Chapter Nine

"He is crazy," Noodle observed quietly, watching Sam's battle with the strange creature from the deep archway where she and Russel were hiding, biding their time until the monster could no longer have them in their line of sight. The bus was only a few feet away, a high pitched whine coming from crushed engine as it still attempted to run despite the fact that a good portion of the front end was bent inside of it. It was hard to tell if Murdoc was still conscious, as any movement had since ceased shortly after Sam's insane attempt to take on the snake like monstrosity.

"Maybe he is," Russel rumbled, "but he's givin' us the only chance we're gonna get,"

"I know…"

Slamming the end metal pole in to the writhing creature's back, Sam jumped away and waited for it's next move. He did his best to keep himself between the giant and the stone archway where 2D and Kara had crouched down to hide in and also keep it distracted enough that it didn't notice Russel and Noodle sneaking along near the bus. It wasn't easy; the thing was fast for being so massive and it was a task in itself to keep away from the multiple limbs attached to the serpentine body. The one thing that seemed to be working to his advantage was that the creature was apparently as blinded as he was by the thick smoke pouring from the flare-spear he'd created. On the downside, it was becoming increasingly harder to keep his eyes not only on the bus but on Kara and 2D's hiding spot as well.

Sam's vision darted to the bus, spotting two crouched and shadowed figures through the swirling haze of smoke moving along beneath the tilted side of the bus. His momentary distraction was just enough for the creature to take another swing, its long, clawed limb barely missing his face. He let out a cry of surprise and tumbled backwards, using the momentum to flip his legs up and crack the monster directly below its massive crocodile like jaws with both feet, the contact creating a strange, mechanical 'chnk!' noise on impact. Shrieking loudly it recoiled back, glowering with its dangerous looking fangs at Sam like a cat that had been teased one too many times.

Remaining crouched on the ground, the pipe still clutched in his fingers, Sam smirked and lifted his other hand to beckon at the strange monster.

"Come on. I dare you," he teased, one eyebrow raised as he issued his challenge.

Meanwhile at the bus, Noodle and Russel had finally managed to make it to the area where they'd last seen Murdoc. Scrambling up Russel's shoulders as fast as she could, the young Asian balanced herself against the tilted bus and looked through the spider webbed window for any signs of life. Squinting with one hand on the broken glass, the other tapping lightly on the metal siding just enough to get some one's attention, she prayed with baited breath only to have it startled out of her when a slightly olive toned hand slammed hard in to the window on the other side. Gasping, she wavered on Russel's shoulders but quickly regained her composure and pressed herself upon the window, the shattered substance giving a disturbing groan under her weight.

"Murdoc san!" Noodle called, her lips as close to the broken pane as she could manage, "We're going to help you! Just hang on!"

The hand slipped away, a soft groan heard from the other side of the broken glass. Noodle hesitated, uncertain on how to proceed now that she knew for certain that Murdoc was fairly badly injured.

Come on, think…she chided herself, glancing through the fuzzy view that the glass gave her. Though damaged but not on the level that the front door was, the back swinging doors on the other side of the bus caught her eye. Her lips creased thoughtfully and hopped off Russel's shoulders to the ground, one ear tuned to the growls, thrashes and taunts coming from the street.

"Wus' da plan, Noodle girl?" Russel rumbled, watching the plotting girl curiously. Slowly Noodle walked to the end of the bus and cautiously peered around, her green eyes intently watching the almost dance like movements of the battle being waged in the foggy and now smoke covered street. Flashes of Sam's jacket, the creature's leg, a head, an arm could be seen through the reddened haze caused by the flare spear. Currently Sam had driven the creature nearly down to Burnside, almost two blocks away from the bus.

"I have to risk it…" Noodle said with determined certainty.

"Do what?" Russel asked quietly as he came up behind her and also peered around the corner. Noodle frowned deeply and looked over her shoulder, staring up at the big man with a frown and concern in her partially hidden eyes.

"Wait here, Russel-san," she instructed, causing the man to blink his vacant white eyes in confusion. He opened his mouth to speak but before any words could be uttered, Noodle darted around the corner of the bus and vanished in to the fog and smoke.

"Noodle! Damnit! Noodle get back here!" Russel hissed, barely wanting to bring his voice above a whisper as he leaned around the corner, watching as the dark haired girl's form receded from his vision. She glanced over her shoulder once at the sound of his voice murmuring through the mingling vapors, but only hesitated briefly, knowing that every second passed was another second closer to being seen by the creature.

Lungs burning from the thick swirls of smoke that still trailed through the already heavy air, the young axe princess skidded to a halt in front of the secondary set of double doors, taking a moment to examine their integrity from her location before moving closer. Up the street a loud and very pissed off sounding snarl was heard followed by a yelled taunt from Sam, causing Noodle to look in to the murk and frown deeply. She was running out of time; Sam wouldn't be able to keep that creature's attention forever.

