CHAPTER XX
SAINT DENIS, LEMOYNE NATIONAL BANK, JUNE 9TH 1900
"The saloon's only down the road." Said the banker, with a confident grin, "How 'bout after we get off, you and me go grab a beer? Or a whiskey if you're that way inclined?"
The woman snorted, "George, that's 'bout the fifth time you've asked me that in the last few days... And every time you do ask, I get a little more less likely to take you up on the offer."
"So you're sayin' there is a chance?" George then asked, his eyes widening on the busty blonde sat working at her desk.
"Think whatever you like, George." Said the woman, "But if it's all the same to you, I gotta get some work done. We still got a few hours until closin' time."
Despite the commotion across town, and the sudden disappearance of every citizen within a mile district, George was still engrossed in his efforts to woo Liza into a night out on the town. He'd tried for a while, but no avail.
"Come on, Liza!" George then said, moaning like a kid, "We can close early if we gotta!"
"There's been an explosion across town, George." Liza said, "I really don't think it's the time to play games with the bosses."
After hearing no reply, Liza looked up from her paperwork again to see George jog happily across the shiny, beautifully varnished wooden floor. He stopped when get got to the bank's front doors.
"What're you doin'?" She asked, puzzled.
George turned his neck to Liza, trying hopelessly to look as handsome as he could possibly be, "Lockin' up early. I'm makin' an executive decision here, Liza."
A second later, Liza watched as the bank doors burst open, almost snapping off their hinges, hitting George hard in the face. The hopeless banker flew backwards onto the floor, his mouth and noses gushing with blood. He tried to steady himself but got nowhere, his head spinning too fast. As he squirmed on the ground to get up, his hands began to slip underneath the falling stream of blood.
Liza watched in utter shock as her colleague dropped, dazed and confused onto the polished floor. She turned to the door and screamed as she saw three heavily armed men in masks storm their way inside. All stocky, heavy looking guys, all holding shotguns in their hands.
"GET ON THE FUCKIN' FLOOR!" Roared one of the men, aiming the weapon directly at Liza.
Liza put up her hands, tears already streaming down her face and carefully got down on her knees. Her actions seemed too slow to the burly robber.
"NOW!" He yelled again, his voice almost blowing Liza onto the floor faster.
One she was face down, Liza could see George from underneath her desk. He was unconscious and a pool of blood was growing around his busted mouth, covering the otherwise pristine floor. She wanted to help him so badly, but she dared move an inch in any direction.
The three robbers smashed their way through the main office of the bank, searching for both any money they could find and any other staff members they may have missed when bursting in. Fortunately for them, every other staff member had either taken the day off or gone to investigate the strange explosion at the otherwise of Saint Denis.
After a few perpetual moments, Liza saw the three robbers be joined by a particularly large and imposing fourth man, wearing the same bandana around his face but instead wielding a Sawed-Off shogun in one hand and a revolver in the other.
He was so tall he had almost had to duck under the doorframe on his way in. He didn't really look like the others. He was bald, muscular and so big it looked as through he'd be able to rip open a bank safe with his bare hands.
It was his eyes that scared Liza the most. They looked sunken and grey around the edges, yet bloodshot within, like he hadn't slept in years. In the many seconds she'd seen him since he entered, he hadn't seemed to have blinked once. His eyes instead transfixed on everything around him.
"Get those safes in the back open, now." The fourth man growled, his voice like a demon's.
"Already on it, Roland!" Shouted one of the other robbers, already at work emptying the back room.
While the man in the back worked hard, breaking open every cache of money and valuables, the other two men and Roland searched every desk within the main office. They raided draws, cabinets, anything that could hold items or cash. Within minutes they had turned the entire place upside down. Paperwork covered the floors, pieces of wood and glass was scattered everywhere.
The men carelessly stepped over, or stepped on, George as they filled their sacks with cash or anything they thought was valuable. Liza wanted to go and aid her colleague, but could not do so. It pained her to see him in so much pain and confusion. He likely hadn't even realised what had happened to him. She cried and whimpered silently, not wanting to bring any more attention to herself.
"You think this'll bring in some dollars?" One robber asked, holding up a flower vase.
Roland approached him slowly, every step of his boots seeming to echo off of the hard, glossy wooden walls.
Once in front of his smaller subordinate, Roland took the flower vase, inspected it briefly and then slung it towards the back wall hard, both shattering the piece of pottery and powerfully dinting the wall.
"You think we're here for cheap pieces of shit you find in a backstreet antique store?!" Roland shouted in the robbers face, "I WANT MONEY!"
