Gah, this took way to long to write, damn writter's block! By the way, if you go to my profile (which really isn't anything to write home about) there's a link to some art work that goes with this story so feel free to check it out.

This too was going to be a lot longer but I really didn't want another 5-page saga. Oh, and happy holidays everyone!

Chapter 13: Falling apart

Jobe threw himself to his knees fast enough to break them in his rush to inspect the tarnished red stain, not even noticing as the layer of melted snow on the pavement soaked through his trousers.

A bemused Virgil watched as he bent over the mark, scanning it intensely as if it was some work of art. When Jobe threw back his head and let out gleeful laugh, she really began to worry.

"Wha-?"

"It's Phil!" He looked up at her, grinning from ear to ear and pointing at the stain that apparently was his friend. She leaned over his shoulder and squinted at the stain that was already begging to run, diffusing over the wet tarmac in small red veins but it was clearly shoe-shaped.

"But how can you tell? It looks like any old foot-print."

"It's the same as the one's leading away from the car." Jobe found his voice rising uncontrollably with excitement. "Anyway, who else could it be? Last time I checked, Claudia didn't seem to believe in shoes." Virgil shifted uncomfortably at his retort, which seemed to be radiating uncensored joy.

Jobe rose to his feet and looked up the street in the direction of the bloody streak. He could just about make out another one a few feet away, quickly taking off in its direction but stopped after taking only a few steps and looked over his shoulder.

Virgil had stayed rigidly rooted to the spot, staring longingly in the direction they had been previously heading.

"Virgil?"

Her head snapped round at the sound of her appointed name.

"Huh?"

Jobe found himself frowning; why was she being so apprehensive? She knew just as well as he did that Phil could be in serious trouble, judging from the footprint, and they didn't have enough time to stand about doing nothing.

"You are coming, right?"

"Of course, it's just that…well…" She raised a hand, silencing herself and killing the disintegrating sentence. "Sorry, I'm just babbling. We should get a move on."

Jobe nodded, not a hundred percent sure that she wasn't keeping something from him, and if so why? Silently, Virgil submissively fell into line behind him and became nothing more than his shadow.

*   *   *

The footprints had become fainter with each fresh mark and already Jobe was having trouble making them out against the dark backdrop of the tarmac.

"Jobe?"

The man stopped and turned around, there was something in Virgil's voice that set of Jobe's internal alarms. It sounded so…so drained and even more void of life than usual.

"What's wrong?" When he saw her, the alarm when into overdrive.

Virgil seemed to have collapsed in upon herself, barely able to support her frame.

"We-we can't go this way." Her head had drooped onto her chest, obscuring the already hidden face from view.

It took a few second for her words to sink in.

"What?! Why not? We have to!"

"We just can't" Jobe was silenced by the harshness in her tone as she laboriously raised her head. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that one of her hands was twitching violently, randomly locking and unlocking into a balled fist.

Despite these warning signs, Jobe found that he could not just take no for an answer.

"What the hell kind of justification is that? I didn't come so far just to turn back when we're getting close!"

"Please Jobe, you don't want to do-"

"Just tell me why?!" Jobe found himself unable to keep a leash on his voice as it rose in volume, causing Virgil to plaster her hands over her ears as though someone had sounded a foghorn in them.

"You couldn't understand. YouuuuuUUARRRRRRRRGHH!!!!"

Whatever she was going to say was lost in the scream of pain that erupted from Virgil's mouth as she threw her head back, emptying her cry into the heavens.

Jobe watched in mute horror as the girl bent double forcing her palms into her temples in some wild attempt to smother the blinding agony that had spontaneously consumed her.

Jobe took a step forward but Virgil only staggered back drunkenly, moaning incomprehensibly as the distance between them closed.

"Don't…please" She held out one of her hands in a feeble attempt to hold Jobe at bay. A menacing, red stain stared back at him from the now saturated bandages at the centre of Virgil's palm, successfully stopping Jobe in his tracks.