Shoving both hands in to the small opening that had been created by the doors being pushed slightly outward from the creature's destructive rampage, Noodle put all her strength in to prying them open. Her thin arms strained and her face turned red from the effort, but soon the broken doors began to give way, creaking and groaning against her desperate pushing. Eventually they snapped open like a snake suddenly opening its maw for a strike, sending Noodle tumbling to the ground roughly on her rear with a squeak of surprise.

"Noodle love, is 'at you?" Murdoc's hoarse voice filtered through the darkness of the confined and broken bus. It was distant, showing that he was still quite a distance from the now open doors. Noodle stood and flexed her right hand, shaking out the tingling sensation that had shot up and down her bone when she'd landed hard on it.

"Yes. I'm going to get you out, Mur-"

"NOODLE! GET IN THE BUS!" Sam suddenly bellowed from down the street, causing the girl to jerk her head sharply in his direction. The massive creature's attention had been drawn to her and the noise she'd generated in the past few seconds. Its giant head was turned in her direction, the sunken, darkened eyes set in to its elongated skull directly locked on her. Sam was on the ground near by, though from the distance and the smog she couldn't tell if he was injured or had just fallen.

"…mattsu," Noodle hissed, diving through the open door , tumbling over the odd angle of the floor across the center isle where she caught herself before she rolled completely to the other side. Grunting, she squirmed in to the seat she'd stopped herself with while desperately trying to ignore the stinging pain that was working through both her bandaged hand and her still tingling arm.

"Noods?" Murdoc croaked, popping his head up from a seat about three down from where she was. Even with his odd skin tone he looked frighteningly pale and ashen in the strange reflective light from outside and a sheen of sweat had broken out on his brow. Noodle breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes wandering to the broken windows and the open door at her right.

"I do not know how much longer Sam can hold that thing off..."

Sam was beginning to wonder the same thing.

His lungs were burning something awful, his breath coming in ragged huffs as each minute that passed in the battle with the monstrosity that had attacked them was becoming another minute his body slowly wore down in to exhaustion.

"What I wouldn't give for a shot gun right about now," he groaned as he rolled back to his feet for the umpteenth time after getting knocked down yet again. It seemed that for every swing and swipe he managed to dodge, another one put him off his feet. If anything the behemoth wasn't even fighting back anymore. Instead it seemed to be merely annoyed that such a human would continue to tease and torment it, keeping it from the prey that it wanted rather than what was right there in front of it.

It wasn't until he, and the creature, spotted the hazy figure of tiny Noodle through the fog that Sam realized things might be getting a bit out of hand. Getting knocked to the ground a bit rougher than the other times was as much of a signal to him that the thing was done playing as if it had simply come out and said it.

Of course if that thing could speak, Sam's mind reasoned as he stumbled in to a standing position, I'm pretty damn certain we wouldn't be having this lovely little row of ours.

"Hey buddy!" Sam catcalled out to the creature as it began moving slowly towards the bus, almost as if it wasn't entirely sure it had seen the petite figure of the young Asian near the bus. It grunted, giving a snort that sounded vaguely like an irritated question, and turned its massive head back to the annoying little human. Sam staggered a bit, but kept his balance via the still smoking and sputtering flare-spear. He pointed a finger at the monster, wavering in his awkward stance, "Yeah, I'm still talkin' to you!"

From the shadowed archway of the nearby building, Kara and 2D watched with horrified expressions, unable to look away but unable to do much more than observe helplessly as Sam continued his persistent attack against the monster.

"'e's gettin' tired, Kara..." 2D muttered softly to the younger girl, looking down at her with a troubled expression. Kara never took her eyes off the scene in the street, her hands over her mouth as she struggled to keep herself from completely freaking out over the situation, "'e can' keep goin' like 'at."

"What can we do...?" Kara squeaked, her voice muffled from the tightly pressed palm on her lips, "He's the only one that can fight. He's the only one who knows how. He's a goddamned lunatic and he's saving us by being so..." she trailed off and slowly moved her huge, watery teal eyes up to her blue haired companion, "If we go out there, we're as good as dead, 2D..."

On the road, Sam and the monster continued their staring contest, the creature giving a deep, continuous growl at the man as it slowly turned back to face him.

"Come on," Sam taunted, straightening up from his slightly hunched over position and beckoning with his free hand once more, "We're not done here."

Giving a toss of it's head and a snort, much like a lion being challenged by another animal of the wild, the giant let out a loud, piercing bellow that echoed up and down the deserted, muck covered street and caused everyone with in hearing range to cover their ears in fear of their eardrums exploding from the terrible noise.