The smaller robber struggled real hard to maintain eye contact with Roland, instead choosing to look around at the floor behind him. He wanted the huge monster to leave him be and walk elsewhere, but as the seconds rolled by, Roland continued to stand within inches of him and breath hard through his bandana.
"You gettin' me, boy?" He asked, whispering angrily like a seething bear.
Slowly, the robber began to nod fast. He didn't want to take any punishment from Roland, having seen what he could do many times.
Just as those thoughts came to mind, the robber watched as the barely conscious banker on the floor groaned and reached for anything to help him get up. Sadly for him, the first thing his hand found was Roland's ankle.
The robber then watched as his monstrous boss turned to the bloody man below and executed him promptly, firing a shotgun shell into his already ruined face, blowing it apart and sending pieces of skull and brain onto the floor where he had lain.
Upon watching her colleague be slaughtered, Liza couldn't contain her emotion any longer and let out a long, loud and dragging wail. She cried and sobbed painfully, almost convulsing on the floor with fear as Roland already made his way over to her.
Without speaking a word, Roland pinned her face down against the floor with his enormous boot and blew her head into a gloopy puddle of blood and flesh with his second Sawed-Off shell, her voice silencing instantaneously, like it had never existed.
The other two robbers watched intently as Roland made quick work of the only two present bankers. Without another word or look, they both got back to raiding the room. Roland watched them do so before wiping the blood away that had sprayed up onto his face. He didn't care enough to wipe his hand off the blood anywhere else, knowing it would simply dry on its own.
As Roland joined the third robber in the back room to ransack the cache's and safe's, the two remaining O'Driscoll raiders continued to search the office for valuables and hidden funds. One of them, after almost giving up, decided to step over the executed woman and searched her blood-drenched corpse for jewelry and any possible money.
His fellow robber watched and decided to cleverly do the same thing to the murdered man's body aswell.
"This should do I reckon'" Said one robber after tearing off the dead woman's necklace.
The other robber soon leaned back up straight to look at his friends find and soon felt a sharp burn pulse through his back and spine, letting out a loud grunt of confusion and pain.
When the other looter turned to his fellow raider and saw his face straining, turning red and sweat begin to run down his forehead. Seconds later, the man fell forward onto the dead bankers body, revealing the arrow that had punctured his back.
"The fuck?!" The one robber in the office shouted out loud, puzzled and uncertain.
Stepping up from the woman's corpse, the O'Driscoll robber aimed his shotgun straight at the doors and approached his slumped friend slowly. Once there, he knelt gently, shotgun still aimed at the entrance, and felt the O'Driscoll's pulse. There wasn't one, the arrow having taken the life right out of his body almost instantly.
"Ah fuck me... Shit..." The robber whispered to himself before standing up again.
Nervous and still confused, the masked bandit slowly made his way towards the bank's doors with his shotgun at the ready. He had not seen a soul in the area since he and his cronies had set the bomb off on the other side of town. So whoever had fired that arrow must have known what they were doing, he thought to himself.
As he quietly exited the bank slightly, feeling the fresh air on his face, the O'Driscoll bandit could not see anyone in the vicinity that could've possibly fired the arrow. He scanned the empty street, any alleys ways he could see and observed the many balconies that the Saint Denis buildings had. Nothing was happening in the area and not a soul was to be seen.
"Oh shit..." He realised.
Before the man could act upon his realisation, Ellie dove onto his back violently.
"What the fuck?!" The robber called out, scared and bewildered.
Ellie clasped onto him and wouldn't move despite the man's strong efforts. He swayed and floundered around desperately, even ramming the young huntress' back in one of the banks shiny walls at one point. It may have knocked the wind out of her a little, but Ellie was that focused on killing him that she hardly even noticed.
"Get the fuck off me!"
With a tight enough grip, Ellie then pulled out a knife from her belt and buried it into the O'Driscoll's throat. His screams and grunts were suddenly changed to gargles and chokes. Once the blade was deep enough, the girl then yanked it back out awkwardly, fully severing the robber's jugular.
Ellie then let go and jumped down from the man's back as the blood poured and even sprayed a little from his neck. The overturned desks and scatted paperwork all over the floor all got drenched in the robber's fluid.
While struggling to maintain life, the robber turned around awkwardly, almost collapsing, and aimed the shotgun at Ellie as best he could with one arm.
"Shit!" Ellie shouted before throwing herself sideways to the floor, "Fuckin' die already!"
