I fire won't just burrow straight through your walls and blow you into nothingness from where I stand now?" A long, nerve-wrecking silence followed. Sam ignored it and walked on, keeping his gun out for intimidation purposes. Eli gave up on trying to stop him and only hoped that his arrogance would slow him down more than the traps.
A short distance ahead Beelzebub warned there is a pitfall. Stop walking now. Yvonne kept in step with his instructions and waited just in front of the invisible pit covered by a dusty tarp. As she stood, her alien aid flew across the gap and used its dimensional properties to weight down a certain lever that activated the fall. A wide hole was opened before Yvonne, and she scoffed at it. She backed up a few steps to get a running start and sprinted at the hole. At the last second, she made a flying dive across. It was obvious that she couldn't make it, but Beelzebub helped her out by letting her grab onto his extended antennae and use it as a rope.
"Anything else?" Yvonne asked lethargically.
There's a fork up ahead he communed. I suggest we head to the right.
"Very well" Yvonne sighed. She pulled herself the whole way up, waited for her little helper to mount her head again, and started off again. The fork came up at once. The left looked sterile and well-cleaned, a sure sign that cleaning was essential in keeping whatever horror working properly. The right was a contorted mess of writhed and gnarled body parts that long ago rotted into the fleshy disgust that covered the stone flooring.
"You would suggest that way, wouldn't you!?" Yvonne growled.
It is the safer passage at the moment Beelzebub argued calmly.
"What is that shit?" Yvonne said, pointing to the moss of rot on the ground.
Decayed human remains Beelzebub explained. His inflection was such that made it seem like he had seen such hideous fungus before.
"That's exceedingly nasty!" Yvonne shouted. "I'm going to the left!"
I suggest heavily against it Beelzebub insisted. He poked his legs into Yvonne's ice-blue hair and subsequently took control of her body.
"Wha-what the fuck!?" Yvonne screamed. Her body started marching to the right fork, stomping through the sticky, horrible growth underfoot. "Let me go! Damn you! LET GO OF ME!!!"
In the interest of keeping us both alive he said, I politely decline. I'll guide you through here, just trust me and don't resist control so much. It'll be over very soon. In the mean time, I'll dull your sense of smell so the stench doesn't get to you as much.
"Whatever" Yvonne huffed. "Just don't get too comfy up there, okay? I don't want you doing this to me anymore."
I don't have to prod into your head to possess you he told her.
"I don't want to know where else you can do this!" Yvonne shouted. She closed her eyes and let Beelzebub steer her through the next room. She could feel the stink pressing against her skin, making it hot with the grave smell of umpteen graves being blown open. After a few minutes, the trek was over. Yvonne could feel herself on solid ground and the control was slowly returning back to her own mind. She declined herself from taking a quick glance back at the room she had just navigated, as the horror would certainly overload her and force her to vomit, which would consume time and prevent her from winning.
"Let's keep moving!" Yvonne ordered. "Where to now?"
There is only one room between you and your target Beelzebub told her. That room will be quite difficult to navigate, but it is the best chance you have.
"Really?" Yvonne asked. "That's great! That's fucking great!" She looked around for a dim glimmer of what she assumed was a camera and shouted into it. "You hear that you old fuck!? I'm getting closer and closer! You won't get to live very much longer now! I hope you pray to some merciful gods because you'll need all the divine favors possible to get out of this! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Your laugh is annoying Beelzebub said.
"You be quiet" Yvonne ordered. "I think I can do this next part by myself, thank you..." Beelzebub gave of a mental sigh of defeat and let his host walk haughtily onward into the next untellable horror in the mansion of madness.