The sound faded a few seconds later and Sam realized all too late that the creature had literally outsmarted him. In his distraction of keeping his ears covered from the tremendous noise, the young man had left himself completely vulnerable to any and all attacks. He didn't even get a millisecond to collect his thoughts before his found thick bone and metal talons pressed to his face. The creature had closed the gap between the two of them in mere moments, and was now hovered before him, clutching his head like a basketball player palming their sports equipment of the trade, the crocodile-like nostrils inches from his own nose and the sunken but clearly venomous eyes glaring at him as if to say 'I'm done playing with you, human'.

Sam's mind barely had time to register the fact that he'd actually uttered the words "oh shit" before he was suddenly hurling through the air, the grayed out sky whizzing above his vision. Somewhere voices were calling out his name, and for that brief moment of flight he actually forgot where he was and how he'd gotten there.

That was, of course, before his back slammed painfully in to the ribbed hard plastic lid of a large faded green dumpster sitting in front of one of the many brick buildings of Old Town Portland. Crying out as his vision was quite literally knocked sideways from the hit, he didn't expect the second wave of pain that came from the edge of said dumpster meeting his stomach upon the drop in to the garbage packed disposal unit. Adding insult to the already vastly gained injuries, just as Sam started to slide down in to the none too pleasant smelling trash heap the already wobbling lid finally lost its ability to remain propped open and slammed down roughly on to the young man's head with a nasty sounding 'clng!' noise. His vision swam black and red, the flare-spear still somewhere near by sputtering out the last of its crimson flame. Voices filtered in an out of his hearing and he could sense hands grabbing at his arms, tugging his body up over the edge of the dumpster.

As his vision slowly returned and his body became more aware of the dull aches and throbs now coursing through his joints, he realized that the people helping him out of the foul scented contraption he'd landed in were none other than a certain blue haired vocalist and the red-haired Portland native.

"Sam! Sam, say something!" Kara repeated, attempting to get his attention long enough to make sure that he wasn't seriously injured.

"I'mma gonna kill it when I get outta 'ere..." Sam slurred as the duo hauled him out of the dumpster and on to the street again.

"Sam," Kara protested, helping to balance him out as he attempted to get his bearings once more. The continuation of her statement was silenced by a shrill feminine scream cutting through the air followed by a cacophony of noises that reverberated off the brick buildings and empty street like an acoustically precision music room gone haywire. All three looked up to see the giant with its enormous snout wedged in to the open back doors of the bus, the set of horns that littered the already grotesque skull tearing in to the metal of the bus. Russel was bellowing from the other side, between the rocking vehicle and the building, calling for Noodle and Murdoc to find another way out.

"Shi'!" 2D cried out, looking at the still slightly unbalanced Sam with a nervous look. Shoving the supportive arms of his comrades off his shoulders, Sam stumbled forward, snagging the slowly fading flare-spear off the ground and propelling himself forward towards the beast despite his obvious equilibrium imbalance.

"SAM! DON'T!"

"I said I wasn't through with you yet, and I meant it!" he cried out, lifting the pipe above his head and slamming the blunt end as hard as he could manage in to the creature's side. Some how, by sheer miracle or force of will, he managed to not only land directly on one of the few patches of ashen flesh that wasn't hidden by scraps of rusted metal but also was able to pierce through said flesh, causing a spurt of nearly onyx blood to pour forth from the wound. The creature let out a terrible shriek and began to writhe in pain, jerking its head out from the bus doors to bellow to the sky as if pleading for assistance from some horrible demonic god. Sam grunted and continued to push the pipe in with all his strength, managing to keep a grasp despite how much the creature squirmed and twisted in an attempt to shake him off.

"Noodle! If you're in there, find a way out, NOW!" he cried out, praying that she and the bassist were still conscious enough to hear and understand him. A few seconds later the sound of safety glass busting was heard over the roaring and shrieking going on. Russel's voice barely made it over the din of fighting, but from what Sam could hear Noodle and Murdoc were making their way through a window on the other side, and not a moment too soon, either.

The creature was finally able to wrench Sam's grasp off of the pole as it jerked wildly and nearly flung itself on the ground just to get away. The pole still protruded from its back, thick globs of inky blood dropping on to the street with a sound similar to hot molasses falling from a jar. It whirled around, snarling as it barred its sharp, yellowed teeth at Sam. It was no longer simply irritated with the little human, it was furious with him, and even Sam knew that was his cue to get the hell out of Dodge before it was too late.

He spun on his heel and took off back down the street, looking to his left just as Russel, Noodle, and Murdoc, being carried on Russel's back due to a nasty leg injury that was still dripping blood, bolted out from behind the bus. The creature let out another tremendous roar and slammed its whip-like tail in to the still tottering bus, causing it to groan one last time in futile protest before it completely toppled over with a loud crash.