As the O'Driscoll felt his own energy gradually fade, he fired the shotgun at the wall, hitting nothing but the now tarnished wood. And with that, he dropped the shotgun to the floor and collapsed into the puddle of blood that had raged from his own throat, now the fourth body in the ruined bank office.
"What in the holy hell is goin' on out here!" Said a voice in the back room.
Ellie kept her composure behind the desk, crouching near a headless woman's body. In any other scenario, Ellie may have thrown up or at least felt sick. Now was not the time for any of that, however. She had equipped her bow and readied an arrow the moment she had hid outer sight. Now she waited for the final two men to exit the back room.
"Get your ass out there and check! Or I'll fuckin' make you do it!" Another voice echoed. A horrible voice this time. An evil voice.
The young huntress knew that neither of the men she'd killed so far were Roland Payne. Both had hair and were nowhere near as big, she thought. She knew he was here though, that was for damn sure. Never, in a million years, would she have ever guessed that she would find him first before either Vic or Sawyer. At one point she'd imagined how proud they'd both be if she managed to kill him, and even smiled at the thought.
Ellie was sharply brought back to reality when she heard the footsteps and low voices approaching. She leaned over the upturned desk and aimed her arrow, pulling it back against the taut string. She waited patiently, hoping that she'd see the right man.
Even though she'd heard the heavy footsteps a few moments before, Ellie found herself still waiting for someone to show themselves through the back-room door after a minute or two. What the hell was going on? She thought. Her arm began to ache slightly from holding the arrow back ready to fire. She was growing real impatient.
There were noises coming from the room at the back. She'd heard them from the moment she'd sneaked in minutes earlier, but now they'd stopped. The hammering and smashing of walls and safe's was now gone. Ellie worried for a moment that maybe Roland and the last O'Driscoll had gone. Maybe they'd exited out of some back door, she worried.
Ellie got bored of waiting, she needed to know what was happening back there. At long last, she stood up from behind the desk and maneuvered around towards the back-room door, her arrow still at the ready to be released. As she got closer to the back room, the strange noises she could hear grew louder and louder. Footsteps approached her once again and Ellie soon locked herself in place, wishing she'd just stayed behind the desk where she had been.
What Ellie finally saw was the two remaining robbers, but not in the way she'd expected. Roland had his final cronie by the throat and was holding him as a human shield from behind. The O'Driscoll choked and retched as he struggled to breathe. Ellie's eyes widened upon seeing the huge, monstrous man that Vic and Sawyer wanted dead, and for a moment didn't know how to react. He was throttling one of the men he was supposed to be working with, and using him as protection. If he was willing to do that them, what on earth could he do to her? Ellie thought, beginning to panic.
The young huntress locked eyes with the hulking lunatic for what seemed like hours. He held the bandit by his throat, but his other hand was hidden. Ellie kept her bow and arrow aimed directly at both men, but not specifically at either.
Ellie's heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat. Sweat ran down her youthful face and she contemplated every single scenario that could possibly play out in her current predicament. One wrong move and she could end up like any of the four slaughtered bodies around her.
"Your move..." The enormous man growled, his hand still clasped around the O'Driscoll's neck.
The shock and terror Ellie felt from Roland Payne's voice hit the girl harder than an oncoming train. She instinctively released her arrow and watched it fly straight into the O'Driscoll's heart. Roland, having saw the arrow coming, had made damn sure where it was going to land.
Once his human shield had been impaled, Roland threw him to the side like a ragdoll, took off his bandana and fired his Sawed-Off shotgun directly at the young woman. Ellie had thankfully predicted his next move and had already dove to the floor, right into a small puddle of rapidly cooling blood and scrambled to get to any form over cover to avoid the hail of bullets and pellets.
"Sly little fucker, ain't ya!?" Roland snarled, reloading the shotgun, "How 'bout you get your little ass back out here?!"
Ellie breathed so hard and fast, she had slid behind a fallen cabinet near the front doors. Most of her yellow shirt had been drenched in blood, so much that she could almost taste the iron.
She heard Roland's shotgun be reloaded and thought that could be her moment. Soon, she lifted herself out of the wet, thick puddle and tried to aim another arrow at her adversary as fast as she could, but the monster had already readied the Cattleman with his other hand.
He fired the gun at Ellie, who once again had managed to dodge the bullet's trajectory and threw herself back to the wet floor. Laying still, she felt the shards of wood gently land on her face from where the bullet had it the cabinet. The young girl didn't know what to do. She panicked to herself and struggled to accept the idea that this may be her end. She wanted to release the tears that had built up within her, but she continued to fight them back.