"Oh God…" was all he managed to mutter as another tarnished stain had begun to slowly spread out from her shoulder, warping the colour of the faded jumper with greedy crimson fingers.

Jobe really wasn't sure what the hell he could do to help the spontaneously hemoriging Virgil but he wasn't going to watch her bleed to death, despite her protest.

He reached out to Virgil in some attempt to do…well something, trying to ignore the primal growl building up in her throat as he tentivly drew closer. Maybe if he hadn't been transfixed on that deep, menacing blot of deep red, he would have noticed Virgil's had fly to the kantana, sutily loosening it from its mangy scabbard.

It all happened so fast; his eyes barely had time to register the harsh flash of silver as the blade slice through the air, drawing a deep groove across Jobe's outstretched palm.

He yelped in pain, withdrawing his hand as though he'd accidentally grabbed a hot piece off metal and staggered backwards, whatching in horror as crimson blood flowed freely from the cut.

"What the hell_" Jobe looked up and whatever he was going to say got lost between his throat and lips when he saw the look on Virgil's face.

"DON'T YOU TOUCH ME!"

She held the sword pointing directly at him, its tip quivering as the girl breathed shakily. The hood had fallen back and her cracked lips were warped in a vicious sneer, revealing surprisingly white teeth. Jobe felt himself sinking back under the glare, filled with hate and disgust and for a second, he was convinced that Virgil lop of his head with that horribly sharp blade. Without warning, Virgil's eyes lost their dark intensity and the murderous look dropped from her face, replaced by one of sheer fear.

"No! I didn't mean to _I- I'm so sorry," She pleaded with Jobe as he regarded her with dumbfound confusion. "I can't go this way, and there's no way I can get you to turn back, is there?" She began talking hurriedly to her self more than to Jobe. "I told you this town dose things to people, it gets them and it's going to start getting to you too."

Jobe watched as she lifted the shotgun from her shoulder before tossing the long, metal cylinder to him. He looked from the weapon to the girl in confusion as he caught it awkwardly.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry Jobe, I just can't do this. Just get out of here, please." She turned to leave but was halted by a cry from Jobe.

"Wait! You can't just leave me here! What the hell just happened to you?"

She sighed heavily; her back seemed to deflate as she forced the air from her lungs.

"It's this place," Virgil's voice was beginning to slowly disintegrate, becoming more forced with each word. "I'm sorry, please don't hate me for this…but I'll understand if you do." and with that, she sprinted off into the fog, leaving Jobe alone on the street, to numb to feel the stabbing pain in his hand.

He stood for what felt like an age, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The look of malice and resent Vigil had given him burnt fresh in his mind; it was as if he'd been a whole different person in her eyes.

"This town gets to people…" Jobe ran over Virgil's parting words and was sure he'd just seen a fine example of what she meant.

The slow throb in Jobe's hand brought him painfully back to reality of his situation:

He was alone again, soaked to the bone, and his one and only companion had turned out to be the stuff physiologists dreamt of.

'Well, I can either spend all day reminiscing about this and catch my death in this snow, or I can do something constructive.'

Jobe was about turn his back on the seen when something shimmered in the corner of his eye. Where Virgil had stood lay the small, resalable plastic bag that her hand drawn map called home.

As he bent to pick it up, Jobe saw a small, blue box that also must have resided in one of Virgil's pockets.

"Oh you're really spoiling me now!"

On closer inspection, the box revealed itself to be shotgun ammo. Grinning, Jobe placed the sodden box in one of his pockets, but paused before letting the map join it. Seeing as he had it out, he might as well see where he was.

Using the entrance of a nearby 'happy burger' fast food joint as shelter, Jobe unfolded the map as his frozen fingers battled with the sheet, flimsy with age. As everything was so precisely labelled, it didn't take the man long to locate himself and very quickly he found himself sympathising with Virgil, despite her faults.