"Run!" Sam yelled as the three of them closed in on one another.

"What do yo' think I'm doin'!" Russel snapped back as Murdoc bounced rather uncomfortably on the large man's back. Not that he cared at that moment about how uncomfortable he was; he was far too concerned about being torn to pieces by the raging monster behind them."I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU!" Sam shrieked, snagging the stunned Kara's arm as he ran by her and 2D still standing in the middle of the road. Kara squeaked as she stumbled, struggling to keep up with Sam's manic pace. 2D quickly followed suit and soon the entire troupe was making a b-line for Burnside as the creature got over its initial rage and began perusing at an insane rate. None of them were entirely sure what was going to happen once they made it to the other side as there was still a void of nothingness beyond the few remaining buildings over there, but running at that point seemed to be their only choice.

"Where are we going!" Noodle cried out, looking over her shoulder and instantly quickening her own pace as the creature closed the gap between them like a runaway train car.

"Anywhere!"

"We cannot run forever! The street only goes so far!"

"The theater!" Kara screamed, pointing to the left side of the street where a faded blue building with a broken, half lettered marquee stood. Though black iron gates stood before the entrance, something or someone had broken the lock that once held them together.

"Come on!" Sam ordered, tugging Kara in that very direction, followed quickly by the rest of the group. Their sudden sharp turn threw the monster momentarily off course, narrowly missing taking 2D's right leg off as it veered off in the wrong direction. It quickly regained its bearings and twisted back the right way.

Be open be open be open...Sam's mind chanted as they neared the dilapidated building. Kara dared to look over her shoulder, squealing when she realized how close the monster was to them. Noodle bolted ahead of the group, crossed the threshold of the ancient theater and leapt in to the air. If the main door had been locked, it wasn't now due to the wood-splintering kick she delivered to it. The door nearly broke at its hinges but was able to hold up enough to swing outward, revealing a yawning darkness beyond its frame.

She dropped down in to a crouched stance off to the side, waiting for everyone to rush in to the hopefully protective depths of the darkened building. Once everyone was past her, much to the upset of her older male band mates who called for her to enter with them, she remained outside only to grab hold of the left side of the wrought iron gate and slam it to its partner on the other side. Snagging a piece of thick, broken wood, she jabbed it through the handles just as the giant came slamming headfirst in to it, causing the iron to shriek as it was nearly pulled off its holdings from the force of the impact. Noodle stumbled backwards, hands up in a defensive position as it thrashed, bashed, and snarled against the gate, unable to get its horns and claws in to the gaps well enough to completely tear the gate down. Her little heart raced, but she seemed locked in place, unable to make a break for the door even though her mind screamed at her to get some sense and go.

Luckily she didn't have to. Not three seconds later a meaty hand snagged the back collar of her Chinese-style shirt, yanking her like a doll in to the darkness of the theater and slamming the broken door closed.

At first nothing could be heard but the muffled sounds of the angered creature outside. Eventually they faded away, leaving nothing but heavy, panting breath in the darkness. The hand was still on Noodle's shirt, and it seemed that no one dare move or speak, almost as if the mere thought of doing so would bring the whole building crashing down and the monster right on top of them.

"Noodle!" Russel finally barked, causing everyone to jump and emit some noise of surprise, "Are you crazy! You damn near got yo' self killed!"

Rather than respond, Noodle simply let out a heavy sigh and gently removed the man's hand from her clothing. She bent down and slung her backpack off her shoulders, digging around until she located one of the many flashlights they were all carrying. She clicked it on, slicing a yellow cone through the thick blackness that surrounded them. Murdoc was sitting on the floor against what one could assume was a snack bar of some kind, his back propped against a counter with a clear glass front, his gnarled hands pressing down on the deep, bleeding wound on his leg. Everyone else was standing in various places, wide eyed, panting, sweat shined and pale.

"...no more busses, okay Sam-san?" the tiny Asian asked her strange American companion. Sam only nodded slowly, unable to give his usual witty quip or snide comment for once.

"No more busses."

Normally I don't put author's notes, but I figure I'll make an exception this time because my readers deserve some explanation to my random hiatus and my constant excuses. When it comes right down to it this chaptered hated me and I hated it, up until about half way through when it FINALLY began flowing the way it was supposed to. I'm not sure what happened, but I pray it doesn't happen again. A major part also lay in the fact that I suddenly had an urge, for about two weeks, to be completely artistic in different fashion, and in the end, while I got a lot of art done, Othila suffered badly. But Chapter Nine is up, Chapter Ten is coming, and I really hope I haven't angered too many people in to not reading anymore. Thanks for everyone's awesome amount of support, and keep coming back! There's more insanity and creepy craziness to be had! Thanks everyone!

Love always,

Jo