"Come 'an get me then, you motherfucker!" Ellie then found herself yelling out in retaliation.
Roland gritted his rotten teeth hard, showing them angrily like a rabid dog. The man's eyes widened even further with fury and he gripped both weapons in either hand tighter. Aiming both his Sawed-Off and Cattleman at the cabinet that Ellie lay behind, he walked sternly towards it, fully intending to shred her apart.
However, before either guns could be shot at her, the young woman fired a hastily readied arrow at Roland. Intending to strike his throat, a spot Ellie was good at hitting, she was stunned and terrified to see it instead plant right into the madman's palm as he dropped the Cattleman to protect himself. The suddenness of the arrow caused him to fire the shotgun wildly into the bank's front door frame.
What frightened Ellie more than anything was the way Roland hardly seemed to react to his left hand being punctured by a sharp, deadly arrow. It had gone straight through his palm, with the entire point of the arrow going through to the other side. Roland had grunted slightly in pain when it had happened, but continued to stare at his wounded hand with a nonchalant, yet enraged gaze. Blood seeped out from the fresh wound and dripped onto the already ruined floor.
Ellie's heart then skipped a few beats as Roland turned his dead eyes from the arrow stuck in his hand and back to her. He was now almost disarmed, yet somehow more dangerous than ever before. Without much effort, the monstrous lunatic yanked the arrow out of his left hand with one pull. In a raging frenzy, Roland dropped the arrow and then slung his empty Sawed-Off down at Ellie, hitting her hard in the shoulder.
The young huntress yelled out in pain before jumping to her feet. Roland noticed the girl's sudden movement and lunged towards her, his arms stretched out to grab her like some uncontrolled, hungry animal. He wanted her dead and dammit he was going to kill this small, sly rat.
Ellie used the slippery room of blood, upturned tables and cabinets to her advantage as Roland pursued her around the room. She used anything she could find as a weapon, given she had no time at all to ready an arrow or equip her Volcanic pistol.
"You want me, you cocksucker?!" She taunted him, "I'm right fuckin' here!"
Roland growled and snarled like a wild bear, clawing at anything in his way to get to Ellie. The blood continued to leak out of his left hand, but he'd already forgotten all about it. He was transfixed on the girl and he was determined to get her.
"Come on!" Ellie shouted, throwing an empty draw from one of the desk's straight at him.
Ellie didn't realise the increasing peril she was putting herself in. If Roland Payne managed to get one hand on her, she was finished. But knowing that, she did everything she could to stay away from his grasp.
Seeing the front doorway still open, the huntress ran in that direction to try and get outer the building fast, but the blood underfoot proved too much for her boots to handle and Ellie soon lost her grip and found herself slipping onto her hip and hitting the solid wooden wall by the side of the entrance doors. Her already injured shoulder took the brunt of the collision and she felt herself almost vomit from the sudden rush of pain.
Ellie had slipped to the side of the door but hadn't managed to slip out like she'd hoped, and Roland took this as is next chance. The murderous outlaw kept approaching the injured girl, his heavy boots stomping through the bloody, tarnished floor.
Ellie tried to make her way towards the only other door in the bank's office. It must've lead to a basement of some kind, but she couldn't get there quick enough. As the huntress lunged for that exit, she felt Roland's solid, vise-like hand grasp the back of her neck.
"Agh!" She screamed in anger and pain, "Get the fuck off'a me!"
Ellie suddenly felt her feet leave the floor and her face hit the office wall hard. She could feel it as her teeth broke the skin of her bottom lip. The young woman tasted the blood and felt the pain in her shoulder before Roland's fist pounded into her ribs, knocking the wind right out of her lungs and sending her hidden Volcanic pistol to floor.
Roland continued to roar and snarl as he laid his bloody fist into Ellie's back and ribcage. He relished the sounds of her moans and shrieks as he beat her. She kept trying to kick and squirm her way out of his grasp, to hardly any avail at all.
In the midst of Roland's painful onslaught, Ellie reached down with her arm to her belt, grabbing her knife's hilt tightly. It was at that same moment that Roland finally let go of her neck and the girl hit the floor knees first, back last.
The youthful hunter felt it best to play dead in order to catch the madman off guard. It appeared to work as she saw him, through her squinted eyelids, wipe the blood from his punctured hand and then look her over like an animal would its prey. She both wanted him to leave her alone and reach for her at the same time. At that point, she didn't much care for either.
"You fuckin' mutt!" Roland shouted through gritted, brown teeth with drool falling from his lips.