"Well we wouldn't want this to be too easy,"

The end of the street Jobe had found himself on bore a simple label:

The dark place

*   *   *

Jobe had barely taken five steps towards his ominous destination when he heard it, a low whine that sounded like the crackling of a crisp, dry newspaper. He cast a glance over his shoulder, but of course, there was no one there. It came again, a soft buzzing hum that seemed to be emitting from one of the neglected cars that stood dejectedly on the sidewalk. On closer inspection, it appeared that one of the stained windows had been left open, the white noise of an un-tuned radio escaping through a thin, hairline of a crack.

Jobe took a cautious step towards the automobile, leaping back in shock when its radio flared into life, belting gibberish for barely two seconds before it hushed back down to a mumble of hisses and whistles. He stumbled backwards, almost losing his footing on the slick pavement as he tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and the o so fearsome car.

"Jeeeesus!!" Jobe panted as he tried to stop his heart from tearing his chest apart. It was just a car radio, why was he getting so worked up over it? It wasn't some terrible omen of Jobe's doom.

The radio squealed in response.

Jobe curled his lip at the car and walked past it, trying to ignore the wailing cacophony as he passed the vehicle. There was only a foot between him and the car when the radio let out an ear-splitting scream and the grimy window exploded outwards in a fountain of glass.

Jobe threw his arms up as the shards of shattered crystal bit into him, slicing the already worse for wear shirt. It was when something clammy locked around his wrist in a cold grip that Jobe screamed. With a sharp yank, it brought Jobe smashing head first into the car door with a dull 'klunk' as the radio continued its relentless banshee like song. Groaning, he shook his head in an attempt to lessen the pain but it only amplified the stinging that wracked his head. Jobe managed to look up in time to see what looked like ragged tendrils of flayed skin bite deeper into his wrist before it gave another vicious pull, yowling along with the white noise as it tried to drag the floored man through the shattered window.

"Let go of me, damn it!" Jobe yelled back, frantically reaching for the handgun as the beast gave another yank, digging its moist, ragged fingers ever deeper.

Whipping the firearm out, Jobe rammed it into what he guessed was a forearm and pulled the trigger. His attacker screamed as its appendage exploded in a fountain of gore and tissue. The now limp arm slithered back through the demolished window as Jobe scrabbled away from the car, not once letting his eyes leave the dark hole.

There was a crack in the radio's ballad of nonsense and for a moment it fell quiet before a voice rose in the silence.

"So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." Even though the voice was distorted with static and the occasional electrical whine, Jobe could easily recognise it.

"Phil?"

The radio offered no answers as it continued preaching.

"Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes."

The thing inside the car began to stir; the long tendril flopped lifelessly on the car door as it slowly began to pull itself through the broken window. It landed in a lifeless heap of tinted green skin that looked as though it had been left to soak for a little too long and even from just halfway across the road, Jobe could already smell its wet, metallic odour. Slowly, the Drowned (Jobe had subconsciously named the beast) rose to its full height, stretching as if it had been cramped up for too long as the radio yammered on in the background.  

Jobe guessed that it was roughly half a foot shorter than him, standing with its back stooped almost double. The Drowned's arms hung from over built shoulders that looked to heavy for it's spindly, mal shaped bowlegs to support. The arms themselves ended in ragged slivers of its off green skin, like over long and boneless fingers.

But it was the face that really got to Jobe, or rather, the lack of it. It was just a hole in its muscular neck that was tattooed with thin, blue veins. The deep, black circle stared back at Jobe hungrily before the Drowned threw its head back and roared.

"His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and dieeeeeeeee!" The voice of Phil disintegrated into a painful scream that mingled with the creature's own as it howled like a siren.

Jobe slammed his hands over his ears, trying to lock the god-awful sound out of his head as he stumbled away from it. Even with his fingers jammed in his ears, he could still hear it yowl but there was something else as well. A single word that echoed soundlessly through his mind like a broken record.

WRATH

+++++

We all know what this means, right?