4. Escape

It was six o'clock now, thirty minutes until his execution would take place in the Regarthon Base (Regarthon Base). "Thirty minutes till we reach the Regarthon Base, Coen," said an MP who had just joined them at their stop at the MCP (Military Compound of Pennsylvania). "See ya in hell, Coen,"

"I'll meet you there, Albright." Billy said, looking up at the smug look of the MP whom he knew from his old military school.

DOOMPH! A heavy sound came from somewhere in the car. "Damn car died," Albright said, getting up from the metal cot. He unlocked the back door and exited to go check what was the matter.

"Is something the matter, Albright?" another MP said from the passenger seat.

"No," Albright responded. Then he walked back into the van telling his teammates to try starting up the car again, and miraculously it did work.

John Humphrey was driving the MP van; they had just entered the Arklay Forest about twenty minutes ago. The Regarthon Base was near the end-edge of the forest, which wouldn't take them that long—but then…

Sloomp…a wet piece of something smacked onto the side of his window. The thing had teeth and it started crawling up towards the small opening in the window, John panicked, the thing looked like a sort of leech.

"Ah!" John screamed, letting go of the wheel, causing the van to swerve round and round, bumping trees and hanging branches.

Billy was knocked over, falling onto the MP across from him. The van swerved and swerved, tilting…rocking them about and around, churning them on the inside of metal. "What the hell is going on?!" the MP shouted over Billy's head. All Billy could do was to hold back his pain from the bumping of the metal from the van and the hard knees of the MP hitting his gut, knocking the air out of him several different times.

"…Sh—it…" he said, collapsing on the cold metal floor.

"SHIT! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM US!"

Billy heard a man's voice call scream out, also hearing the sickening sound on teeth on flesh and bone. That gushy sticky sound you hear when dogs chew on their steak or something. It was disgusting, and he thought he felt a cold drop of something fly onto his face.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE! JOHN! HELP ME!" the same man was still crying, both in pain and fear. "John…" the voice gradually decreased to a weak and unstable moan of pain.

Billy finally managed to open his eyes, barely conscious, his vision a bit obscured, so it was hard to make out what he was seeing. He could just make out the passenger, struggling in his seat, it had seemed that something had snagged his arm, but his vision was still impaired. Billy then turned away from the MP in the passenger seat and turned to face the driver, John, who was just lying there, his head rolled over onto his right shoulder, his eyes rolled back, and he wasn't too sure, but he felt John reaching out for him, help maybe?

"You…" he heard someone say feebly. He turned back, suddenly feeling the groping hands of a man tugging on his leg.

There he saw it, the remaining MP, tugging on his leg, and with Billy's vision starting to better, he could make out the bloodiness of his face. It was a grotesque sight, nearly a quarter of his face seemed to have been mauled away by some sort of beast with monstrous teeth.

Billy was disgusted; he pulled his leg away from the dying MP. His head hurt, he must've bumped it almost hundreds of times during the impact of something. He scrambled on all fours, finally noticing that the van was now flipped over. He searched the van for whatever reason but found that there was nothing of use.

Wait! His mind came to thought as he remembered that he was still in cuffs.

He had to remember which one of the MPs had the keys though, and once he found that out he was home free…well, maybe not home free, but at least he would be free.

The driver!

There he had it; the driver was the one with the keys. Who better to hold the key than the driver? Well that didn't really matter now because he was about to be freed. He turned back towards the driver, now noticing that he was past death as his skin was paler than anything he'd ever seen.

Shit, man, what the hell happened to these guys? He thought as he saw a pool of blood forming right in front of him. He did nothing more but stare at the dead MP, watching his eyes sulk into his skull, and his dog tag hanging from his neck…with the key. Billy made a grasp for the key, and then finally he held it in his hands with a tight grip on them, the keys was his freedom, maybe into a life as a convict, but it was better than being dead.

He didn't want to harm the dead MP to any further extent than pain and death, so he decided to try and remove it from his neck.

Fuck this…

He didn't care anymore, he just wanted to get out and escape, start a new life. He took the key, still around the MPs neck, and shoved it into one of the keyholes and unlocked it. He went for the next but then…

SWOOSH! Something fast as lightning crashed its head into the car window; its head was sinewy with fresh meat, blood dribbling down its triangular face, it flashed its teeth at Billy but then made a grab for the MP and dragged the body out of the car—taking the key with it—scraping his body with the shattered glass and began to gnarl on the meat, he knew this by the wet gushing sounds coming from outside.

BOOM! A sudden crash came from behind him; it was like something with a thick skull was trying to get in, smelling meat from behind metal walls.

BOOM! It came again. And then finally…BOOM!...the doors crashed open, revealing a monstrosity of a dog of some sort. Its body was sinewy and looked slick with blood or something. It glared at him for a while, but then found the now-already dead MP lying down with his face down in a pool of his own blood. It grasped its shard teeth around one of his legs and pulled him out of the car through the back.

BOOM! Another loud noise banged throughout the dark forest, but this was a different boom, it was that of an explosion of some sort, scaring the hellhounds away from the MP van, leaving him to be safe for a while.

Well what the hell are you waiting for? Get the hell out of this place before those things come back!

That was probably his best—no, only—choice to make. He scrambled up and crawled as fast as he could out of the van through the opened back. He scrounged around, trying to peer through the darkness of the forest, letting his eyes adjust a bit.

No time for that, dammit! Run!

He did as his mind told him…he ran like the wind.

The cold wind wiping across his face, the low hanging leaves slapping his face as he ran by, and he even almost tripped over a root from one of the larger trees. But he didn't care; he just wanted to make sure the hellhounds weren't anywhere near him, let alone following him.

"Captain, come and look at this!"

Billy heard a squeaky girl's voice cry out, coming from somewhere near the MP van.

They must've sent in backup. Billy thought. Dammit!

He made a sharp right turn and through some more thick bushes and…

"A train!" he whispered as he saw the double-decker in front him, stopped on its tracks. "The Ecliptic Express…" he said, reading the name above the entrance to the double-decker. "7868-563-M23," he read on, this time reading the train's number on the entrance's left, but his right (it all depended on what side you were standing on.)

He walked up towards the stopped train, examining the new-look of the exterior walls. It was a rich-man's train, alright. Billy took the first step on the wrung and slid open the entrance to the train…