He licked his dry lips and locked his ferocious eyes on the girl before reaching down to clasp her throat. Once his hand was only an inch from taking her life, Ellie swung her hidden blade at Roland, stabbing it far into his right upper-arm. Once again, he moaned in pain and this time backed away slightly as the wound registered to him. It had gone, like the arrow, all the way through his flesh and stuck out the other side.
Blood began to seep through his beige, crumpled, filthy jacket. Ellie watched again for a moment but had learnt her lesson from the first time and took the opportunity to get up off of her feet and run in whatever direction she could. It was hard to even walk, given the pain in her face, shoulder and ribs. Yet the idea of staying behind and being butchered by Roland Payne gave her the strength and energy to keep going.
The only door available was the untouched one in the corner of the office, to the right of the entrance door's that Roland currently stood in front of. Ellie didn't know where the new door would lead, but it lead away from Roland Payne and that is all she needed at that point.
Roland watched as she desperately made it to the door and shoved it open, groaning in pain and spitting blood from her busted mouth as she went. The monstrous lunatic clasped the knife within his arm and yanked it right outer the wound as he had done with the arrow. The pain was there, but it didn't seem to bother him much. As he watched Ellie limp and powerwalk her way through the door and down the dimly lit corridor, Roland smirked sinisterly and kept her knife in his hand.
"Run, you little bitch!" Roland shouted, his voice still demonic, "I'm right fuckin' behind you!"
Ellie heard his voice echo down the corridor around her. She couldn't stop holding her shoulder and ribs as she powerfully limped towards whatever exit she may have been able to find. After a long way down the wooden, brightly polished corridor, Ellie found a tall, equally elegant wooden staircase. Looking up at it, she sighed in exhaustion but soon heard Roland's heavy footsteps echoing down the hall behind her.
"Shit..." She whispered to herself, still groaning, "Fuck it."
Ellie pulled her way up the stairs, sometimes hopping on one foot if she had too. The soreness in her back and ribs was dire. She'd never felt anything like it. The warnings and stories that Sawyer had told her and Vic about Roland Payne were hardly even scratching the surface of how dangerous the man really was.
Soon enough, Ellie got to the top of the stairwell but found no exit. No door of any kind. Just more stairs. She may have been tired, but those loud footsteps, getting ever closer, were still not that far behind. Was he taking his time just to taunt her? She wondered. Was this all a part of his sick mind games? Almost certainly, she thought.
As the young treasure hunter made a start on the second lot of solid, wooden stairs, she soon heard the previous lot start to creak and groan as Roland began his own ascent. This only made it easier for her to push herself and move faster, the fear and terror of Roland Payne taking over her mind and body.
"Come on, come on!" She said to herself quietly.
The girl limped, hopped and almost crawled her way to the top, with every step serving to only make her journey that much harder. Coughing and spitting more blood, Ellie was certain that she could've easily collapsed at any given moment, yet the determination to get away from the deranged monster was so strong.
Soon enough, Ellie grasped the final banister at the top of the stairwell, two stories higher than where she had been only minutes earlier. The sound of the approaching Roland Payne was still there and getting louder and louder with ever passing second. Ellie could feel her pulse rate going haywire, knowing she had to make a move very quickly.
On the top floor landing, across the stacks of crates and boxes, Ellie saw another wooden door, this time with a glass window taking up most of the frame. Across the glass she could see the rooftop of the National Bank. It was now the only way out of the building for her, so she took it. The young huntress threw open the door and felt the smelly, yet fresher, air of Saint Denis hit her tarnished face and damp, bloody clothes.
Ellie stopped to catch her breath and collect herself. Already she could hear the murmur of the Saint Denis citizens across town where the explosion had occurred. Turning around to take a look around the rooftop area, Ellie saw the long, tall cloud of smoke coming from way across the other side of the Lemoyne capital. Whatever had happened, it must've been real bad, she thought.
It was that point, a hard truth began to sink into Ellie. Taking a glance around the roof, she saw nowhere else to go. She realised it hadn't really occurred to her when coming up the stairwell. Maybe she'd thought, deep down, that somehow she'd be able to get to another rooftop. Yet there she was, injured, hurting, exhausted, and there was no other rooftop within jumping range and she was two stories above street level. Jumping from the roof now, in any direction, would've almost certainly finished her off.
Fear overtook Ellie. She felt it come over her like a thunderstorm. In her desperate attempt to escape, she had only trapped herself further. Now she could do nothing to help herself. All she could do was wait as Roland Payne approached from the stairwell, his footsteps getting closer and closer.